Chapter 2 #2
“We kind of doubled down on the whole rare-mating thing by being a mixed-shifter couple,” Nyx explained. “Add in having a third, and our mating will really stand out.”
“Wait,” Kekoa interrupted. “I thought you were both sea turtles?”
“We are, but not the same kind,” Nyx explained. “I’m a leatherback, and he’s a green sea turtle.”
“Ahh, gotcha. I guess that makes finding your third even more difficult.”
“Don’t we know it,” Nyx said. “We’ve even had a few guys offer to audition for the part after they saw our incomplete bondmarks.”
“Ick.”
“Right?” I said. “Some people just lack home training.”
“No bull,” Kekoa said.
“So, tell me what else you’d have put on the dating app you didn’t fill out,” Nyx said.
For a moment, Kekoa sat with a thoughtful look on his face as he stared out across the water.
“Must love the beach. That one’s a dealbreaker.
I spend most of my free time in, on, or beside the sea.
I’ve never lived more than a few miles away from it.
I’m not a big sports fan, but I love music and even tried my hand at playing the bass guitar when I was a teenager.
Unfortunately, it was an epic fail, and my dreams of rock stardom went up in flames once I resigned myself to the fact that I had a better chance of playing Enter Sandman with my tentacles than I did with my fingers. ”
“Sounds like me and the drums,” Nyx said. “My folks were so happy when I gave them up that they held a bon voyage party the day they were hauled away.”
Kekoa snorted and shook their head. “I call bullshit.”
“Nope, they seriously did,” I insisted. “I was there. His mom waved a handkerchief as a farewell gesture and everything as that pickup truck drove away.”
“Just how bad were you?” Kekoa asked.
“Bad enough that I once cracked myself in the face with a stick so hard I thought I’d broken my nose,” Nyx explained.
“Oh, ouch!”
“It wasn’t the only time he injured himself playing, either,” I said. “And audience members, which I often was, were always at risk.”
Nyx shrugged. “You got good at ducking.”
“Out of sheer and utter self-preservation.”
Kekoa laughed with us like we’d been bantering together for years, the morning floating past with a relaxed ease not unlike the tide lapping against our toes when we moved our conversation to a nearby rock.
“You’ve known each other a long time, haven’t you?” they asked.
“More than half of our lives,” I replied. “Our folks were stationed together three times before we all landed here. We graduated high school together, got our first apartment together, and eventually transitioned to buying a house.”
“Must have been awesome to have your mate be someone you were already close to.”
“We know how lucky we are,” Nyx said. “But that’s never stopped us from wanting to find our other mate.”
“Seriously, it will be one of the happiest days of our lives when that happens.”
“I bet,” Kekoa replied. “So, after your rockstar aspirations fell through, what did you turn your attention to? For me, it was cat condos. We always had a bunch of kitties around, so I started building playgrounds for them. Turns out I had a knack for working with wood. I’ve built a lot of things since then, but I still love drawing up elaborate feline entertainment centers, even if it’s been years since I’ve had a cat.
I used to take my last one surfing with me.
You should have seen him cling to the nose of a board; he loved it. ”
“You took a cat surfing?”
“Yup. Mr. Duck Dive. He was awesome. I got him when he was a kitten, and he spent sixteen years surfing with me.”
“Damn. That’s pretty fuckin’ sweet,” Nyx said.
“Yeah, he really was,” Kekoa said, a sad, wistful look crossing their face.
“I never had a pet,” I admitted. “My folks were never fans of having animals in the house, or anything else with the potential to be messy, which made growing up quite the adventure.”
“Mine were the exact opposite,” Nyx said. “We tried so many family activities, from painting to pottery, and most of them were messy.”
“Mine were happy I preferred playing outdoors,” Kekoa admitted. “After all my older brother’s printmaking experiments and my older sister’s passion for home decorating, including randomly rearranging rooms, they were more than ready for a break from in-home disasters.”
“I’ll bet,” I said. “My siblings and I were always dabbling in something, usually involving food. This one time we got it in our heads to make homemade chocolate cake and totally misread the directions. We put too much baking soda in it, and it tasted awful; like, all we could taste was slightly burnt baking soda.”
“That could not have been pleasant,” Kekoa said.
“To this day it’s still the worst thing I’ve ever had in my mouth,” I admitted.
When Kekoa smirked at me, I realized I’d left the door open for them to give me the same kind of snarky sass they’d given Nyx earlier.
“There we go, now we’re elevating the sharing to the next level,” they said. “I can work with that.”
“In all fairness, he works as a party planner and is constantly being offered samples of food by caterers who want him to hire them for one of their events,” Nyx explained.
“Half the time it seems like all he does is get to sample yummy deliciousness that he comes home and talks about in great detail, much to my stomach’s displeasure since the one thing he always forgets to do is bring me any. ”
“Hey now, that’s not fair,” I protested, sticking my tongue out at him.
“Not everything is mouthwateringly delicious. I have to taste the crap with raisins in it too, no matter how much I might want to skip them. Do you know how many bakers slip those things into their bagels, buns, and scones? It’s a travesty, I tell ya. A travesty.”
“I take it you don’t like raisins?” Kekoa said.
“Does anyone truly like raisins?” I asked.
“I’m sure there is some percentage of the population who do,” Kekoa replied.
Yup, he was trying to goad me and get me all wound up, the same way he’d done with Nyx, and as I opened my mouth to protest, I had to concede that he’d succeeded too. “Why? Just explain to me what there is to like about them!”
“I don’t know,” Kekoa said, winking at me. “I can’t stand the things myself.”
Sputtering, the words fled my brain as I deflated, while Nyx and Kekoa sat giggling beside me, clearly enjoying themselves.
“Okay, you got me,” I said when the laughter stopped.
“Try not to fall too far behind,” Nyx said.
“Me? I’m just catching up after the way he got you earlier.”
“Oh, so that’s how it is?”
“Yup,” Kekoa said, ending the argument for us. “Only shouldn’t I be the one keeping score?”
Nyx held up a finger as if he was about to make a point, then let it fall when he realized he had nothing to come back at him with. “Fair.”
Laughing with Kekoa was the most natural feeling in the world.
It was starting to seem like fate, us meeting them the way we had last night.
When Nuno and his boys had come sauntering in last night, Nyx and I had considered leaving until he’d started badgering Kekoa for a game and we’d decided to stick around and see how it all turned out.
Marvelous for us, not so well for Nuno. There was just something about Kekoa that we’d been drawn to as we’d silently cheered them on in that game.
“Ready to break the boards out?” Nyx asked.
“Works for me,” Kekoa said. “Need a hand?”
“If he doesn’t, I sure do,” I remarked, waving at them and earning a bright smile as they shook their head.
The fact that I felt comfortable enough around them to poke a bit of fun at myself over my missing appendage spoke volumes about how the morning had gone so far.
We quickly retrieved the boards, waxed them, and paddled out to meet the waves.
It had been a challenge, learning to surf without being able to use both arms for balance, but trial, error, and a lot of help from Nyx meant I was as comfortable on a board as I was leading a brigade of people as we pulled off an elaborate party.
In other words, I was in my element.
As I watched Kekoa struggle on their first wave and get pitched off halfway through the ride, I realized they were far rustier than they’d been at the pool table.
Their a while must have been longer than the length of time they’d spent without a pool cue in their hands.
I wondered what the story was about them coming here to live on the island after being away for so long, but today didn’t feel like a good day to ask.
If they were truly going to make the island their home, then there would be plenty more opportunities to get to know one another better, or at least I hoped there would be.
Something caught my gaze as I raised my hand to shield my eyes from the sun.
The sun glinted off the water droplets clinging to my skin, so I couldn’t be sure if there really were colors where colors hadn’t been before, but hope bloomed in my heart, and I decided to cling to it, even if that meant setting myself up for disappointment.
I didn’t think I was, though. It felt like this time, the fates were truly smiling upon us, because the more time we spent in Kekoa’s company, the more I became convinced that they were our mate. Now to see how long it took before they agreed with me.