Chapter 19
We don’t say anything as the path turns from packed dirt and fallen leaves to sand the color of sparkling champagne, and then we enter the threshold to Crescent Beach.
It’s an unbearably glorious day. The blue of the sky is as vivid as Adam’s eyes, and it’s filled with whipped-cream clouds that lazily drift by over us.
“No one is here?” I ask, looking around.
“They’re all probably grabbing lunch first to bring in their picnic baskets,” Adam says, taking my hand and pulling me toward the shore.
At a nice, smooth spot of sand, he sets down a big old quilt.
I have a seat on it and begin to put sunscreen on my arms, my legs, my chest. Adam watches intently until…
he doesn’t. He whips his gaze away from me and forces it onto the skyline, the muscles in his neck tense.
Round objects, I tell myself.
“I’m going to do some laps,” he tells me, pulling his shirt over his head.
And…oh.
Now I’m the one trying to force my gaze away.
Only it’s not happening.
His body is smooth. His shoulders wide. He has a hint of a belly between the cuts in his hips.
His body is lean and soft at once, with dark auburn hair on his chest and trailing down to…
ahem. Lower. His arms look strong, and I want to feel his bare chest over mine.
The thought comes so fast and true that it echoes almost painfully in my mind.
The image of me, in bed, and Adam’s chest hair sliding against my breasts.
Thankfully Adam is kicking off his shoes, so he doesn’t see me with my jaw dropped open like I’m seeing another human for the first time in my existence. “Want to join?”
I shake my head wordlessly, then clear my throat when I see him tilt his head at me. Am I blushing? Oh gods. I think I’m blushing again. “I’m going to sunbathe for a little while first.”
“Sounds good.” He walks up to the water, the freckles on his back visible in the light, wading in the water for a bit before diving in. I watch as his arms appear and slice into the skin of sea, over and over.
I sit and come to a number of stressful conclusions about what just occurred.
One, my reaction to seeing Adam without his shirt on provoked a great deal of erotic thoughts.
Acknowledging these thoughts means I have to accept that I have a crush on him again.
I lay a hand on my belly, where the blue-winged moths have once again descended, making me feel like if there were only a handful more of them, they’d lift me right off the sand.
I look up at the clouds—puffy, white, the texture of whipped marshmallow carefully laid over hot cocoa.
I wonder how long I’ve had my feelings for Adam rekindled.
This happens to me a lot—I don’t often understand my emotions until the reality of what I’m feeling punches me right in the heart, like what happened just now.
My instinct is to get up and pace the beach, analyzing my situation.
Make a pros and cons list of whether it’s wise to have feelings for Adam at all.
Instead, I keep my gaze on the clouds as they march by, soft and satiny-looking.
I’m at the beach, I remind myself. I can just enjoy myself now, and analyze as much as I’d like later.
Once I feel calm enough, I push up onto my feet and approach the water. I sigh when the foamy wave rushes up, over my feet. It’s warm today, thank the old gods. I walk in, deeper and deeper, until the water is at my shoulders, and I feel as weightless as though I were a ghost, suspended in midair.
I’m not sure where Adam is—somewhere farther out, to my right, I think—so I just close my eyes and let myself feel this ocean.
Feel it with my gift, meaning I tap into whatever magic in our lineage connects us with these powers.
The whole ocean is alive. This great, alive water-being is full of creatures who do not see themselves as separate from the water, and just a handful who do.
There is a sea turtle in the distance, her shell wide enough for a human to curl up on.
There are schools of fish all around me, murmuring like starlings in the sky.
And maybe twenty feet away is a sand tiger shark, the water slinking over her smooth skin like wind.
The sound of water sloshing has me opening my eyes to Adam, appearing in front of me, salt water sliding down his body in a way that makes me think about licking him, and then feeling vaguely horrified by the impulse. “Hey,” he says, smiling and wiping his eyes.
I clear my throat. I’m a little nervous because of what happened the last time I told him about my gift…
but I’m so tired of hiding myself. With him, with everyone…
I even hide myself from myself sometimes.
I wonder if that’s why I still have a hard time feeling like I belong in my own skin.
Either way, I’m tired of it. I’m tired of keeping everything I am hidden away all the time.
“Do you want to pet a shark?” I ask him.
His eyes widen and he looks around. “There’s a fucking shark here?”
“She’s not that close.”
He slides through the water and puts an arm around my waist, pulling me toward the shore. “Adam!” I laugh, pulling his arm off me. “She’s a sand tiger shark. They don’t attack humans.”
“But I’m guessing they still have rows of sharp teeth in their mouths that they could use to bite a limb or two off.” He grabs my hand now.
“Adam. If you want to leave, fine. But I’m going to pet her.” I can feel that she’s friendly. That her nervous system would like it if I gently touched her. She’s just waiting for me to say okay.
Adam’s gaze is serious. “I’m not leaving you. But I also really don’t like sharks, Sky.”
I look at him. “Do you wanna pet one or not?”
He laughs and looks around. “Jesus. I feel insane right now.” My heart drops when I think about what he might be implying.
That he feels insane because he thinks I’m insane.
And maybe my insanity is leaking over to him like spilled ink across a pristine pond.
But then he adds softly, “Hell yes. Let’s pet a damn shark.
” He pauses. “It’s not that big, is it?”
I shake my head. “No.” And I close my eyes again and say to her (I feel distinctly the shark is a female), “Okay. If you want to come, you can come.”
She moves quickly, her nose butting up against my knee within only a couple of seconds. Adam doesn’t see her at first, but when he does, he says, “Holy shit. Sky. You said it wasn’t big!”
“She’s not. She’s small for a sand tiger shark.”
I bend down and dip my hand into the water, and she swims around me, bumping up so that my fingers glide along the top of her head, and down her body.
She is smooth, with the slightest hint of soft ridges, the way the most gentle of sandpaper feels when it’s touched as gently as possible.
She’s absolutely gorgeous. The color of the warm sand under our feet.
Almost six feet long. “Wow, you’re so beautiful,” I coo.
“Sky. What the hell is even happening?” Adam whispers. He’s closer to me now, an arm out, but I don’t think to pet her. He’s ready to grab me and take me away.
I make my voice calm, to show how unbothered I am. Maybe it will calm him, too. “It’s okay. I told you. She wants to be petted.”
Adam shakes his head. “Okay. Okay.” He bends and drops his hand into the water, and she immediately approaches, slowly, as though she knows how afraid he is.
He leans just a bit and slides his fingers over her head.
She darts back my way, and I do the same with my hand, gliding my whole hand over her slippery skin.
“Fuck. You’re right. She’s like a puppy.” He exhales a laugh.
The shark darts around us once more, grabbing one last, short petting session with the both of us, and then she slips away to deeper water.
“She got bored,” I say with a smile, turning toward the skyline.
It’s gotten cloudier, but more of the pale, bright meringue pie topping sort.
In the distance, sun rays fall in sheets of yellow gold, lighting the water in swaths of glitter.
Before I can process it, Adam presses his wet, warm body to my back.
He wraps his arm around my belly and pulls me closer to him, so we are flush—my shoulders at his chest, his hips at my lower back.
“Sky,” he says, placing his chin to the back of my head.
I feel his breath at my scalp. “My heart is still racing. I can’t believe I just petted a shark.
My hands…” He tightens the one that’s now at my hip.
“They’re still shaking.” He chuckles breathlessly.
“Do you need me to distract you?” I don’t dare move. He feels so good this close. I want to pretend that it’s not from a fear response. I want to pretend he’s touching me because he’s mine.
“Please. Distract me,” he responds.
I want to think of something sexy to say.
Something enticing and hot, something that will make him want me in the ways I’m beginning to want him.
But the thing is, I’m still scared by my response to Adam.
I’m still leaning against him, feeling the hairs of his chest against my shoulders, feeling his warm, solid form, and the only conclusion that keeps blaring through my brain is Not close enough! Not close enough!
By the sheer power of my will, I don’t blurt out anything slutty, or even flirty.
Instead, I say, “I haven’t been back to the tree.
” I take a step forward and Adam releases the hand he’d had on me.
When I turn around, he’s pink-faced and breathless.
He glances at my lips and then away so quickly, I wonder if I imagined it.
“The tree?” he finally asks. Then he shakes his head quickly.
“Right. The tree. Where you were for those eight years…”
I nod. “It’s right over there.” I point to the patch of woods where we’d come from. “What if we went there? For your story? You can accompany me for my first time back.”