9. Selena
CHAPTER NINE
Selena
“Am I overreacting?”
El Soldado tilted his head, unblinking.
“I mean.” I twirled a giant smoothie cup on the counter. “Objectively. As an outside observer.”
He blinked once, slowly, like he was deeply wise or thinking about french fries. With El Soldado, it was genuinely hard to tell.
The customer-service smile I’d slapped on for four hours of blending smoothies had done its job—filed the edges off the morning, replaced the raw feelings in my chest with something muted.
I’d smiled at sunburned tourists and made change and said “enjoy the beach” approximately one million times, and somewhere in there, the part of me that had sat in my mother’s driveway crying had gone quiet.
“Here’s the thing,” I began. “The plan—and I’m using that word loosely—hinges on this guy being decent in bed. Which…”
I went silent, remembering a sharp grin and the shadow of a neck tattoo.
“But even after the best sex of my life, my magic was still mid at best. What am I actually going to do with a boost? Knock over their cameras?”
The seagull didn’t move—didn’t react at all, really. I let out an enormous sigh, setting my forehead on the counter.
“This is the help you give me after years of french fries? What kind of wingman are you?”
He squawked indignantly at that.
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. You’ve been a loyal friend and confidant. It’s just…I’m really out of my depth here.”
Your small, beautiful things, my mother’s voice said, from somewhere I couldn’t evict it.
“The other thing…” I trailed off.
El Soldado waited.
“The other thing is that he seems—I don’t know. He’s like an actual person.” I said it to the counter. “Which is inconvenient. It would be a lot easier if he were just abs and a lip piercing. But he was…kind of funny. And when our hands touched—”
I stopped again.
“Anyway.”
The seagull made a low sound.
“Don’t.” I pointed at him. “Don’t do that. I’m not a monster, I’m just—I’m desperate. She always does this and I’m done being—” My voice cracked on the last word, and I cleared my throat.
“Besides, I promised Elliot we would keep the nests safe, and we need to do the fundraiser. It’s not about anything besides that. And if I have to use some charming idiot to do it, then that’s what I’ll do. That’s just what this is. He’ll get what he wants out of it. It’s a win-win.”
I didn’t entirely believe that.
I could tell by how much I needed to say it aloud. I groaned, the sound muffled by the counter.
“Maybe I should just stick to my trusty vibrator. At least it’s never let me down.”
El Soldado made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort.
I lifted my head, narrowing my eyes at him.
“Don’t judge me. A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. And right now, this girl has gotta figure out how to take down a corporate-backed surf competition with nothing but some weak magic and a half-baked plan to bang a stranger.”
I pushed off the counter, pacing the small confines of the snack shack.
“I mean, really, what’s the worst that could happen? So the sex is bad? So my magic stays pathetically small. It’s not like I’m risking anything I don’t already not have, right?”
El Soldado ruffled his feathers, his version of a shrug.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
I stopped pacing.
Was this really what I was going to do?
I had to do something; I couldn’t just stay anymore. I marched over to the window, staring out at the ocean.
That was Marina Torres’ ocean.
But before that, it was the beach.
My beach.
Warmth buzzed in my fingers, and I watched the wind pick up, sand swirling into small vortexes.
“Give me a sign,” I whispered. “Give me a sign that I’m on the right path, that this is right thing to do.”
For a long moment, there was nothing.
That moment kept stretching and stretching.
Nothing.
Always nothing.
I kicked the counter, and El Soldado flapped away, leaving me entirely alone.