20. Chase #2
“Lucky shot,” I muttered, because what else was I supposed to say?
Her smile was the most dangerous thing I’d ever seen, and I once swam too close to a pod of orcas.
“Serve again,” I demanded. “I wasn’t ready.”
“That sounds like a you problem.”
She served again. Different this time—a float serve, the ball drifting with no spin, catching the crosswind and dancing sideways like it was alive. I read it wrong, overcorrected, and shanked it into the net.
“Two-nothing.” She examined her nails.
On her third serve, I finally made contact. Got a decent pass to Tanner, who set it high, and I went up for the spike with everything I had when—
Selena was already there.
She’d read the play before I’d committed to it, slid into position, and blocked me at the net with both hands up and her eyes locked on mine with an expression that was frankly obscene in its confidence. The ball ricocheted off her block and landed on my side with a sad little thud.
“Three-nothing.” She tilted her head. “Maybe I will give you the handicap.”
The crowd was cheering now. But not for me. I heard several versions of “Get ’em, girl!” some much less polite than others. Even Elliot, the damp towel, was smirking.
She was staring at me through the net, waiting for my retort, for me to fight back, to jab, to fight dirty.
I’d spent my entire life around elite athletes, people who knew their bodies and their skills and their sport like it was a part of them.
Who had dedicated so much of themselves to something that they were no longer independent—the sport a part of them, and they a part of it. Greatness was found in that merger.
And Selena Torres was great.
Not good or “impressive for a small-town girl.” Great.
Every movement was flawless, from her footwork to her positioning to how she tracked the ball with her whole body instead of just her eyes.
She communicated with Elliot through nothing but glances and slight hand signals, moving like a single organism with four arms and an attitude problem.
We clawed back a few points. I’m not completely useless on land; being 6’3” has its advantages. Tanner was solid too, and we made a good team after years of learning each other on the waves. We strung together a run that brought it to 10-10, and I felt like maybe we could make this competitive.
Then Selena stopped playing nice.
I don’t know what shifted. Maybe she’d been warming up.
Maybe she’d been letting us score to humiliate us even more.
It started with a back-row attack that hit the sand before I could blink.
Then a diving save that defied physics, her whole body horizontal, one hand scooping the ball from an inch above the sand and popping it up for Elliot to set.
Then she was on her feet again, already moving, already airborne, already hammering the ball down my throat with a cross-court kill that made the crowd gasp.
10-11. 10-12. 11-12. Then 11-13 and she took off. The run didn’t stop until the score was 11-20 and I was standing in the sand with my hands on my knees, breathing like I’d just swum from here to Cuba.
She served for match point. I was ready this time—really ready, weight forward, eyes locked, every predatory instinct dialed in.
She tossed the ball, and the crack could’ve probably been heard three towns over.
It hit the line. Right on the goddamn line.
“Twenty-one-eleven.” Selena caught the ball as a spectator tossed it back to her and tucked it under her arm. A slight flush on her cheeks was the only sign of exertion, and a smile that could’ve powered the entire Eastern Seaboard.
That’s when I realized.
She was glowing. But not like in the tower.
This was it.
This was what I’d tasted in her blood. It hadn’t been the magic she was trying so hard to jump-start with my cock.
It was this, the pure energy of someone doing exactly what they were meant to do, that they loved and it loved them back.
And she was a powerhouse. Both the athlete and the shifter in me saw that.
The crowd cheered. Elliot chest-bumped her, which looked exactly as awkward as you’d expect from a man who spent most of his life as a marine mammal. Tanner ducked under the net, extending his hands to both of them, and Selena laughed as she shook his left hand and Elliot his right.
Another goddamn laugh—not caused by me.
I walked to the net. She met me there, the mesh between us, the blue-and-yellow ball still tucked under her arm.
“Good game,” I said, and meant it.
“Obviously.”
“No, I mean—” I stopped flirting, just for a second. “You’re incredible. Like, actually incredible. D1 scholarship, Olympic pipeline incredible.”
I’d said something wrong. That was immediately clear, but I couldn’t figure out what.
“It’s just a pickup game, Chase.”
“That wasn’t a pickup game. That was a clinic. You were—” I searched for the right word. “Did you play in college?”
The smile stayed on her face but left her eyes. It was like watching the tide go out and leave everything exposed and dry.
“Some of us have real lives to attend to.” She held my gaze for another beat. “Not everyone gets to chase waves for a living.”
“Selena—”
“Good game.” She turned away, tossing the ball to Elliot, talking about the tournament setup.
I stood at the net and watched her go. The crowd was dispersing and Tanner was already halfway to the water.
The sun was highlighting the gold in her dark hair as she walked away.
I wanted to follow her, but something—not my shark instincts, just regular human ones, the kind that even idiots like me develop eventually—told me to stay exactly where I was.
She’d shut down so fast. One minute she’d been glowing, and the next the light was gone.
One question, and the whole bright, ferocious, devastating version of her just…
packed itself away behind the smile I knew she wore for difficult tourists at her stand.
All that was left was a pleasant, deflecting, perfectly fine woman who wasn’t fine at all.
I knew that move. Hell, I’d invented that move. The cocky grin to cover the flinch. The joke to fill the silence where the truth should go. I recognized all of that.
Selena Torres was hurt, and she’d been covering it with a pleasant smile for years, building up walls. Why? I didn’t know, but I wanted to.
But she wouldn’t let me, I knew that. She would fight to keep me at a distance, keep the magic and the turtles and whatever else between us, and that was a fight I didn’t know how to win.
I wanted to see her glow again, with that joy I’d experienced on the court, but I knew that was outside of my pay grade. But even with a spreadsheet of debts a mile long, I wondered how many more I would be willing to add just to get her to smile.