Chapter 3
FREDDIE
Dove says to get a drink.
So I'm getting a drink. It's barely four in the afternoon and I'm speed-walking through a magical town with a sentient seashell in a brown bag—I pause when I realize I should just put it in my purse. I ditch the brown parchment in the nearest trash and drop the thing into my purse, because I am far from being done with it. I also don’t like feeling it pulse through the handle.
The shell has been quiet since the butt comment.
I think of a few bars that Dove showed me one summer, and know exactly where to go. I'm going to order something with an irresponsible amount of alcohol in it, and I'm going to sit there and not think about Tommy or my deadline. Maybe I’ll get the shell out and try to figure out how it works.
I pass a fountain in a small square where the water flows upward, curling into shapes—a leaping fish, a cresting wave, a woman's face that smiles and dissolves before reforming.
A little girl sits on the edge, trailing her fingers through the water, and the liquid curls around her hand like a cat nuzzling against a palm.
Her mother, who has faintly pearlescent skin that catches the light in a way that's definitely not sunscreen, watches from a bench while reading a paperback.
A man at the neighboring café table glances over. Tan, dark-haired, jawline that could cut glass, arms that suggest he lifts heavy things recreationally. He's drinking something iced and reading a book with a shirtless man on the cover, which I respect enormously.
"Oh, now he's pretty. Very symmetrical. I wonder what else is symmetrical,” the shell loudly declares within my purse, my jaw almost hitting the pavement as I glance around like everyone just heard that.
"I will throw you into a sewer," I hiss at my purse.
It’s not until I say something that the man looks up. Well, time to pick up the speed as I nearly run away.
The streets narrow as I move toward the harbor, the pavement giving way to cobblestones that are worn smooth. And then, past a row of fishing boats tied to a dock that sway slightly, I see the boat on sand that will have the best strawberry daiquiri.
The boat is propped up intentionally, nestled into a cradle of rocks and flanked by trees.
It's old and beautiful, the hull weathered to a silver-gray that matches the driftwood scattered along the shoreline. Someone has built a bar up on its deck. There’s a string of lights that aren't on yet, the whole thing open to the sky like the world's most improbable rooftop patio.
A hand-painted sign leans against one of the rocks: The Riptide.
“Perfect,” I exhale.
There are a few people up on the boat deck, drinking in the late afternoon light.
A set of weathered wooden stairs leads down from the boat's hull, carved into the rock and sand, disappearing underground.
There's a heavy door at the bottom—old and iron-banded, like it once belonged on a pirate ship.
"We should go in there," the shell says. "I have a good feeling about this."
I immediately glance around to see if anyone is hearing this. So far, each time has been so loud it carries all through the space around me. And yet, no one seems to notice.
Once the door is opened, the first thing that hits me is the sound—a low, warm hum of conversation and music, the clink of glasses, laughter that bounces off stone walls.
The second thing is the smell of salt and old wood and something fried that makes my stomach growl, reminding me I haven't eaten anything since the crackers in my car.
And the third thing is the view.
The underground bar is built into the bones of an old shipwreck.
The ceiling is the hull itself, curved and massive, ribs of ancient timber arching overhead.
The walls are rough stone on one side and open air on the other, because the whole thing is carved into the cliff face, and the far wall just...
isn't. It's an opening, wide and breathtaking, that looks out directly onto the ocean.
The coastal beach stretches out below, waves rolling in close enough that you can taste the salt on your lips, the horizon bleeding orange and pink in the pre-sunset light.
It’s moments like this that make me pause, completely removed from everything else.
The place is about half full, and there’s a group of women with fluid moving hair laughing in a corner booth. An older man at the bar has skin that's faintly scaled along his forearms, catching the light like fish leather. Two people slow-dance near an old jukebox.
I spot an empty stool at the bar and make my way toward it, sliding onto the worn leather seat and setting my purse and its pulsing, opinionated occupant on the counter beside me.
Maybe I can test the theory in here on if I’m the only one that can hear it or not.
A chalkboard menu on the wall lists cocktails with names like Siren's Ruin and The Undertow and Full Moon Folly, alongside a whole section dedicated to oysters. And, based on the way every person in here keeps glancing at the bar, one other thing.
Or rather, one other person.
He's behind the bar with his back to me, reaching up to a high shelf for a bottle, and the first thing I notice is his hair. Silver. Not gray—it’s a warm silver, like moonlight woven into strands, and it falls just past his shoulders, currently pulled back in a casual bun.
The second thing I notice is the tattoos.
They wind down his forearms, which are on full display because his sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, and the tattoos look like something nautical.
He turns around.
Golden-brown eyes, so bright that he’s—well, he probably is supernatural. He’s handsome in the way that’s not conventional, and yet is. A strong nose, slightly pouty lips, eyes a little hooded, and facial features that furrow with an intensity—
"Oh no."
I hold my breath, darting my gaze around to see if anyone heard the shell.
No one seems to pay any mind, with most of the women watching the bartender.
Okay, thank god. I try not to sass back to the seashell and just sit there and watch as he moves with this fluid, unhurried calm.
He sets the bottle down and reaches for a glass and the whole thing is so casually, aggressively attractive that I’m staring intensely when he glances my way.
The way his eyes sharpen, like he’s wondering why I’m glaring so hard at him, makes the blood drain right from my face.
“He noticed us. Oh, goody!”
I glare at my purse, and half try to speak to it. Since when are ‘we’ a thing? Isn’t it echoing me?
Nope, this is manageable. This is fine. I can work with this. Maybe I can even use it for my book, cursed heroine with an enchanted object that says the quiet parts loud. That's actually not bad. I should write that down…
The bartender arrives in front of me with the energy of a man who knows exactly what kind of effect he has. “What can I get you?"
His voice is low. A little rough. Like gravel wrapped in velvet, which is a sentence I would absolutely delete if I typed it in a manuscript, but here in person, looking at him, it's the only accurate description.
“A strawberry daiquiri,” I say. “Add an extra shot.”
One eyebrow lifts. Just barely. "It's four o'clock."
"And yet,” I say, motioning to the bar. “Here I am.”
The corner of his mouth does something that isn't quite a smile but acknowledges that a smile was considered. My heart is racing as I sit there, appreciating that at least this bartender is the distraction I need.
When he’s closer to me to grab a mixer, he glances back up momentarily. “So, I don’t see your face much.”
"I'm Freddie," I say. “I mean, I’m staying at my cousin's place for the summer. She’s a witch. I’m not.”
“You been here before?”
“Yeah, used to come here a lot when I was younger.” I play with my fingers. “So you have a name?”
“Liam,” he replies, smiling as he slides me my drink.
"I want to pull his hair out of that bun with my teeth.”
Liam pauses, his hand hovering next to the glass. His golden-brown eyes snap not to my face.
But to my bag.
“Uh,” I scramble, having no idea what’s happening right now. “I uh, you know, your hair is silver,” I say, taking a long, deep drink. “Is it a magical thing? Or, um, well, you know… I don’t actually know.”
It doesn’t help. His expression has fully shifted—
“Look at the size of his arms,” the shell adds, with the enthusiasm of a narrator who is absolutely loving this. “I’d climb him like a tree.”
Liam's jaw tightens.
He heard all that.
Uh oh.
He moves so he’s directly across from me. My mouth grips tighter on the straw and I take a deeper drink. Then he leans across the bar, close enough that I can see the gold flecks in his brown eyes.
“What,” he says, very quietly, “was that?”
“I know you heard me, sexy man. You can polish my shell whenever you want.”
He heard that too.