Chapter 11
LIAM
I touched her hip and I can still feel it in my hand.
That shouldn't be possible. Remnants of sensations do occur, but not like this. My palm has been buzzing since six thirty this morning, a phantom warmth in the exact shape of her hip bone, like my hand is refusing to forget what it learned. Of the smallest insight into the curves of her body.
I pour a pint for a regular without looking, having gone to the bar already.
My hands know this bar better than they know anything, which is useful because my brain has been absolutely useless since Freddie Brown walked down my stairs in sleep shorts with her hair wrecked and one shoulder bare as she looked at me like I was something worth looking at.
I think the shell is right this time…
She’s meant for me.
Freddie’s at the end of the bar now. Same spot as every night this week with her laptop open, headphones in, and a virgin daiquiri sweating on a napkin.
She types in bursts, fast and intense, and then stops and stares at the screen like she's arguing with it.
Sometimes she mouths dialogue to herself.
Sometimes she laughs at her own words, quiet enough that no one else hears it, but I hear it from across the bar every single time.
I've been cataloguing her without meaning to.
The way she tucks her hair behind her left ear when she's concentrating.
The way she chews on her thumbnail when she's stuck.
The way she hums along to whatever's in her headphones and doesn't realize she's doing it.
The fact that she sneaks olives from the garnish tray when she thinks I'm not watching, but I'm always watching. And refilling the olives.
This morning, when my hand was on her hip and her skin was warm under my thumb, something fired in my chest that I haven't felt in six years. Like a foundation shifting, or ice cracking along a fault line that's been holding for too long.
Which raises dread and fear within, because of Thalassa learns that Freddie might be my true soulmate, then is she in danger? I rub the glass way longer than I should, fixated on what I should do to take care of the little author in my bar.
Kira appears beside me. "You're staring."
"I'm observing."
“Is she really the one?” She pries, her eyes squinting slightly.
"Don't you have tables to clear?" I ask, my hands pausing as I glare at her.
"Cleared them twenty minutes ago. You didn't notice because you were too busy observing." She crosses her arms. "The Luminary’s in a week. You’re acting like you have to keep up with this for six months or something.”
"I know."
“So what’s got your scales all ruffled?”
Because she is different. We orbit each other in the house like two magnets eager to attract, and every accidental touch sends both of us scrambling for distance.
I’ve been thinking about what happens when others realize she’s different? Just like Kira is now?
Thalassa will eat that alive.
“She’s different, Kira,” I say, placing my glass down. “I think she’s… you know… it.”
Her eyes widen with glee like she’s got the insider scoop on delicious drama, then her expression deadpans with concern. “Oh, the sea bitch is going to hate that.”
“I’m aware.”
I look at Freddie. She's frowning at her laptop, mouthing something, her green eyes moving back and forth across the screen.
As I watch, she reaches for the little olive she took after going to the bathroom, hesitates, checks if I'm looking, to which I glance away fast enough that she doesn't catch me, and eats it.
The corner of my mouth rises in the faintest of smiles.
"I'll take her to the cove tonight," I say, focusing back on Kira who’s watching Freddie like she’s waiting on something mystical to happen. “Thalassa is weak there, too. Maybe talk to Freddie more about what this could mean.”
Kira gives me a look that contains approximately fourteen different opinions. "Just... be careful. With her and with yourself."
“Oh, I’ll be careful with her.” And for some reason, as I say that, imagining being delicate with her on the sandy shore, I also envision being the opposite. Of touching her like she’s mine…
The bar closes at eleven, to which Freddie packs up her laptop and stretches, and I notice, because I notice everything about her now, apparently, the way her shirt rides up when she raises her arms, exposing a strip of pale stomach. My hand buzzes again, a wave of heat washing over me.
I truly can’t remember the last time I felt like this. It makes me want her even more, like a man trapped within a prison, only to realize the other one placed within his cell actually has a key to escape.
But the key is my heart, affixed to her within a shell.
We walk home along the water, the way we've done every night this week, keeping a careful distance between us. The ocean is loud tonight, waves crashing harder than usual, and the air smells like a storm coming.
I'm going to ask her to practice being close to me, because I want to see if that elicits anything else. If it makes me feel things I haven’t felt since before the curse, which, to me, signals she is the one.
So far, everything has been different with her.
What if being intimate was, too? If I can really confirm she’s my soulmate, I’ll want to take extra precautions for her safety during the Luminary.
And I'm going to do it in a moonlit cove where the water glows, because I’ll make damn sure all her first memories with me are as romantic as her books.
"Freddie."
She looks up at me in the whole devastating package of green eyes, the moonlight, and salty air.
"We need to talk about the Luminary.”
"Okay."
“I was thinking we go to a special cove, maybe mix up the scenery a bit so it’s not just my house. It’s safe, so you don’t have to worry.”
Her grin makes my breath hitch, just ever slightly. “Oh, you’re being romantic?”
“Wouldn’t do it any other way.”
Her pale cheeks deepen to a pink. “Shut up. Take me to the fancy cove. I want a private tour of this place.”
Be careful with her.
I look at Freddie walking beside me in the dark, and I know—with the kind of certainty that shouldn't exist in a man without a heart—that careful stopped being an option the moment she walked into The Riptide.