Skye was not touchingme on the beach.
We’d had a lot of fun with typical beach activities – trying to catch crabs, building pitiful sandcastles, digging until we reached water. We’d just spent an hour walking up and down the sand, collecting colorful shells in a little bucket, and now we were stretched out under some palm trees.
Skye had sunned herself for a while, then rolled under the shade with me while she stared at a blank page in her sketchbook. She’d given up trying to sketch anything pretty quickly, then sunned herself again. I stayed under the shade, since I burned way too easily with my pale skin. Too much sun always made my freckles stand out more, too.
Although…I didn’t actually care about that. That was something my mother had cared about.
I frowned at the memory.
“You okay, angel?”
I nodded on reflex, then paused.
Was I okay?
My mother tried to kill me. My school was attacked. People I knew from childhood could be dead. The attackers recognized my Key, enough so that she felt the need to flee.
I shook my head. No, I wasn’t okay.
“I’m sorry,” Skye whispered. She took my larger hand in both of hers, turning it over and running her fingers down my knuckles.
“You okay?” I asked, hating how the mood had turned.
“Just sad,” she replied softly. “This isn’t what I imagined for us.”
“Really?” I asked teasingly, trying to save the moment. “You didn’t imagine one of your mothers-in-law trying to kill one of your Links? You didn’t imagine having to hide him away in a beach paradise? A beach paradise he doesn’t mind, by the way.”
Skye snorted, then ran a hand down her face.
“Whatdidyou imagine for us?” I asked, softening my tone slightly. Skye didn’t open up very often. There were a lot of things I didn’t know about her still, and I was the who’d gotten the closest to her out of the three of her Links. I needed to start asking more questions, especially since I knew she wouldn’t lie to me.
Even if she was still keeping something from me.
Filing. Away. For later.
“Being happy. Being on the beach. I don’t know.” She shook her head.
“Skye,” I said, not able to hide my smile. “Wearehappy, and on a beach.”
Skye tried and failed to hide a laugh, then flicked her wrist, sending a pile of sand at me.
“Hey!” I jumped to my feet as she rolled away from me, then stood and ran for the water.
I chased after her, finally catching her in the waves at waist-level before hoisting her over my shoulder. Skye shrieked, then slapped my ass.
“Let me go!” She laughed again.
“Okay,” I said, dropping her into an oncoming wave.
She shrieked again, the sound cut off by the water.
I laughed, then gasped as something gripped my calf. Skye’s affinity yanked me so hard that I lost my balance, and I went into the water right beside her. I surfaced with a mouth full of seawater, coughing and sputtering to find Skye doing the same. Her hair was wet and stringy, most of it in her face, making her look like a character from a horror film.
Skye flipped her hair out of her face, then laughed before reaching toward me and pulling a strip of seaweed out of my hair. I laughed along with her, not minding the saltiness at all as we kissed.
Skye looked concerned again when I pulled back.
“What now, baby?” I asked with a chuckle. I rubbed at the crease between her eyebrows and she batted my hand away. “You’re always so deep in thought.”
