“Three, two, one, go!” Lucien says.
He and Kyle run into the water and the wedding photographer walks up to us. At least I assume that’s who it is. She has a huge camera around her neck and a bag over her shoulder.
Audra covers her face with her hands, crouching down. I’m quietly picturing Kyle’s face being red and swollen in all their wedding photos, and I’m probably a bad person for how giddy it makes me.
They’re halfway to the buoy when Kyle yells out, “Fuck!”
He keeps swimming, though. The two of them are side by side, both swimming hard and fast.
They make it around the buoy, Audra standing now and biting her lip as she watches.
Kyle falters about a third of the way back. Lucien moves like a machine, nothing slowing him down.
“He got stung,” Kayla says softly.
When Lucien runs up onto the beach, he runs his hands over his hair, grinning. “A couple of ’em got me. It’s not so bad, though.”
Not so bad? He has several bright-red welts on his chest, and a couple more on one of his biceps.
“It doesn’t hurt?” I approach him, concerned.
I’ve taken enough first aid classes to know that jellyfish stings hurt. It’s like getting whipped with a red-hot whip.
“Nah.”
Kyle gasps for breath as he reaches a point where he can stand, doubling over. Two of his groomsmen run out to help him.
“I got fucking nailed!” he yells, standing up and refusing their offers of help. “It fucking burns!”
“You idiot.” Audra is seething.
Lucien picks up his T-shirt and puts it back on, unfazed. The groomsmen and bridesmaids are all fussing over Kyle, one of the groomsmen pulling his swim trunks down and yelling, “You want me to piss on it?”
Kyle’s legs and back got stung. He’s moaning and groaning dramatically, the photographer quietly snapping away.
“My work here is done,” Lucien whispers. “Want to go grab breakfast?”
I spent so long getting ready, worried about what I was wearing, that we didn’t have time to eat before we came.
“Sure.”
We sneak away from the chaos, and he takes my hand. I’m still not sure what happened, but Lucien brought his Loki energy out at the perfect time.
“Want to find a restaurant nearby?” I ask him.
He nods, his expression grim. “After we find a rinsing station at another beach. These stings hurt like a motherfucker. I just didn’t want to let on in front of them.”
I never thought I’d be turned on by a man deliberately getting stung by jellyfish. But Lucien is full of surprises.
Chapter Fourteen
Lucien
* * *
Talia holds out her phone to take a selfie of us with the jungle as a backdrop.
“Incoming,” I whisper, turning to kiss her.
