His face scrunches up. He’s not going to get it, so I explain.
“Destiny,” I said. “You know when you know.”
He grins. “Since you’re allergic to love—isn’t that what Maggie Beautiful says?—you must have smelled it on me. Yeah, Elliott is not the only one who’s making a life-changing decision.”
“I can see it,” I said, twisting my bottle deep into the sand. “You two.”
“I’m just glad she didn’t see you first,” he says and grins. “Women like that untamable alpha male. Guys like me…we’re destined for marriage. We need to be anchored, or we drift. No fucking purpose. I like that in my life. Someone to hold on to.”
He slaps me on the shoulder and then gets to his feet. His eyes follow the sound of scrunching sand and the shadow growing closer and closer.
Destiny is the sheriff’s niece. One of his brother’s daughters. Her black curls move with the wind, and she’s lit up by the small flashlight she carries and the purple sweater she wears.
“Hey,” she says.
“Hey,” Chris says. “Want to go for a walk?”
“Yes!” She hesitates for a few seconds. I can feel her eyes on my back. “Uh, Brando…” She clears her throat. “That girl…the one you’ve been spending time with…is looking for you. Oh! And Elliott too. He wants to do…something with drinks? Maybe like a party trick? His sister called, though, and Lisette is talking to her. So maybe after?”
“Catch you later, Fausti,” Chris says a second later, knowing she’ll only get a nod out of me.
I lift my hand in a “later” gesture.
Chris and Destiny walk off, his arm around her shoulder, pulling her close.
My mind drifts back to who Destiny mentioned after they’re gone. Elliott’s sister. Must be the little ballerina one. The one with the temper bigger than she is. The other one came to Fiji with us. That one has a temper, too, but it doesn’t seem to have a purpose most times. Wasted fucking energy.
After a few minutes of watching the waves roll in and out, a shell running into my beer bottle catches my attention.
“Crab,” I say to the thing dangling in my grip.
I’ve seen them on the beach before, mostly when one of the girls screams at one skittering across the sand, but never this close. It has one pincer that’s bigger than the other. It has antennas for eyes. It almost looks like an alien saluting me.
“You’re a weird little fucker,” I say to it.
In response to that, it raises its claw, like it’s giving me the finger. It even walks sideways, like the weight of it compared to the other one throws it off. It’s still on the small side for a crab, but it’s solid enough to make a path in the sand. I see its marks from the edge of the water to where I’m sitting.
I have no clue what kind of crab this is, but its fucking bravado has my respect. He wants to pinch the shit out of me, even though I’m a monster compared to him.
“Nano. Nano.” I say in an alien voice. “Translated: where the fuck you want to go?”
He was doing his own thing, making his own path, and then I went and picked him up. I would probably send him on a completely different trip after I put him down.
Even though one thing probably has nothing to do with the other, I can’t help but wonder if this is what my life looks like. I’m on my path, then I run into a roadblock. The next thing I know, I’m going in a totally different direction.
I set the alien crab down a few paces away from where I found him, wondering if he’s going to find his way to wherever he needs to be.
As for me, I’m fucking lost. No direction—not even a clue what kind of crab that was—except for the fact that my internal compass seems to be leading my feet away from Italy and not toward it.
Maybe the crab had been heading in the direction of an entirely new life, too, second’s away from it, and then a hand turned it at the last second, and its entire path changed—leading it where?
How the fuck should I know? I have no clue where I’m headed either. All I know is that it feels like someone turned me around, too, set me in a different direction, and only time will tell where I end up.
Hot silver lightning shoots out of the sky, forking against the darkness and seeming to touch the water with its prongs, like two paths separated, and I blink, trying to clear the brightness from my eyes—
* * *
Two swords clashedand I blinked, remembering where I was.
