“Come on,” she says, nudging me toward the water. “The ocean waits for no man.”
I laugh and let her drag me down the shelf of sand and follow her into the surf, the caffeine burning cold and bitter on my tongue.
The water’s freezing at this hour, but that’s half the point.
The first wave slaps against my legs, numbing them to the knee, and one last deep breath and I’m under.
Lola paddles out ahead of me, arms slicing the surface with competitive fury. In the water, she’s a shark—no hesitation, no fear, just pure animal muscle memory. I let her get a head start. I need to feel the cold close around me, need it to burn the ghosts out of my head.
It’s not even a real swell yet, just a scattered windchop that leaves my arms burning after every duck dive. I force myself to keep moving, keep paddling, keep my gaze on the horizon and not on the black shape of last week’s stress curling behind my sternum.
Lola catches the first wave. She rides it standing, arms pinwheeling for balance, cuts left at the last second and wipes out in a spectacular spray. Her laughter echoes over the water, wild and bright, and for a second I want to bottle it just to remind myself what happiness sounds like.
My own wave comes a minute later, a glassy shoulder that rears up just enough to make my arms ache. I drop in, carving low, the board catching under my toes. For one perfect stretch of seconds, the world shrinks to my body and the water and the thundering rush in my ears. No jobs, no calls, no ghosts. Just movement.
I ride it until the wave fizzles out beneath me, then collapse back, floating on my back with lungs burning and salt stinging my lips. The sky overhead is washed peach and blue, the kind of color that makes you believe in happily-ever-afters.
For the first time in weeks, my brain goes quiet—like someone flipped a switch, silencing the constant static of worry that's been crackling between my ears. The noise fades to nothing but the hollow rush of water against my eardrums and the distant thump of my slowing heartbeat. Almost perfect silence. Almost peace.
Almost.
Because even out here, with the world cracked wide open and shimmering, a flicker of memory nips at me—Cruz’s profile lit by headlights, the soft hum of the truck engine beneath us, the clean efficiency of how he moved, how he watched me.
Lola surfaces beside me, spitting water and shouts, “You’re slow!” before she’s even upright on her board.
“Bite me,” I call, but there’s no heat in it. We float, catching our breath, drifting a little farther out with each lazy kick.
Lola props her chin on the nose of her board and watches me, the way she used to when she was little—open, earnest, full of questions she was just waiting for the perfect time to ask.
“You’re thinking about them, aren’t you?”
I bob on the surface, letting the words soak through the wetsuit and into my skin. “I’m thinking about everyone.” I let my fingers trail the surface, tiny disruptions in the skin of the ocean. “Past. Present. Who we’re supposed to be, and who we actually are.”
She hums. “That’s a lot for seven in the morning.”
“You’re not wrong,” I admit.
Lola spins her board with a powerful kick, drifting around to face me head-on. “Want to tell me what’s actually going on? You’ve been wound tighter than Beck’s budget spreadsheet since the model home meeting. And don’t say it’s just job nerves, because I know you.”
She’s right. The anxiety isn’t about the job. Not really. That part is clean—brutal, but clean. It’s the in-between that’smessing with me. The hours after recon, when my brain won’t let go of the memory of Cruz’s shoulder pressed to mine, or the way Gage looks at me like he’s reading my future off my face, or the cold, unreadable patience in Rafe’s eyes. It’s the way Bishop’s voice keeps echoing in my head, the way he said my name like it was a dare.
But mostly, it' s the guilt eating at me like salt on a wound. I keep wondering if I doomed us by saying yes to this job with the Calloways. There are a thousand different ways this can go sideways, and each one plays on repeat in my mind like some warped background music.
“Earth to Bells.” Lola splashes water at me. “Stay with me. You keep drifting off.”
“I’m right here.” I flick water back at her.
She squints at me, her lips curling up at one corner. “No, you're off in lala land thinking about?—”
“Don't.”
Her eyes widen. She slaps the surface of the water, sending droplets across my face as she rocks forward on her board. “Your ears are turning red! I knew it! You’re totally thinking about dick.”
“Jesus, Lola.” I groan, shaking my head and dragging my palm down my face.
“The only question is:who?” she continues like I didn’t say anything.
I blow out a breath, my cheeks puffing out. “Oh my god. You’re ridiculous, you know that, right?”
