Noah gasps dramatically. "A duel?!" Lorenzo raises his beer. "A beach battle!" I look down at her again. "Alright, little sand demon. Let’s go. I’m about to build you the best damn castle this beach has ever seen."
She stands up like a knight preparing for combat. "If it’s ugly, I’m telling my mom."
"I’d expect nothing less."
I, Gio-the-human-punching-bag, walk off into the sand to prove myself to a six-year-old.
Because pride? Pride is fucking dangerous.
But glitter-goblin judgment? That’s worse.
We’re in full castle mode now. Kid next to me is barking orders like she’s running a construction site and I’m the underpaid intern. I’m building the second tower. She’s making a little shell path up to the "royal entrance." She’s muttering about symmetry.
I’m sweating.
We’re arguing about if the moat should have a bridge, when I hear footsteps behind me. I turn. Rava’s walking up again. And just like that, everything slows down.
My tone shifts. My back straightens. I suddenly become a functioning human with customer service energy. "Hey," I say, calm as hell. Rava smiles a little. "Need more shells?"
"Could use a few. Or maybe another set of hands."
He laughs, real soft, then kneels down across from me. For a second, we’re just looking at each other. Not talking. But then he gets pulled into something by one of the other kids, and after a minute, he gets up to help carry something back to the group.
Young thief.
Now it’s just me and the glitter goblin. She’s sitting cross-legged in the sand, like a tiny therapist who charges in juice boxes instead of money. Arms crossed, head tilted.
"You like him," she says.
"Who?"
She gives me the slowest, most dramatic blink back. "The boy with the green eyes."
"Rava?"
"Yeah. Him."
I scoff, trying to play it off. "What makes you think that?"
She shrugs. "You looked different when he came."
"Different how?"
She points at my face. "Your eyebrows went less mad. And you stopped sitting all grumpy like a potato."
I blink. "I sat like a what?"
She ignores me and keeps going. "And when you gave him that little pie before, your mouth did a smile. But not like a 'haha' one. Like a 'I want to give you ten pies' one."
My jaw drops. "You’ve been…watching us since then?!"
"Yeah," she says, like I’m the weird one. "You keep looking at him when he’s not looking at you. And when the little boy, my friend, sat on his lap, your eyes went funny."
I stare at her. "What kind of funny?"
She squints. "Like…shiny. Not wet, just shiny. My mom says it’s when people feel stuff in their heart."
Okay, that’s it. I’m going to dissolve into the sand. "You’re a child," I mumble. "You shouldn’t know things like that."
