"Thanks, princess. So supportive."
"It’s Emiliana."
"Well thanks then, Emiliana. Beautiful name, by the way. I’m Gio. Don’t forget to mention it when you talk to your friends about my beautiful castle." I head toward the water. The second I dive in, it’s like my brain resets. The salt stings a little, but it’s worth it. Everything slows down.
I float for a second, arms out, just breathing. Then I drag myself out, wet hair in my face, dripping. I’m already mentally preparing to say something fake-macho like "warm water’s for the weak" even though I nearly moaned when I hit the cold.
I walk back toward the towels, and stop. Because Daisy now has every single strand of hair in braids. Tiny, perfect braids.
She looks like she’s auditioning for a fantasy princess role and winning. Lorenzo’s staring at her like she might levitate.
Rava’s sitting cross-legged with two little boys next to him, completely surrounded by crayon drawings, dragons, rockets, what looks like me but with devil horns and a motorcycle.
I walk up, grab my towel, and Daisy turns to me. "Oh, look who survived his dramatic dip." Rava doesn’t even look up. "Was the ocean kind to you, oh castle knight?"
Lorenzo appears from behind the cooler. "More importantly, how’s your little girlfriend doing?" I squint. "Excuse me?"
"The child," Daisy says. "You’ve basically adopted her. You do realize with that castle-building and soft-voice routine, she’s gonna grow up thinking creepy tattooed men are a love language?"
"She will literally walk around the playground looking for emotionally unavailable bad boys," Noah adds, sipping from a juice pouch he stole from some child's lunchbox.
"She’s doomed," Lorenzo says, nodding seriously.
"Next week she’s gonna be like, 'I made eye contact with a biker and now I'm engaged.'" I point my towel at them. "You’re all sick."
"You were literally kneeling in the sand building a castle," Daisy says.
I open my mouth. Close it. Open it again.
"It was a structurally solid castle."
"Sure it was," Rava says, finally looking at me and smiling. And damn it. NowI’msmiling.
I flop down next to the towel, still dripping. The little girl’s not even around right now. But I’m still hearing her voice in the back of my head.
"He loves you too."
19) You Will Come Back
Rava
Noah is lying on his back, arms stretched out across my bed. His suitcase is half-zipped on the floor. I sit on the edge of the bed, elbows on my knees. Neither of us speaks for a while. Then Noah sighs. "This sucks."
"Yeah."
"I don't wanna go."
"I know."
We go quiet again. "I'm really glad I came, man."
I look at him. His eyes are on the ceiling.
"I know I've only been here a couple of days, but it feels like I've lived three lifetimes since I landed. I made a complete fool of myselfat leastfive times. I got sunburnt in places that shouldn't be sunburnt. I almost got kicked out of a restaurant because of Lorenzo, TWICE."
I snort. "Three times." He grins. "THREE times."
Then his voice drops a little. "But I met them. I met Gio. And I got to know your life here. Your people." He turns hishead toward me. "Aw man, I finally got to see what it feels like to be around the person who's gonna be my best friend's future husband." I shake my head. "He'snotmy future husband."
