He catches me staring and winks my way. My knees give out, and I flop down onto a cushioned bench on the side of the boat under an overhead covering. There, I glance out at the water sparkling beneath the sun around us.
He starts the engine, low and powerful beneath us, then eases us out of the berth. Once we clear the pier, we’re moving faster. The boat rises, and the wind hits all at once.
A laugh tears out of me. It’s pure reflex, the shock of speed, sunlight, and spray, Oahu shrinking behind us while the Pacific opens up ahead in every direction, hair whipping loose.
I take out my phone and try to capture the mountains dropping away behind us and the white trail of our wake, but then give up because it’s hopeless. Too bright, too big, too alive for a screen. I wrangle my hair back instead while North drives us farther out, the air warm and clean and soaked through with salt.
“How long have you had the boat?” I ask, settling beside him on a seat.
“Just over a year.”
“The boat suits you, and you’re smiling a lot like you’re in love with it.”
That gets a real glance from him. “There’s something so calming about escaping life and being out in the middle of the ocean, away from it all.” His hand stays easy on the wheel.
The water starts to change after a while, deep blue giving way to aquamarine, then something even paler, bright from underneath like the whole surface has lit up. North pulls the throttle back and lets us drift.
Ahead of us, sitting out in the middle of the open water like it was made up by a liar, is a crescent of white sand beneath the water. And it’s enormous. “Tell me what that is.”
“A sandbank,” he explains. “It’s very shallow and extremely popular in tourist seasons.”
“We’re in the middle of the ocean.”
He drops anchor and pulls out the snorkel gear from the holders above the covered section. I peel my dress over my head, ready and excited to explore, and when I straighten in my yellowpolka-dot bikini, he just stops and stares at me. His gaze strokes over me slowly, taking his time.
“That’s a long, obvious stare,” I say, raising an eyebrow.
His attention flips up to mine. “Be careful, angel. I’m trying to give you a nice day, not ruin you before noon.”
I almost lose my breath, but I simply smile, trying my best not to show him how much my body just pulsed at his words.
He goes down the ladder first. I follow, the water closing warmly around my feet and then my thighs, silky and almost shockingly clear. By the time I’m standing on the sandbank with water at my hips, I’m grinning like an idiot.
“I’m standing up,” I say. “In the middle of the ocean.” There are only two other boats here, and they’re way across the sandbank, on the other side.
North is laughing at me, mask in one hand, sun all over his shoulders. “This place suits you.”
He holds out his hand. I take it, and we wade across the sandbank together. We put our masks on and push forward, where we float on the water on our fronts.
The world beneath the surface steals every remaining thought right out of my head.
Volcanic rocks sit across the pale sand in gray, and around them are little fish flickering in and out of the shallows, silver and yellow and electric blue against the clear water. I move toward them immediately, water swishing around my thighs, grinning.
North is beside me a second later, close enough that our arms brush, and he gestures farther along the rocks to where more fish are darting about, tiny bright bodies flashing in the sunlit water. I’m smiling so hard my face almost hurts, turning in every direction he points, loving every second of it.
When I come up, pulling the mask off, the first sound out of me is helpless and delighted.
“Oh my God.”
North surfaces beside me, water running down his face. “Wait until you see the drop-off.”
We go farther, and when he taps my arm and points to the sea turtle in the distance, my eyes widen and I can’t stop staring in disbelief. It’s so beautiful.
We keep going as the fish stop scattering from us and the water feels less like somewhere I’m visiting and more like somewhere I’ve been let into. For a moment, I’m imagining the life of a mermaid, if one were to exist, of course.
Then something slams solidly into my side.
I jerk in the water with a muffled yelp and twist just in time to find myself face-to-face with a shark gliding inches past me, sleek and gray and far too close, its body brushing against me. My whole body locks.
