Oh my God. Did it just bump me? Was it trying to bite me?
19
ADELAIDE
Shark!
The word comes out of me as a half scream, half wail as I shove myself out of the water. The mask gets yanked off my face by a hand I’m pretty sure is mine, and I feel myself doing every single thing the documentaries say not to do. Splashing. Panicking. Thrashing like a wounded fish, which is the vibe I’m currently projecting into the ocean.
Absolute marketing for predators.
And I know better, as I surf, but I’ve never had one bump into me like that, and now I’m shaking.
“Adelaide, are you okay?” North is beside me, very close, already upright on the sandbank, the water at his thighs.
“There’s ashark here,and it just bumped into me,”I announce, because I need him to fully understand the situation. “An actual shark, North. Not a turtle. It was gray and had teeth, and it wasright close to my face?—”
“I spotted it earlier,” he says, perfectly calm. His voice is the opposite of mine. “Whitetip reef shark. Small one. He was just passing through.”
“I doubt it. He bumped into me hard. They do that when they test things they are going to bite into.”
He’s smiling. “He’s probably already gone.”
“Nope, he’s here for a meal. They test out first. I’ve watched documentaries?—”
“He wasn’t going to eat anyone.”
“Normally, I’d agree with you, but seriously, this one is hungry.” I’m rubbing my side where it knocked into me.
“Because we’re not in his food group.” He reaches out and catches my elbow. “Come on, we can head back to the boat.”
The boat isn’t close. The boat is a swim away, across a stretch where I know for a fact that the water gets deeper than knee-height and therefore becomes Shark Country, and I shake my head fast.
“What if he’s there, waiting in the deep blue section by the boat?” I ask, frantically glancing around for any dark shapes in the water.
“Okay, then.” He crouches down with his back to me. “Jump on,” he says.
“I’m not?—”
“You are going to splash the whole way back, and I’d like to keep the rest of the reef ecosystem alive, so yes, on my back. Now.”
“I—” I look at the water around us. The possibility of fins. “Okay, fine, but this is embarrassing.”
“I promise to mock you extensively later.”
“Thank you,” I say sarcastically.
I climb awkwardly onto his back, arms around his neck, legs hooking around his waist, where his hands catch the backs of my knees to hold me there. He stands up with no strain at all, which is insulting, and I tighten my grip around his neck because my current relationship with gravity feels uncertain.
“You are the softest Alpha I have ever met in my life,” I say against his ear.
“Says the woman who screamed at a shark that was thirty feet away.”
“It was really close.”
He chuckles and starts walking toward the edge of the sandbank. Where it ends, the water gets deeper, bluer, and he just keeps walking, the water reaching his ribs and then his chest. Then he’s swimming, steady strokes, with me plastered to his back like the world’s tensest barnacle. My head is out of the water, and I’m doing my best to scan all four directions at once.
“Are you laughing?” I ask, feeling him shaking under me.
