The words hit the sand between us and stayed there.
I waited for lightning. Screaming. A camera crew. My mother calling because she’d sensed from Jersey that my life had left the road and driven straight into the ocean.
Nothing happened.
The Atlantic kept moving. A gull shrieked over the boardwalk. Somewhere behind me, Bite Me’s neon sign hummed in the window like it had not personally invited this nonsense with its entire brand.
I glanced from Nico to the water.
“So the loan shark part wasn’t just branding,” I said.
“No.”
“And you were planning to mention this when?”
His jaw tightened.
I made a little circle with my key ring. “Before or after you sat at my bar for five days deciding whether I get to keep the place with the giant shark sign?”
“I should’ve told you before you saw it.”
“That’s the lowest possible rung on the apology ladder.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Because from where I’m standing, last night I kissed a man who knew he was secretly a shark and didn’t bother to share with the class.”
His eyes changed at that. Not color. Still blue. Annoyingly blue. But his jaw eased before he could turn defensive.
“I kissed you because you told me you wanted me to,” he said. “I asked first.”
“And then you stopped because Dusty wandered in asking about a latch.”
“I stopped because Dusty interrupted us. I stayed stopped because you didn’t know enough.”
My fingers tightened around the keys. “That’s not as comforting as you think.”
“It wasn’t meant to be comforting.”
“Then what was it meant to be?”
“The truth.”
He didn’t dress it up. Even after fins, teeth, and financial doom, the memory of his mouth in the back room sat low and hot under my ribs.
That was between me, God, and possibly the Coast Guard.
“Come out of the water,” I said.
His eyebrows lifted. “You’re sure?”
“No sudden shark business.”
“I don’t do sudden shark business on land.”
“I don’t like how specific that sentence was.”
“I’ll move slowly.”
