His grin flickered—just slightly—like something was trying to bubble to the surface beneath it.
“I owe them the truth.”
He reached into the waistband of his board shorts and pulled out a phone in a waterproof case.
He flicked on the screen, and I saw the logo of the university lab.
“This is a lab analysis,” Chase continued, and El Tiburón was gone, shed like a skin he didn’t need anymore. My Chase held up the screen to a national audience with a steady hand. “Commissioned by the Crescent Cove Marine Rescue. It shows that RipTide’s flagship product doesn’t biodegrade at all. It breaks into microplastics. Right now, they’re in this beach, in this water, under the wave you are all waiting for me to surf.” He looked straight down the lens. “And I have strong reason to believe RipTide knew this and used false eco-branding anyway.”
I wasn’t sure I was breathing.
“This ocean deserves better than a pretty green logo and a false promise.” Chase held the phone higher for the cameras. “The report is on my Instagram for anyone to see. Protect our?—”
The feed cut.
The forty-foot screen went black. Then, a few moments later, it snapped to a frozen RipTide logo and PLEASE STAND BY EXPERIENCING TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES.
But it was too late, because I knew that report was already screenshotted on thousands of phones, already past the point where any legal team could put it back in the bottle.
The whole beach was noise. People on the boardwalk jeering, their phones up and recording. In the distance, I thought I heard a middle-aged white man shriek.
I was already running. I didn’t decide to. My body decided, because it had always known what was right long before I did.
Sand kicked up behind me as I sprinted flat-out acrossthe beach toward the RipTide tents and the man who’d just imploded his career to do the right thing.
I saw him come out of the tent, scanning the crowd like he was hunting.
Then he saw me.
And he started running too.
We collided halfway, somewhere in the no-man’s-land between his beach and mine, and he caught me up off my feet and spun. I had my hands in his hair, his arms locked around me, and the magic flooded up, gold and bright—because it had never just been magic.
It had always been two like souls calling out to each other before their stupid brains could catch up.
“You did it,” I breathed into his neck, laughing and definitely not crying. “I knew you would.”
“Sorry it took me a minute.” He drew back enough to look at me, and there it was—the real smile. It was aimed at me, full and unguarded, in front of everyone. “You still proud of me, baby?”
I was crying.
“So proud. But Chase…you’re going to lose everything.”
“Nah.” He kissed my forehead, my cheekbone, the corner of my mouth, like he couldn’t stop. “I have everything I need right here.”
Behind us, the screen flashed, but all I saw was him.
A man who’d just proven, on national television, that he’d fight—that he’d stay—for me, and this place I had always called home.
I kissed him on my beach, with gold light spilling out of me. I didn’t bother trying to hold it in.
Let it show.
Let the whole cove see exactly how good it felt to finally be brave enough to claim what you really wanted.
“Hate to break this up,” Tanner drawled. He was still soaking wet. Behind him, Diego kept pace. “Genuinely. It’s beautiful. Ten out of ten. Very moving.” He pointed a finger at Chase. “But next time, a heads-up, dude. One text. ‘Hey, Tanner, I’m about toblow up our sponsor on live TV. You might want to take the logo off your shorts.’ That’s all I’m asking for.”
“There’s not going to be a next time,” Chase replied, still not putting me down.
