“You’re running dry.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re gray, Torres. You’ve been bleeding power all morning. I can”—he gestured vaguely at the air between us, frustrated—“feel it, okay? It’s a whole thing on my end too. Nobody gave me a manual. I’m a shifter, not a witch doctor. But I know you need a charge.”
“I’m not going to fuck you on the beach at noon.”
“There’s a lifeguard tower forty feet behind us.”
“It’s condemned.”
“So?”
“No.”
He leaned in too close, static jumping between us. “Because you can’t be seen with me, or because you like the feeling too much? Worried you’re going to get addicted?”
I shoved him away, and he countered by wrapping his legs through mine and spinning on top of me. My magic spiked as he settled between my thighs, and a tornado of sand blew up around us.
Greg glanced up from his screen.
We both went very still until he went back to his lanes, hoping the sea grass hid us.
“You need me, Torres.” His mouth was already on my neck, and every single part of me lit up.
“We had rules. One time only.”
“No, you said ‘until RipTide is off your beach.’ And look, they’re still there.” But he pushed up off me, retreating behind the grin, and the grin made it worse, because now I knew what it was for. “You’ve got no power, and Greg’s about to roll over the first nest.”
He stood, brushed sand off, and nodded down the beach.
“Tower’s open. I’ll be there. Plug in or don’t, bruja—but if Greg hits that nest, don’t tell me it was for the turtles.”
He walked off down the beach with both smoothies, because he was a petty man, and I lay there in my wide-brimmed hat, furious at him, at Greg, at the magic leaning after him like dune grass in an onshore wind.
Greg started a new lane.
I looked at the tower, then at Greg, then at El Soldado, who had fluttered down next to me.
“Not one word,” I warned, and he cooed.
I pushedpast the CONDEMNED notice on the door of the tower, which felt like a little too apt commentary.
There he was, sitting on the old equipment bench in the slatted light, drinking my smoothie, at ease in a place that might collapse under us at any second.
“That’s mine.”
“Spoils of war.” He held it out anyway. I didn’t take it, on principle, and then I took it, on thirst, and he had the decency not to smile about it, which was worse than smiling.
Through the seaward window I could see Greg, his cart trundling along like an epically slow countdown to destruction.
“Clock’s running,” Chase said.
“This isn’t about you.”
“Sure.” That perfectly calm tone again.
I crossed the floor, grabbed a fistful of his sponsored T-shirt, and kissed him like the war this was.
