There she is.
“You going to mother hen her the entire time she’s out there?” Diego asked, returning from his trip to the bar with a second drink.
“I just like watching her ass when she sits on the board.”
“Uh huh.” Diego wasreallybecoming a problem.
He settled into the rattan chair next to mine and didn’t say anything for a while, which was the dolphin trick. Sharks circled prey—straightforward. Dolphins, as pod animals, were masters of emotional manipulation.
“You know what I noticed today,” he finally said. “At the match? You smiled the whole time and not once for a camera.”
“There were no cameras.”
“That’s my point, idiot.”
I watched her paddle back out, the white of her board flashing between swells, as she caught up to Tanner again.
“Last few years I’ve watched you win,” Diego continued, quieter. “And every time, you look like someone has pissed in your kiddie pool.” He tipped his bottle toward the water. “Today you lost twenty-one-eleven, and you looked like…the Chase I knew back when we were groms. So whatever she is to you?—”
“She’s not anything. It’s complicated.”
“Because you’re making it complicated, shark brain.” He took a sip. “You found someone who makes you smile. That’s the least complicated thing in the world. The complicated part is you thinking you’re not allowed to have it.”
“What, you go and get your therapist’s license during the off-season?”
He shrugged. “Grew up in a pod. You learn to read others real fast.”
I didn’t answer. Out past the bar, the next set wasstacking—bigger, grayer—and the static was no longer background but a deafening cacophony.
“Chase, my guy.” Derek, of course. I grimaced. “There you are. Diego, buddy. Give us the table?”
Diego stood and caught my eye on the way up.
“I’ll be at the bar.” He was gone before Derek finished gesturing.
“Chase, you remember Marina Torres,” Derek said, glowing.
“Hard to forget.”
I didn’t get up or shake her hand, my eyes still trained on the ocean—and her daughter.
“Chase.” Marina sat without being asked, arranged herself, and smiled at me like we were old conspirators. “I was just telling Derek how wonderful it has been having you both in town this summer.”
“Is that what you were telling him?”
“Marina’s been invaluable,” Derek plowed on. “She predicted this. She told me on Thursday, expect big water by the weekend, perfect for the broadcast. And here it is.” He spread his hands at the ocean, nearly knocking over a glass.
“The ocean speaks to those who know how to talk to it. Isn’t that right, Chase?” She winked at me as if we had some sort of inside joke.
“Right.”
“What do you think of the waves?” If I’d been paying attention, I might have noticed the rising irritation in her voice. “You’ll thank me on Saturday, when the cameras love you.”
But I wasn’t paying attention, because out past the bar something was wrong.
The water had changed.
My shark senses—the ones that went dormant on land but never fully shut off—all came online at once. The electromagnetic field in the ocean shifted, and the temperature dropped two degrees in maybe five seconds. The current, which had been a mild southern pull all morning, reversed.
