Page 30 of Seashells and Daiquiris

“Wouldn’t do it any other way.”

Her pale cheeks deepen to a pink. “Shut up. Take me to the fancy cove. I want a private tour of this place.”

Be careful with her.

I look at Freddie walking beside me in the dark, and I know—with the kind of certainty that shouldn't exist in a man without a heart—that careful stopped being an option the moment she walked into The Riptide.

FREDDIE

The cove that this merman takes me to a hidden behind a rock formation that you'd never find unless someone showed you. Liam leads me through a narrow gap in the cliff face, his hand hovering near my lower back but not quite touching, and then the passage opens up⁠—

The water glows.

Bioluminescent blue-green, pulsing gently with the rhythm of the tide, turning the entire cove into something from a movie. It amazes me that these views are hidden from the non-magical communities, and yet they exist so openly here.

“This is… beautiful,” I state, feeling a little excitement in my chest at the insinuation.

He drops down onto the sand, his silver hair catches the bioluminescent glow and turns faintly blue at the edges, and he looks up at me with those golden-brown eyes and I realize he’s very aware of what this set up looks like. He brought me here because he wanted this to be beautiful.

What a twat. This is something straight from one of my novels.

I'm so screwed.

"So," I say, sitting down across from him because sitting next to him feels like too much right now. “Come here often?”

He laughs a little, the warm sound mixing with the ocean waves gently crashing. “You’ll see a lot more magical life during the Luminary. These are like the bioillumisence in the human world, but on a new moon they glow so bright they create full shadows. It turns crystal clear, and you can even see edges of a coral reef.”

I can’t deny that on some levels, I feel like this man brings a comfort that defies logic. Like his presence is so familiar I can’t believe we’ve never met, and yet I’m reminded I have no idea who he actually is. “So tell me all about this Luminary thing. Is it mandatory? Or like celebrating Labor Day? Do you always go to it? ”

He chuckles slightly, pulling one knee up, resting his arm across it. “No, it’s not officially mandatory. It's a ritual that happens four times a year, first full moon of each season. The sea folk gather at Silvertide Beach, the water activates, and it creates a magic circle. It's a sacred celebration, and it's also where the curse has to break. It’s more like a family gathering that everyone will notice if you don’t attend.”

I listen carefully, caught between watching his mouth move and also learning more about this world. His world. “Wait, the curse really breaks there? Seems, I don’t know, a little too easy or something.”

He tilts his head like he hadn’t considered that. “Yeah, it’s a bit obvious, if you look at it that way. When Thalassa cursed me, her priority was to ensure that whatever the condition was to break the curse was the tightest option.” There’s a tension in his jaw that makes me want to know so much more about him, like how he and her even got together in the first place. "She saw that the only way to break it was a true soulmate's kiss inside the Luminary circle, and if that was the contingency, then the curse would be full-proof, essentially. So that's what she built."

I pull my knees to my chest, watching the glow of the water pulse like a slow heartbeat. "So how big is this circle?”

He motions with his hand. “It’s more like a massive circumference. You’ll see the borders with floating candle lights. At first I thought it was too easy, but that’s before I realized how the shell can often get it wrong.”

“Yeah, that part. About it always being wrong.”

He slowly faces me, the soft light of night reflecting against his eyes. My heart races faster at the intensity of the setting, of wondering if he’s looking at me like this might mean something more⁠—

“I’m bound to get it right! I’m confident this time, too!”

Shellie appeared in my pocket as I walked out the front door this morning, and I’ve since learned to just let the shell do what it’s going to do.

There’s a moment where neither of us smiles, and rather I catch how his eyes widen slightly like he’s trying to read me in the same way I’m reading him. Why is this so magnetic? Is it the fantasy of it all? Of the way this came at just right time in my life? Is it because it makes me forget about Tommy, or the looming deadline?

“I think it might be right this time,” Liam admits, almost quiet enough to blend into the ocean waves. “In fact, I’m pretty sure it is.”

My heart definitely skips more than one beat. Oh—I didn’t expect him to claim that.

I don't even have a response to that. Not witty remark, no deflective tone, not even something wrapped in sarcasm or humor or any of the armor I've been wearing since I got here. He's sitting in glowing water light with his silver hair turning blue at the edges, telling me he thinks the shell is right about us, and I have absolutely nothing to hide behind.

"You don't have to say anything," he adds, reading my silence with that quiet precision of his. "I'm just being honest."

I throw a small handful of sand at him and he grins, a nice real one, wide and warm, and for a second the weight lifts. We're just two people on a beach, flirting badly, pretending the universe isn't holding its breath around us.