Page 9 of Seashells and Daiquiris

“Take it!” I say, motioning to it.

“I can’t. It’s not how the curse works.”

I glare at him as if he isn’t nearly double my size. “This thing is cursed?”

"It's has m heart inside of it.”

The word lands between us like a stone dropped into still water. I feel the ripple of it. I look at the shell. I look at him. I look at the shell again.

"I'm sorry, your what?"

He leans back, running a hand through the loose strands that have escaped his bun, and starts talking. Like every word is being extracted from him with pliers. “It’s been cursed with my heart inside of it. My ex was a sea witch, and she didn’t like that I ended it with her,” he holds a hand up, as if waving that away, “that part isn’t important. But that shell is one I’m very familiar with.”

“Then have it.” I scoot it back to him. “Don’t you—oh my god, stop,” I sigh. The shell, of course, comes back. “Why is it coming back to me?”

He grabs his face and leans into it. “This is such bad timing.”

“Oh, I’m sorry I’m inconveniencing you,” I quip. “Spill it. You seem to know what’s happening. How do I get this thing to stop coming back to me?”

He sighs, clenches his jaw, then looks at me and licks his lips. “Let’s get some privacy. There’s something… well, there’s a caveat you should know about.”

“Yes, please,” the shell says, and he nods to it like it’s right. “Is the caveat that the underwear is optional?”

“This seashell is a hussy,” I say, tapping the shell like I’m smacking it. “I promise that thought didn’t just go through my brain. It’s the one that’s using my voice, and I didn’t give it permission to.”

His lips quiver like he might laugh, but then he stands to motion to a back booth in the bar, to which I follow. I’m so eager to hear about what the hell is happening that I’d get into a questionable van at this point. When Liam slides in real close to me, he even rests his arm on the back of the seat. If I wasn’t so concerned about the shell, I might blush harder, or tell him to give us some space.

Instead, I roll my eyes and lean in. “Spill it. What’s going on?”

“So the shell does this thing, where it drifts around. It’s magical, so that just means it appears in new places. And it latches to new women. It’s a part of the curse. Because to break it…” he sighs, and rolls his eyes again. “It’s a little cliche, but I have to kiss whoever it belongs to on a certain moon cycle to break it. But what I’ve discovered, is that it will latch to random people it thinks are my soulmate. And then when we find out, through obvious trial and error, that they’re not actually my soulmate, the shell moves on.

“So, I’m so sorry, but I think the shell thinks you’re my soulmate. And I’m just going to lay this out there, because you’re just a human who doesn’t deserve to get tied up in all of this. It’s probably best for you to kiss me on the next full moon and then let the shell realize it’s wrong again.”

What… he has to be kidding. As I offer a half-laugh, like I’m trying to gauge if he’s going to start laughing too, he just stares at me with pity. That’s when I frown. “This is a joke, right?”

His gaze languidly moves to the crowd ahead of us. “You can ask like half the people here, and they’ll say the same thing. It’s a known situation that I’m in. That uh,” he glances back to me with apologetic eyes. “That you’re now in.”

My lips move all around as if I’ll somehow catch the proper words to say until I just ramble out, “Soulmate?”

“Look, it’s been wrong thirteen times. I think it’s a part of the curse. It will just keep picking person.” He frowns, a certain undertone of sadness in his voice. “And I’ll be stuck in this for the rest of my life.” He purses his lips and breathes out heavily. “I know, it’s a lot to take in.”

I wave a hand. “I’m a romance writer. Bizarre stories don’t scare me at all.” I nod to the shell. “I just want to know how to get rid of this thing. And how I wound up with a curse.”

“Well, you’re not cursed. Just roped into mine. We’ll do the kiss, in what, like twenty-five days? Then it’ll move on.”

I sigh and drink more of the daiquiri while he watches me. I cough a little from how cold it is, basically finishing it at this point. “You know, I’ve been dreaming of the shell.”

“You have?”

I glance between him and the daiquiri a few times. “That doesn’t usually happen?” I stare down at the slush that’s mostly colorless at the bottom of the glass. “Then why was I dreaming about it?”

"I'd love to smooch you."

I close my eyes and sigh. "Oh my god."

"Just full-on, grab-his-face, movie-poster smooch."

"You have permission to kill me now," I tell him, meaning it entirely. I glance around the bar. "That harpoon on the wall. That should do the trick."