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3
Mysti
As a wave crashedinto my thighs, I swept my sea-soaked hair from my eyes and pulled my gaze to the shoreline. For a moment, a thread of anxiety raced through me, and I had to close my eyes and take a deep breath. I wiped water from my face and twisted the ends of my hair before I finally looked up. Trenton stood there in the sand, a smile on his face and two burritos in his hands. Another wave hit me, pushing me toward the beach, guiding me straight toward the man.
“Feel better?” he asked as I snagged my beach towel from my bag near his feet.
“Much. I smell better too.” I grinned up at him as I dried myself off. “Thanks for the suggestion.”
“Anytime.” He watched me as I spread my towel upon the sand, then handed me my burrito and sat down at my side. “It’s beautiful out tonight.”
I didn’t have to look up from my food to know what he meant. Puffy white clouds hung in the air, and seagulls danced around the sky like the clouds were their playground. The water was cool, yet not too cold for a swim. In the distance, surfers sat on their boards, awaiting the next big wave to carry them in.
“It really is.” Down the beach a ways, two dogs were jumping into the water, snapping at the white-tipped waves as the water rolled to shore. Their yips and the laughter of a group of children nearby were the perfect soundtracks to the day.
“So, tell me,” Trenton said after swallowing a bite of his food, “how long have you been in Seaside.”
I swallowed my own bite, feeling it catch in my throat. I took a sip from my water bottle to wash it down. “Not too long now.”
“Really?” One of his brows rose, and he paused his eating to look over at me. “You seem like you fit in here perfectly.”
Those words warmed me more than the evening sun. “I feel the same way. Like I’m meant to be here. Do you ever feel that way?”
He turned his grin my way before his gaze dipped down my body. “Absolutely. I feel that way right now.”
I rolled my eyes as I covered my mouth with my hand to hide the wide smile threatening to show off every morsel of food inside. “How long have you been in Seaside?” I asked after I swallowed.
He stared out over the horizon, across the waves, toward the dying sun. “About a week.”
“Oh.” I wasn’t sure how else to respond to his dejected tone. “Is that a bad thing?”
It was a moment before he turned back to me. Before he wiped a hand across his face and that gaze washed over me like the waves I’d just been swimming in. “Maybe?” He bit down on his lip, then set his burrito at his side and turned my way.
My blood hummed under his scrutiny. My hands fumbled and shook as my brain short-circuited under that intense look. But when he reached out and took one of my hands in his, calm settled over me like a warm blanket.
“This is going to sound really crazy, considering we just met and all. But I feel like I was drawn to the diner this morning. That I was put in that chair for a reason: to meet you. Half the reason I didn’t stick around after you went to the back was because I was a little freaked out. But I couldn’t stay away, love. I needed to see you again. I needed to see if this crazy feeling would go away.”
With my stomach doing twists and turns, I asked, “Did it?”
He shook his head. “Not even close. And I hate that, because I have to leave at the end of summer, and now I don’t know if I can.”
The breeze that blew off the ocean tossed a strand of hair in my face. Before I could brush it away, his hand was there, fingers trailing along the side of my head as he tucked the strand behind my ear.
“I want to spend time with you,” he said, his voice barely audible over the sound of the waves. “I want to see if this feeling, this pull between us, is real.”
His attention dropped from my eyes as I sucked my lip between my teeth. “As crazy as that sounds,” I told him, my heart racing in my chest, “I’d like that too.”
His lips twitched, his brow furrowed, and he drew his gaze from my lips back to my eyes. “You mean that?”
A smile curled my mouth, and I nodded. He clenched his fingers around mine as he pulled my hand closer to his chest. Up the beach, from the area cordoned off for the concert tonight, came the sounds of music being pumped through the giant speakers.
“Want to finish eating and we can go to the concert?” His grip loosened on my hand, though he didn’t let go.
I nodded again, lifting the burrito I still held. “Not sure I can eat all this.”
“Same here. These things are huge.” He laughed, then finally released me. As he turned back to his own burrito, I caught a motion out of the corner of my eye.
“Mysti? Is that you?” Callie came my way, her sandaled feet kicking up sand as Calvin lumbered behind her.
