“What are we supposed to do now?” she asked.
He tucked a single strand that had escaped her hair tie due to a sea breeze behind her ear. “Maybe you’ll let me stick with you until you find that tiny lawyer.”
She sighed but gave him a small smile as she played with the hem of his T-shirt. “Okay, but only because it might be hard to finalize paperwork if we have to spend a lot of time searching for you. It’s a big beach now.”
“True. After everything, I guess I shouldn’t make it too difficult for you to find your happy ending.”
A small wave of water brushed past them, soaking the ground at their feet. In their rush to escape the sargassum jungle and Catalina stomping away, she had inadvertently taken them closer to the shoreline instead of further away. They were lucky this wave only kissed the sand nearby. Any larger and a wave could sweep them into the ocean. Maybe Trey wasn’t the only one who recklessly got them into sticky situations. This may have proved she was as imperfect at making decisions as he was when she was upset.
She was about to kick up her heels and yank them to a safer distance when surf bubbles sprouted nearby. Some were small, but many of the bubbles were larger and taller than both her and Trey. The refracted sunlight piercing through the bubbles caused a prism of rainbows to spill around the couple. It was a wondrous, breathtaking sight to behold. Trey appeared as taken by the sight as she was. His arms dropped from her body as they stood in the midst of a giant rainbow bubble wonderland. She poked her finger into one, and it took more force to penetrate it than she had expected. When it popped, a light mist of salt water sprayed over her and Trey, eliciting gasps and giggles from both of them.
“Wow, beautiful,” she said dreamily. How could something be both worldly and unworldly at the same time?
“Exactly my thoughts.”
When Catalina turned her gaze to him, he had his phone out as though he’d snapped a picture of her before quickly shifting the camera in a new direction.
She eyed him suspiciously, keeping her opinion to herself about how silly it was to take pictures of their vacation. What was the point? Who would ever see these images? It’s not like they’d ever be posted on a @TinyTrey Instagram account. And if they weren’t rescued in a few days, the phone would be dead and completely useless. Catalina didn’t always understand Trey’s reasoning but, for once, chose to keep the peace of the moment and let him be.
“Stop it,” she said, lifting a hand to block the view when she caught him again turning his phone in her direction for another picture. She was a dirty, damp mess with no makeup and messy hair. She realized how ridiculous the thought was, especially when the chance of anyone seeing this was slim. Plus, Trey had seen her in worse states plenty of times before this. Even during those periods, he’d never looked at her with anything less than adoration, something he was doing right now. She couldn’t help but blush in response.
“Come on,” she said, pulling on his arm. “We shouldn’t risk being this close to the water.”
“What do you think we should do? Think we should try to make it to the dock?”
“It’ll probably take us too long to get there and we don’t even know where that is from here. By then, everyone will be long gone. And how would we even get on a boat?”
“If someone walks by, we can grab onto their shoe, and they can carry us to the dock.”
“How are we going to be able to do that? Remember, we’re not superheroes.”
“Oh, yeah.” He frowned as if disappointed with reality once again.
“I think we should make our way back to the hotel.”
“You think there will be someone there who’ll be able to help us?”
In her gut, she knew this was a foolish thing to hope for, but they didn’t have a lot of options, and this was the best one they had. “I don’t know. But we can’t stay out here. We might at least be safer and have a chance of finding food, shelter, and water. The stuff in my bag is only going to last us so long.” She squinted toward where they needed to start walking. The resort appeared like an insurmountable mountain in the distance, in what she could only guess was the equivalent of miles away from where they were at their current size. “How long do you think it’s going to take for us to get there?”
He tipped his head one way and then the other as though working through some complex formula in his head. “Days, if we’re lucky. Probably longer.”
She dropped her shoulders, feeling defeated. “Well, that doesn’t make me feel very good. We haven’t been lucky yet.”
His gaze slid to hers, taking on a thoughtful expression. “I guess it just depends on how you look at it.”
She wasn’t going to ask him to expand on this further. Catalina didn’t want to dig into his thoughts, afraid she’d find herself hating Trey less and less, even while being unsure how to get on the path toward forgiveness. Her determination to stay angry at him was making less sense, but it was hard for her to switch over.
Catalina readjusted the bag in her arms and mustered her strength. “Welp, we better start walking then. It’s still early in the day, and that tiny lawyer isn’t going to wait around at the tiny bar forever.”
“It should give me plenty of time then.”
“For what?”
“To get you to fall in love with me again.
Chapter 12
Sasha
