He finally lets go and leans back. “If you start feeling dizzy, we turn around.”
I smile a little. “You’re being very bossy this morning.”
“You almost died a few days ago.”
“But I didn’t.”
He looks at me for a beat, then the corner of his mouth lifts. “Fair point.”
He grabs the net and slings it over his shoulder, then picks up the spear. “You ready?”
I stand and test my weight. My leg holds. “I’m ready.”
Dane walks the path ahead of me. He steps over a fallen branch and reaches back, catching a low palm frond. He holds it aside until I pass, then lets it fall back into place and keeps walking like it’s nothing.
In the past, he would’ve laughed after he allowed it to swing back and hit me.
A few steps ahead, the path dips toward the beach, and he slows, glancing at me.
“You still doing okay?”
“I’m fine.”
He looks at me a second longer, then nods and moves forward again. A moment later the beach opens up in front of us, the lagoon stretching wide and bright under the morning sky.
Dane heads straight for the rocks, already scanning the surface.
I hang back at the edge of the sand.
The heat’s building, and my shirt sticks to my skin. I pull it off and toss it over a low branch. Underneath, I’m wearing what I usually swim in—one of my mum’s bikinis and a pair of her shorts.
Up ahead, Dane goes still when he looks at me, his jaw tightening before he turns away.
He used to make it obvious when I annoyed him. He never tried to hide it. This feels like the opposite—like he’s avoiding something.
I step into the water beside him. “See anything yet?”
“Not yet.”
He moves a little farther out, scanning the water. The spear rests in his hand as he watches the faint ripples where fish move just below the surface.
“Stay slow,” he says.
I nod.
In water this calm, even a small splash is enough to send everything darting out of reach.
We spread out a few feet apart, moving along the rocks where the water deepens. Silver flashes dart through the lagoon.
Dane lifts a hand, and I slow right away.
He angles the spear toward a gap between two rocks. “Ease this way and push them toward me.”
I circle, keeping my steps light so the water barely ripples. A group of fish slips out from the rocks as I get closer, right in his direction.
The spear moves before I fully register it. When he lifts it again, a fish wiggles at the tip. He pulls it free and tosses it onto the sand behind us. “There’s one.”
“Show-off.”
