Chase had not asked me if I was happy. He’d asked if I’d played in college…said how good I was.
Because…maybe he saw the real me too.
The truth was simple. I liked him. Not the magic and the convenient mutual using that I’d dressed it up as, because that was simple. What wasn’t simple was his toothy grin, his confidence, and how he took everything I threw at him and absorbed it, never once flinching. That he had run across a beach and shifted in full view of the public and his sponsors to save me after I’d been an idiot and surfed in waves bigger than anything I knew how to handle because I’d been…pissed at my mom.
I liked him, and that was a much more dangerous thing thanwanting him, because wanting ended, and this didn’t feel like it was going to.
El Soldado landed on the counter.
“No,” I told him.
He cocked his head and looked at me with one black eye.
“I mean it. Don’t.”
He stood on my clean counter, where he was absolutely not allowed to stand, and stared at me. He had watched me lie to myself for years and was no longer going to accept it.
“It’s complicated,” I said.
He clacked his beak once.
“It is. He’s leaving after Saturday. He has a whole life that isn’t here. He has a comeback with his big sponsors that I’m currently sabotaging. It’s all fun and games for him now because it’s not permanent.” I was arguing with a bird. “And I used him. That’s how this started. I went looking for a quick fix and I found?—”
I stopped.
El Soldado waited.
“—and I found exactly who I thought I would.”
El Soldado puffed up in exasperation, then squawked at ear-shattering volume.
“Don’t start with me, or I’m changing your name to Scuttle.”
He grabbed a packet of hot sauce off the condiment tray, flinging it around and getting sauce everywhere. I dove at him.
“Cut that out!”
“Trouble in paradise?” Chase’s voice was laced with amusement from the other side of the counter.
I straightened with a fistful of feathers, hot sauce all over my shirt.
“He started it.”
“Of that, I have no doubt.” Chase leaned on the counter, and El Soldado flapped indignantly up to the rafters to glower at us both. Chase watched him go. “Does he do that a lot?”
“Only when he has opinions.”
“And he has opinions about me?”
“He has opinions about my whole life. You’re not special.” I wiped downthe counter, not looking at him, because looking at him meant remembering the cave, and the feel of him, and how it hadn’t been about the magic. Not even a little bit. “What do you want, Perez? We’re not open for another hour.”
“And you won’t make an exception for your best customer?” There was something off in his voice, and when I glanced up he was turning a straw over in his fingers, which was something I’d never once seen him do. Chase didn’t fidget; he was a shark, for the goddess’ sake. “There’s a thing tonight. A full-moon party. Diego knows a guy up the coast—a real party. Lights, music, dancing. Half the tour will be there.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “You’re inviting me to a party.”
“Yes.”
“And why would I want to go to this party with you?”
