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He smoothed back the snarls carefully, pulling it into some off-center ponytail, and knew she could probably have done better… but wanted to simply touch her, even in the most unassuming moments like this. He slipped the rubber band off his wrist, capturing the hair, and frowned.
“Well, I tried…” and heard her laugh again as she reached up, unfastening it, and did so again, turning to him.
With her elbows up, pulling back her hair and twisting it, it pulled her shirt against her… and he was pretty sure he was going to swallow his tongue in that moment.
Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and turned towards the ocean, willing himself not to react to how close she was… nor how attracted he currently was to her. He felt like some randy teenage boy and not a thirty-year-old man.
“How’s this?” she asked – and he looked at her.
“Perfect.”
She rolled her eyes playfully, smiling at him, and then moving quickly to kiss him freely.
“I know better,” she whispered, touching his cheek, “but thank you.”
“Always,” he smiled tenderly. “Let’s see what other treasures we find.”
In the far-off distance, he could see people walking with metal detectors along the water line, stopping to dig every once in a while. As they walked, hand in hand, he was grateful just to exist in this moment with her, and realized that they didn’t have to fill the silence with conversation. It was just heady to be in her presence.
“I’ve got an idea,” he said softly, looking at her in awareness.
“Oh?”
“Why don’t we have our breakfast, drink our coffee, and then use one of the bottles to put a message out there… like in an old pirate tale? A message in a bottle?”
She looked at him with such wonder and tenderness that he immediately stepped towards her, drawn to her in that moment.
“I know it’s silly and childish, but I thought maybe we could each write down a wish…” he whispered softly, searching her beautiful hazel eyes that were a myriad of colors, so warm and loving.
“It’s incredibly romantic and sweet,” she breathed, and he felt himself melting as her fingers touched the back of his neck. He loved how she seemed to need to touch his hair, running her fingers through there. Just the feeling made his stomach tighten in awareness.
“When it comes to you?” he whispered, giving into how he was feeling as he kissed her. “I can’t help but feel that way…”
Neither said anything else as he drew her into his arms, hugging her. Gosh, he desperately wanted to continue kissing her, but it had caught him by surprise yesterday, the fierce amount of passion he felt wash over him.
He didn’t want to scare her with how strongly he felt – and he knew she wasn’t ready to take things further. No, he couldn’t do that to Mary – nor chance their future.
Instead, he held her in his arms, treasuring just how beautifully she felt there, and the sense of completion just being close felt. He would not risk this for the world.
… And it would be wrong to do so, since he was leaving in a day and a half.
* * *
Jax toretwo pieces of paper from the logbook in the plane and handed Mary a pencil, smiling.
“We don’t peek at each other’s wishes,” he smiled, extremely curious at what she would write, but knew better than to ask. He already knew what he was going to write down, and it wasn’t hard to guess.
“We are really going to do this?” she asked, smiling. “Isn’t this littering?”
“We are making sea glass… eventually,” he said straight-faced, before winking at her. “Besides, if wishes are done right? Then they evaporate into pink wisps that float away to the stars, and the bottle will shatter into pieces, only to be worn down and eventually become the sand.”
“Pink wisps, huh?” Mary chuckled easily, looking at him with such amusement in her gaze.
“Pink wisps are when they are mushy, emotional wishes,” he elaborated stoically. “Green wishes are for money, purple wishes are for children, blue wishes are for long life, and yellow is for health.”
She smiled at him, shaking her head in amazement.
“This is extremely important, you know,” he continued. “Wishes are not to be trifled with, so it has to be completely serious. I can’t believe you don’t know about a wish in a bottle.”
