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I quickly looked around me to see one, two, three, four other heads poking up out of the water…but I didn't see Hayes. My panicked heart thundered in my chest. I tried to look under the water for him, but my floatation device wouldn't let me, so I quickly undid the buckles and let it float away before sinking beneath the surface.
I opened my eyes, which burned as saltwater poured into them, but I didn't dare to close them. I squinted through the pain and looked all around until several feet from me, I saw Hayes swim upward, approaching and then breaking the surface.
I swam over to him as quickly as possible and grabbed his face in both of my hands. "Are you okay?" I asked frantically. "Are you choking? Can you breathe?"
Hayes blinked, appearing confused. "Yeah, I'm fine, I just got knocked off. Hey, what happened to your life vest?"
I suddenly felt very dumb for overreacting, and explained sheepishly, "Oh, I, um…I took it off so that I could go underwater to look for you. I thought you were drowning and it scared the hell out of me."
Hayes didn't look at me like I was being dumb. His eyes grew rounder and his lips pulled up into a shaky smile. "You risked your life to try and save me?"
There really wasn't much life risking involved; we were in calm water and surrounded by other people. I guess Hayes wasn't in real danger either, but I lost my head when I got scared and reacted. But his version sounded better, so I shrugged my shoulders, popping them above the water.
"You sweet, silly man." Hayes lunged forward to press his lips to mine. The force of his kiss knocked me underwater, but he pulled me up quickly. "Oh geez, now I'm drowning you."
"Um…are you two okay?" Jamal's voice sounded. I whipped my head towards him to see that he was sitting on his jet ski, holding my life jacket, and staring at us like we were dramatic morons. The other people in our group were giving similar stares.
"We're okay," I replied, and he nodded.
"Good. You won't be able to put your life vest back on when you're in the water, but we're almost back to the shore. Can everyone please grab onto the boat for me?" I imagined that it would be too difficult to turn the boat upright when it was in the water as well.
Each of us paddled over to the float and gripped onto a handle. Jamal slowly drove the jet ski towards the beach, gently pulling us in his wake. What made my outburst all the more embarrassing was that he only dragged us a few feet until we were able to stand upright on the sand. I hung my head in shame as I emerged from the surf.
"Sorry about the rough ending," Jamal said as the rest of the riders removed their life jackets. "I must have banked too hard. If anyone would like to go again, the ride will be half price."
Hayes looked over at me and I shook my head. "Don't even think about it. That was too stressful. I don’t want to have a coronary and spend the rest of my vacation dead.”
He snorted and nodded his agreement. “It was a lot of fun, but I think I’ve had my fill. Let’s find something relaxing to do.” Thank goodness. Even though the ride took a crazy turn at the end, it was a lot of fun and I was glad we did it. But I was also very glad to change up the pace.
Hayes decided that he wanted to search for seashells to take home as a souvenir. So, we began walking up and down the beach, hand in hand, looking across the sand. The sun was still beaming down as strongly as before, but since my skin was wet, I felt much more comfortable.
“Ooh, look at this,” Hayes said as he bent over and picked up a shell to show me. It was pink and looked like a cross between a potato chip and a folding fan because of the ruffles over its surface and its flat base.
“That’s really pretty.”
He nodded again. “Yep, this one made the cut; it’s definitely coming home with me.”
I wanted to find a nice shell for him, so I scoured the sand with every step, hoping to choose one he wanted to keep. I thought I’d found a pretty orange one, but when I picked it up, I saw that it had a giant hole in it. Dammit.
Next, I discovered a white shell with a cool, textured pattern. It was partially buried in the sand, but I excitedly extracted it…just to find out that it was actually a rock. For fuck’s sake, I’m terrible at this.
“Is that…? It is!” Hayes exclaimed as he retrieved a large gray shell from the ground. While the color wasn’t as vibrant as the first one he found, this one was an interesting shape. It was a layered cone with many sharp nubs protruding from it.
