AllFreeNovel
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“I know.” I shifted the two bulky gifts in my lap. “I’m not regretting that choice. Just jealous that I can’t come with you.”
“You have exams. School is almost over for the year.”
I smiled. “Only one more year to go before uni.”
His lips tipped up. “I’m proud of you. You’ve worked super hard.” He chuckled. “And sacrificed untold hours of reef swimming and dolphin diving for being land-locked to study.”
“And I’ve hated every moment of it.”
“Ah well, the moment you get your degree, you can be back on the sea. Perhaps, when you officially work for your parents, I can find something that suits my preference for keeping earth beneath my feet.”
I stilled. “You know you’ve become invaluable to them. Just because I’ll be a fully qualified marine biologist doesn’t mean they won’t still want your help.”
He shrugged. “Doesn’t bother me. I’ll be free to find something more suited.”
The way he said it was too relaxed, too rehearsed.
Without my parents paying him, he opened himself up to a whole ocean of risk.
Leaning closer, I whispered, “You could work for me instead. I’ll get my own boat and research grants and—”
“I’ll still have to step foot on the ocean all day.”
“Would that be so bad?”
“Yes.” He laughed, deliberately keeping things light between us. “Have you not been listening to anything I’ve said the past four years?”
“What if you could live beneath the sea? Would that change things?”
He raked his hands through his hair, making his biceps bunch and pecs bounce.
I crossed my legs together, growing indecently warm.
“The only way you could ever get me to live willingly beneath the sea would be to prove it was safer than living out of it.”
“Would you live there if I lived there? Would you trade air for salt if it meant we could be together?”
The air immediately crackled between us. “Neri...don’t.”
I didn’t know what possessed me to skip close to the line we never crossed, but I couldn’t stop myself. “If the thought of you going away for four days makes me sick to my stomach, what the hell is it going to feel like when you finally do leave?”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“What if you fall in love and chase after someone?”
He swallowed hard. His eyes ignited with coal-fire.
I didn’t breathe, bracing myself for him to brush away such a thing, but he licked his lips and whispered, “I can’t fall in love if I’ve already fallen.”
I moaned.
I couldn’t stop it.
My skin came alive; my heart exploded with all the instincts and all the moments where I tripped and fell, only to end up broken and bleeding on the ground.
He contradicted everything he’d said on Noah Beach.
He gave me hope.
