Mia is barefoot on the wet sand before anyone else is awake.
Her internal clock hasn't adjusted to vacation logic, to be honest, it doesn't know how.
She walks the tide line in the early morning quiet, the foam coming in over her feet and pulling back.
She bends to pick up a shell that has been smoothed into something almost translucent by the water.
"That's a sand dollar." a man's voice comes from behind her, slightly rough with early morning. "Rare to find one intact."
She startles enough that the shell nearly goes back to the ocean.
Elias is standing a few meters away, soaked through—not from the sea, from training, his shirt plastered to his torso, chest still moving with the effort of whatever he was doing before she noticed him.
Sweat tracks down from his hairline along his co
