Sin With Me

39

“A year and a half.”

He grins. “I know it’s a year and a half. I just wanted to see if you did.”

I smile mysteriously. “That was a lucky guess, actually. I have no idea when we first met. I just didn’t want you to feel bad that I’ve never bothered to Google you.”

He splashes me with water. I scream—because for whatever bizarre biological reason, that’s what girls do when boys splash us with water—and then laugh. I splash him back. Then we’re in a water fight, dousing each other with big handfuls of cold salt water, kicking it at each other, laughing like mad, playing like a couple of schoolyard kids on recess.

It’s then that I spot the fin.

Dark and triangular, it’s about fifty feet away from us on my side, cutting through the surface of the water as easily as a knife cuts through butter. It’s moving fast in our direction.

This time when I scream it’s for real.

“Sharksharksharksharkshaaarrrk!”

I whip my legs up out of the water. That causes me to lose my balance, which then causes me to topple over sideways—into the shark-infested ocean.

I come up kicking and screaming, panicked, gasping for air. Salt water stings my eyes. Inhaling a mouthful of water, I cough, my arms flailing for the safety of the board. Brody’s calling to me. I can’t make out what he’s saying, I’m shrieking and splashing too loudly, but when I manage to drag myself halfway onto the surfboard I can finally hear him.

And the bastard is laughing.

Laughing.

“It’s only a dolphin, Grace! Look!”

A pale gray body whips past us in the water, not ten feet away. Then like a rocket it blasts through the surface and flies glinting into the air. It hangs there for a moment, sleek and shining, raining drops, and then angles down and slices back into the ocean, leaving barely a splash in its wake.

“Here’s another one!” shouts Brody, pointing behind me.

Breathless, my heart hammering, I spot another fin headed toward us. There are four more behind it, flared out in a V formation. They fly past us and then break the surface as the first one did and leap high into the air.

My mouth drops open. A circus act couldn’t be more perfectly timed.

“They’re playing!” Brody slides off his board and paddles the few feet that separate us. He hangs onto the edges of both of our boards, making us a little flotilla. His smile is brighter than the sun as he faces me, bobbing in the water only a foot away. “They’re playing with us!”

I can’t speak because I’m still too traumatized by the thought that I was about to become a tasty hors d’oeuvre for a great white. Half a dozen more dolphins speed past, jumping and blowing, splashing and jostling, having as much fun as a bunch of unleashed dogs in a doggie park.

Curious, they circle back and fly past us again, and I swear as each one surfaces from the water they look at us with their merry little eyes, like, “Hey, there, ungainly land creature! You sure are strange looking but you’re welcome here!”

When they finally go, disappearing into the deep blue without a trace as quickly as they came, the ache in my chest tells me I’ve witnessed something special.

Something sacred.

Brody sees how moved I am. He swims closer and plants a wet, salty kiss on my cheek. “Yeah,” he says, his voice husky. “There are still miracles in the world, Grace. You just have to know where to find them.”

As we float in the water, smiling into each other’s eyes, I can’t help but wonder if Fate is finally extending me a long-overdue olive branch.

Or setting me up for a soul-shattering fall.

Side by side, our surfboards under our arms, we trudge silently up the beach through the sun-warmed white sand to the path that leads to the lawn. The path eventually meets up with the stone walkway that takes us through Brody’s yard to the large patio, shaded by swaying palm trees, their stiff fronds glinting in the light. I’m physically exhausted but feel high, buzzed, as if I’ve been drinking, but my mind is sharp.

Everything around me is crystalline sharp, painfully bright, saturated with brilliant color. Every crack on the pavers beneath my feet seems made by design. Every drop of water falling from my hair is a tiny, perfect reminder of one of the most wonderful mornings of my life.

Something powerful and mysterious is moving in me. A kind of seismic shift is taking place, and it’s all because of the man walking in quiet contemplation by my side.

I don’t want to examine too closely what’s happening. For now, it’s enough to just feel.

And God, do I.

Everything from awe to terror to glee, along with a strange sort of friction, like my skin has grown too tight. Like at any moment I might crack open the shell of my body, shed it like a cocoon, and take flight in a riotous burst of color.

I wonder if he’s feeling this, too. This . . . change. This electricity. All my senses crackle with the anticipation of what will happen when we get back to the house.

It doesn’t help that I’m naked under my wetsuit, and I know he is, too.

“We can rinse off over there, get the sand off our feet before we go inside.” Brody points to an outdoor shower on the side of the house. It’s open on three sides, with a smooth bed of stones underfoot and a removable showerhead above.

He leans his board against the side of the house. He takes mine from me and does the same, standing them so close together they’re touching. I know I’m a fool but it feels symbolic.