Page 70 of Every Bit As Perfect
With the sun warming our backs, we walked along the shore hand-in-hand, the ebb and flow of the water calming me as it always did.The hazy perfection of lacy, white bubbles racing along the sand softening the serrated edge of my thoughts.
“I walk here almost every morning.”I held up our linked fingers.“Are you okay going public so soon?”
A slow smile spread across his face, crinkling his eyes.“I would have rented a skywriter if I thought you’d let it pass.”
“Oh, yeah?”I laughed.“What would it say?”
He appeared to think about it for a minute, then framed a cloudless blue sky with his fingers.“Daire Newman won the Harley Bennett lottery.”
I snorted out a laugh.
He grinned down at me.“You like that?”
“I do.And you get bonus points for creativity.”
“You like it when I get creative?”he asked slyly.
I tipped my chin down.
That persona he spoke about, the badass Harley I showed to the world, was a defense mechanism.The real Harley was much softer.
And much more easily broken.
“I’m scared.”
He stopped walking immediately.“Of what?”
“Last night.”I struggled to find the right words to express the anxiety that plagued me.
“You didn’t like what we did?”His voice pitched higher, his hand jerked in mine and clung tighter.
“No, I did.”I scuffed my toe in the sand.“I liked it a lot.But I felt so naked.”
“You were naked.”
I heard the amusement in his voice and hazarded a look at his face.“On the inside.”
“Ah,” he nodded as understanding dawned.“Because you gave yourself over to me.”
“In a way I never have before with anybody else.”
He moved closer, his voice dropped.“Good.The caveman inside me is beating his chest.”
I shook my head but couldn’t help my laugh.
‘I love your freckles.It’s like the sun can’t help but kiss you.I understand.I feel the same way.”He ran the back of his fingers over my cheek.“As for giving yourself over to me, I don’t take the privilege lightly.I know what I’m asking, and I will treat your heart like it’s made of glass.”
“If my heart was made of glass, it was shattered long ago.”
“Like all those bits of glass you collect on the beach?”
He began walking again, my hand in his.At the mention of the sea glass, I could not help but search the ground for those tiny bits of treasure.
“They’re called mermaid tears,” I murmured.“People think of mermaids as fearsome, cold-hearted creatures, but they’re not.”I spotted a flash of amber and stooped to pick it up.“They’re sad and lonely.All alone in the depths of the sea, they grieve the loss of the ones they love.They grieve so much that their tears wash up on the shore with the tide.”I tumbled the sea glass around in my palm.“This is a mermaid’s tear.”I shrugged.“Some say they have magical healing properties.”
“Is that why you collect them?Do you need healing?”
I laughed weakly.“I don’t believe in mermaids.But it’s nice to think I’m not so alone in my grief.”
