Chapter 20 - His Shot

Walking back along the shoreline, Mia decides privately that she has some natural aptitude for surfing.

She's not going to say this out loud. But she thinks it.

Elias had been, and this she genuinely didn't expect, an excellent teacher.

Patient, clear, never once condescending.

If Tyler or Lucas had witnessed it they would have required medical attention.

On the walk back, Elias hands Mia a towel.

His gaze moves over her wet sundress, and then moves away with a speed.

"You learned quickly," he says carefully.

"You taught well." She tucks a strand of wet hair back, not entirely modest about it.

He's about to say something when a voice cuts across the beach.

"Elias. There you are."

Claire, yellow bikini, with two friends.

Her eyes move over Mia once and settle into a smile. "Teaching a beginner? How sweet of you."

"What do you need?"

"I'd love to learn too." She steps closer. "Would you help me with the board?"

"There are instructors down the beach," he says, already half-turned away. "More qualified than me."

"But I want you—"

"I don't have time." Final. No door.

Mia takes a small step back. "I can wait if you need to."

"We're going to eat." He turns to her, and his voice does something different when it's directed at her. "Come on."

He walks past Claire without looking back.

Mia follows.

***

The restaurant sits right at the sand's edge, all floor-to-ceiling glass facing the Pacific, the kind of light that makes everything look better than it probably is.

While they wait for the food, Mia looks out at the water. Elias looks at her. When she turns back, he is already reaching for his phone.

"Can I take your photo? You mentioned wanting something to send home."

"Sure."

She blinks, then tucks her hair back and turns toward the window and gives him a real smile. Not posed. Just present.

He takes two shots. Checks them. Slides the phone across the table with the careful expression of someone who has more invested in this than he'd like to admit.

She looks at the screen.

They're good.

Genuinely, unexpectedly good—the light caught at the precise angle, her expression natural, the composition considered.

She looks at him differently for a moment. "These are excellent. How did you—"

"I practiced," he says.

"On who?"

A beat. "Lucas. He's an unhelpful subject."

She laughs, and he watches it happen across the table in the afternoon light coming off the Pacific, and the expression on his face is the one he gets when he's decided something and hasn't said it yet.

"Airdrop them to me," she says.

"Already done."

The food arrives before either of them can say anything else.

Mia photographs it first—a quick, practical shot for her mother—then looks over at Elias's skillet and finds it is almost entirely black beans beneath the egg.

"Is it just beans?" She can't quite keep the surprise out of her voice. "All the way down?"

"Try one." Elias's already spooning some onto her plate before she can object. "Don't decide before you taste it."

She tries a small bite with mild doubt.

It's good. Genuinely, annoyingly good.

She takes another.

Across the table, Elias eats with the uncomplicated appetite of someone who has been in cold water all morning and earned it.

Mia watches him for a moment, then pokes at a piece of potato.

"Do you come here every break?"

He takes a drink of sparkling water. "Yes."

She nods, satisfied, and goes back to her food.

Outside, the Pacific does what it always does, enormous and patient.

They eat in comfortable silence, and the afternoon stretches out ahead of them like the water, open and unhurried.

Neither of them mentions that no one came to find them all morning.

***

The beach after lunch is quiet, the afternoon light gone thick and golden, the kind that makes everything look like it's been lit from inside.

They walk without a destination—the post-meal Italian instinct that Mia has inherited without question, you eat, then you walk, this is non-negotiable.

Elias falls into the rhythm without being asked.

Mia's in the yellow sundress again, dried now, the sea wind pressing the thin fabric against her body with no particular regard for her privacy. The straps sit narrow on her shoulders, the kind of detail that looks precarious and somehow stays. Her footprints press into the wet sand behind her and fill slowly with water.

Elias's still shirtless. Board shorts, nothing else, the afternoon sun doing what it will with the kind of build that doesn't need assistance.

He walks beside her and his shadow falls across her completely, which she's stopped noticing and he hasn't.

He stops.

"Wait." His voice is low, slightly rough.

She stops with him, automatically.

"You look—" he pauses, like he's deciding something— "I'd like to take your photo. If you'll let me."

Mia blinks. Then smiles, genuinely pleased.

She'd been thinking the same thing since lunch—the light is extraordinary, Ellie is somewhere unavailable, and she needs something to send her mother that isn't just food.

"Yes, go ahead."

She would have asked him herself eventually. She'd only held off out of consideration for his time, which she now recognizes as unnecessary.

Elias drops to one knee to find the angle, and the movement pulls his thigh muscles taut in a way that she clocks briefly and then looks at the horizon instead.

His gaze through the camera is direct in a way that lands differently than a lens should. She can feel it moving—collarbone, the line of the dress, the narrow pull of fabric at her waist—unhurried, taking its time.

Her fingers find the hem of the dress without her permission.

"Elias." Her voice comes out slightly unsteady. "Have you got it?"

He lowers the phone just enough to look at her directly over the top of it. "You're beautiful," he says, like it's information she might need.

"Perfetta." He raises it again. The shutter clicks twice.

She feels her face go warm, which she attributes to the sun.

He stands and steps toward her suddenly—his shadow falls over her completely, the heat off him immediate and disorienting—and he doesn't touch her.

He just leans in, close enough that his breath reaches the side of her neck, and she feels every fine hair on her skin respond to it before she can think.

"Your hair," he says quietly, and reaches past her ear to tuck a strand back into place.

He could have said something. She could have done it herself. Both of them know this.

He steps back to his original position and raises the phone again, expression composed, as though the last ten seconds were entirely unremarkable.

Mia feels the strength drain from her knees, her legs turning to water under the sheer, predatory weight of his gaze.

Elias looks down at the screen of his phone, his throat working as his Adam's apple bobs in a heavy, jagged swallow.

The tip of his tongue darts out, dampening his dry lower lip—a quick, visceral motion that feels devastatingly carnal in the quiet heat of the beach.

"How...how do they look?" her voice is thin, a mere breath of a sound. She can feel the flush creeping up her neck, her cheeks scorching.

Maybe it's the midday sun, but deep down, she knows the heat is radiating entirely from the man standing inches away.

He slides his thumb across the screen—she notices the motion is slightly too fast, like he's passing over something—and turns the phone to show her.

The photos on screen are good. The light, the composition, the way he's caught her looking slightly away from the camera with the sea behind her.

She takes the phone and looks properly. "These are excellent." She means it entirely. "You have a good eye."

"I had good material," he says, and takes the phone back before she can swipe further.

If Mia could see through the icy exterior of the man before her, she would realize that Elias is currently at war with himself.

Since the moment he met her, the ice has begun to melt, and he no longer recognizes the man he's becoming.

They walk a little further, photograph a few things—a piece of driftwood, the light on the water, the rocks at the far end of the beach—and then turn back when the afternoon starts to tip toward evening.

They hear Ellie before they see her.

She and Lucas are in the shallows, fully committed to a water fight of considerable enthusiasm, shouting at each other in two languages, both of them apparently having woken up at some point and decided the afternoon was very much salvageable. Ellie's laugh carries all the way up the beach.

Mia watches them for a moment, smiling.

They walk toward them, falling into step without needing to discuss it.

The last light is almost gone from the horizon, just a thin band of orange, then nothing.

But something else, between the two of them, is doing the opposite of fading.

She doesn't name it.

Not yet.