“Well done,” I say. “But now what do you have planned?”
“I have no idea,” she says on a laugh. “In the movie I choked the Viking.”
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t do that,” I say, locking my arms around her legs and holding her tight as I go farther out into the water.
“Briggs, what are you doing?” she asks as I move us deeper and deeper, holding on so she can’t get away.
“Exacting my revenge,” I say before dunking us both under.
I bring us both back up, still holding on to her, and hear her sputtering and coughing. I feel a little bad for doing that, but then she twists and breaks free from my grasp, slipping off my back and going under the water. I barely have time to react before she launches herself back up and onto me. I’m laughing as I lose my balance and fall back under the water, managing to grab her arm and take her down with me.
When we come back up, we’re both laughing and swiping water from our eyes.
“Are we calling a truce?” I ask, out of breath but feeling so much lighter than I have in a while. Playing with Presley in the water like this feels like a soothing relief for all my worries. A temporary one, but much needed.
“No way,” she says, doggy-paddling in place to keep afloat. I’ve got both feet on the ocean floor, my head easily above water.
She looks like she’s preparing to launch herself at me again, but then her eyes go wide, and she jumps at me, but it’s more like straight into me, her arms wrapping around my neck.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, looking her in the eyes.
“I felt something touch my leg,” she says, her body basically suction-cupped to mine.
My arms go around her, feeling instantly protective.
She lets out a little scream. “I felt it again,” she says.
I look down in the clear water, seeing something dark toward the bottom. I kick my foot around at whatever it is before realizing what I’m touching.
“It’s seaweed,” I say, a laugh bubbling up in my throat.
“What?” she asks, searching my face. “No, it wasn’t. It was a fish.”
“I’m pretty sure it was just seaweed, but even so I’m a bit shocked that the Lady of the Blade, who can jump on a Viking’s back, would be scared of a little fish.”
“It could have been a barracuda,” she says, still plastering her body against mine. I won’t lie and say I’m not enjoying holding her like this.
“I’m pretty sure it wasn’t.”
“Are there barracuda in this ocean?”
“Absolutely,” I say, and she makes a little squeaking noise, her arms going tighter around me to the point that it does feel something akin to being choked.
“In all the time I’ve lived here, I’ve never seen one in the water,” I say, wiggling my neck a little and she loosens her grip, but only slightly. I’m mostly being truthful about never seeing a barracuda. I have seen one once, when I went deep sea fishing with Keith years ago and he caught one. But I didn’t know it was a barracuda until we brought it above water. It might have been the ugliest fish I’ve ever seen with its pointed head and huge, elongated mouth filled with sharp, jagged teeth. I hope I never see one again, to be honest.
“Really?” Presley asks, her eyes still wide. I can see tiny droplets of water on her long, dark lashes.
“Really,” I say.
She releases her grip a little, her body relaxing. Then, as if it finally dawns on her that she was practically adhered to me just seconds ago, she lets go completely, and I feel sort of disappointed.
“Should we make that sandcastle, then?” she asks, as if the last few minutes never happened.
“Sure,” I say.
We make quick work of getting back to the shore, grabbing our buckets and filling them with water before making our way back to our towels and things under the large beach umbrella.
We spend the next hour working on the sandcastle—very seriously, I might add. It’s obvious Presley likes to do things right, making me redo a couple of the spots when they weren’t up to her standards.
By the end we’ve done a decent job of making our castle. There’s even a walkway to the entrance and a moat around the circumference.
“My first sandcastle,” Presley says, while I’m taking pictures of it with my phone since the camera on hers is terrible.
“On the summer rating scale, where does this one land?” I ask her once I’ve completed my role as photographer. Feeling hungry, I grab a small bag of chips I’d thrown in the beach bag before coming here.
“I’d say it’s an eight,” she says.
“That high, huh?” I say as I open the bag. I offer it to her, and she reaches inside, pulling out a chip. “What about the trampoline?”
“Also an eight,” she says, before popping the chip in her mouth.
“What gets a ten from Presley James?”
“I have no idea,” she says, talking around the food in her mouth. “We’ve still got a lot more summer activities to experience.”
“Now I have a goal,” I tell her, giving her a smile.
“What’s that?”
