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“Today,” Fiona said upon waking, entirely apropos of nothing, “is a beach day.” She patted Michael’s stomach and pulled herself up. “Go find your board shorts.”
Michael cracked open an eye and stared at the explosive redhead as she rummaged among her clothing, naked. He didn’t want to spend time arguing with her, not when it was so precious to them both, and found his own clothing with ease.
They walked down to the beach, leaving the Charger behind and under Jesse’s watchful care. “If he really sells it to Earnesto..."
“That was a joke,” Fiona pointed out, stretching herself out under the sunlight. “Aren’t you inspired, Michael?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said, staring at Fi as she walked her confident stride up the beach. They skipped the tourist-mobbed sections and decided to swim into the furthest outcropping of rocks visible in the distance – a desolate, lonely-looking island of jagged brown stones.
Michael tended to lose track of his train of thought while swimming – survival was paramount in all things at such a time. An icy panic washed through him when he realized Fiona had disappeared. Tentatively, he called her name; then with a great, urgent yelp, he bellowed it over the pale blue waves. Horrible pictures filtered through his numbed brain. What if she’d slipped, hitting her head, her lungs filling with water just like that afternoon at the marina?
He gasped when she surfaced two inches before her eyes, laughing her pirate king cackle. “Did you think I’d gone under?” She rested her hand upon his cheek. “I’m ALIVE, Michael.” He stared down at her intensely, unable to formulate the words he needed to express just how grateful he was for that fact. “Did you notice how far I can go?” she laughed. “No wave will have me,” she added, “It would spit me up and wash me home.”
“To Ireland?”
She shook her head, kicking his knee with the tips of her toes and taking one of his hands. “You.”