“Give me my clothes!” I shouted at him. He whirled around with a look of pleasant surprise masking his underlying merriment.
“What clothes?” he asked innocently, while pulling on his own jeans and shirt. I came within inches of latching onto him, when he twisted out of my reach and continued to swim. Realizing that I had to ‘up’ my game if I wanted my clothes back, it dawned on me that I had many more non-traditional options at my disposal, rather than chasing him all over the Mediterranean Sea. I still wasn’t exactly sure what all my abilities allowed me to do, so I used my imagination and prayed it would work. I held my arms out toward Finn and easily anchored my energy.
“Stop him,” I commanded quietly. A swarm of energy flew outward and through the water toward him. Mere seconds later, that same energy had doubled in strength and raced its way back toward me, in the form of a powerful current. The water flowed past me but didn’t take me with it.
Instead, I watched with giddiness as the now-struggling Finn was forced backwards. In an effort to understand what was happening, he twisted around and met my smiling eyes with surprise. As the current brought him back to me, I concentrated more energy on a patch of seaweed below, and pictured it sprouting up to take him captive. To my delight and surprise, the seaweed shot up and wrapped around him tightly, just as I had a pictured it in my mind.
Undaunted and enjoying my newfound potential, I sent more energy to a nearby group of crabs that were scurrying across the sea floor. I pictured them wrenching my clothes out of Finn’s hands and returning them to their rightful owner. They must have gotten the message, because they veered off course and headed straight for him. He twisted and struggled against the seaweed as the pale, white crabs’ claws snipped at his hands; forcing him to let go of my clothes. The obedient crabs expertly retrieved my sinking clothes and laid them at my bare feet.
“Why, thank you,” I thanked them formally with a curtsy. They performed a gleeful dance for me and then scurried off again. I watched a helpless and defeated Finn as I tugged my clothes back on with chagrin. If you’ve ever tried to dress underwater, you’ll know it’s no easy task. After several shaky attempts, my clothes were back on and I swam over to the “Finn burrito”; laughing so hard my stomach hurt.
“I’m glad I could provide some comic relief for your morning entertainment,” he replied dryly with a crooked grin. I released my energy on the seaweed and it snapped back down to its former length like a rubber band. As he made a big show of checking himself for bruises or cuts, I fought the urge to roll my eyes at him.
“I see what you mean about attacking seaweed,” he poked fun at me with heavy sarcasm.
“They’re absolutely ruthless!”
“You sure you don’t want to keep it up?” I asked seriously, “I could really use the practice.”
“Tempting…” he cut those swirling blue eyes at me, “but no thanks.”
“You’re no fun…” I teased him with a wink. In response, he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close, gently kissing me on the lips. I’d always heard horror stories about relationships that went south after the couple slept together, or that just turned weird afterwards - but I experienced none of that with Finn. It could have something to do with the fact that those stories had come out of Laura Beth’s mouth, so the validity was always suspect. But in an odd way, I actually felt more at ease with Finn. I tried to meet his eyes, which were now fixed on the sea floor, but he had suddenly gone all shy and awkward on me. Maybe I had spoken too soon.
“Last night was amazing,” he said shyly. “I knew it would be worth the wait.”
“The wait?”
“I always wanted my first time to be…with you,” he admitted with trepidation and shrugged his shoulders. “Dating other girls just seemed pointless…”
“But how could you have known?” I furrowed my brow, perplexed. “I just got here.”
“I fell in love with you the moment you appeared to me in your reveries.” His tender eyes finally met mine, “I knew you were you of course, but…I didn’t know I was… him. Until recently.”
“You lost me. Who’s him?” I hope he wasn’t going to start talking about himself in third person. That could get confusing. Not to mention weird. He looked down at the sea floor again.
“You’re…Paramour,” he answered.
“Isn’t that a band?” I wondered out loud.
“The prophecy – your prophecy,” he tried again, his eyes filling with admiration and tender conviction as he met my gaze. “It said that your ‘Paramour’, which means lover or partner in life, would be a great warrior; bred to lead an army of men, but destined solely for you. It said that you would make a great sacrifice for him…even if that meant losing everything.”
“A sacrifice…” I breathed, still tasting the pomegranate on my lips and feeling the solid determination in my heart. “Why are you just telling me this now?”
“I didn’t want to sway your path,” he retorted, “and if you were truly meant for someone else, well…I needed to know. Letting you go would have been the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I would have done it…for you.”
“I think I’ve always known I was meant to be with you,” I divulged. “For the longest time, I thought you were just a dream. You were the only light in my dark past; the only person I looked forward to seeing. The one thing no one could ever take away from me. Even if you weren’t real it didn’t matter, because you were…mine.”
“Yes, I am,” he grinned down at me and kissed me again.
“So where exactly is this omnipotent prophecy everyone’s raving about?” I asked jokingly, “I want to see if I’m going to win the lottery.”
Although I was joking, it was slightly unnerving that my entire life had been scripted for me already. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. And the fact that everyone else seemed to know more about it than me didn’t help. I planned on doing some research on the subject once I got back to Lorelei.
“You guys are the definition of the ‘Walk of Shame’,” Ricker chuckled, casually popping a piece of cheese toast into his mouth. We had returned to the villa at precisely the same moment my roommates had made the decision to come searching for us. Before we had taken three steps into the living room, we were subjected to a strict lecture from Carmen and Ricker explaining how certain they were that we’d been killed, stuffed, and were at that very moment being displayed on Nadia’s living room mantle. Thankfully, Natasha and Charon had left earlier that morning for a meeting on campus.
Carmen circled us with a critical eye; pecking at my hair and brushing off Finn’s sand-coated shirt.
“All the signs are there: messy hair, guilt-ridden faces, and wrinkled, sandy clothes from last night.” She chastised us with a disapproving frown and then whispered in my ear with a conspiring grin, “Not to mention the shit-eating grin on your face.”
“You guys leave them alone,” Willow scolded them and draped a supportive arm around me.
“They deserved a night to themselves.”
“And now I deserve a shower,” I laughed and inspected the travesty that was my appearance.
“Agreed,” Finn grinned down at his own sandy clothes.
“Just make sure you two behave up there,” Carmen wiggled her eyebrows before Willow elbowed her in the ribs.
“I’m not making any promises,” I winked at them as we climbed the stairs. I had a feeling that our love life had already been a topic of conversation, so why not torture them a little more and keep them guessing? When we reached my bedroom door, Finn hugged me tightly and kissed my cheek lovingly.