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F inn cried himself to sleep in my arms. I knew there was nothing I could say to make the reality of our situation okay. I was probably the last person he wanted to be holding him in that moment, but there was no one else.

Just me.

The dead man that’d been haunting the beach that had killed him.

Once Finn had passed out, I carried him to bed and tucked him in. His cheeks were puffy, and his eyes were swollen from all the tears, and my heart broke seeing him like this.

On reflex, I moved to take his clothes off but stopped myself.

‘Don’t you baby me! ’

‘Don’t fucking touch me!’

I winced. The privilege of seeing Finn’s body had been revoked. Even if he would sleep more comfortably in his boxers, I didn’t think he would want me to be the one to strip him down.

Not anymore.

A painful lump formed in my throat, and I forced back tears as I tucked him in, fully clothed, before wandering outside to get some fresh air.

Not that I needed air to exist, but breathing had been a tough habit to crack. I found the act of it still relaxed me.

It gave me the illusion that I was still alive, and it was a small comfort in the endless, lonely existence that is death.

I wasn’t quite sure why I was stuck here, but after I drowned, something prevented me from following the light that had been calling my name.

I’d had this overwhelming feeling of regret and an insanely strong need to stay and ensure that the beach that had killed me didn’t take any more lives, and I think for that reason, I missed my one-way ticket to wherever I had been supposed to go.

Instead, I found myself bound to my property, unable to move on, but also unable to exist.

I could move objects within the boundaries of my property, but I had learned that if I left and went into Stars Cove, I became less corporeal.

No one could see or hear me, not even within the perimeter of my land, and I certainly couldn’t touch anyone.

Until Finn.

I’d heard him calling me that day we met, but I had assumed he was talking to someone else. Someone alive. When it became clear he’d been talking to me , I was so shocked I could barely respond.

Then, imagine my surprise when he reached out and touched me.

It was like his touch turned my normally transparent flesh real.

He’d been so warm and strong and… alive.

He was everything I’d taken for granted in life. At first, the fact that he could see and touch me felt like a cruel joke. Like dangling a carrot in front of a starved animal.

There was no future between me and someone who was alive. I shouldn’t even be here to begin with.

Then, when I learned that he was here to surf the beach that had cursed me with an eternity of solitude, I’d been furious and terrified and desperate to keep him from suffering the same fate .

It was around that time that I began to wonder if this was some sort of divine intervention.

Was there a reason Finn was here and was the only one I could see and touch?

Was I supposed to help him survive Leviathans?

Or was this all just a cruel game the universe was playing for its own amusement?

Right now, it felt like the latter.

Because despite how hard I’d tried to avoid the inevitable… I had fallen in love with Finn Summers, and he’d fallen in love with me.

It was a fucking tragedy, and I knew it.

We were never supposed to be together because he needed to live, and my life was already over.

I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed.

What a fucking mess.

Headlights lit up the driveway, and I turned to face the sound of tires crunching gravel.

It was Blake’s car, but once again, she wasn’t the one driving it. It was Makoa or Jet. Kai and I had given him that nickname after he pulled off an insane flip over a jetski when we were teenagers.

What the fuck was he doing here?

My eyes narrowed as he made his way up to the shack, his hair pulled back in a half pony and black dri-fit shorts.

He walked right past me because, of course, he couldn’t see me and knocked on Finn’s door .

“Hey! Kid! I know you’re in there; I saw you walking up the road. Blake and everyone’s freaking out ‘cause you abandoned your shift or something.”

“He’s sleeping!” I snarled uselessly at my friend.

Of course, Jet didn’t hear me and kept pounding away on Finn’s door.

I wanted to throttle him. Finn was going through something insanely traumatic, and he needed to rest. I hated that I couldn’t intervene. I’d felt similar when he’d told me that little twat, Kyle Tully, had given him a hard time at the beach party.

If I’d been alive, I would have beaten that kid within an inch of his life for fucking with my man. As it was, I couldn’t even go to the store to buy fucking lube, let alone fight some little asshole.

“Dude! Open the door!” Jet bellowed, banging even harder with his fist, until finally, Finn swung the door open, looking furious.

“What the fuck do you want!?” He snarled in a very un -Finn way.

Jet shot him a classic ‘Jet’ grin, the kind of smile he used to give me back in the day. If I had blood, it would be fucking boiling.

“Hey, surf star. Knew you were hiding in there,” Jet said easily, pushing Finn aside and stepping into the shack.

Finn looked shocked at Jet’s brazenness, then his eyes found mine, and his expression darkened further.

I swallowed.

“Do you want me to stay out here?” I asked softly, not knowing where we stood now.

He glanced back and forth between me and where I assumed Jet was likely making himself at home in the shack. For a moment, I really thought Finn was going to slam the door shut on me, but he seemed to deflate after a moment and jerked his head, indicating that I should come back inside.

Guilt swirled in my gut at how tired he looked.

It was my fault he looked like that.

This wasn’t like on the anniversary of his mother’s death when I’d been able to comfort him when he’d been breaking. This time, I was the reason he was breaking, and I was terrified of doing the wrong thing and hurting him further.

Finn watched me warily as I stepped into the shack, his lips pursing as Jet clearly didn’t acknowledge my presence.

I went and sat on the couch, feeling extremely on edge.

I didn’t like that Jet was here. Not because I didn’t think that Jet was a good guy.

He was one of my closest friends growing up…

I was uncomfortable because I knew how charming and attractive he was…

and Finn was just his type, especially now that he’d put on so much muscle from all the training I’d put him through.

Finn wasn’t the slight, lean boy he’d been when we met. His shoulders had broadened, and his muscles, which were already defined, had filled out and were now hard mounds of pure sex.

He was fucking gorgeous, and because the change had been so gradual for me, I hadn’t really noticed until right this moment… but I was noticing now.

Because Jet had noticed too, and it was making me feel sick to my stomach.

Jet leaned casually against the counter, crossing his legs out in front of him and eyeing Finn up and down with that half-cocked grin of his.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, surf star; everything alright?”

Finn just gave him a tired look and rubbed the back of his neck, sighing.

“What are you doing here, man?”

“I told you. All your friends are worried about you. Blake said you left in the middle of your shift without telling anyone.”

“That doesn’t explain why they sent you. I don’t know you at all.”

He shrugged, though his grin widened.

“I wouldn’t say that, surf star. I thought we got along pretty well today, shredding the cove.”

My fists clenched on my lap .

“You surfed with him today?” I growled. Finn’s eyes darted to me, then back to Jet, who was still looking at him like he wanted to know what he tasted like.

Finn didn’t answer me. Instead, he pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed again.

“Look—Jet, right?”

“Sure, but I let my close friends call me Makoa,” he said easily, and I grit my teeth together.

He was fucking flirting with him!

Finn, happily, seemed either unaware or uninterested. “Listen, I’m having a pretty shit night. I’m not in the mood to entertain some random dude I barely know. So if you don’t have a reason for being here, then I’d appreciate it if you?—”

“Blake was right; you do surf like him,” Jet interrupted.

Finn glanced at me again, but it was brief enough that I don’t think Jet noticed.

Jet pushed up off the counter and took a few steps closer to Finn, who was frowning now.

“I’ll admit, I kinda jumped at the chance to come check on you when Blake messaged me freaking out. Seeing you surf today was… Let’s just say I’m intrigued.”

“Intrigued?” Finn breathed, and Jet continued to close the distance between them.

“Yeah. Intrigued. You’re good, surf star. Like, really good. Do you have anyone coaching you?”

Finn’s gaze darted to me again, and my heart sank as his normally bright eyes turned flat and dead.

“Not anymore,” he whispered, and my stomach bottomed out.

Jet’s grin widened.

“Cool. So the position’s open, then?”

Finn met his gaze, and there was a long beat of silence that made me want to tear my fucking hair out before, finally, he nodded.

“Yeah. I guess it is. ”

“Dope.” Jet grinned, and I watched in horror as he reached out and touched Finn’s chin.

He literally touched his fucking face.

Like he had a right to.

“See you tomorrow, surf star. I’ll be here bright and early. Can’t wait to see what you’ve got on the real shit.” He winked, then left the shack, spinning Blake’s car keys in his hand as he went.