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I t was weirdly easy to forget that Riddick was actually dead once I made the conscious decision to just accept it.

Waking up the next morning to find him wrapped around me was just as good as it had been when I’d thought he was alive.

It was honestly even better now because he didn’t have a problem coming into town or hanging out with me while I spent time with Jet or Turtle.

Now that I knew, he wasn’t worried about me freaking out about them not being able to see or hear him. So, when I surfed with Jet the next day, Riddick came along, too.

It took a little getting used to. Often, he would say something in response to our conversation, and I would have to remember not to laugh or reply .

Sometimes, I slipped up, and people looked at me like I was a little crazy, but I didn’t care.

I was just happy to have him around.

It was also interesting to learn about the strange parameters of whatever cosmic rules bound him to our shack. When he passed through the property line, I lost the ability to touch him. I could still see and hear him, but my hand would just pass right through his body when he came to town with me.

He couldn’t move or touch things outside of our property line either, but he could in the shack.

He began to fade away altogether if we moved too far out of Stars Cove. He was irrevocably bound to his property and told me he could never really leave.

He informed me that he’d learned there were even boundaries out in the ocean. If he paddled too far out, he lost the ability to control his board.

Unless he was using his teal shortboard.

Apparently, that was the board he’d been using when he died, and it seemed to be just as invisible to Jet and Turtle as he was.

A few days after we promised ourselves to each other on his grave, I’d asked him to tell me about the day he died.

We’d been lying in my bed, and he was gently stroking my hair the way he did every night before I fell asleep.

“Tell me,” I whispered and watched his expression carefully, hating the sad look that pinched his brows as he remembered that fateful day.

“I was careless,” he explained. “I shouldn’t have been in the water to begin with. I didn’t trust my gut.”

I nodded, understanding now why he was constantly drilling ‘when in doubt, don’t paddle out’ into my head.

“There was a storm brewing, so the waves were more unpredictable than they usually were, but we figured we would just go out for a few hours and then come back in before the storm fully rolled in. ”

This reckless version of the overly cautious man I knew felt like a completely different person to me. The Riddick I knew would never let me put a toe in the water if there was a storm brewing. He would have my ass… literally.

As if he could see where my mind had gone, he gave me a small smirk, tracing one of my eyebrows with his thumb and making me shiver.

“I was… a cocky little bastard.” He chuckled. “Much like someone else I know.”

I grinned at him, curling my toes slightly in response to his gentle touch.

“I guess that’s why Jet says I remind him of you. I always thought that was kind of strange, considering you’re always so grumpy, and I’m hilarious .”

Riddick chuckled softly and shook his head. “Yeah, well. Nothing more humbling than drowning to death.” The smile slipped off both our faces and my gut churned uncomfortably.

“So what happened?” I whispered, and he sighed.

“Everything that could possibly go wrong did. I paddled out, trying to catch a solid thirty-footer, but the peak shifted at the last minute, and I was forced to take the second wave that rolled in.

“The next wave came out of nowhere. It was at least seventy feet, and I was close enough to the break line that I was worried it would collapse on top of me if I didn’t ride it.

“So, I took a chance… and it was the wrong choice. The wave broke early, and in an effort to not fall to my death, I did my best to stay ahead of it. I was so focused on not wiping out that I didn’t realize I was heading straight for the death zone.”

I gasped, and he gave me a haunted look.

“I got caught in a double wave hold down, and my board ended up lodged between two rocks. I couldn’t even get to the surface because the quick release failed on my tether.”

“Fuck…” I breathed. “That feels… cosm ically unfair.”

He shrugged. “I guess it was my time. The ocean wanted my life, and there was no escaping it. But even now, I panic a little whenever my tether pulls after a wipeout. That’s partially why I was so pissed at you that first day when you dropped in on my wave.

I was a little triggered after my tether pulled me up. ”

Guilt rushed through me, and I cupped his face and brushed my lips across his.

“I’m sorry, baby,” I whispered, and he let out a soft sigh, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me in close.

He buried his face in my neck.

“It’s okay. You didn’t know,” he murmured against me, his breath tickling the sensitive skin under my jaw.

He took a deep inhale as if just the scent of my skin comforted him, and I dropped a kiss on the top of his head.

“I love you, Jake Whittling,” I whispered, and he shuddered and kissed me again, just below the ear. I’d noticed that whenever I called him by his real name, he had this deep, visceral reaction to it. I resolved at that moment to do it more often.

“I love you too, Finn Summers.” He hummed, and I drifted off, wrapped around the man who’d lost everything but somehow managed to still give me so much.