Faking Love

Chapter Thirteen: seas the day

Daisy was not ready to jump in the water.

"We'll be down there for twenty minutes, tops," Laia assured her, only her head and shoulders bobbing above sea level. A pair of huge goggles distorted her russet eyes, making it seem as though she was watching Daisy from the other side of a fish bowl.

And that was exactly how Daisy felt—like she was swimming around and around in a glass container, the world beyond a blur of green and blue and blinding light that was impossible to reach, to grasp. She felt dizzy. Sick. The smell of brine was cloying. Suffocating. She felt like the oxygen had been cut off, like her lungs were about to burst. She was sitting at the end of a tiny white boat, dangling her legs in the sea, and all she could see was a shark appearing from the crystal blue depths to tear her apart limb from limb.

"Dais?" Belle prodded gently, battling a wave beside Lai.

"Do you know how much of the ocean has been explored?" Daisy whispered meekly.

"I—"

"Five per cent." That left a lot of room for giant crabs and Godzilla and flesh-eating mermaids that had a penchant for gingers.

Something touched her leg.

Daisy jerked back from the water, sending a splash Ruby's way in the process.

"Kenji!" Lai scolded.

Kenji withdrew the hand he'd placed on Daisy's leg, holding it above his head in mock surrender. "Sorry. Didn't think."

"It's okay," Daisy tried to say, but her voice rivalled the size of a mouse. Her pulse was performing some kind of quickstep while her vision was blurring, her head breaking her P.B. for average pirouettes per second. She flinched again when the person sitting next to her leaned forward, trying to draw her gaze.

"We don't have to do it, you know," Hunt murmured.

Slowly, she turned, meeting his eye. He was only wearing a pair of swimming shorts, and the sun was doing something wicked to the bare plains of his golden chest. For the first time, Daisy noticed he had a tattoo looping around his left bicep, but her vision was too blurry to make it out.

Probably because she hadn't breathed in a solid minute.

"I ... can't." She was shivering, even though it was at least thirty degrees. She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to keep the shudders at bay. It was stupid. Embarrassing. Childish. Humiliating.

Daisy was terrified of the ocean.

Funnily enough, she really wasn't in the mood to drown. She was never joking about drowning ever again.

Hunt just nodded, and his expression was so soft it made Daisy suck in a breath. Which reminded her to breathe. "That's okay," he told her. To the others, he said, "You guys go ahead." He leaned back on his hands. "We're going to soak up some sun."

Laia looked sceptical, but after exchanging some quiet words with Kenji, she drew a deep breath, then followed Belle, Ruby, and their guide down into the water. Daisy's mind must have been sluggish, because it took the five of them disappearing for her to realise what Hunt had said.

"You can go," she told him, trying to clamp her jaw shut to keep her teeth from chattering with nerves. "You don't have to stay with me. Go." She'd seen the way his face had lit up when Amira had announced the day's activity—while they'd already been on the boat, floating out in open water, much to Daisy's dismay. Being on a boat was already a mean feat for her. She hated being anywhere where she couldn't touch the ground. But Hunt ... he was a ranger. An adventurer by trade. No way in hell was she ruining his day.