It was hot out the next morning. There was a breeze, but it only served to push the heat around, like turning on the A/C in a car that had been sitting in the summer sun for hours. Liam was already drenched in sweat, his tank soaked through. He wished he wouldn't have even bothered with a shirt this morning.
Molly waved as he approached the lighthouse. "Getting a late start today, huh?"
Liam slowed to a halt in front of her. "Didn't get much sleep." He had a hard time going back to sleep after saving Kaelin. Every time he started to drift off, he would jerk awake, thinking he heard her calling out to him. He got up at least four times to make sure she was still in bed. She didn't seem to have any trouble. She was still asleep when he left for his run.
"I'm guessing not in the good way." The wind rustled her red hair, blowing it into her face. She just kept pushing it back with tiny noises of frustration.
"Afraid not." He chuckled. "Just a bad night."
"Oh!" Molly's face suddenly lit up, her eyes bulging out. He could see that the small talk was over. "You will not believe what I saw this morning." She grabbed his bicep, chuckling. "It was so weird, I've been dying to tell someone."
"What?"
"I was up in the lantern room, and when I looked down at the beach, these four guys just walked out of the surf, out of nowhere."
"What's so weird about that?" Liam asked. "They were probably divers or something."
"I wasn't finished," Molly said, mild annoyance coloring her voice. "The weird part was that they were stark naked! Every one of 'em."
Liam's stomach did a backflip. "Sounds like something these guys I know would do." He thought his lie sounded convincing enough, so he ventured to ask, "What exactly did they look like?"
"Big muscle guys." Molly mimed like a bodybuilder. She was a very active talker. She raised her hand high over her head. "Three of them were at least six feet tall, maybe more, with like huge arms and wide chests; the kind of natural bronze-y brown skin that cannot be attained in a tanning booth or any spray-on solution. The other guy was smaller, like thinner, but totally ripped. He was white, really pale, and his hair was like platinum."
"Almost like Kaelin's." Liam guessed.
"Yeah, actually. A lot like hers. I'll tell you what though," She puckered her thick lips to whistle appreciatively. "They were some of the hottest men I've seen in my whole life."
"Great," Liam muttered. He wondered if any of them were the mermen who attacked Kaelin in that memory he saw.
"You okay there, buddy?"
Liam jolted when a hand touched his shoulder. He looked at Molly. Her freckled forehead was creased with concern.
He tried to smile, though it probably wasn't convincing. "Everything's fine." He pointed his thumb over his shoulder. "I gotta get going back to the house."
He started backing away, offering a wave. "See ya later."
The wind whipped up again to throw her hair into her face. She cursed loudly, garnering a nasty stare from a woman herding a brood of small children toward the beach.
Normally Liam would've laughed at that, but his mind was otherwise occupied as he turned to run back to Grandfather's house. He needed to tell Kaelin about what Molly saw, so she didn't accidentally run into one of them and get hauled off back into the ocean.