“Where were you?” Coty asks. “Sure as shit not here backing K.O. like you were supposed to be.”
“Taking a moonlit stroll on the beach. Thinking about life shit.” Chaz casually cups his hand around my ankle.
The story lines up; his bike has been here all along. Even still, Coty and Chaz share a look — one that says he was likely up to something more than just taking a stroll. It was probably a bit challenging tromping through the sand with riding boots on.
Brain totally over trying to solve riddles for the night, my floaty thoughts carry me a different direction. “The beach does that to you. Especially at night. If you lose something, you can find it there, sunk deep in the water or under the stars.”
“Oh, here we go.” Coty groans.
When I flash him a high-as-fuck coquettish glower — can one glower coquettishly? — he quirks his mouth up to the side, and he earns a chuckle. “You should try it some time, Coyote. Why do you think the water ebbs and flows?”
“No idea, but I have a strong feeling you’re about to tell me,” Coty states, tilting his head toward the blunt Kio had been holding out that I was too flighty and distracted to notice.
We swap possession, and I take a small hit, thoughts getting temporarily lost in the fiery red blaze. On my billowy exhale, I pass the blunt to Chaz and explain: “The rise of the tide collects your wishes. Your dreams. Your desires. The ebb sucks them into the gulf and carries them away with the current.” Chaz brushes my ankle lightly with his thumb, dragging the pad around to the sensitive tendon above my heel, challenging my concentration. “The gulf then mixes and churns your wishes and returns them to the shore for you to collect. If you believe in magic.”
By the time I finish the first part of my explanation, the blunt has made its way back to me. This time, I skip the hit and pass it directly to Chaz, wanting to make sure he gets enough since we started before he did. Chaz takes a big puff and lets it out slowly while I continue. “Why do you think so many people are mesmerized by the water licking their feet at the shore? Not everyone dives in. Not everyone keeps their distance higher up on the dry sand. But almost everyone cannot resist just a little tease of the froth against their toes.”
Chaz passes the blunt to Coty, removes the cheese puffs from the cradle of my lap, tears open the bag, and returns them to me, fingers dragging along my stomach and thigh on their retreat. I pluck one puff out and eat it right away, relishing the spicy and salty goodness and licking my fingers clean before finishing my monologue. “When you were a kid, did you ever plant your feet and let the tide push and pull over and over again until your soles melted and molded into the wet sand?” Coty nods slowly a couple times and passes the blunt to Kio. “We had more wishes back then. Small, sweet, innocent ones. The gulf eats those up and survives on that love.” Speaking of eating things up, I steal a few more puffs from the bag and shove them in my mouth. Cheeks filled like a chipmunk, manners lost, I say my last piece. “If we allow it as adults, that kiss of brine has the miraculous healing power to remind us of long lost wishes. But it can also remind us that sometimes our wishes are too big, or conversely inconsequential, for what the Universe has in mind.”
Of all the men, Kio is the one who chuckles, causing the wings of his falcon tattoo to flutter under my head. His joviality is light and short, but music to my ears nonetheless. “Mother Universe,” he says.
Chaz groans and throws his head back. “Damn, that is some deep shit.”
“Hard time keeping up?” Coty asks, toying with a small tobacco leaf between his fingers.
Chaz narrows his cyan eyes, now a red similar to that of his swollen cheek, at Coty and flips him the bird. “Like you could?”
“Hanging on every word,” Coty whispers, gaze floating to mine. “Made any wishes lately?” he asks.
“Always,” I sigh. “None of them have been answered yet. But one day… one day they will. And on that day, I will finally be free. Free of the chains this life has bound to me and finally given the ability to choose my next ones instead of being victim to ones chosen on my behalf.”
All three men are eerily silent as they absorb that statement. The blunt is forgotten between Kio’s finger and thumb, and his wrist dangles loosely over the arm of the couch, head back and eyes closed. Chaz cups and squeezes my knee.
Coty stares at me, gears turning. He knows the comment mostly means my lifestyle. The saloon. The sex and drugs. They all know that. But somewhere amid our silence, the new chains I have been bound with — the very ones they wrapped and locked themselves — become noticeable as part of those very wishes.
After all, I had deposited them into the sea while Kio bathed me.