Dominic muttered.
Buff walked past him and elbowed him in the head. “Whoops.”
Dominic spun, grabbed Buff’s collar, and had his fist cocked behind him when Amber stirred.
Her eyelashes fluttered. Everyone held their breath. A nurse entered to check her vitals. He paused and watched her too.
Amber’s eyes opened. She sat up, blinked, and stared around at her visitors.
Aaron bit his lip so hard he drew blood. His heart thundered against his eardrums, making him wince with every beat.
“Amber,” he said, “are you—are you—”
Then she wrapped her hands around his neck, leaned forward, and gave him a long, passionate kiss on the mouth. Right in front of everybody. His lips caught fire.
The nurse did a double take, checked his clipboard, then stood awkwardly in the corner—because he was witnessing a girl kiss a boy who was not her half.
Amber pulled her head back, and Aaron had to catch his jaw. Her green eyes sparkled as if illuminated from behind. Aaron’s body felt weak and jittery, his lungs like they were filled with helium. Relief.
“Did I answer your question?” she said.
“No, I think you need to kiss me again,” he said.
“In your dreams.” Amber glanced up at the four other people crammed into her room watching them, and she blushed furiously.
Almost as if she couldn’t feel the hole. Aaron caught Buff’s eye, and his friend understood.
“Well, I better get off to the fields,” Buff said loudly. “Cal trains year-round.”
“Go back to Junior League Rugby,” said Dominic, following Tina and the nurse into the hall.
Once they were alone, Amber locked eyes with Aaron. “So . . . neither one of us has a half,” she said. “Does that mean . . . ”
“No idea,” he said, his heart still in free-fall at the mere sight her—right now, a mess of tousled hair and big bright eyes.
She bit her lip, clearly deep in thought. “Hang on,” she said. “Kiss me again.”
Aaron kissed her, and he realized she no longer felt forbidden. Her skin felt divine, charged. Just touching her stole his breath, scalded his nerves, almost like—
Of course! He pulled back, just as Amber’s eyes brightened with the same realization.
“How?” was all she said, her jaw suspended.
“Casler unblocked my channel!” he said. “It was supposed to kill me, but the machine severed your channel too. We were two loose ends; we must have snapped together.”
Amber stared at him. “So we’re—”
“Yes,” he said. “We are.”
“You mean, you and I, we’re actually . . . ” she trailed off, unable to form the words. “I want you to say it.”
“Amber, we’re halves . . . just like we’re supposed to be.”
It was obvious now. He could feel her weighing down his heart, how close she was. He wanted to leap into her body, memorize her. He saw it in her eyes too—her desperation to close the gap between them. To make up for eighteen years apart.
They were two halves of the same soul.
EPILOGUE
Plus 3 Months
“Buddy, just lift it from the back,” said Buff.
“No way—” Aaron’s golden arms flexed against the solid brass. “You got to pull from the front.”
Aaron collapsed, pulled off his goggles, and wiped his forehead. He gasped for breath. The sun kissed the tops of their heads.
He grinned and high fived his best friend.
Behind them, the Bermuda surf was already washing away the deep gouge they had left in the sand.
Buff peered at him over the top of the corroded brass eyepiece. “Let’s go down and get the rest of the treasure.”
“Give me a minute,” said Aaron.
Aaron gazed at a cluster of palm trees. They had grown right up to the water’s edge. Some fallen coconuts floated in the shady shallows beneath them. Beyond the palms, the white shoreline curved out of sight on its way around the tiny island.
Their 28-foot sailboat, Endless Honeymoon, was just visible around the bend—a wedding gift meant for Amber and Clive that she had managed to hold on to.
Buff’s half, Daisy, scampered out of the jungle. The little redhead hardly made it up to Buff’s biceps.
“That is so cool! What’d you guys find?” she said.
Buff picked her up with one arm. She giggled and tried to escape.
“Buddy, care to explain our find?” said Buff
“It’s an aitherscope, probably eighty years old,” said Aaron, beaming at them. “We found it in the wreck.”
“Aitherscopes didn’t exist eighty years ago,” she said.
“Yeah, Buddy, don’t you remember that lecture?” Buff dropped her in the sand, flicked some sludge off the eyepiece and pressed his eye to the lens. “I wonder . . .