Chapter 66

The name of the man who had saved Rhys was Dante Bellini. Björn, who had woken before Rhys, was the one who told him.

Dante.

Dante Bellini.

It was the same name as the man who wrote The Divine Comedy. Rhys repeated the name silently inside his mouth, fascinated by the texture of it.

At the time of their rescue, Björn had been in the gravest danger, but after they reached the hospital, he was the first to recover. Zev had somehow managed to find Björn in the water, but because he couldn’t fight the brutal current, he hadn’t been able to make it back to shore. He had been rescued while still conscious; if not for Zev, Björn would have died. Yet, though Rhys had arrived at the hospital first because of the stranger’s swift intervention, he was the last to wake. Physically, his body was fine. The shock had simply been too great for his mind to process.

Even though Rhys had done nothing out there, Zev and Björn were profoundly grateful to him. Björn even wept as he apologized for getting angry earlier, and Zev had wrapped Rhys in a tight embrace the moment he finally opened his eyes, refusing to let go.

But Rhys knew he had truly been no help at all. He had dove into the churning waves to save them, yet he hadn’t even managed to get near them before being dragged out himself—rescued before either of his cousins. When Rhys voiced exactly what he felt, Zev shook his head in gentle denial.

“The fact that you went into the ocean at all is incredible,” Zev said. “That itself means something. Thank you, Rhys.”

The moment Rhys heard Zev’s words, a vivid memory of the stranger flashed through his mind. He remembered the man’s searing body heat radiating against his own frozen skin, and the overwhelming sense of relief that had washed over him in the arms that held him so securely. Even now, sitting perfectly still in his hospital bed, he couldn’t stop thinking about that water-soaked black hair, the smooth jawline, and those dark brows. Whenever the image of the man surfaced, the sharp scent of the sea inevitably rushed back with it. But Rhys no longer hated that smell the way he used to. Instead, laced with the warm comfort he had felt in the man’s embrace, the memory only made Rhys miss him.

The three of them stayed in the hospital for about two days. In truth, a single day would have been sufficient, but their cousins’ parents had rushed over the moment they heard about the accident, and Rhys’s mother had flown in from New York in a panic. They stayed an extra day simply to appease everyone’s agonizing worry. Perhaps because she felt she had nearly lost Rhys a second time, his mother wept for a long while before announcing that she wanted to personally express her gratitude to the Coast Guard members who had saved them.

That was the moment Rhys finally spoke the name aloud.

“The person named Dante… saved me.”

His heart pounded at the mere mention of it. At the sudden thought that he might actually see the man again, an inexplicable flutter of excitement stirred in his chest. It was the first genuine emotion he had felt since the accident. Rhys noticed his mother studying him carefully, tracking the normal expression returning to his face for the first time in ages. She had probably realized it before anyone else.

Rhys was letting someone into his heart for the very first time.

Under the pretext of making a charitable donation, his mother arranged to visit the San Diego station. She could have easily gone alone, but the day before the visit, she asked Rhys if he wanted to accompany her. The moment he heard Dante’s name, Rhys nodded hurriedly. Since they were still staying at their cousin’s house, Björn and Zev overheard the plan and immediately made a massive fuss about tag-along. At the time, their enthusiasm irritated Rhys a little. He couldn’t quite understand why.

They weren’t permitted to enter the secure internal facilities, but Rhys was given the chance to meet the rescue workers at a nearby café. While the adults spoke with the officer in charge inside, the four rescue workers who had deployed to the scene stood out on the patio with coffee in hand, laughing and talking among themselves.

Dante Bellini was among them.

Dante in broad daylight was… how should Rhys even put it?

He looked like someone born directly from the sun.

After hearing that the man was at the café, Rhys had run over in a desperate hurry, only to freeze in utter bewilderment the moment he spotted Dante standing outside in full uniform. The person standing there was entirely different from the phantom in his memory.

When Dante had pulled him from the sea, he had been drenched in seawater and pouring rain; the only detail Rhys remembered with absolute clarity was a pair of steady hazel eyes. He also retained fragmented facts—how remarkably large Dante’s hands were, and how high his body temperature had felt—but his overall impression of the man’s face had been blurred by the trauma. Until this exact second, Rhys had only thought of him as a benefactor who had saved both his past and present selves. He hadn’t felt anything else.

But the moment he saw Dante laughing easily among his colleagues, Rhys’s heart began to pound madly. He had intended to stride straight over and offer his thanks, but his legs turned to stone. He couldn’t move a single inch.

…How am I supposed to speak to someone that handsome?

The man was astonishingly beautiful. Until now, the only handsome people Rhys had ever acknowledged were his own cousins. He had seen plenty of decent-looking people at his university in Manhattan, of course, but none of them had ever struck him as truly good-looking compared to his own blood relatives. But this man was entirely different.

“What are you doing? Go on,” Björn urged, shoving Rhys lightly when he came to a sudden halt despite the rescue workers being right there.

Zev and Björn exchanged puzzled expressions, but they didn’t hesitate. “Hello!” they called out, waving cheerfully.

The rescue workers stopped talking and turned all at once. The gaze of the man who had been smiling while sipping his coffee shifted, landing squarely in Rhys’s direction.

For a brief second, the man’s expression settled into professional indifference, but the moment his eyes found Rhys standing frozen in place, his entire countenance transformed. The handsome man, his slightly curly black hair swept neatly off his forehead, smiled brilliantly the instant he recognized him. Raising his coffee cup in a casual greeting, he flashed a white-toothed smile that carved deep dimples into his cheeks and called out Rhys’s name.

“Hi, Iris.”

Beneath the dark, handsome brows arching across his face, hazel eyes glimmering with flecks of gold in the sunlight curved in a fresh, bright arc. His black lashes weren’t quite as long as Rhys’s, but the lower lashes were dense and strikingly pretty. The sharp lines of his face, the chiseled jaw, and the straight, prominent nose all lent him a powerful, masculine impression, yet the dimples that softened his cheeks and the easy, relaxed lift of his mouth kept him from appearing unapproachable or overly harsh.

His towering height, athletic build, solid neck, and flawless face converged to make him an exceptionally attractive man without a single blemish. When expressionless, he seemed somewhat cold, but the warmth that bloomed across his face the moment he saw Rhys made him several times more captivating. The man was truly beautiful when he smiled. His features were unquestionably masculine, yet looking at that smile, the only word that filled Rhys’s mind was beautiful.

The moment Dante called his name, Rhys stepped forward as if completely enchanted. But as he drew nearer to someone this dazzling, a sudden wave of self-consciousness struck him; his own clothes felt terribly shabby. He was just wearing his standard attire—a thin sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers. Standing before a man in a crisp uniform, he felt entirely insignificant.

When Rhys finally halted in front of him, Dante set his coffee cup down on a raised flowerbed behind him. Then, looking genuinely thrilled by the surprise visit, he offered a warm, eye-crinkling smile. Rhys stared back like an absolute idiot, only remembering to greet him after a long, awkward beat.

“… Hello,” Rhys mumbled.

“How’s your body? Are you feeling okay now?” Dante asked, meeting his gaze directly.

Only then, with Dante looking slightly up at him, did Rhys realize that he was actually the taller one. That sudden realization left him feeling strangely unsettled. Out in the roaring sea, the man who had guided him through the waves had felt as massive as a mountain, but standing face-to-face on solid ground, Rhys had the height advantage.

Strange….

A tiny, ticklish sensation kept fluttering inside his chest, as though someone were gently brushing the interior of his ribs with a feather. Rhys rubbed the nape of his neck, which had suddenly grown burning hot, rationalizing that the midday sunlight seemed especially intense today. Twenty-three-year-old Iris Elliott, who possessed absolutely zero experience when it came to liking someone, was thoroughly flustered by this unfamiliar, unidentifiable sensation. He wanted to look into Dante’s eyes, so he forced himself to maintain contact, but when those hazel eyes locked onto his with a knowing smile, an intense wave of embarrassment rushed over him. Dante let out a soft, amused chuckle, seemingly finding Rhys’s shy, evasive behavior endearing.

“Huh? Yes. I’m okay now,” Rhys stammered.

He realized several seconds too late that his response sounded utterly pathetic. Surely there had been a better, more mature way to answer.

“That’s good,” Dante said, his smile remaining refreshingly easygoing, entirely unbothered by the awkwardness. “Tell your cousins never to go surfing so carelessly on a rainy day again, okay?”

Rhys felt a wave of relief wash over him at the man’s casual demeanor. “Yes, I will.”

He desperately wanted to say so much more, but they lacked any shared history or topics beyond the boundaries of that single rescue. Rhys had technically come just to offer his gratitude, so in reality, no other words were strictly required.

And yet, a sudden, insatiable curiosity about the man gripped him. It was his very first time wanting to truly know another human being, leaving him entirely ignorant of what he should say next. How long had Dante been a rescue worker? Did he frequently meet the people he saved, like Rhys? Had Dante perhaps thought about him over the last two days, too? Was he… dating anyone?

… Huh? Why on earth am I curious about that?

Flustered by the scandalous thought surfacing without his permission, Rhys rubbed the back of his neck again. A bright red flush bloomed across his face, heating his earlobes and the rims of his ears to a dark crimson. Dante watched him quietly for a moment, then reached into the pocket of his uniform and pulled out a clean handkerchief.

“You’re really hot, aren’t you?” Dante noted conversationally. “I was surprised when I first stationed here, too. New York was never this hot.”

Dante extended the handkerchief as if it were the most natural gesture in the world. Rhys stared at it with wide, round eyes, prompting Dante to give it a playful little shake, silently coaxing him to accept it. Rhys hurriedly reached out. The fabric against his palm was a very soft, blue cotton, and the material smelled faintly of fresh laundry softener. Beneath that scent, there was a subtle, trace note of crisp citrus.

Is this… Dante’s pheromone?

Because Rhys had spent his entire life strictly surrounded by Alphas, the question occurred to him reflexively. Dante’s commanding physical presence and easy confidence felt intensely Alpha-like, so it was only natural for Rhys to assume as much. Yet, somewhere deep within his subconscious, a secret, desperate wish bloomed that Dante might actually be an Omega.

“Ah, thank you,” Rhys managed, offering yet another painfully basic response.

He despised how incredibly immature he was acting, blurting out nothing but short, rigid answers. At this rate, the conversation would dry up completely. He didn’t want to behave the way he did around his cousins, nor did he want to act like he usually did with peers his own age. He wanted to look good. Truly.

Clutching the soft fabric tightly, Rhys scrambled to throw out another line of conversation. It was a minor miracle that the topic even occurred to him.

“You lived in New York?” Rhys asked quickly. “I’m from New York, too. I just came out here to visit my cousins for vacation.”

The moment the word left his mouth, it felt agonizingly childish. Vacation. In front of a man whose daily life consisted of wrestling people away from a brutal, life-threatening sea, Rhys was babbling about a holiday. A wave of intense self-loathing washed over him.

Dante blinked, looking amused. “Vacation? Are you still in high school?”

Rhys stared back at him in sheer shock. He was fully grown and exceptionally tall; he couldn’t comprehend why Dante would mistake him for a high schooler. Other people frequently mistook him for a working model who had already graduated from university.

“No!” Rhys countered defensively. “I’m in college. I’m about to graduate, actually.”

“Really?” Dante murmured, tilting his head. “You just look incredibly young.”

“… I do? Why?”

He realized a beat too late that even that whiny question only reinforced his youthful image. Months and years after this day, Rhys would revisit this exact meeting thousands of times, anchoring every syllable into his memory with absolute clarity.

“Hmm….”

Dante folded his arms across his chest, adopting a thoughtful expression as if he were genuinely trying to puzzle out the answer himself. Rhys, who kept averting his gaze out of sheer bashfulness only to inevitably drag his eyes back to the man, caught sight of the firm, prominent bulge of muscle in Dante’s bicep and the defined lines of his chest beneath the uniform. His heart skipped a beat. A tight, painful ache pulled sharply across his lower abdomen, and his eyes burned with a sudden intensity.

“Maybe because you’re so pretty?” Dante offered smoothly. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a boy as pretty as you.”

At Dante’s casual compliment, Rhys’s heart gave a violent squeeze that bordered on painful. His face flamed into a deep crimson visible to anyone on the patio. Lowering his head sharply to hide his expression, he managed only a bare, breathless whisper.

“… I’m pretty?”