“I’m Novo,” he said, and I knew instantly that it was the only name in the history of names good enough for him.

That’s when he hit me with the Saint Jude thing—patron saint of lost causes—and I was like, “Really? Why didn’t I know that?” and I thought, even then, that this was bound to be one of them, a lost cause. That this was going to trample all over us whether we wanted it to or not.

“Whatever,” I said. “Lost causes are underrated anyway.”

He took my hand, and my skin lit up like the sea under his fingers, pulsed and shimmered just below the surface, and we both watched it, we both smiled, and I wasn’t afraid, not even for the smallest fraction of a second. Not ever.

“Pleased to meet you, Novo,” I said, my veins full of fireflies.

We just looked at each other, without speaking, without needing to speak, and then I broke the quiet.

“What is this?” I said, holding my arms out, still filled with light. “How do you do that?”

And even as I asked it, I knew I was in over my head.

“That’s just me, being me,” he said.

I nodded like I understood. But I didn’t. I couldn’t.

He said, “I warn you. I’m not from here.”

I laughed. “Yeah. Me neither.”

His eyes were black and white. “I mean I’m not from anywhere, Jude. I’m not like you. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I said. “I do. I can see that. I believe you.”

The morning was golden and the air was laced at the edges with the stink of kelp and saltwater. Birds picked intently at the baking seaweed, patrolling their lines and lifting now and then straight up into the air on invisible currents.

Novo smiled and shook his head a little.

“Are you ready?” he said.

“For what?”

“For everything I have to give you.”

“What do you mean?”

“You have a choice. You can say no and get up now and go back to your old life, same as it was, and nothing bad will happen. I won’t bother you. I promise I won’t do that.”

“Or?”

“Or you can take a chance,” he said. “Say yes.”

“To what?”

Novo shrugged. He hadn’t taken his eyes off me. Not once. “To everything.”

I laughed a little, leaned back in the sand, finding the cool beneath its surface with the points of my elbows. “What’s everything?”

He thought about it for a moment. “Everything possible and impossible,” he said. “No distinction. I come from a place between things. Ten lifetimes of adventure on the head of a pin. Unrepeatable and unforgettable.”

“Are you serious?” I said. “Do I have to say yes or no?”

“Absolutely. This is a moment,” he said. “Mark it. Life changing. I guarantee.”

“And what’s the catch?”

“The catch?”