“Yep.” He scooped some more food into his mouth and smiled at me around his fork.
“No. I’m serious. It’s fantastic!” He laughed, but I was too busy eating to worry if he thought I was silly. Our conversation slowed, but it wasn’t from lack of things to talk about. Mainly, we were just focused on our food. As soon as I got to the last couple of bites, I frowned.
“What’s wrong?”
“I should have eaten slower, but it was just too good.” I frowned and cut a piece in half, trying to prolong the meal a little more.
“We can order another.” He motioned to the waitress, but I shook my head.
“No, I’m okay. I’ll know next time, though.”
“Next time, huh?” His eyes gleamed in the darkness and I froze. I hadn’t realized what I had implied.
“Uh, I just meant…”
“I’d like it if there was a next time.” He ducked his head, looking up at me from under his lashes.
“Yeah?” I mentally kicked myself for not coming up with something witty. I just hoped I didn’t have food stuck in my teeth, too. At this point it would be par for the course.
“Yeah, Meena. I’d like to see you again.” He lowered his voice and leaned forward. He held his hand out for me and I laid my palm on top of his. “If you want, that is.”
“I’d like that.” Out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of long, light blue hair and froze.
Sitting not three tables away were the mermaids I had seen last night. How had I missed them until now? How long had they been sitting there? The merman nodded at me, his face friendly, and I wondered if they knew what I was. Why else would he have nodded like that?
“Friends?” Blake’s voice cut through my thoughts and I looked at him with wide eyes.
“No.” I shook my head as if that one word hadn’t been clear enough.
“Ex-boyfriend?”
“No. I’ve never met him before.” I looked at him and frowned.
“Well, looks like you’re about to.” I looked back to the table and realized that the mermaid was getting out of her seat and smiling at us. I had no idea what to do or how to act and out of all the times I had imagined meeting another mermaid, not once had I thought it would happen on a first date.
“Hi!” The mermaid bounced over to our table. Her bright yellow dress was almost garish, even in the moonlight. “I’m Mireille.”
“Hi.” My brain was really letting me down tonight, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Do you live around here? I think we missed you at the reef.” She pouted as if she was disappointed, which actually eased some of the tension in my chest. She didn’t sound very territorial. In fact, she seemed pretty friendly.
“Um, yeah. I do.” I let go of Blake’s hand and offered it to her. Did mermaids shake hands? “I’m Meena.”
“Nice to meet you. Jacen wasn’t sure, but I figured it had to be you.” She shook my hand before looking down at my fingers and smiling. “Oh!” She let go of my hand and picked up Blake’s. She turned it over so that she could look at his wrist and then sighed.
“I’m Blake. Nice to meet you?” Blake was looking at her with amused eyes, completely at ease with her eccentric behavior.
“And it’s very nice to meet you, Blake. You guys are so lucky.” She let go of his hand and turned to look at the merman that had come to stand behind her. “Jacen, she already found him.”
“Um, found who?” I swallowed, completely confused by how quickly my night had turned upside down.
“Blake.” Mireille shook her head at me like I was silly and I wondered if, by her standards, I was.
“Please excuse my cousin. You may not have noticed, but she makes awkward look comfortable.” Jacen smiled at me before offering his hand to Blake to shake. Blake shook his hand, for all the world looking like he met strangers and played nice on a regular basis.
“Have you been out long?” Mireille asked. “We just started our swimabout last month.”
“Uh.” I looked from Mireille to Jacen and frowned. What the hell was a swimabout?
“Is that like a walkabout?” Blake looked at Jacen and frowned. “Where you tour around and see new things?”
“Exactly.” Jacen seemed to understand that something wasn’t adding up. He put his hand on Mireille’s shoulder and smiled at me. “Well, sorry to interrupt your dinner. The food was great here. Maybe we’ll see you around?” The last question was definitely directed at me and I noticed that Blake hadn’t missed that fact.
“That would be cool.” I smiled at them, completely torn about them leaving. They needed to go. I couldn’t talk to them in front of Blake. But what if I never saw them again?
“But, we just—”
“C’mon! I promised you a night swim, remember?” Jacen cut off Mireille. Looping an arm around her neck, he steered them back toward the building. He smiled at us over her shoulder as I watched them walk away.
“That was…” Blake shook his head.
“Weird. Awkward. Incredibly uncomfortable.” I knew my eyes were big, but I hoped I didn’t look as freaked out as I felt.
“All appropriate descriptions.” Blake narrowed his eyes. “You’re sure you don’t know them? Maybe you’re in some club with them and don’t realize it?”
“Club?” I laughed. “What kind of club?”
“Save the Porpoises? You guys get together and make posters to send to China and Japan, maybe?” I kept my face expressionless and just stared at him until he started to squirm. “You know, because of the swim thing? And you love dolphins so much. It makes sense.”
I couldn’t help it. Watching him squirm was fun, but I couldn’t keep from laughing when he looked away and cursed under his breath.
“Smooth, Weathering. Very smooth.” I giggled when he pursed his lips and glared at me.
Grabbing my hand, he tugged me out of my chair. He laid two fifties on the table, even though I knew it hadn’t cost that much, and waited for me to put my purse over my shoulder. We retrieved the helmets and went back to his bike. He plucked the helmet from my hands and brushed the hair away from my face. Slowly, he slid the helmet on and buckled the strap. His fingers lifted my chin so that I was looking up at him.
“We know a little more about each other now. And I’ve been dying to do this since I first saw you.” His voice was hushed as he stared into my eyes. “Tes lèvres sont irresistibles.” The lull of the French words made my head spin. Very slowly, so that I would have time to object, he lowered his head.
His lips were like a caress as he brushed them across mine: slow and soft. He lingered, inhaling in deeply as if he couldn’t breathe without me. Eventually, he moved on to plant a tender kiss on my bottom lip, before pulling back and looking at me. His cocky grin was gone, replaced with something tender and nervous. His thumb ran over my lip once, before he let go, and smiled.
“It’s getting late, but I want to take you to one more place.”
At that moment, he could have taken me anywhere. I nodded and waited for him to mount the motorcycle. When he was ready, I climbed on behind him and held on as we maneuvered out of the parking lot. He headed back toward my house, but stopped in a small lot off the side of a long curvy road. Taking my helmet, he led me through some brush to a trail that ran down to a beach.
After a moment, we came across a small stone bench and put our helmets down before he took my right hand in his. We navigated down the trail, the crash of the waves, soothing to my soul. Despite the fact that it was getting late, my skin didn’t hurt as much as it usually did.
Once we hit the sand, we kicked off our shoes and started walking. We didn’t go far, just until we hit the water and the warm waves lapped at our ankles. I looked up at the cloudless sky and stared at the sparkling stars. It was a beautiful beach, quiet, and serene. There were no drunken tourists milling about and you couldn’t see the tall cruise ships that docked downtown. All I could hear was the sound of the water and the beating of my heart.
“This is my favorite place.” Blake’s thumb ran up and down my hand. “I come here when I have projects I need to think about, or when I just need to be alone.”
“It’s beautiful.” I looked up into his eyes, watching the twinkle of the stars reflected there.
“My mother gave it to me for my birthday last year.” He looked down at me and smiled. “We used to come here all of the time before she left. I didn’t even know that it was up for sale when I got the deed in the mail.”
“That must’ve been a great surprise.” I wondered why he had brought me here. It seemed like a very private place for him.
“It was.” He looked away from me and out at the water. “I’m going to miss it when I’m gone.”
My throat closed up as I was hit with panic. I knew he was planning on leaving. I knew that this was going to be a short-lived whatever, but it hurt to think that this time was all I was going to get with him. I swallowed and looked down at my feet. I was overreacting, the feeling too intense for me to understand.
“Is that why you brought me here?” I finally looked up at him and felt my face stiffen. “To remind me that you’re leaving?”
“I don’t know. I just wanted to share something important to me with you.” He looked down at me, his hair falling over his eyes.
“This was your idea, Blake. If you are worried I’m going to get too attached, don’t.” My words were harsh, but they were more for myself than for him. I didn’t like the feeling that I was experiencing. It was lonely and painful. Everyone was leaving and I would be stuck on the island doing what I always did.
He sucked in a deep breath and I wondered if I had hurt him with my words. “I want to enjoy my time with you, but I also want to be upfront and honest. I plan on leaving.”
“Why? What’s so wrong with the islands?” His hands ran up and down my arms in a soothing motion and I wondered if he was trying to calm me or himself.
“I can’t stay here.” He lowered his voice. “There are too many expectations and obligations. I can’t be myself here.”
“I can’t imagine you letting anyone tell you who you can and can’t be.” I stepped closer to him. There was something agonizing in his expression and I wanted to help make it better.
He just snorted and looked away from me. “You haven’t met my father.”
“Is that why your mom moved away? Why didn’t they just divorce?”
“I don’t want to talk about that.” He ran a hand through his hair and looked back down at me.
“I thought we were getting to know each other better.”
“We don’t have to know some things. Some things don’t matter when it comes to us.” He tugged me closer to him, but I stayed firm. My heart had kicked pretty hard when referred to us as a unit, but there was a great deal of bitterness in his words, too.