“E-ticket. Yes. Best fun ever.”
“You swim very well. You’re strong in the water, but still tire. We can sit on the rocks until you’re ready.”
She laid her hands on the rock, boosted up as smoothly as a gymnast, and smiled down at him as she squeezed water from her hair.
Maybe he was a little winded, he decided as he hoisted up beside her. Besides, if he sat beside her, he wouldn’t face those bare and beautiful breasts.
“So mermaids really do like sitting on rocks, watching the sea, the ships, the shore?”
“Yes. We’re of the water and the air. We need time in both to be happy. Humans can have the land, the air, the water. Long ago, there were some jealous of this who lured the men in ships to the rocks, or pulled them into the deep to drown. This is shameful. We take oaths never to harm our own or people of the land.”
“Like Riley’s pack takes an oath.”
“Yes.” She lifted her face to moon and stars. “I have a question.”
“Okay.”
“Why don’t you want to kiss me?”
“What?”
“Today you kissed me here.” She touched a finger to her forehead. “But this doesn’t count. I’m allowed to ask why you don’t want to kiss me.”
“We’re teammates.”
“Yes. Bran and Sasha are teammates. I don’t think that’s the why.”
“It’s part of the why,” he insisted. “And look, you haven’t been on—in . . . You haven’t been in this world very long. You’re still learning how things work.”
Her chin jutted up; her shoulders shot straight. “I know how kissing works! Have you stopped learning how things work? I think it’s never okay to stop learning.”
“Okay, that’s true. Even profound. But we’ve got a lot going on, and . . . priorities. And it’s like Sasha said once, there’s this purity to you, so I don’t want to change, you know, the balance of things.”
“None of these are real answers. And I’ve made you awkward,” she said, stiffly now. “I’m apology—I’m sorry. You were kind to bring me to the sea. We should go back now.”
“Look, look, look. I don’t want to hurt your feelings.”
“Not giving true answers is hurtful.”
Frustrated, he shoved his fingers through his hair. What was he supposed to say to a hurt, pissed-off mermaid? “I’m trying to give you true answers. And I’m trying not to hurt your feelings, or anything else. I didn’t expect the question.”
“So you couldn’t think of better answers that aren’t real?”
And sometimes she got things entirely too well. “Not exactly. It’s not that I don’t want to kiss you, it’s—”
“How do I understand that?” she demanded, and faced him with eyes of stormy green. “Does ‘not-that-I-don’t-want’ mean ‘I want’?”
“No. Maybe. Yes. Hell.”
He grabbed her shoulders, managed to rein himself in enough to touch his lips very lightly to hers.
The storm died out of her eyes as she nodded. “You want to kiss me like the brother of my father. This is an answer. Thank you. We should go back now.”
Before she could slide off the rock, he tightened his grip on her shoulders. “It’s an answer. It’s not the truth.”
“You can’t tell me the truth?” Distress moved over her face as she touched a hand to his heart. “It’s an oath? I would never ask you to break an oath.”
“No. No, it’s not an oath. It’s a . . .” Hang-up, a situation, a . . . “Mistake, maybe a mistake. Or maybe this is. I guess we both need to find out.”