Chapter 8 Ariel
Ariel
If I still had gills, they’d be fluttering like startled moths.
I’m grinning so hard my cheeks ache as Everett’s fingers wrap warm and sure around mine.
When Kara told him—told us—to go to dinner, she wore that sly, satisfied look of a woman setting two dominoes side by side and stepping back.
Blessings don’t always come with crowns and choirs.
Sometimes they wear pencil skirts and say, “Start with clothes.”
“You all right?” Everett asks as we pass his father’s office.
I tense without meaning to. He releases my hand too soon and places it at the small of my back; heat through thin fabric and gentle pressure that says, I’m here.
“Yeah,” I lie, and try to mean it. “I just wish I knew why your father doesn’t like me.” I don’t look toward the office. I’ve seen storms before. His feels like one that never breaks.
“Ignore him. He’s a grumpy bastard and doesn’t like anyone,” he says as we reach the parking lot. He opens the car door for me in a gesture that warms my blood. “What do you want to do first?”
“I’m getting hungry,” I admit, thrilled and terrified by how many wonders might exist in a single human meal.
“How do you feel about grilled cheese?” he asks with a sheepish grin that makes my pulse perform a pleased little stutter.
I have no idea what grilled cheese is. I know cheese. I adore cheese. The rest is a mystery I’m willing to solve. “It sounds great.”
“Jenny’s Gourmet,” he says, parking beside a cheerful cart with a striped awning and a chalkboard menu. And the smell—oh stars, the smell. Butter hissing on hot metal, bread toasting, something savory and sweet tangling in the steam.
“I think you’ll like the chicken grilled cheese best. It’s my favorite.”
“Um…” I try to picture a chicken and come up with a feathered question mark. “Is there one with just cheese and vegetables? Like the pizza? I don’t eat meat.”
Understanding sparks in his eyes. “Veggie special. They’ve got vegan cheese, too.” He taps a picture.
“Perfect,” I breathe.
We eat on a bench beneath a tree that shakes raindrops onto my wrists when the breeze stirs the leaves. The sandwich is molten joy between two golden clouds. We don’t talk much, just little questions that feel like warm-up stretches before a longer swim.
He doesn’t ask about my past; he asks about my favorite color (sea-glass green), favorite sound (the hush between waves), favorite place (anywhere something grows).
“I like to look at plants. Explore. I feel at home in nature,” I say, careful with my words. “Kara’s place is lovely. I’m just used to being outside a lot.”
“And favorite food?” His mouth quirks. “I know you’re vegan, but you seem to enjoy everything.”
“I eat what nature provides,” I say, which is true and also not nearly enough. “What can be found in the lak”—I trip and catch myself—“the woods.”
“So, you eat fish?” His brows jump, curious, not judging.
“No, never.” I shake my head too fast. “I mean kelp—uh—plants. Aquatic plants.” I clear my throat. “I like to dive. Finding edible plants that could help nutritionally… that’s one of my favorite things.”
He looks thoughtful. His knee nudges mine and stays.
“We’re so used to eating fish or land crops.
If more people ate plant-based foods from waterways responsibly, it could ease pressure on ecosystems, maybe even reduce pollution.
Climate change is—” He stops himself, but the worry writes a crease between his brows.
“Waterways,” I repeat softly. Plural. The word presses against my ribs like a door I didn’t know could open. How many? Where? Do they have people like mine? Do they hate humans a little less?
“Come on.” He stands and offers his hand, tugging me up. Skin to skin. A quiet, electric click. “Trash first, then a surprise.”
“What surprise?”
He grins, all manly delight. “You’ll see.”
We walk. His thumb smooths over the back of my hand, each pass a hum that runs straight to my core.
He leans in to point things out—“best hot chocolate in town,” “woman who sells plants that definitely aren’t legal,” “library with the good chairs”—and his breath threads into my hair and my bones say yes, yes, yes like a litany.
Fable Forest is a storybook, and he is the storyteller who knows all the side quests.
He stops before tall green iron gates. Gold letters curl across a sign: Fable Forest Botanical Gardens.
“Oh,” I whisper. “A garden.”
Inside is a cathedral of chlorophyll and perfume.
Palms arch and gossip. Ferns unfurl like secrets.
We visit a corpse flower that smells like a crime scene (I gag, he grins, we flee), then lean into oleander that promises heaven with every breath.
We don’t touch them; he explains why with a stern teacher face that I will dream about later.
He knows their names, their habits, their moods.
He speaks about plants the way I speak about currents.
I fall a little in love with a hundred leaves and, somehow, a little more with the man translating them for me. When he reaches past me to read a placard, his chest grazes my shoulder, and I swear the air pulses.
By the time we step back into the street, the light has mellowed to honey. The town hums around us, content. So, apparently, am I.
“Ready to go home?” he asks. “Ricky dropped off some clothes for you. We can go out shopping later, but if you’re tired, we can stay in.”
“I think staying in sounds wonderful,” I say, sliding into his car when he opens the door. “As long as it’s all right with Kara.”
“She doesn’t mind.” His mouth tilts. “I think she’s playing matchmaker.”
“Is that a bad thing?” I ask, and when he looks at me—unguarded, hopeful—I feel my heart do a foolish, gorgeous thing.
“No,” he says simply, and starts the car.
Back at his house, he leads me down a hall and opens a door. “This is your room for now. Ricky left some bags.”
I perch on the bed, eyeing the bags like they might purr if I pet them, then forget them completely when Everett sits beside me. The air between us gets bright and crackly—storm-light without the thunder. I forget to breathe and don’t mind much.
“So,” he says, voice low, thumb brushing a curl behind my ear, his warm fingertips lingering against the soft hollow beneath it, “why did you kiss me when you rescued me?”
His question takes me by surprise. “What?”
He smiles, hungry and tender at once, and my bones turn to warm sand. “Why did you kiss me, Ariel?”
“Because I wanted to,” I say, ridiculously honest. I tuck my head against his shoulder to listen for his heartbeat—it’s fast. Good. I’m not the only one short on oxygen in a room with plenty of air.
Everett’s laugh is a breath. His hand slides down my side and settles at my waist, his fingers curving like they were made to mold my curves. “That’s a good reason.” He hesitates. “Are you… a corporate spy?”
I rear back, scandalized. “I don’t even know what that is.” I scramble for a safer truth. “I used to watch you from the”—lake, lake, lake—“woods. I watched other people too. They left messes. I cleaned up after them.”
“Water nymph,” he says, satisfied.
I let the label rest between us like a truce I didn’t earn but will take anyway. His gaze drops to my mouth. Mine drops to his. It’s gravity, not choice.
“You know why Kara and I won’t work,” he murmurs. “We’re not attracted to each other. I want a soulmate, and she isn’t it. But you…”
I rise to my knees and kiss him because some answers live in actions, not words.
He exhales into me like he’s been holding that breath since the lake. His hand slides to the back of my neck while the other grips my hip. I open for him. He tastes of peppermint and promise and a little like grilled cheese.
When his tongue brushes mine, a soft shock ripples through me. I chase it greedily. The kiss deepens, and the room drops away. Everything funnels to heat, breath, and the slow drag of his lips against mine.
He pulls back enough to look at me, eyes dark and intent. Then kisses me again like he’s decided to remember this in detail later.
This is what being human feels like, this ache, this awe, this yes. And maybe losing everything wasn’t the end.
Maybe it was the beginning.