Chapter Ten #2
Rumple barks impatiently from his pool, and I return with his breakfast. As I feed him, kneeling by the edge of the tank, I catch myself glancing toward the windows that face the harbor.
Is Orvik back at his office yet? Or is he still swimming in the depths, avoiding me and whatever is happening between us?
"He's not on land yet," Sylvie says, following my gaze.
"I wasn't looking for —" I begin to protest, then sigh. "Is it that obvious?"
"Only to everyone with eyes," she teases. "But honestly, I think it's sweet. Orvik's been alone for a long time."
"Do you know why?" I ask, curiosity getting the better of me. "He mentioned leaving the kraken community but didn't say more."
"He never talks about his past." Sylvie shakes her head.
"Not even to Callum, and they've been friends for years.
All I know is that he arrived during a massive storm, helped save a stranded old selkie fisherman named Barnak, and never left.
The town council basically begged him to take the harbormaster position when the old one took his retirement. "
I consider this as I continue Rumple's feeding. Like me, Orvik came to Saltford Bay seeking a fresh start. Like me, he keeps his past closely guarded. Perhaps that's part of what draws me to him, that sense of kindred spirits, both haunted by what we've left behind.
The rest of the day passes in a blur of routine work: feeding schedules, medication administrations, cleaning enclosures.
It's comforting, this structured care of creatures who need me.
In the time since arriving in Saltford Bay, I've found a rhythm to my days, a sense of purpose that had been missing during those long years of my father's illness.
By the time my shift ends, the sun is beginning its descent toward the horizon, painting the sky in deepening shades of orange and pink.
I drive back to my beach house, my head buzzing with thoughts of Orvik and that mind-melting kiss.
My lips still tingle, and I keep touching them, remembering the sensation of his tentacles wrapping gently around my face, the glowing patterns spreading across my skin.
As I pull into my driveway, I notice two figures on the porch. My brother hasn't mentioned expecting visitors, but then again, he rarely tells me anything important until the last minute. Or after the fact.
I climb out of my car and approach the house.
Chase is leaning against the railing, his posture unusually stiff.
Across from him stands a tall, imposing kraken with dark-blue skin that has a distinctive red tinge around the edges, like a warning label.
His tentacle hair flows freely down his shoulders.
He is dressed entirely in what looks like fish leather and seaweed, although as I approach I can tell the material is not seaweed, but a supple, wet fabric that just looks like it.
Or maybe it is seaweed. I don't know.
And this just makes me realize that I know precious little about krakens. And Orvik.
Both men turn as I approach. The stranger's eyes, sharp and vivid green, drop immediately to my neck and jaw. Something shifts in his expression. It’s not surprise exactly, but a cold, calculating interest, like a fisherman who's just spotted something valuable caught in someone else's net.
His smile is lopsided and unhurried, revealing a golden tooth among the white. It's not unfriendly, exactly, but it unsettles me in a way I can't explain.
"Well, well," he says softly, his gaze still fixed on the patterns along my jaw. "Aren't you interesting."
Chase steps forward, placing himself slightly between me and the visitor. His voice comes out flat and low.
"Jackie, do you know this man? He came here looking for someone named Orvik."
I look between them. Chase's jaw is set in a hard line I've rarely seen on my easygoing brother. The stranger hasn't stopped studying me with those vivid green eyes.
"I'm sorry," I say, keeping my voice even. "Who are you?"
"A friend of Orvik," the kraken says pleasantly. "My name is Kael. I've been admiring your little town." His eyes drift back to my neck, then to my eyes. "Those are quite the marks you're wearing, Jackie. When did you get them?"
My hand moves involuntarily to my neck as I try to hide the patterns there. It's clear it doesn't work by the amused tilt of his head.
"I don't know what you mean," I say.
"Don't you?" He tilts his head, the movement unhurried and deliberate. "Orvik is an old friend of mine." He pauses, just long enough to feel intentional. "I'd love to catch up with him. Do you know where his house is?"
Something about him puts me on edge, though I couldn't say exactly why.
"I really couldn't say," I answer. "We work together occasionally. That's all."
Kael's gaze drops once more to the patterns on my skin. "Of course."
He doesn't believe me. He doesn't bother pretending to.
"She said she doesn't know," Chase says. His voice is quiet, but there's a steadiness in it I don't often hear from my brother. He steps closer to me. "I think we're done here."
Kael looks at Chase for a long moment, then back at me.
"You're right," he says finally, straightening to his full, intimidating height. "I've taken enough of your evening." He turns toward the steps, then pauses, glancing back at me over his shoulder. "One last thing. Has Orvik given you a necklace yet?"
The question lands like a stone dropped into still water.
"What necklace?" I ask before I can stop myself.
Kael's smile reaches his eyes for the first and only time.
"Ask him," he says. "When you see him."
Without another word, he turns and walks down the steps, heading straight for the beach. I watch, transfixed, as he reaches the water's edge and wades in without hesitation, his form becoming less distinct until he disappears beneath the waves.
I stand completely still until he's gone. Then I exhale and turn to Chase.
Chase's shoulders drop. Some of that uncharacteristic steadiness drains out of him.
"Jackie, who is that guy?"
"I don't know," I say. "But thank you for stepping in."
Chase nods, and for a moment we just stand there on the porch in the fading light.
Then his phone buzzes in his pocket. He glances at the screen, and something softens in his face, a small, involuntary smile he doesn't quite manage to suppress before he pockets the phone again.
But not fast enough. I caught the name on the notification.
"Chase." I cross my arms over my chest. “Why is Sylvie texting you?”
"Don't," he says, already reading my tone.
"She's my friend and my coworker."
"I know that." He has the gall to roll his eyes at me.
"Then you know why I'm asking you to leave it alone." I don’t like that my voice rises, but I’m unable to stop myself. I care about my job and Chase breaking Sylvie’s heart is sure to mess up my relationships at work. Why can’t he just grow up and understand that?
Oh, right. Chase doesn’t do grown-up. He’s an overgrown boy still thinking he can do whatever he pleases, wherever he pleases.
Well, not anymore. I’m done being his fixer.
"You just got here. You don't have a job. You won't tell me what you're running from. The last thing Sylvie needs is to get her heart broken by some guy promising her the moon when he can’t even afford his own food."
"I’m the last thing Sylvie needs?" Chase turns to face me fully now, and the softness is gone. "You don't know that, and how can you even say that?"
"I know your pattern, Chase. And she deserves better than being your next distraction while you figure out whatever mess you've gotten yourself into this time."
Something flickers across his face. Not anger, not yet. Something dangerously close to hurt.
"My pattern," he repeats.
"Yes!” This time I shout, not caring who may hear me. No one. No one is near enough to hear me.
I lift my finger, enumerating Chase’s most recent ventures.
“The supplement business. The investment property.
The dieting app that was going to change the way people talked about fitness.
" I hear myself and know I should stop, but the words keep coming.
"Every single one of your business ventures crashes and burns, and then you show up at my door and I reorganize my entire life around helping you land on your feet, and then you're gone again until the next one. I just don’t want Sylvie to become one of your leftovers. She deserves better."
The silence that follows is the wrong kind.
"I didn't know you felt that way," Chase finally says, his voice low and quiet. "That I was such a burden."
"That's not what I—"
"No, I think it is." He's not yelling. That's almost worse. His face has a sober, serious expression that I don’t remember ever seeing on him. "I thought you wanted me here. I thought when you gave me the spare room, that was you being my sister. Not you keeping score."
"Chase—"
"Do you actually think that little of me?
" He looks at me with something I haven't seen on his face in a long, long time.
Since our father died, probably. "Because if that's what you see when you look at me, just a series of failures waiting to drag you down, then maybe you're right. Maybe I shouldn't be here."
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't have to."
He goes inside and I follow him, watching with growing alarm as he heads directly upstairs to the guest room. When he emerges moments later, he's carrying his suitcase.
"You don't have to go tonight," I say, but my voice comes out wrong. Too careful. Not sorry enough.
Chase pauses at the door, and for a moment I think he might put the bag down. He doesn't.
"It's better this way," he says. His voice is flat now, the hurt folded away somewhere I can't reach. "I won’t be a burden to you anymore."
"That's not fair."
"No," he agrees. "It isn't."
I follow him outside, watching helplessly as he tosses his suitcase in the trunk of his Mercedes. "Chase, please. If we could just talk and set some ground rules—"
"No need for ground rules," he cuts me off. His expression softens momentarily as he looks at me. "Take care of yourself, Jax. Lock your doors."
Before I can respond, he's sliding into the driver's seat. The engine purrs to life, and then he's gone, the sleek car vanishing down the road in a cloud of dust.
I stand in the driveway long after he's disappeared, a sick feeling settling in my stomach. I know my brother's patterns by heart, I said as much to his face. But this felt different from the other times he's left. He didn't charm his way out. He didn't promise to call. He just went.
That hurts in a way I wasn't prepared for.
The lighthouse beam sweeps across the water, then across my yard, briefly illuminating the empty driveway where Chase's car had been.
I turn and enter my house, the silence within suddenly oppressive.
As I lock the door behind me, something I rarely bother with in sleepy Saltford Bay, I can't shake the feeling of vulnerability that settles over me like a shroud.
For the first time since moving here, I feel truly isolated in my little beach house by the sea.