11 #3
Even muffled through the press of his fingertips, the timber in Noel’s throat struck in Blake’s chest like a gong, the reverberations casting chills down the nape of his neck.
Where Marin’s voice had been light and entrancing—mist on the surface of a lake—Noel’s voice was low and commanding, a darkness lurking below the waves.
It seized Blake by the breastbone and refused to let go.
A flash of golden tan skin flickered through Blake’s mind’s eye as Noel continued. Nails pressed along the curve of his shoulder blade, pleasure and pain singing sweet. A waterfall of pastel hair like liquid silk brushed over his bare chest. The lingering hint of lips dragged over his jaw.
Blake sat numb and stunned for several moments as Noel’s voice faded into the ether, the physical sensations ghosting over his person evanescing away with the fluvial rush of his pulse in his ears, so similar to the crashing of waves.
“—do you mean you’re no good at singing?” As Marin spoke, his voice became clearer and clearer, like Blake was surfacing from underwater. “That was gorgeous!”
“Thank you,” Noel said, scratching the side of his nose. “Like I said, I really don’t sing for anyone but Matt and my bunnies, but… but thanks.”
Blake looked at Marin, who was still floating upright in the pool, completely unfazed.
“I guess that confirms it,” Blake said. “Unless the pygmalion spell is able to mimic the attributes of the being perfectly, I think it’s safe to say you were a merman in your previous life.”
“I guess so,” Marin surmised with a little smile. “Thank you, Noel. This has all been so incredibly helpful.”
“It’s okay.” Noel held up his hands, waving them at Marin. “It wasn’t much, really.”
“I think that now would be a good time to reach out to Celeste and update them,” Blake said, taking out his phone once more. “Besides, I want to see if they’ve heard back from any of the Paul Aberleys.”
“That was the guy who made the vase, right?” Noel asked, approaching the side of the pool.
Blake pulled up Celeste’s number, putting them on speakerphone. Five rings in and the call disconnected—only for Blake’s screen to be overtaken with an incoming video call seconds later.
“Hey,” he greeted, surprised to see that the screen was a blur of color, the speakers shorting out with the sheer volume of shouting on the other line.
“Goose!” Celeste screamed. “Give it!”
“Then give me back my phone, big boss!” a second person screeched in reply.
“Not until you give me back my vape, you awful little shit—”
“You’re an addict, boss! I’m doing you a favor!”
“Bull shit ! I know for a fact you’ve been taking hits whenever I’m in the back, Goosetopher—!”
“Hello?” Blake offered into the line, completely at a loss—he was glad that the camera was directed towards him, affording Marin and Noel their privacy.
“Wait, did you just accept a freaking call?!” Celeste asked, aghast.
“Ah crap,” the other person handling the phone appeared on the screen a moment later—to Blake’s surprise, it was the teenager who had been working the counter at Celestial Gems the other night.
They stared wide-eyed into the camera for a moment, mouth pulled down into an exaggerated frown. “Oh hey, it’s your ex’s roommate.”
“We’re still together!” Celeste snapped, wrenching the phone from their grasp. They schooled their furious expression into one of cool indifference. “Hey. Sorry, my cousin was being stupid.”
“Uh. It’s fine,” Blake replied as he watched Celeste shove their cousin back out of the screen, hissing something at them over their shoulder in French. Goose responded by shoving a middle finger into Celeste’s face, which they proceeded to snap their teeth at. “Is… this a bad time?”
“Huh? No, you’re good,” Celeste replied, even as they scowled at their cousin off screen, flipping them off in turn. They took a moment to compose themself, flicking a stray lock of white-blonde hair out of their eyes. “Are you still at the park?”
“Yeah,” Blake confirmed. “Hey, uh. I have some stuff to talk to you about RE: the Marin situation, so maybe you could step out of the room for a second?”
“Oh for sure,” Celeste confirmed, corralling their cousin through the nearest doorway and slamming it behind them.
“Go away. Go watch Cocomelon or whatever you children do these days!” Blade heard the muffled sound of Goose releasing an incredibly teenaged, indignant sigh on the other side of the door.
“All right, so I reached out to the Pauls and only got back two ‘what the hell are you talking about’ e-mails so far. What’s up on your end? ”
As Blake and Marin took turns explaining the developments of the day, Celeste kept their responses to a minimum, not even batting an eye when they explained Noel’s heritage.
“You’re… taking this really well,” Blake admitted. “I was really shocked when I found out there was more than only humans. I’m still kind of reeling from it, to be honest.”
“I mean, it makes sense to me.” Celeste shrugged. “I’ve known that things like pygmalion, ghosts, and curses are real my entire life. Why’s a merperson any different?”
“I guess that makes sense,” Blake said. He glanced between Celeste and Noel. “Did you want me to hand the phone over so you can introduce yourselves?”
“Sounds good to me,” Celeste shrugged.
“Sure,” Noel nodded, reaching out for Blake’s phone. “I’ll be careful not to drop it.”
As the two chatted, Blake saw Marin waving him close out of the corner of his eye.
“What’s up?” he whispered, careful to not speak over Celeste.
“Come here, I have something to tell you,” Marin beckoned Blake with a quick flicker of his fingertips over the surface of the water.
Blake returned to his original position at the waterside, draping his legs over the ledge. Marin continued to gesture for him to come closer and Blake leaned down towards the water until he was almost bent in half. Only then did Marin cup his hand over the shell of Blake’s ear and whisper:
“Think fast.”
Before Blake could register what he had said, Marin splashed a handful of water into his face. Sputtering, Blake spat a mouthful into the pool, choking on chlorine between peals of laughter.
“You sneak!” he accused, grinning over at Marin, who had laughed so hard that he flopped back into the pool.
“I can’t believe you fell for it!” he crowed, teeth gleaming in the halogen lights. “That’s like the oldest trick in the book, you dork!”
“I’m going to come in there and get you!” Blake threatened playfully, already tugging his tee shirt out of his swim trunks. Marin stuck out his tongue.
Back on the phone, Celeste groaned. “Hello? Are you two even listening to me or are you so caught up in each other you forgot there’s other people here?”
“Sorry,” Blake apologized, although he was still smirking at Marin. He shook his head, holding a warning finger out at the merman as if to say ‘ I’ll be back for you ’. “What’s up?”
“I asked what our next course of action was,” Celeste told him.
“Ah, that.” Blake nodded. “Actually, I was going to try to find the location of Marin’s manufacturer and then try to look up some obits in that area. We’re looking for someone in their twenties who died of a head injury between 1997 and 2003.”
“Where did you get those dates?” Noel asked.
“I remembered Pokémon earlier today, which came out around then,” Marin explained. “And my boat was installed in 2003.”
“Okay, so are we going to use the Internet for that or what?” Celeste asked.
“The computers at the Sacramento Central Library have free access to the California Digital Newspaper Archives,” Noel chimed in. “They also have a bunch of stuff on microfiche. I’d be willing to go down there tomorrow morning to look.”
“It would be faster if there were more of us,” Marin said. “Blake and I should meet up with you there.”
“Ugh, if all three of you are going, I might as well tag along, too.” Celeste huffed. “How about we meet up there at ten?”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Blake agreed, looking over at Noel, who nodded intently.
“Speaking of meeting up,” Celeste remarked thoughtfully. “Noel, we’re planning on going out clubbing in Lavender Heights tomorrow night—you wanna come with?”
The look of horror that crossed Noel’s features could have made a grown man weep. It was like Blake was staring down at a deer in the middle of the road from the cab of a semi-truck, only the poor animal had resigned itself to its death.
“I,” Noel squeaked, sinking low enough into the water that Blake was worried about the safety of his phone.
“Yeah, the more the merrier!” Marin chimed in, tone bubbling with enthusiasm. He reached out to settle an encouraging hand over Noel’s shoulder.
“Get me your phone number so I can send you my address,” Celeste glanced over their shoulder. “I have to get going—I have to do a ten-card spread in like five minutes. Text me and let me know what the plan is, okay?”
“Sure thing,” Blake said, taking the phone from poor Noel and setting it a safe distance away from the water. “Bye.”
“Bye.”
Back in the pool, Marin was saying to Noel: “You should come! I think it would be really fun.”
“I… I really don’t know.” Noel shook his head, his dark hair pooling around him like ink as he sunk deeper. “I’m super uncomfortable in big gatherings unless I’m in my fursuit and—and I promised to watch Matt stream Genshin Impact tomorrow night and…”
He squeezed his eyes shut. “And… I’m not really supposed to go to bars or clubs, since I’m sober.”
“That’s fine,” Marin said with a shrug before adding: “Maybe you can meet up with us to get food afterwards?”
While not being pushy, he was apparently determined to get Noel out and about.
Blake watched the exchange without speaking. Despite Celeste’s offer, he’d been anticipating Noel to turn them down—not that he would have minded him tagging along. In the span of one short evening, he’d been able to see the true colors of Noel’s character and was growing fond.
“I…” Noel began. “That should be okay.”
Blake was amazed. It wasn’t like Noel was entirely absent from their friend outings, but he only ever came if Matt was going to be there and tended to keep to himself at that.
It was uncharacteristic of him to accept invitations when Matt’s presence wasn’t guaranteed—Blake was convinced that Marin was some sort of miracle worker.
“Great!” Marin beamed. “Hey, why don’t you bring Matt along with you?”
Nope, Marin’s not a miracle worker, he’s the most devious man I’ve ever met , Blake corrected himself. He’s conspiring to get Matt and Noel together. I’m sure of it .