Chapter 13
Finn
“You’ve forgotten your talking points five times in a row. What is going on with you?” Henry slapped his notepad on the desk.
“I don’t know.” Finn dropped down onto the couch, slamming his head back to stare up at the ceiling.
He did know.
He just couldn’t tell Henry.
He’d waltzed into the office that morning brandishing a pile of website printouts, beaming over the quality and angles of the kiss on the street outside the restaurant.
Apparently, the people were ‘eating it up.’ He’d gone on and on about the talking points in the articles on each website.
Since no one knew Iris’s identity yet, they were dubbing them The Mer and the Mayor.
“Are you getting sick?” Henry asked. “We can go get you hooked up for some fluids. Maybe one of those immun-ity cocktails like we did last year.”
“I’m not getting sick.”
“Are you sure? Because we can’t afford to have you down and out for a week at this point in the campaign.”
“I’m sure. I just can’t focus today.”
“Maybe you need to hit the gym. That usually helps to shake out the cobwebs.”
“Maybe.”
Henry watched him for a moment, then sighed.
“All right. What is it? Not campaign manager to polit-ical hopeful. Friend to friend.”
He knew better than to believe they could separate the two. But he had no one else to talk to.
“It’s Iris.”
“Did she pick up throat singing? Séances? Collecting werewolf claws?”
He could bring up the incredibly creepy vintage porcel-ain doll that had been sitting in the bathroom first thing in the morning. Or the fact that he was reasonably sure he heard a musical laugh out in the hallway when the sight of it made him let out a yelp he wasn’t exactly proud of.
“Not yet. But I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“What is it, then? Just her weird hobbies? Those can be … guided. Smoothed over.”
Finn sighed. He’d always appreciated Henry’s ability to view a situation as an objective outsider. But they were talking about Iris now, not some abstract idea. He didn’t want to hear all the ways she could be altered to better serve a preferred image.
“I’m not trying to change her.”
In fact, the problem was he liked her a little too much just as she was.
“What, then?”
“Tell me more about the arrangement.”
“What do you mean? You get married. After some carefully chosen and executed events. Pretty simple.”
“I mean the process of setting it up. Did you speak to the queen herself?”
“No. From what I understand, Tatiana doesn’t come to the surface.”
“Why, then, would she want a princess to?”
“We’ve covered this. Pollution regulations.”
“Who did you speak to?”
“Maria. She’s the queen’s land dignitary.”
“What did Maria say the queen said about the situation?”
“That she was open to it. What are you trying to get at here? What are you digging for?”
“Information.”
“About what?”
“If Iris was forced into this or not.”
“Oh.” Henry’s shoulders slumped a little. “That, I don’t know. But I’d venture a guess that the merfolk are a lot like many other paranormal royal families.”
“Meaning?”
“That there is an expectation of … advantageous weddings for the princes and princesses.”
Finn mulled on that for a moment. “Was Tatiana’s own marriage arranged?”
“Oh, absolutely. That was a big to-do. They’d never even met until the day of their wedding.
Tatiana’s consort was an important political figure from a merclan from somewhere off the shores of Greece.
So, I would venture to guess that Iris knew her whole life that she might end up married for political gain. ”
Maybe that was true.
But she’d likely never considered that her marriage would end up being on land.
His mind flashed back to Iris diving into the pool in his building, the enthusiasm of her movements, the joy on her face.
She clearly loved the water.
It was in her blood.
Every time she looked at him instead of the sea, she was reminded of what she was losing, of what he had stolen from her.
Something sacred.
Her very nature.
“Is she complaining?” Henry asked.
“No. She never complains.”
Except about the temperature of the air conditioning.
And why human beings had yet to develop a comfortable shoe.
And the fact that her favorite Chinese food place closed too early on Tuesday nights.
And, of course, that the sequels to certain books weren’t even written yet, let alone close to publication.
She said almost none of those things directly to him, though. Most of it was things she’d grumbled to herself or confessed to Monty. Or, even on occasion, to Checkers. To his credit, he was happy to warm her lap anytime she wanted it.
Iris rarely, if ever, spoke to him, unless she absolutely needed to. It was something that bothered him more with each passing day. Even if, admittedly, he’d never been great at bringing up random topics of conversation, unless they had to do with politics or his campaign.
He’d been coached on who to be for so long that he was starting to worry he’d forgotten who he was—under the talking points, beneath the plans.
“Then why are you asking about the arrangement?”
“I want to know if she agreed to it. Or if she was forced into it.”
“I think, in a way, it would be both, wouldn’t it?”
“Maybe.”
“Why these thoughts all of a sudden?”
“I dunno,” he lied. “I guess it’s just the first time I’ve slowed down enough to really think about the situation.”
That may have had a small part in it.
But Finn knew what had changed was the dynamic between the two of them.
Anytime he thought about the incident in the hallway, he swore he could still feel her, could still hear her moans.
Then the kiss on the street.
The reason for it may have been manufactured, but the passion itself was all organic.
But after both instances, when he’d maybe been expecting softness and sweetness, he got coldness and guardedness.
It wasn’t that she hadn’t wanted him—he’d felt it. But something always snapped shut afterward. Like desire for him was dangerous. Like it cost her something. And he didn’t know why.
It was hard not to worry that he’d overstepped some line, even though in both instances, he’d had enthusiastic ‘yeses’ from Iris.
Because if Iris wanted to be there, if she’d agreed to the marriage, why was she having such severe reactions to the relationship between them evolving into something more real?
It made no sense.
“I can put some feelers out, but I doubt we will be able to get any kind of straight answer. It will all be spin about how the princesses are overjoyed to improve ocean and surface relations.”
That was true.
Finn wasn’t the only one with a PR team.
“I have a radical idea. Why don’t you ask Iris?”
“Would she give me a straight answer? If her mother somehow made it clear that she has to do this, would she tell me that she didn’t want this and risk whatever consequences her mother might have for her?”
“I don’t know. She’s certainly had no issues telling me her opinion.”
“Because she thinks you’re nothing but an empty suit. Who is always judging her.”
“I’m trying to help improve her image,” Henry said, brows pinching. “Like I’ve always done for you. Do you feel judged?”
Not anymore, he didn’t.
But maybe that was just because there was nothing left of him that hadn’t been gone over with a fine-tooth comb and a high-definition media lens.
He could remember a time, many years back, though, when Henry had scoffed at his sci-fi movie posters and had helped him box up his comic books and stick them in storage.
In their place, he’d been instructed to invest in artists from all the different boroughs of the city—and to make sure he represented humans and paranormals alike in his collection.
In place of his action heroes who saved the world, he was urged to read non-fiction books on history, species, and political policy.
Finn hadn’t seen the last ten big-budget superhero movies that had come out. Nor the many comics that had been released. He’d forgotten about them for the most part. And the nerd inside him died a little more at that realization.
Henry watched him, sighing.
“Tell you what? Why don’t you take the afternoon off? Go do something relaxing. Get a massage. Take a walk. Come back here tomorrow with your head on straight.”
“Yeah,” Finn agreed, getting to his feet.
“And don’t forget to tell Iris about the fae cultural parade. She has to be there.”
“Got it,” he agreed, making his way out of his office, then the building.
As he moved out onto the street, he had the depressing realization that he had no idea what to do with himself if he wasn’t focusing on work.
All he knew was he couldn’t go home and be confronted with Iris’s coldness while trying to battle his own desire for her.
So he did what Henry suggested—as he almost always did.
He walked.
And walked.
Until, at some point, he turned to look where his feet had automatically taken him.
Back to a store he’d spent too much time in—and far too much of his parents’ money—as a kid and teen.
The comic book store.
He hated how he paused, how he looked around to see if anyone was watching him, recognized him, and what they might be thinking of him if they did, if they saw where he was going.
“Screw it,” he mumbled to himself and moved inside.
The bell jingled over the door, the same way it always had. The scent hit him first: ink, new paper, a whiff of sugar from the vending machine someone still stocked with off-brand candy.
It was a temple. One where younger versions of himself had debated plot twists, stacked issues like sacred texts, and dreamed of being the kind of man who could save a city with nothing but conviction and a cape.
No platform.
No polish.
No talking points.
Then he spent an afternoon lost in the old worlds he’d let slip away from him, having adventures, seeing the good guys be tested but prevailing.
And the thought that came to mind as he walked out later?
He wished he could tell Iris about those stories, knowing from her book selections that she enjoyed a good action plot.
He wanted that. He wanted to share something with her, to relate to her, to show her that maybe they weren’t so different after all.
It was with that thought in mind that he walked into a building and signed up for a class.
If she’d given up the sea to stand beside him, the least he could do … was learn to swim.