Chapter 23
Marina
We spend the rest of the day as though it’s the first day of a long weekend. We lounge around his house, eat snacks, play music, and talk about everything and anything. With lots of time cuddled on the couch with Clawrece acting as a big scaly throw pillow.
After a long day of blissful nothing, I wake up from a second nap to the sun casting rainbows across the room.
My body feels more refreshed than I have in…
well, as long as I can remember. The pressure to nail the upcoming audition has faded to dull background noise.
Gil and I make out in his sunroom with the same easy-going flow we had before, but I haven’t managed to cobble a full song together.
Logic says I should go back, break the fantasy, and return to my real life, but considering there isn’t much calling me home apart from Grams, who has urged me to stay via text, why not spend more time together? Besides, Gil did mention something about a festival…
Still, it’s not like I can drop all my responsibilities.
As much as I hate my job, it is still mine. If I ghost, I prove to Aunt Andrea how unreliable I am, and that’s not how I want the chapter of me working at the worst retail establishment ever to end.
I tear myself away from Gil’s arms to walk out to the dock. Gil mentioned that if I sit near the edge, there’s impressive cell signal. It’s why his vampire-friend keeps coming by—to sit and scroll through dating sites.
I click on Aunt Andrea’s number before I lose my nerve, and the conversation goes just about how I expect it to.
Aunt Andrea isn’t buying that I have a stomach bug and has predictably driven past Grams’ apartment. She’s suspicious, and for once, that’s completely valid.
“I know you’re up to something.”
You wouldn’t believe me even if I told you. I smirk, looking down the dock at Gil, who is walking toward me with two mugs in his webbed hands. Clawrece wiggles underfoot. Soon, she’s leaped into my lap with her snoot pressed against my chin.
She’d be terrifying if she wasn’t so darn cute.
“I’ll be back next week—probably,” I say. I will go back home, I will, but I can’t keep the giggles out of my voice.
Who cares if my aunt, whose soul mission has been to keep me miserable, finds out that I’m not? I’m a realm away, and it’s not like she can do anything about it. I’m allowed to be happy. I’m allowed to be here, and I’m allowed to be with him.
Gil takes a seat next to me on the dock, our shoulders touching as Clawrece settles in next to me. Aunt Andrea is so silent, I think our connection might have dropped until I hear her click her tongue to the roof of her mouth. Tension builds in my shoulders.
“Just know that I’m holding onto extra baggage because of you. If you don’t come back, there’s no reason for me to keep it.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I ask, knowing full well all my boxes are sitting in a corner at Grams’ place. Jenna made sure of that.
“Think about it,” she says, her voice as sharp and unyielding as ever. I shake my head at Gil, who’s giving me a worried look. This woman always finds a way to rattle me, and I’m not letting it happen today.
“Bye, Aunt Andrea,” I say, clicking “end” on the call and leaning back against Gil with a groan.
“You okay?” Gil’s voice is soft. He shakes out my shoulders, trying to release the tension.
“It was my aunt. I told her I wouldn’t be coming in to work. She always tries to be cryptic and ends up sounding like a Real Housewife, which is not a reference you understand.”
His fins droop as he shakes his head. “’Fraid not, darlin’. Can I ask something personal?” Gil asks. “I don’t want to offend you, but I can’t help but be curious.”
“What is it?”
“You work for your aunt’s shop, right?”
“Yeah, since I was 18.”
“Alright, so four years at this job you hate but felt obliged to stay at,” he says slowly as if puzzle pieces of my life are clicking together in front of him. “And you’ve been living with your aunt and cousin all this time.”
“I’ve tried to move out, but things with roommates, exes, it all fell through,” I admit.
I pretend not to notice the way his pupils flare at the idea of me being with anyone else.
“The rent Aunt Andrea charges is less than any of the apartments I’d be able to handle by myself, and everything affordable is a longer drive from Grams’ place.
I don’t know. I’ve always felt like … furniture from an estate sale no one wanted.
I just got stuck in a room, in a house, taking up space.
An old chair that’s useful enough to keep around but not to admire.
She finally kicked me to the curb this week. ”
“Darlin’, you’re not an old chair. You don’t need fixing or patching up or to be put somewhere on display.” His hand comes up to stroke my cheek. “I meant it when I called you a hummingbird. You’re meant to fly, and move, and explore, and make a nest anywhere you choose.”
I gulp, glancing over his shoulder at the seashell-encrusted home. If I had to build a nest somewhere, I think I know where I’d choose. A place a fish and a bird can live together—right here on this dock.
“Hmm, but nests typically cost money,” I say, avoiding voicing my true thoughts. “And I don’t have a lot.”
“Would it be insensitive to ask if your parents left you anything?” he asks. “I’m not sure how things work in the mortal realm.”
I cringe. I don’t mind him asking, though there’s a vague feeling of being sized up. Like Gil is trying to see how well the puzzle pieces of our lives will really click together when push comes to shove.
What I’m about to tell him might ruin that.
“When I finally got control over my bank account, I wasn’t smart about it.
I lived in so much comfort; I kept some, sure, but less than I realistically should have.
Everything else I donated to music programs and libraries—things I wanted to support, things my parents would have supported, and then Aunt Andrea came to me with her proposal. ”
“Her … proposal?” The fins on the side of Gil’s face ruffle at the same time his voice drops. If we’re getting serious, this is probably something we’re going to talk about sooner or later.
“The store wasn’t what I thought it was going to be,” I say.
“She said it would be a tribute to the band, to my parents and uncle. But I was 18, and we’d been so rocky my whole life and…
then this was my chance. So, I wrote a check and didn’t even think when my name wasn’t on the paperwork.
As she started planning, and it all turned into such a mess.
The small dedication to the band’s legacy turned into this weird cash grab that I’m ashamed to still work at. ”
“She stole from you,” Gil says, a low guttural sound in his throat that makes something stir inside me.
I push the feeling down and shake my head. Grams had a similar reaction when everything went down, but it’s not true. “Everything that happened was my choice. I gave it to her.”
“Under false pretenses,” he insists. “Why keep working there? Is the job market that bad in the human realm?”
“Yes,” I answer because it is. I’ve known people overqualified and under-hired my whole life.
“But it is more than that. Fans come in pretty regularly, people who knew my parents, people who loved them. The accident happened when I was too young for them to live in my memories, so those little conversations? I don’t know.
It’s like I can share in theirs, hear something real, feel the way they live on through their music, you know? ”
His frown is deeper as he moves closer with fins spiked in irritation that begin to mellow the moment our skin makes contact. “I am sorry, Marina.”
“It’s not your fault,” I say, a phrase that’s so ingrained in me I could have it tattooed. “Do you think less of me now?”
“No,” he says, easing my head down onto his shoulder. “I don’t think that’s a possibility you need to concern yourself with.”
I lean on him, and moments pass with the two of us sitting in silence, our legs kicked off the dock and into the water.
“Was hoping it might be your Grams on the phone. I wanted to say hello.”
“Why do you want to talk to Grams?” I ask, but honestly, they’d have way more in common than you’d expect. I wonder if poker is in Gil’s skill set too.
“Considering she’s the grandmother of the girl I love, I think a hello is the least I can say.” The comment is so casual I don’t think I heard him right.
I couldn’t have—there’s no way. But then again, we’ve been throwing around the words “girlfriend” and “boyfriend.” I stand up, unable to focus on anything, especially not the words I think he just said.
I do the only logical thing you can do when your old childhood best friend who turns out to be an aquatic man tells you he loves you.
I jump into the water.