Chapter 9
FREDDIE
The Riptide is actually a fascinating place to write my book.
There’s so many interesting people to watch, and the breeze from the open wall facing the ocean is utterly to die for. I guess I should clarify that I’m not getting a ton of writing done, actually, but this is a lovely spot to sit and get lose in the ambiance.
Liam walks around like he owns the place, and the shift is immediate.
The careful, guarded man from the car becomes fluid and confident.
He jokes with regulars, pours without measuring, catches a glass mid-air when someone knocks it off the counter, and does it all with an ease that makes it look effortless.
Makes me wonder more about him, like has he always worked somewhere like this? It’s not like I intended to be an author, and yet here I am. I actually went to school for business, having worked in HR before the success of my stories took off.
I’ve since learned the other person tending the bar is named Kira, her pinkish coral-fae skin (yes, learned that one, too) very hypnotic. She spots me, spots Liam, spots the laptop I'm setting up at the far end of the bar, and heads my way with a full grin.
"The writer's back," she says, bringing me a water.
"Oh, yeah, just finding somewhere regular to write," I reply, having zero story concocted for why I will constantly be around Liam.
Her eyebrows shoot up, looking at Liam. He gives her a look that says don't with the force of a thousand words, which returns her attention to me, her grin widening. "Interesting."
That’s when the merman walks around the bar, and motions back to it. “Leave her be… here go tend real quick.”
“Sure thing, lover man.”
He rolls his eyes, and my heart races a bit as he slides in the booth across from me. He waves her way. “I’ll handle everyone, so they don’t bother you. Sorry about that.” He leans forward, forearms on the bar, tattoos deliciously on display. "You writing?" He nods to my laptop that’s still closed.
“Hey, mind your own business. I’m trying. I have a deadline that I've been cheerfully ignoring."
His eyes sharpen a bit like he’s paying attention. "What kind of stuff do you write? Aside from romance? Like what kind?” A grin spreads across that handsome face. “Is it, what are they calling it… spicy?”
I narrow my eyes at him, my stomach doing more flips that send a rush up to my neck and cheeks. "Spicy enough to make you blush."
Something in his expression shifts, darkens. "Prove it."
Well, crap, now I’m the one blushing. “Oh, no, I can’t read any of that out loud. It’s bad enough to hear the narrators—“
“Oh come on, just a little line?”
I can feel the heat in my face intensify. “Maybe if I text you a screenshot.” His laugh makes my body feel small little needles prick through my nervous system, like my body is alight with desire for him. “Don’t you have work to do?”
He bites his lip, looking me up and down as he nods. “Get that screenshot for me.”
He taps the table and stands, sliding it off of the wood as I can’t stop imagining that hand—
“I bet that hand would feel great against our butt, the one he clearly looks at.”
Liam turns around, our eyes locking as we both know the shell just what it did. Screw it. I shrug my shoulders, press my lips together, and reply, “It has a point.”
I kind of hoped it would inject some humor into this, maybe make him laugh, but instead his gaze intensifies like he’s considering the depth of that.
He then turns his head away quickly, wiping at his mouth like he’s trying to pull away words he might have spoken, rounding the bar a little quicker than he otherwise might have.
Then he flashes that gaze at me one more time, half-smiling before shaking his head and getting back to work.
Oh, great.
That’s it. I’m a total goner, aren’t I?
His attention gets pulled away by a group at the other end of the bar, and I quickly open my laptop like it might help, but instead my heart races so fast all I do is stare at my laptop screen with a cursor that blinks.
I open my manuscript. I read the last paragraph I wrote, which was approximately four hundred years ago.
I delete it, adrenaline coursing through as I can’t believe that we both crossed a line into real flirting.
I write a new paragraph, and then delete that too.
I watch Liam work and try to pretend I'm not using him as a character study.
I write: He moved behind the bar like water finding its path—never rushed, never wasted, every motion exactly where it needed to be.
I don't delete that one.
An hour passes, and the bar gets louder.
I manage about three thousand words, which is more than I've written in months, and most of them are descriptions of a fictional bartender who bears zero resemblance to anyone in my actual life, except for the silver hair and the tattoos and the jawline and the—okay, it's him.
It's entirely him. My editor is going to notice that I suddenly got very descriptive in this section.
I'm deep in a paragraph about my fictional bartender's hands when someone slides onto the stool next to mine.
"Hey there."
I glance up. He's tall, brunette, surfer-adjacent, with the kind of tan that says he lives outdoors and the kind of smile that says he knows he's attractive. He's holding a beer with a little condensation running down on the outside, leaning into my space with a confidence that borders on invasion.
"Hi," I say, in the tone that universally translates to I'm busy.
He doesn't take the hint. "I'm Brody."
"I'm working."
"On what?"
"Work."
"What kind?"
"The kind that requires concentration."
He laughs like I'm joking. "You're funny. You here alone?"
Before I can answer, something shifts in his expression, he tilts his head, squinting at my laptop screen, then at me, then at the screen again. I maneuver the laptop so he can’t read the screen anymore.
His eyes go wide.
"Wait. Holy shit. Are you Marlowe Indigo?"
The sound of my pen name in this bar, in this town, from this stranger's mouth, hits me like a bucket of ice water. My fingers freeze on the keyboard. My stomach drops. I glance back at the screen—oh. I work into two windows often, one with my Photoshop open, working on a graphic that has my face on it, announcing which conventions I’ll be at this year…
"I’m sorry, who are you—”
He tilts the beer toward my laptop. "My sister is obsessed with your books. She has every single one. Oh my god, she's going to lose her mind." He's pulling out his phone. "Can I get a picture? She literally has your author photo on her—"
His sister I’d gladly take a picture with, but something about this is too sudden and on the nose for me. Normally I love meeting a fan in the wild. But this doesn’t feel the same. “No, you have the wrong person."
"It's definitely you. Your author photo is—"
“Sexy merman, some help!”
“—right there. I can tell it’s you.”
The muffled shout from the seashell inside of my bag seems to go completely unrecognized, except for when I glance up, Liam’s attention is fully engrossed on us, and dare I say the look of threat in his eyes as he assess why I need help makes me close my legs like he’ll see how that arouses me.
I focus back on this random stranger, loosely holding a hand up. “Look, you got me. But I’m working. Maybe after.”
My voice has gone tight and thin and the heat in my face is not the fun kind of heat.
It's the panicked kind. The kind that comes from someone pulling back the curtain on the version of yourself you keep carefully separate from your real life.
Marlowe Indigo exists on book covers and Instagram, in the carefully curated world of my author persona.
She does not exist at a dive bar in a magical town while her host's cursed seashell is right in my bag.
Brody is still holding up his phone. "Just one picture, come on, she'll—"
"She said no, Brody."
Liam's voice comes from directly behind the guy, low and flat, carrying the specific energy of a man who has bounced a lot of people from this bar and is deciding whether to add one more to the list.
Brody glances between us. "Oh, I was just—"
"She's not interested. And she's with me."
Brody looks at Liam, really looks, taking in the silver hair and the tattoos and the shoulders and the expression that says test me, and makes the correct survival decision.
"Oh, shit, my bad, man. I didn't realize she was your girlfriend. Thought you didn’t take one on.” He's off the seat, tipping his beer to the aide. "I’ll tell my sister you said hi?" he adds to me, like we're friends now, before disappearing into the crowd.
I sit there, nearly panting, my face on fire but now for entirely different reasons. I want to call him back just so I can let his sister know I’m so grateful for the support, just that her brother had the wrong timing…
Liam slides into the seat across from me, leaning over to close some of the distance between us. Like he’s got no interest in rescinding that public statement that I know others overhear.
"Your girlfriend?" I manage, tucking my hair behind my ears. “We should have corrected that, right?”
"Would you have preferred I let him keep going?"
"Well,” I start, blinking rapidly. “No, obviously.”
"Then yes. My girlfriend." He looks at me sideways, and there's something in his eyes that isn't just protectiveness. It's that flicker I saw at his house, the crack in the wall, the glimpse of something warmer and more dangerous underneath. "At least while you're here."
I throw him a glare. "That's going to get back to people."
"Good.”
"Good?" I ask, surprised he’s doubling down.
"If anyone else in this town needs to know you're off limits, they'll know by tomorrow morning. And that includes Thalassa." He purses his lips as he sighs, staring at me for a moment that makes him look all serious. “Haven’t ever heard the shell ask for help… look, sorry if that was too much.” He waves a hand. “But anyone could be with Thalassa, and if the shell shouts for help, I’m showing up. I don’t trust anything right now.”
I tap my fingers on the table, because, well, he has a point. “Is it always this serious? When the shell picks someone?”
Those beautiful, warm eyes connect with mine, and I can see the faintest indent of worn laugh lines around his eyes. “Not at all. And you’re, well, different,” he says, nodding his head as if to casually reference the soulmate stuff, “which means I’m not messing around. We can chat later, okay?”
He taps the table with his hand, and stands to walk away. I watch him go. The bar continues around me like nothing happened, except that Kira is grinning so hard I'm worried her face might split, and two selkie women in the corner are whispering and staring at me with open fascination.
My gaze drifts back to my laptop as the cursor blinks.
I write: And then, without warning or permission, he claimed her in front of everyone....
She's with me.
I’m like this for another few hours while Liam tends the bar, my palms locked in place on my laptop as my fingers find the right keys—which includes a lot of backspacing from typos. I even take a break for a moment to stare out at the ocean, really pleased with my progress.
My phone buzzes.
A text from Dove.
Just heard from three different people that Liam Dunmore has a girlfriend. Girl, you moved fast!
I stare at the screen, a flip in my gut telling me that I’m way more into this than I should be.
It's complicated!!!
FREDDIE brOWN. CALL ME IMMEDIATELY.
I put my phone face-down, and decide I’m going to need a tall daiquiri for this.