Your Friend’s Fin is Showing
Your Friend’s Fin is Showing
SNOW
Five isn’t responding. He looks as though he’s seen a ghost or something, though I can’t blame him. Mermaids are ridiculously scarce on land.
Talk about near non-existent.
I’d been hella shook the night a pipe burst over the rear hallway at Poison Apple and dumped a full sheet of water over Ariel’s lap.
One second, she was calm, sweet Ariel, telling everyone to clear out before the ceiling gave.
The next, she was retreating so fast her chair clipped the wall, one hand fisted in her soaked skirt like she could hold her body together by force.
I followed her because I thought she was hurt. Then I saw scales.
A rainbow iridescence shining over her silver scales, gleaming beneath the wet fabric. Her legs were fusing, knitting together from thigh to ankle, her body changing in a way I had no context for.
Ariel looked up at me, her face pale, her eyes huge before they narrowed.
"Get out," she snapped.
I stopped so hard my boots squeaked on the wet floor.
Ariel never snapped.
Then her voice broke. "Please, Snow. Don’t look."
So I turned around, blocked the hallway with my body, grabbed every towel I could reach, and started patting her down as tears streamed down her face.
"I’ve got you," I told her, keeping my eyes on her face. "No one will see. No one will know. I’ll keep you safe and dry."
She’d nodded and hugged me for several long minutes, and I knew I would die before I betrayed my best friend. And I stupidly just revealed her to a stranger.
Well...a near-stranger to her.
"Do you understand me, Five?" I say more harshly. "That is my best friend in there, and this is her most vulnerable secret. If you fuck up my relationship with her, I don’t know what I’d do."
Die, something inside me replies.
I’ve already lost too much. Too many people.
Though I’m still determined to find them and bring them home before they end up like Carolee.
But losing Ariel would be like losing Rosie. My stomach knots at the fear I’ve already broken her trust, that she won’t love me anymore. As Two pointed out last night, sometimes a person’s love can be broken. Not mine, but I wouldn’t blame her.
As much as I want to barge in and ask if we are okay and if she can forgive me, she’s still in the bath. A vibration on the kitchen counter has me grabbing my phone.
A text from Ariel.
Ariel
Swear him to secrecy and if he breaks it, I’ll murder him in a slow, torturous way that involves waterboarding him with dirty dishwater.
My fingers fumble to send a long, rambling response that promises I’d murder him first, how sorry I am, and to let me know how I can make it up to her or I’ll die if she doesn’t forgive me.
Three gray dots appear.
Then disappear.
Then appear again.
Ariel
You’re on bathroom duty through New Year’s, starting with fixing that damn lock. AND I get one month of Magic Bean drinks on you. Whatever I want, whenever I want it.
I let out a sigh of relief.
Me
Done.
I can make it up to her. This will be fine.
Slowly, I feel my adrenaline-fueled fear start to settle.
When I lift my eyes, I find Five still wearing that strange look, as if he’s shocked and...upset?
After a few blinks, his eyes morph from blue to red.
Five has receded, and it’s Four in his stead. "Yeah, uh, sorry, we were just caught by surprise. No problem. Don’t worry about us, baby."
Baby. Gawd. Why does it melt me when Four calls me that?
Is it because heat and sex appeal literally roll off him?
I watch him standing in the center of my living room. His nonchalance feels a little forced, like he’s still shook.
"Is Five okay?" I ask carefully. "I mean, it’s not that big of a deal, right? You knew most of my friends were different."
His demeanor eases further. "Yeah, totally. Like I said, it was just a surprise. That’s all.
" He smiles down at me, and there is heat in it, and suddenly a new intent has me forgetting the last few minutes.
"Since we can’t clean up, how do you feel about being filthy with me for a little while.
" He waggles his brows, and before I can react, his arms scoop under my legs, picking me up the same time he buries his face in my neck, and attacks it.
I try to suppress the giggles at his sudden swing even as he walks us back to my bedroom, slamming the door shut behind us.