Chapter One

Ihad now officially seen Kai's naked body more than any of my ex-boyfriends, and that should have concerned me more than it did. I was far from a prude, I just hadn't made a hobby out of watching men parade around in their birthday suits, nor did I feel like flashing my bits at anyone with a pulse or a pick-up line they thought was clever.

"Give me fifteen minutes to whip something up." Cee told us. She hadn"t made underwear for her collection, but Kai's unique situation had inspired a last-minute underwear line. "In the meantime," she gave me a devil's grin that would have looked angelic to anyone who wasn't her best friend. "Enjoy the view."

I rolled my eyes. "Give him the clothes, Cee." She pouted, but handed him several hangers and pushed him towards the dais to try them on. The three-paned vanity provided the perfect view of muscles the years of endless swimming had blessed him with. I turned when he shucked off the cargo shorts, but not quick enough to spare me from a peripheral glance, which turned into two, then three. It was still trying to figure out how his ass could be that sculpted when it was a tail ninety percent of the time.

Kai had been in his human form for more than twelve hours now and showed no signs of the merman I had come to know. Just days ago, his skin was a sickly shade of grey, the scales and the edges of his fins flaking and rotting away. Stuck as a merman in a tank equivalent to a fishbowl and subjected to fatal experiments at the hands of a deluded scientist, his condition had only worsened when Doctor Reinhardt discovered he could take human form. He was pounding on Death's door when I reached him last night and jumped into the tank to haul him to the surface.

It was the most irrational, impulsive thing I'd ever done, and that was saying something, especially since I hadn't taken into account the automatic lock on the tank lid that had promptly closed behind me. I would've drowned if not for Kai, who drudged up the last of his strength to swim to me and…

Well, I didn"t know what he'd done. He kissed me, damn did he kiss me. The kind of knee-shaking, toe curling kiss that made my heart race and all the blood rush out of my head and straight to my core from how dizzy I felt when we broke apart. The scientist in me, the little masochist, was still itching for answers. He hadn't elaborated on what made his health do a total turnaround, but if that kiss was involved it would be hard to prove with the scientific method. There was much about Kai that didn't make logical sense- his existence for starters- and I had the feeling my normal approach wouldn't yield the answers I was looking for. Especially when he wouldn't stop staring at me, distracting, and heated like he was also thinking of that kiss and wanted more.

I grabbed the first thing out of Cee's closet to cover the lower half of his body with, which just so happened to be the glitter-encrusted, hot pink board we'd planned Dennis's murder on. It was amusing watching him poke at the biodegradable dust, sneer at the image of Dennis, then frown as he considered the devil horns and outrageous mustache Cee had drawn on for good measure. I remembered the ache in my chest that night, the heaving breaths I'd huffed into Cee's pillow as she yanked out the foam board and proceeded to hack away at every image of him she could get her hands on. Once I'd stopped crying, she'd thrust a glue gun into my hands, and I'd joined her. We'd burned everything on the beach, cleaned up, then hunkered in her home theater with two bottles of whiskey and a Ryan Reynolds marathon. It was the best hangover I'd ever had.

Kai dropped the foam board, disregarding the entire reason for giving it to him in the first place. He was stunning as a merman, but it was an ethereal sort of beauty, mesmerizing but untouchable. But in this form, he was more than touchable. And with the strength I knew he had, I was sure he'd have no problem holding me against a wall with nothing but his hips.

My head was clearly horny when she was sleep deprived. I was trying to wrap my head around the fact that he was here at all. I thought for sure he would've taken the first opportunity to get as far away from humans as possible. He told me he'd been captured while conducting his own studies. His people wanted answers about their deteriorating world, and he'd been willing to risk his life to find them. In a way, our fields aligned perfectly. Of course, our methods-well, Reinhardt's methods-were torturous and invasive. The corrupt scientist and his team had not only forced Kai into various untested experiments but had openly admitted their willingness to sacrifice his life to fund their research and to find more merfolk.

I could only assume that he was still here because he hadn"t found what he was looking for. It certainly had nothing to do with him looking at me like I was a piece of salmon he found wandering from its school. Being prey was not supposed to feel this hot, right?

Kai arched a brow, "Are you asking me to hunt you, little star?"

I seriously needed a manual on this whole telepathy thing. I turned my attention towards the arched windows and pretended I hadn't heard him or seen the infuriating smirk on his face.

Allie was sitting by the balcony, her face buried in a book. Unlike me, she was much better at keeping a professional attitude around Kai. Of course, it helped that she couldn't hear him in her head, and that her girlfriend was hunched over a sewing machine two feet away.

"Babe?" Cee called around a mouthful of pins, her nimble hands fiddling with her sewing machine. "Can you hold this piece while I get the damned needle rethreaded?"

Allie set her book aside and joined Cee by her work bench, holding the soft material she was stitching together.

"Silk?" I asked, leaning in for a closer look.

"Peace silk," Cee clarified. "They don't boil the silkworms alive to harvest the cocoons before they emerge."

I wrinkled my nose in disdain. Beside me, Allie did the same. "Gross."

"Extremely,"

"Isn't silk a little… boujee?"

"Oh, it totally is. But it's much better for the banana if the hammock is comfortable. The coconuts, too."

I stuck out my tongue, "Seriously, Cee?"

"Should I use a different fruit to describe balls? They're both hairy."

"I'm going to pretend you didn't say that." Allie replied, nudging Cee with her elbow. Cee jerked, giving her a mock glare that quickly dissolved into an infectious grin.

They had been together for three years now, after Allie had been hired to valet a charity event for homeless pets, where she'd found my best friend rifling through the recycling bin for raw materials to make pet beds after her father's less than generous contribution to the cause. It was the meet-cute of the century.

Cee cackled, dismissing us once she got the needle threaded, and we returned to our respective works: me, subtly gawking at the Aquatic God standing on her dais like Poseidon himself-all he was missing was a trident-and Allie, the bookworm and unwavering emotional support.

"You don't think it's too posh?" Cee asked a few minutes later, straightening the front of Kai's blue button down. She'd paired it with tan cargo pants and sandals that Allie had borrowed from her brother. "I'm trying to break away from runway and ballroom attire."

"Says the one putting him in silk boxers," I muttered.

"It looks great, Cee." Allie assured her. "It's like he's lived here his whole life."

Cee stiffened imperceptibly, cutting me a quick glance. Only she and I knew who Kai really was, and until he was back in the ocean, it had to stay that way. Like the merman version of witness protection, our fabricated story had been that he was Cee's cousin, a start-up model from some vague part of Europe looking to grow a following here in America, and Cee had been more than willing to help out.

I gave her an almost imperceptible shake of my head, and said, "Yea, I think he looks great."

She shrugged, playing along, and tapped a finger over her lips, elbow resting on her other hand, "Still, it's missing something."

Allie tapped her shoulder, pulling out a pair of sunglasses she'd grabbed off one of the mannequin heads. I still wanted to set the creepy things on fire. Accidentally, of course. "Maybe these?"

Her face lit up. "That's it!" She took the glasses from Allie and swooped in for a kiss. "You're a genius, babe."

She passed them to Kai, who frowned, looking at me for clarification.

Allie nodded expectantly. "Go on then."

I realized the problem a moment later, he didn't know what to do with them. His sporadic knowledge of our world would have been endearing if he weren't trying to blend in.

"I think he's just deciding if they'd look better on his eyes or on top of his head." I made up.

"Oh yea, good point." Cee agreed. She took the sunglasses from Kai, then as a deliberate afterthought, passed them to me. "Adjust them for me will you? I wanna get the whole picture." She took Allie's hand and stood by the desk.

I held them dumbly for a moment, like I was the one who didn't know what they were used for.

"Um, sure?" I stepped onto the dais with Kai, the small circumference putting us in closer proximity.

"Show me how this human trinket of yours works," he teased.

"I can't believe you've never seen someone wear glasses." I muttered. I supposed there were plenty of things he didn't know, just as I was more clueless about the ocean than I'd originally thought.

The pale blue shirt offset his eyes, and I remembered that I was the only one who could see their color, and not the hazel his glamour projected out to others. He'd agreed to keep the magical disguise as a compromise to remain on land with us. To everyone else, he was the classic Californian, down to the blonde hair and tanned skin. But to me, he was the same Kai I knew and-

Nope. Not finishing that.

Our breaths intermingled and I was close enough to feel the heat of his body through his shirt. He skimmed his fingers across my shoulders, down my arms, until they curved beneath my elbows. He nudged them up, prompting me to put the sunglasses in place. I used the tips of the frames to push the locks of hair from his forehead, trailing my fingers over the silky strands as I settled the shades on top of his head. It would be a crime against humanity to cover up those eyes.

"Um, should we go get some water?" Allie asked wryly. "Those sparks are intense."

"Don't just stand there, let's see how it looks." Cee said, snapping me out of my stupor. I quickly stepped down from the dais, trying to hide the blush flaming my cheeks.

He looked human. In fact, if I pictured him with the glamour that was hiding the otherworldliness of his usual features, no one would even question it. Suddenly, this didn't feel like such a bad idea.

"You know," Allie mused, her amber eyes glittering, "If we really want to get the full picture, we should have both models up there."

"What an excellent idea, babe!" Cee vanished into the closet, emerging with an armful of garment bags. "Let's start with the sundress, the short one."

I thought about arguing, but the look on both of their faces said that there was no point, so I took the clothes from Cee. She shot me a wink which I returned with a glance skyward. Rather than strip on the dais like Kai, I hung the bags on a divider next to the closet and disrobed. The sundress in question was like thin wisps of clouds on an otherwise clear day, with a plunging neckline and swaths of gauzy blue fabric that grazed the tops of my thighs when I moved. The girls gushed when I stepped around the partition, then held out a pair of light gray wedges. They smushed Kai and I together, and his languid gaze roamed over me until all the exposed skin on my chest and arms burned from the heat.

"You look stunning." His voice grazed the edges of my mind.

"You've got to teach me how this telephone works before you give me a heart attack. I'm still surprised it works out of the water."

"And why wouldn't it?" His face was impassive, but I could see the humor in his eyes, the aquatic jerk. He leaned in closer, his lips brushing my hair. "Remember, I can only hear the thoughts you want to send to me. But I can feel the gears in your head turning. It's quite fascinating."

"I'm a scientist," I reminded him, "It's built into my DNA to figure out how things work."

"And you want to figure out how I work?"

"Yes." I admitted.

I felt his lips on top of my head pull up into a grin. "I almost want to let you."

"Don't they look amazing?!" Cee cried. I didn't know if she meant us or the clothes, maybe both. "I'm thinking of calling the shoot ‘Elemental Love'. You're currently wearing the ‘Tides' collection. All ocean-rescued plastic, minus the sunglasses and Kai's sandals."

I touched my hat, as if I could feel what kind of plastic bottle or bag it had once been. Cee had poured her time, money, heart, and soul into these clothes. It was nice to not only see the culmination of her hard work, but to be wearing it as well.

"That's remarkable," This from Kai, who was fingering the collar of his own shirt.

"You haven't seen anything yet," Cee said. "We're doing corresponding colors of each element for the photoshoot. Blue for this one, obviously, greens and browns for the ‘Dust' line, I worked out a deal with the ranch my dad invested in for the ethically harvested cotton and wool. The ‘Ember' line will be red, and purple for the ‘Ether' line. Or maybe white, I'm still deciding."

"I'm so proud of you, babe," Allie said, squeezing Cee in a tight hug. "You better get an ‘A' on your final."

"Oh, I'm going bigger than that. After this shoot, every investor and major label is going to know my name, whether they want to or not." She nodded to us, "Next set please! I want to see if these looks inspire any location ideas."

So much for my plans to stay comfortable. With Kai's answering laugh, I realized he"d heard me, again. I'd have to bug him later to tell me how it worked. Sometimes I could feel the thoughts flowing from myself to him and could plug it like a drain, like when he was in the tank, but if I wasn't consciously thinking about it, thoughts seemed to slip out, and of course it was often the most inconvenient ones.

"Who'd you hire for the photoshoot?" I asked, handing Cee the hat and shoes for safe keeping.

"Johnny said he'd do it. Don't give me that look!" She shrugged innocently. "He's a great photographer. He did all the underwater stills in the bar. Plus, he's off next weekend."

I narrowed my eyes, knowing her excuse was bogus. The words ‘Johnny' and ‘not working' had never mixed.

"He wasn't complaining?" she tried.

"He gets to spend the day flirting with pretty girls, of course he wasn't complaining."

"And a pretty boy," Allie added with a smirk. "You may wanna lock up your man, M, Johnny's got slippery fingers."

"He's not my man." I said, too quickly.

"Sure he isn't," the wink she gave me was anything but subtle.

We spent another hour rotating through outfits until Cee deemed a handful worthy enough to be photographed. Allie stood and stretched her arms over her head before bringing the hand still holding her book down to cover a yawn. "I think I'll head out."

"So soon?" Cee set her work down.

Allie laughed at the pout on her girlfriend's lips, and leaned down to kiss it, "I've gotta grab groceries for dinner tonight."

"I'll walk you out." Cee offered, wrapping an arm around her waist.

Allie looked at me over her shoulder, her tight curls bouncing around her cheeky grin. "See you later, Maren. It was lovely meeting you Kai!"

"You"ll see him around." I said as he stepped around the partition I'd finally convinced him to dress behind, and gave her a salute that was so human-like I did a double take. Once they were gone, he frowned at the colorful patchwork shirt, smoothing the ridges down his chest. "Remind me again why I'm wearing all of this?"

"You've got to cover the important bits. Human rules,"

"But there's so much of it," he scrunched his nose, looking at the rolls of fabric, and the shredded pieces littering the floor. "It's…wasteful."

I shrugged. "Some people need more for necessity, or the climate. Others just like to switch up their look, and well, I admit we can take it too far." That was an understatement, and the internet didn't help, adopting and discarding fashion trends at lightning speed. Cee hoped to use that cycle to pioneer more sustainable trends, but it was a big mountain to climb. Still, if anyone was stubborn enough… "We're still learning." I said.

"You're disconnected," he clarified. "You forget what sustains you, take it for granted."

"Hence the reason some of us are trying to change." I pointed out.

"What do you do?" he asked. There was no malice in his voice, only curiosity, and I realized he'd only seen me as a janitor and then I was too focused on freeing him to explain why I was there in the first place.

"I'm a marine biologist," The word didn't seem to spark any recognition with him, so I clarified, "I work with all things related to the ocean. I study them, their habits, the impact their species has on the environment around them. I guess it would be similar to how you've studied us." Though I doubted they'd trapped a human in a box. But the Sirens in Greek mythology were known to lure sailors overboard, drowning them for the sheer enjoyment of it. "Lately I've been working on a paper explaining the behavioral changes in certain species."

Kai's eyebrows rose at that. "What changes?"

"Difference in migration patterns, like the increase in shark sightings closer to the coast. My theory is that it has to do with rising temperatures or having to travel further to search for food."

"What a coincidence," he muttered, a faint smile tugging at his lips as he ran his knuckle over them.

"What do you mean?" I asked, my eyes locked on that finger until he dropped his hand.

"You asked me before how I ended up here," he said, "More sharks have begun to enter our hunting grounds. My people wanted to know why."

I swallowed hard, "And, what do you hunt?"

He looked up at me from under his dark lashes, grinning like the devil about to close a deal with an ignorant mortal for their soul. "Human wave riders who lose grip of their boards."

"You actually eat people?!" I cried.

His composure broke, and he burst out laughing so hard he had to clutch his stomach to keep from doubling over. He wiped a mirthful tear from the corner of his eye. "No, little star, we don't. We eat fish, crustaceans, and as you've noticed, I have quite the appetite for squid."

My answering scowl was anything but amused, "You need to work on your jokes."

"What are you talking about? I'm hilarious. Anyway, all signs to the root of our problem pointed to what your species has been doing to our homeland, the skies and the earth as well."

"Climate change," I breathed. "We really have been studying the same thing." The idea was…endearing. Not for the first time, it felt like we had common ground, yet another golden thread connecting us in some mysterious way. To what end, I didn't know, and I didn't think the universe would throw me an answer anytime soon.

He nodded, "Alone, a shark cannot physically hurt us, but in packs they become quite a nuisance."

I never thought I would hear anyone compare a creature that could inflict such gruesome wounds on a person to little more than a common mouse. "So that's why you washed up on the beach," I guessed, "You were trying to get a closer look."

"A closer look at what?" Cee asked, coming back into the room.

"I just figured out why Kai ended up as a science experiment." I said.

"Another hour and I would have been back in the ocean unnoticed." he assured me.

"Instead, you're playing dress up with two human girls in my Malibu Barbie mansion." Cee said, shoving a shirt in his direction.

"Malibu Barbie?" Kai wondered, looking to me for translation.

I started to reply, but Cee cut me off, "Not important. How do the clothes feel? Do the pants sit right on the hips or do I have to take them in a few more inches?"

He shrugged, giving up on understanding her fashion talk as I had long ago, "I feel…oddly human."

"You look oddly human." I said with a teasing grin.

His answering groan made Cee and I giggle.

"The clothes look amazing," I told her. "There's no way any investor could say no."

"Oh, they can, and many of them will. The fashion world is ruthless and cutthroat to the core. But so am I." Then, with her ever critical eye, she gave us another once over, "There are some adjustments, but I can worry about that tonight. These are done," She grabbed five pairs of silk boxers, and handed them over to Kai. "Go get yourself situated while we handle the cleanup. The bathroom's right down the hall."

Kai furrowed his brow, then wandered slowly out the door, which Cee shut behind him.

"You do realize he doesn't know what a bathroom is?" I checked.

"It's a bath in a room, what's there to figure out? Besides, I figured it'd buy me time."

"For?"

"My interrogation." she winked.

I had hoped that Cee might have missed those subtle moments between Kai and me. But this was Cee, she didn't miss anything.

I went for denial, "I don't know what you're talking about."

She in turn gave me a look that said she wouldn't buy my bullshit even if it was free and delivered by a drone. "You risked your life to save him, he kissed you like a scene straight out of an action movie, not to mention you two have been eye-fucking the entire day. Oh, and nice name you gave him. Did it just come to you?" there was enough sarcasm in her voice to sell on overstock.

"We were not eye-fucking." I argued.

"Eye. Fucking. Allie asked me several times if we should give you some privacy."

I groaned, sinking into the nearest chair, and rubbing at my temples. "I don't know what's going on, Cee. All of my emotions are jumbled up inside me. I don't know what's a dream and what's reality anymore. I feel-" I stopped myself before I could finish that thought.

"You like him, what's complicated about that?"

"Everything! Let's start with the fact that he's not human."

She shrugged, "Right now he's as human as I've ever seen, minus a few magical bits, particularly the one between his legs. You haven't seen it glow in the dark, have you? Cause a glowing penis would probably chart at the top of my freaky list, unless you're into-"

"Cee!" I hissed, waving my hands in front of me to shut her up.

She sighed, plopping down beside me. "Can I get serious for a minute?"

I raised my brow, "Based on what you just said, I doubt you can even last that long."

"What do you want from him?" she asked, straight to the elephant in the room. "Tail aside."

"The tail is not something you can push aside, Cee."

"He's going to be here a while, at least until graduation. Why not take advantage of what he's so blatantly offering?"

"He's not offering anything, he's curious about humans." At this point I was sure my face would be permanently pink, "We'll need a plan to get him home when it's time. Any ideas?"

"Ever thought of bribing the coast guard with Gucci life-vests?"

I glared at her.

"Okay, okay." she sighed. "If and when he's ready to go back, we can try to take the yacht. But that's going to require some work. Daddy dearest is still fuming from our latest blow out."

Cee's parents were currently on the other side of the world on ‘business', which meant Kai could stay here with Cee without issue. Though she tried not to let it bother her, I knew she was struggling with the fact that her father would rather flee to another continent than listen to his daughter. I winced, "How bad was it?" I asked.

"He threatened to arrange a marriage, so I cut the outline of a certain female body part into his Armani suits."

"Oh, the usual chaos, then."

She shrugged. "It paid off. He put them in the bin, I snatched them, and the animal shelter got some really soft cat beds. Don't change the subject, I'm not done talking about your obvious denial of your feelings."

I shook my head. "It doesn't matter."

"The hell it doesn't!"

"No, really. It's like you said, he's only staying until graduation. Until he leaves, my only focus is making sure he blends in, okay?"

She looked like she wanted to say more, started to, but Kai walked in, wearing the boxers…and nothing else. I swallowed hard, shamelessly admiring the way his hands rested on the band, which sat just beneath the ‘V' of his hips. Holy…

Kai's voice rumbled in my mind like distant thunder, "Do you see why I don't want to cover my ‘important bits', little star?"

Cee watched our interaction with laser focus, and the smug look she gave me was so clear I could hear her voice singing in my head as clearly as Kai's telepathy. ‘My work has just begun'.

Staying in the same house as my inquisitive best friend and the merman she was not-so-subtly trying to set me up with was a bad idea, so I told Becca I'd be home tonight, and I would cook. If she was shocked by my offer, she didn't say, and there was only a brief pause before she let me know what time she would be home, and what we had in the fridge. Strange how an impulsive move to save a captive merman could bring adult Maren to the surface.

Speaking of.

Kai walked beside me, looking entirely too comfortable in his new skin, while I was anything but. Despite my assurances that I would have no problem walking the five-minute stretch of beach back to my house, he insisted on accompanying me, and Cee had taken the liberty of shouting over my shoulder to Becca that her cousin would be joining us for dinner. She claimed it was so she could have the night to finish altering her designs, then promptly shoved us out the door with a wave and a handful of newly purchased foil wrappers because, ‘Mermen can carry STDs too'. Her words, my mortification.

"You don't have to walk me in," I told him when he followed me up to the porch. "Or stay for dinner." I didn't even know what to make that he would eat. Of course, out of all the food in the fridge, we were out of fish.

"Humor me," Kai said. "I'm intrigued to see your dwelling."

"Prepare to be disappointed," I muttered. "It's about a thousand steps below the mansion you're staying in."

A light was on in the living room, and I walked towards it, thinking Becca had forgotten to shut it before she left.

And froze.

He was sitting in the rocking chair, holding a newspaper from the stack we lined Otto's litter box with. It had to be a few months old at least, but he didn't seem to notice the date as he stared at the page, glasses resting on the bridge of his nose as he filled out the weekly crossword. He was dressed in a button-down and vest, and he was actually wearing pants. Not a robe. A fuzzy green alien could be doing the mamba in front of the television, and I would've been less shocked.

"Dad?" I asked, worried the lack of sleep was finally catching up to me and I was having an insomniatic hallucination worse than fuzzy dancing aliens.

He lifted a finger off his pencil, an all-too familiar signal to hold on for a moment. He penciled a word into one of the boxes, and set the paper down, looking up at me with a casual smile, "Welcome back, Starfish."