Chapter Five

"Since the aquarium's closed, I thought we'd take advantage of the peace and quiet." Cee explained, brushing her hands over the shoulders of my dress, wiping away invisible dust.

"How did you get in here?"

"I saw Assford stomping his way down the boardwalk. I figured with how pissed off he looked, you couldn't be far behind."

"The aquariums closed for the investigation," I reminded her.

She shrugged, "Semantics."

I quirked a brow, "Uh, huh. And when those semantics get us thrown out?"

"Then I record it for my Instagram. All news is good news."

Sometimes, my best friend was a mad genius, emphasis on mad.

"I feel just as ridiculous in these garments as last time," Kai grumbled.

"Oh, stop complaining, I only added the sunglasses to what you were already wearing."

"I can hardly see out of these things, they're too dark."

"Sun. Glasses." Cee repeated.

"Wear them on your head, Kai." I reminded him, giving Cee an elbow to the ribs. "Go easy on him."

"He's my cousin," Cee protested. "I'm obligated to bully him."

"Are we ready to start?" Johnny called, polishing his camera lens, the kind with a fancy surname and letters I couldn't remember. He also had a tripod and several interchangeable lenses dangling from a pack at his waist. It was odd to see him out of his pirate garb, though his bright coral nails had a ship"s wheel on the ring finger.

"Just about!" Cee called over her shoulder. "Let's ixnay the merman talk for now. You know what you're doing?"

"Walking around the aquarium?"

Cee sighed in exasperation, hanging her head low enough for blonde tendrils to fall around her face like a curtain. "Oi vey." She grabbed Kai's hand, wrapping our fingers together again. "Linger a bit at each exhibit, we'll follow behind and direct you as needed. Forget we're even here."

"I know it will be hard," Johnny said with a megawatt smile. "Especially with me behind the camera."

"Enough, Severs. Your ego's gonna sink that ship of yours."

"If I crash into rocks it will be from admiring your beauty."

She rolled her eyes but gave him a good-natured shove and a smile. I shook my head at their banter as Kai leaned in to whisper in my ear. "I thought she was bound to that other female?"

He said it strangely, as if unsure of the term we used on land for dating. It reminded me of what he told Dennis. It was probably just a way to piss him off-and it worked wonderfully- but if there was the slightest chance that he…

Nope. Not going there, not now. I hoped my palm wasn't sweating in his as I nodded, "Yes, she's dating Allie. Johnny's just messing around, we're all just good friends. Have been for years now."

"Let's start upstairs," Cee called, and we followed her up and across the gangplank. I almost stopped when I saw the ethereal glow of the tanks ahead. But Kai squeezed my hand, and I managed to make it into the room without bursting into tears.

A domed ceiling displayed millions of silver fish, like shooting stars in the night sky. The jellyfish took center stage, each species visible through submarine-like portholes. The lack of lights in the room highlighted every bizarre bell and tentacle in the tanks like a cinema. We started at the sea nettles, drifting around each other in lazy strokes.

"I always used to wonder how they never got tangled," I whispered to Kai. The room was empty, but like a movie theater or the inside of a church, there was a weight to the air, too precious to disturb. "It took a few marine courses to learn about their slime coating." Juno had been more than happy to indulge my curiosities on the matter, providing lab hours and extra credit assignments that ultimately bumped me to the top of my class.

Kai smiled. "Or attempting to help them and learn that lesson the hard way."

I gave him an incredulous look. "You? Really?"

He shrugged. "I was young and na?ve once too."

"Should I take that as a compliment?"

"The highest."

The moon jellies were in the next tank, pulsing at the same time as a human heartbeat. The upside-down jellies were amusing, as were the egg yolks. But my personal favorites, the comb jellyfish, had eight rows of plates that created shimmering rainbows when they glided through the water. I lingered there while Kai poked around the interactive touch screen trying to figure out how it worked.

"So strange," he muttered, touching the rotating model.

I rolled my eyes.He could move water in midair, but an electronic pad was magical?

A small spark at the tip of his fingers was all the warning I got before a line of electricity shot into the pad, fuzzing out the screen before it went black. The look he gave me was so chagrined, eyes wide and lips pouted, that I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing.

"How about I handle the electronics from now on?"

"That's probably best." he admitted.

Cee called for us to halt, and we stopped by the Open Ocean exhibit so she and Johnny could go over the photos. "I haven't been back there since I was little," I admitted as we waited by the exit.

"You don't like these creatures?"

"They're beautiful, but gelatinous medusas aren't my area of interest. They were my dad"s favorite, he always saved this exhibit for last. I always thought they looked like little aliens," I whispered, my throat stinging as I recalled just how long it had been since he'd been here. After mom left, he'd thrown himself into his research, and after the accident he was so far gone he couldn't leave the house anymore. "I couldn't bring myself to come back without him. Not this exhibit, or the rest of the aquarium."

"Yet you still came back, you still rescued me." I saw the lingering question in his gaze. Why?

"And you can thank me for it later." I quipped, suddenly feeling too vulnerable under the sincere weight of his gaze. Sarcasm it was.

Kai wrapped an arm around my waist, and as I leaned my head on his shoulder, he whispered into my mind, "You did what no one else would, a unique trait amongst your kind."

"I had some time to kill."

"Don't pretend I don"t intrigue you."he mused. "I am- what did you call it- an area of interest?"

"Who said I"m pretending?"I heard the sound of the camera shutter go off a moment before Cee squealed at whatever Johnny had captured, and Kai bit the shell of my ear, whispering, "Liar."

Another snapshot from Johnny. I wasn't sure how the clothes were showing up in the dark, but asking Cee just prompted her to rant about the ‘storytelling of fashion'. I'd tuned her out by the time we got back to the first floor.

Kai took in the sights of the aquarium. I expected him to be angry, seeing his fellow creatures ensconced in cages as he had been, but I found just the opposite was true as I watched him watch a school of fish swimming beside us as we walked towards the outdoor touch tanks. He was calm, with an easy smile on his face, that had little fish of my own swimming in my stomach.

"Can you talk to fish?" I blurted, trying to keep my mind on anything but the sensuous turn of his mouth, remembering how those lips had felt against mine.

He let out a surprised laugh. Not helping. "Where did that come from?"

I shrugged. "You know I'm curious."

"Well, it depends," he said. "They would need to have a certain level of intelligence to properly communicate with. For example," he gestured to a cluster of goliath groupers. "They make better meals, no powers of communication." We walked past the octopus, who was only showing a few tentacles today. "Now this one, he could outwit your devil in a game of wordplay any day."

I recalled the way he'd climbed up the tank on my first day, inching closer as if he found something about me intriguing. "Is he saying anything now?"

"He's asking if I have any idea what time it is?"

I snickered. "I guess we disturbed his nap." I looked around at the other exhibits in the room, fighting the urge to drag him to each one to see what the inhabitants were saying. Talking to animals was a skill I'd only associated with fantasy novels and superhero movies.

"What about dolphins?" I asked him, thinking of Daisy. I hoped she had found her pod okay.

He seemed to trace my line of thought. "They're incredible. They can track just about anything, even from long distances. We often work in tandem while hunting. Not to mention they're fiercely loyal..."

I decided I liked the nerdy side of Kai far better than his usual brood and mystery, and I absorbed everything he told me that afternoon like a sea sponge. Cee occasionally asked us to change our positions, or to face the camera, but other than that, it felt like we were alone, like we were on a real date.

"Can you find things over long distances?"

"No," He shook his head. "Even our telepathy has limits. Though I do share abilities with some, like your jellyfish, and others that are more…unique."

I rubbed at the hand where he'd given me a warning sting the first day I'd fed him in the tanks. "Well I know you could short-circuit the lighting. What else can you do?"

"Hmm, I might tell you," Kai said, tapping a finger against his chin. He gave me a cheeky grin. "Does that curious mind have any guesses?"

Cee's probing questions about Kai possessing a certain glowing appendage came raging to the forefront of my mind before I viciously shoved it down. My tentative grasp on the door to our link seemed to falter most in times of strong emotions, the last thing I needed was to send that image straight to his head.

"Nothing you'd be interested in," I muttered, hoping Cee and Johnny wouldn't catch the blush on my cheeks. I turned his hand over in mine, studying his bare wrist as my mind shifted gears. "By the way, where did you put the Fitbit?"

"What?" he asked, the corners of his eyes creasing adorably.

"The bracelet." I clarified. "The one you were wearing in the tank…" a part of me hoped it was still there, even if it meant Cee would glower at me for losing it.

In a heartbeat he went from the picture of cool confidence to unbearably shy, "About that…" He reached into the pocket of his shorts, pulling out the woven band, the lights reflected off the dark, cracked screen. "I may have knocked it against something."

I burst out laughing, relief rushing through me. Cee called, "Isn't that the watch I gave you?" She was standing over Johnny's shoulder. "Don't take it now, wait for them to get into position." she complained, swatting him on the shoulder.

"Easy! I know that." Johnny said. "I'm adjusting the settings. Leave it to the camera master."

Cee sketched an exaggerated bow. "Whatever you say, oh great camera master."

I, however, was still laughing like a hyena on an acid trip. Doubling over, I clutched my stomach, tears leaking from the corner of my eyes in sheer relief.

"What's wrong?" Kai asked. He bracketed his arms around me, unsure of if he should touch me or not. "Are you hurt?"

I shook my head, trying to get words out past the giggles, managing a few breathy words. "It's a long story." When I finally regained some of my wits, I stretched up, patting Kai's arm. "Don't worry about it," I held out my hand. "I'll throw it away."

To my surprise, he pulled back, wrapping his fingers around the band. "I'd like to keep it."

I frowned. "Why? It doesn't work anymore." Thank goodness for that. If he hadn't accidentally broken the thing, it may have led Reinhardt right to him.

Kai just smirked and said. "Let me have my indulgences, little star."

"Okay…" I supposed there was no harm in him keeping a souvenir, like Ariel collecting trinkets from the human world. If he was sticking around a while, he had to see "The Little Mermaid".

"What are you kids doing here?" I whipped my head around, thinking Reinhardt found us, but it was only a security guard, one that often manned the front entrance to discourage rambunctious teenagers from tagging the sides of the building. He walked towards us, footsteps pointedly loud. "The aquarium's closed. You shouldn't be here."

"Oh damn," Cee pouted, fisting her chin. "And here I thought the documents had gone through to rent this place out for the day."

The man, all business, glowered at her. "You cannot rent out the aquarium."

"Well, no wonder no one got back to me!"

"Our apologies, sir." I added politely, elbowing Cee lightly in the ribs. "We'll leave."

He looked like he'd rather be anywhere else in the world rather than having to wrangle rantipole children. I stepped in line with Cee as he ushered us out. "What now?"

She shrugged. "You're modeling the water collection, let's go to the beach."

"Excuse me, have you forgotten there's a water-intolerant individual in our party?"

"On the sand!" she rolled her eyes. "Oh, and while we're on the subject, if he does need to, how do I put this… relieve himself, make sure he strips first. Don't let him ruin my new designs with salt water, ‘kay?"

The afternoon was like any other this time of year, sunny and hot. Even through the padded sandals I could feel the boiling concrete working its way up the soles of my feet, the sand like miniature fire coals as we walked over to an empty stretch of San Carlos Beach.

Johnny set up his tripod on a semi-sturdy cluster of stones, some section of a wall that was broken or never finished. Nearby, sea lions basked on sun-drenched rocks, their flippers dipped into the cool water, bellies tilted upwards. I watched them, wondering if Cee was right and Kai would need to transform back at some point while he was here. I'd assumed he would be fine in either form, as long as he wasn't in between. Doubt swept in, reminding me of how little I actually knew about Kai, and how little time I would have before he left.

"Okay, I think this should work," Johnny said once the tripod was stabilized, "Now how about we put a little bit of ‘love' back into this elemental love collection?"

"Ooo?" Cee asked with a devilish grin. "What were you thinking, camera master?"

"Kai," Johnny called. "Pick up the pretty lady, would ya? Don't tuck her in though. I wanna make sure we can still see the embroidered details on the romper."

Kai looked at me, and I shrugged. This was my first time modeling something that wasn't in Cee's bedroom.

"They're hopeless." Cee sighed. She lifted a bullhorn that I hadn't seen before. I didn't want to know which hapless lifeguard she'd pilfered it from. "Sweep her off her feet, Loverboy!"

A light of acknowledgement then, followed by a cheeky grin. He stooped, swinging me up into his arms and twirling so fast I had to clutch his shoulders to keep my balance. The accompanying rush of wind felt like riding a rollercoaster, and a laugh bubbled out of me as the ends of my hair brushed the sand when he dipped me like we were ballroom dancing.

Kai paused then, setting me on my feet so fast I was worried we strayed too close to the water, "What's wrong?" I asked.

But he just took a strand of sand-flecked hair between his fingers, rubbing it gently. He leaned in, whispering against the shell of my ear. "Your laugh, it's like the raindrops that meet the tides."

There was no logical way to respond to that other than swooning, right?

"Thanks?" Was my brilliant response. "You caught me off guard."

"I seem to do that to you quite a lot."

"You do. Which reminds me, are you giving me some sort of warning before you swim off into the sunset?"

"Are you throwing me back already?" he asked, amused.

"No, but you did say you had to get back to the ocean and…" I gestured to the water beside us.

Kai took in my words, turning to face the camera with a brief half-grin at Johnny's prompting, "As long as I am not caught in-between, I am adaptable to either form. But there is a certain…calling that we feel, to return when we are gone too long. It is not strong now."

"Does it hurt?"

"No," Kai shook his head. "It's a tug, but it is not harmful. The ocean is my home, where I'll always belong before anywhere else. But right now, I am needed here."

"So you've said," Even if I still didn't know why, beyond his own scientific curiosities. And when he was satisfied… I swallowed hard, the weight of my disappointment crashing over as surely as the surf behind us. "Cee has a saltwater pool. I know it's not the ocean, but if you ever need a safe place to transform, she said you could use it."

He set me on my feet, cupping my cheeks with his hands, his palms so big his finger's dipped into the soft skin of my neck, "Thank you, Maren."

"Perfect!" Cee cried, looking over Johnny's shoulder at the pictures he was taking. "Now kiss her!"

"What?!" I yelped, whipping out of Kai's hold.

"Elemental Love, remember? Pucker up bestie, and give my cousin some love."

I glowered at my best friend who had veered from fashion designer to matchmaker in the blink of an eye. "Seriously?"

Kai's rumbling laugh had me turning my incredulous stare on him. "If it's the will of the she-devil…"

"Don't encourage her," I warned him. "She'll never stop if you—"

He wrapped one arm around my waist and the other behind my neck, pulling me to him just as a spray of water broke over the rocks, sending it into an arc over our heads. I'm sure it would be a killer shot, but the outcome of the photo was not the furthest thing from my mind.

This kiss was different, there was no pressure from the water, my panic over both our survivals, no physical electric sparks to short-circuit Johnny's camera. But his lips were soft, moving in such aching tenderness against my own that it brought tears to my eyes. They fluttered shut as he nibbled on my bottom lip, seeking an entry I was all too willing to provide. As his tongue swept in, I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him closer while he explored. For a moment, I let myself sink into him, praying to the ocean herself that he, this feeling, would never end.

"Uh, I think I've got enough pictures," Johnny said after a minute, an hour eternity later. He sounded embarrassed, something I didn't think was in his emotional vocabulary. "Y'all can stop now!"

"Let them have their fun," Cee waved off, a knowing grin on her face. "It's for the good of the shoot."

They wandered away, to where I didn"t know, or care. I drowned them both out, swept up in Kai's magnetic current, in the pleasurable zing that radiated from every nerve ending in my body, lighting me up like a firecracker.

I'm not sure who broke the kiss first, but we were both panting when we did. Senses returned slowly. I perceived the fresh air, the smell of the sea, the soft strands of midnight hair under my fingers. Kai's arm wrapped around me like a steel band, and the tips of my toes grazed the soft sand as he held me up.

As quickly as the passion had flared, it was doused with a cold bucket of water, my reasoning finally pushing her way to the forefront.

I pushed at his shoulders, my feet finding semi-solid ground as he let me go. I thought I might have mumbled something about seeing him later, but I couldn't remember. Indeed, the only image that remained through the entire, lonely drive back to my house, was Kai standing on the sand, watching me as I walked away from him.