Chapter Seven

" Y ou need to put a twenty in my account."

I look at my phone as I finish tossing the sheets into the dryer. My brother is trying to strong arm me for cash when he's got sports scholarship money? "Ffff." I let out a disbelieving sound. "What for, Calvin?"

"Because even though Mom and Dad are out watching Carter swim his ass off, they still wanted to call up and check on you and see how you were settling in. Mom was afraid you'd be moping around all alone." Carter's voice sounds like a mournful basset hound.

"And you earned my money, how?"

"By telling Mom I had just talked to you and that you were fine, hanging out with your new colleagues, and going to do some Labor Day weekend shit."

"Hmmm." If Mom had called me last night, that would have totally killed the mood. And if Marina and I just happen to bump into each other in town or at the gym and end up back here tonight... "Ten. No more. I have rent to make and groceries to buy... and date nights to pay for." Yes. I go there. I can't resist bragging, and I don't know who else to brag to. "But if you tell Mom I met someone already, I will tell her that you took both Shannelle Rashad and Serena Hammond to the prom—and managed to trick both of them into thinking they were your only date." I glare at Calvin in my mind's eye. "Who taught you to treat women like that, asshat?"

"Hey, hey! Why did this become a lecture about my dating history? You're the one out there breaking records—well, boring old man records."

"I haven't hit send yet. Want me to drop it to a buck fifty?"

"No, O generous and mature one."

"That's better."

"What's it like in banjo country?"

"God, our school system is failing. I'm not in banjo country, I'm in plaid and sweater territory, where the women are fine and the air is crisp."

Cal snorts. "She must be something."

I sigh—and decide that I'd better keep my descriptions wholesome. "She's drop-dead gorgeous, and she can cook."

"Damn. Check, check."

"Exactly. And she's smart and funny. She speaks like ten languages. Even Finnish. Like, what they speak in Finland." I wince, realizing I sound stupid. Or maybe lovestruck. Tongue-tied.

"You sound like you've got it bad. How many dates have you been on?"

I tell the truth, with the Responsible Kev spin. "Well, we met at the gym and did swimming and the sauna—"

"Oooh. Sexy."

"Shut up," I laugh, although I privately agree. "Then we had a surf and turf dinner. Um. We had a breakfast date today. She cooked for me one night, and I cooked for her this morning."

"Damn, man. You must've seen her every day since you met her! You haven't been there that long!"

"You're right." Technically, he is. "I really... I don't know. There's something about her. She's exotic while being down to earth, y'know? Being with her is so simple. So easy." Again, mentally I have to pump the brakes.

You don't know her that well. You think you do. It's not real. Yet.

Yet is getting a lot of mileage in my head.

"Magical. Feels magical."

"Oh, man. You got bit bad. Are you going to tell Mom?"

"Not for a few months."

I stop and lean on the wall, shook. Not that I was some commitment-shy asshole before, but I tended to think realistically. I knew the likelihood of any of my high school or college girlfriends lasting months was slim. I met Marina yesterday, and I easily envision us exchanging Christmas gifts, holding hands as we hike these mountains in the spring, ogling that made-for-a-bikini body of hers next summer.

"Not to take your job as responsible big brother away from you, but don't rush into anything. Be careful. Use protection. Don't give her your keys or your credit cards. Make sure she's not a gold digger."

Irrational anger flares up in me. Marina's not like that! I bite down the yell itching to exit my lips. The truth is, she could be exactly like that. "I'll be careful," I say in a low voice.

"Dude, I'm sorry to kill your buzz. You would have told me the same things."

"I know. I know. Uh. I have to go finish up some of my mandatory virtual training stuff for work. Talk to you soon."

I split before my brother can point out that I'm acting odd. I'm aware.

Funny thing is, I don't think I want to stop.

I pat my chest. Feel my pulse. Everything is normal. Steady. Maybe a little elevated when I think of her eyes and how she looked up at me last night...

You're happy, amoeba brain. Maybe it's the sweet job, the friendly locals, the bomb coffee that Ingrid brings in from The Pine Loft, the fact that your parents aren't micromanaging you...

Or Marina. And Marina.

Maybe it's just getting epic sex three times in twenty-four hours.

I think back to some of the women in my life, the girls I thought I loved, the girls I was with the longest. I think about making love with them and... Nah.

It's not just sex. It's not just the town.

There's something about Marina.

"ARE YOU FEELING BETTER ?" Calder swims up to the peeling green houseboat I call home when necessity dictates. Its white trim falls and cracks in flakes as he joins me on deck, flicking long tendrils of seaweed from the edges of the splintering floor.

"Much." I pat my stomach with a contented sigh.

"And I'm sure the local frat boys rejoice," Calder laughs.

I laugh, too, but I hurriedly turn from my friend and slip inside.

I didn't eat over the weekend—unless you count Saturday morning's sleepy lovemaking with Kev.

I wince inside. Lovemaking. Fucking.

No. It didn't feel like mere physical coupling. "Lemonade?" I shout out.

Calder ducks his head in and flops down the stairs to the poorly lit belly of the boat. A small bed, a table and chair, my charging station, a chest of clothes, and a few books are all I possess—or at least all I bother to keep here. "What did you do?"

"I bought some lemonade? It was on sale."

"No, no. I mean, why are you slithering away like a woman with a guilty secret?"

I sigh. "I have a guilty secret. I found..." I don't want to tell—but Calder has helped me more times than I can count. Water dwellers stick together—and there aren't too many of us in Pine Ridge. Even though there are some kelpies and selkies in town, they tend to stay hidden, keep in their "herds."

"What? Oh! Oh, my gosh! Did you meet someone?" Calder gushes like a gossipy fishwife. I blame it on Janet. Nail salons are notorious for gossip.

"You know me. I meet someone three nights a week. Five, if people are horny. Halloween weekend is practically an orgy." I rummage in the built-in cabinet that sits unevenly on hinges made shortly before World War I.

"First the clumsy change of subject, now the evasive answers. Good God. He's married, isn't he?"

"No! He's single!"

"Ah ha!" Calder's tentacles flail and slap the floor in triumph, a happy victory dance that threatens to capsize this floating liability.

"Damn it," I hiss. I almost decide not to share the lemonade I purchased, but at the last minute, I relent and pour him half the small bottle, pushing the old green-bubble glass into his hand. " За здоровье !"

"Cheers. Tell me everything, or Janet will kill me."

"Nothing to tell. I met him. I enjoyed him. Several times." I drink with a shrug.

"That's new."

"No. Just rare."

"What makes him different?"

Curse his pretty blue abs. "He's... Ugh! Nothing! Nothing is different. I'm on my way to the picnic at White Pines. Half the town will be there, and I'll take home a fresh meal, okay?"

"What? No! No, that's not what I... I was trying to be supportive!"

"Supportive is just letting me live like I always have," I snap.

Calder purses his lips. For a moment, he says nothing as he looks around my home. Words drag from him slowly. "Um. Maybe it's okay for things to change."

"I'm not able to play house with a human like you are!" It's easy to read between the lines when he has such a sweet, expressive face. "I would kill them!"

"I know, I know, but... Never? In the entire history of your kind, a rusalka has never been with a human long-term? Even for a year or two?"

Words break in my throat. "The human died."

Calder is silent for a long moment. "She killed him?"

Did I kill him?

Did my sisters?

I don't know. I will never know, and it haunts me. A demon, beset by ghosts.

"I blame her," I whisper, and that's the truth.

"Well, that was her! Not you! Is this a guy you want? Because... because maybe there's a way. People get sperm from sperm banks to make babies, why not to keep you alive, if that's the stuff you need?" He makes a face. "I'm sorry. Is this gross? Janet's going to tell me this is gross."

"Do you have to tell that woman everything?" I hiss, slamming the empty bottle into the little bin by my camping sink.

"No, but I want to. She is my everything."

I still. The belly of the boat is dark without a single porthole at this level, only in the little square box above the water level. In the dark, maybe he won't notice my shaking shoulders. I had someone who was my everything. I didn't need another source of food if he was there, nor a source of comfort or joy. He was my home and my peace.

And when I met Kevin, when I spent the night in his bed... It felt so eerily similar. I woke up, and instead of feeling the urge to flee, I wished with all my heart that I could simply stay.

"Sweetie?" Calder's tone is brotherly, and so is the tentacle around my waist, the arm around my shoulder. "What's really wrong?"

"I would like to love someone, Calder. But it wouldn't be safe. That's all there is to it. Are you going to the picnic?"

"I'm meeting Janet there in about twenty minutes."

"Then let's go." I will go and pick out a new "meal," and that will wash the taste of Kev from my system—and hopefully the sweet, sad longing in my heart that keeps cropping up.