Fish Out of Water

chapter Two

Blondie and Favors

But Larry beat me to the punch.

“Gonna give us one tonight, darl’n?”

Any other guy and I’d have popped him in the jaw, but I got with the program when I saw him glance over at the corner where a small stool and microphone sat.

I shouldn’t have felt like singing. My eyes stung, my temples throbbed and I was counting down the minutes til I met my maker. But the invitation was like a sore I couldn’t resist picking. And it meant I could avoid the conversation with Larry a little longer.

“Ah…” I scrabbled around in my brain for the right excuse.

“Take your drink,” Larry urged. And it was a done deal.

I took a moment to consider what to sing. I couldn’t stop thinking about my corpse and what it all meant. And about death. I said it again in my head: I embrace my fate and welcome each moment until my end. I could hear Dr Phil whispering about closure. I needed to know why she came, my watch-keeper. And who came crashing through Missy’s shower after her. That moonbeam hair played across my mind and before I knew it I was crooning Blondie. The other Blondie, that is.

The tiny crowd suddenly went quiet and there was this really reverential feel.

I realized I was singing but I was actually keening. I was taking this dodgy disco track and turning into my own private dirge. She was dead and I was confused but I was also sad, sad, sad. Maybe I don’t cry, but right now I was keening. Keening for my watch-keeper, so far from home and no way back. Her and her half-spilled aquarium of reef-fish.

And keening for me and all the things I was gonna miss in three weeks. And counting. And the people I was going to have to leave behind to take care of themselves. My gut clenched at the thought. I cleared my throat and reminded myself to harden up as I crooned on about finding divine love and losing my mind.

Singing on land is easier than under the sea, but not so beautiful. There’s nothing on earth like a mermaid voice, vibrating through deep water. Like a call thrown out over a canyon, bouncing back and forth in curly echoes. More poignant than whalesong.

The little crowd was clapping and some were crying as I moved into the last refrain. The disco love song was messing with my head too. I shook it as I sang to scatter the memory that kept pressing in: a wet, naked man with indigo eyes, looking at me like he knew me.

As I finished, the need to go home tugged at me like a toddler at his mother’s skirt, but I wasn’t quite done. Only one way to do it. Like pulling off a plaster.

I moved back to Larry. “I need to ask a favor.”

He looked up from the glass he was polishing. “Shoot.”

This was going to be delicate. But I needed to know what happened to her.

“Well, Larry, it’s like this. I need an autopsy. Tonight. Off the record.”

Larry stopped suddenly, put down his cloth. “Can I ask why?”

“Nothing nasty,” I assured him. “It’s just that there’re things about this girl that State Health aren’t gonna cope with if we file a formal report. She’s… from someplace else.”

“New York?” He raised a hopeful eyebrow.

“Sorry Larry.” I paused. “No. Someplace people look real different.” I hesitated, testing the words silently in my mouth. How to explain this? “Inside and out.”

Those intelligent green eyes considered me. “These people, they… strong?”

He thought he was close to unravelling not just this mystery, but mine as well. Well good luck to him with that. I knew way more than he did and I had no idea what was going on.

“Yep,” I confirmed. “Real strong. And good,” I went on, my voice breaking a little and sounding quavery. I squashed it. “Kind, too. But kinda private, if you catch my drift.”

Larry shut his eyes, laying his fingers over them. I waited, feeling each breath saw in and out of my lungs, until those green eyes flashed open again. “So why you wanna go cut her up?”

Good question. “Someone hurt her, Larry. Somehow. And it’s the somehow I need to understand. So I can maybe work out why. Because –” I exhaled quickly and let it all spill out. “I think maybe they came for me. And Mom.”

“Right,” Larry breathed, and held out his hand. I took it and shook it, hard. He searched my face as he went on. “Guess that’s decided then. What time do we meet at the morgue?”

“Thanks Larry.” I checked my watch. “I need some time first. And the morgue keys.”

Larry handed me the keys and my Top Gun jacket and pointed to the door. I shrugged into it, and then looked at him dead-on. I hated to ask. “You gonna be up to this?” I motioned at the bar, and he knew what I meant. You gonna be sober enough in a coupla hours to do this?

Larry looked serious for a moment. “Tonight wasn’t so bad.” He smiled lightly. “I was only getting started. And now I’ve got a better offer.”

Mom was still up, even though it was past midnight. I could see her in her little spot over on the floor, balancing on her head on a multi-colored Turkish rug, long legs in tight purple yoga pants splayed scissor-style in the air. She was perfectly still, her face smooth and unlined and looking kind of ecstatic. The house was warm and smelled of cloves and toasted coconut.

“Aldus’d wet himself if he saw you sitting there like that,” I greeted her.

“Ransha, come here,” she said, as she lowered herself gracefully down and turned to me in one fluid move, a radiant smile lighting her up. I studied her as I moved over. She looks a little like my dead blonde, but different. Blondie would be beautiful anyplace. An Amazonian Grace Kelly. Mum’s face is tougher, more interesting. And it’s not just that she’s older. I’d bet a thousand saltwater pearls she always had that determined look to her cheeks and mouth.

She wrapped her arms around me and the silky softness of her hair tickled my face as she repeated the childhood name again, “Ransha, Ransha.” As she dropped her arms, I picked up one of her wrists, a childhood habit, and studied delicate web of veins there, waiting. As I concentrated on the spidery blueness, I saw it. Like a flicker of light, so fast you’d believe you had imagined it if you didn’t know it was for real. A tiny shape, zipping along inside the largest vein. Alorah, the life fish. A piece of the sea living within her. The mark of an Aegiran.

We moved together over to the sofa, our night-time ritual since I’d come home to spend my last couple of years with her. She had the meal ready, she could feel me coming. Soft cheese, coconut bread and Southern Comfort. You’d swear she was the one descended from Sicilians, not me. I laughed at the thought, and settled down to tell her about the night.

She listened, tucking that waterfall hair behind one slightly elvish ear. Her face had settled into her trademark watchful smile. I swear it’s the trait that saw her elected mayor over all the good ole boys, and the one that keeps them eating out of her hand. Even though she’s an unmarried mother. And she doesn’t go to church. And no-one knows where the hell she’s from.

“Poor baby Blondie,” she sighed and her blue eyes seemed to turn almost silver. “A watch-keeper. And so far from home.”

The last word seemed to hang, dark and wistful in the air. “Do you really want to go back? For good?” I searched those silvery eyes, wondering again at why she was considering it.

“Mmmm.” Mom shrugged non-committedly, pushing her hair back behind her ear again.

“It’s just…” I picked my way through the words. “It seems kind of impulsive. I mean, you’ve never really told me, you know, what made you leave in the first place?” Or what made you get so down on the whole place. I looked up at her with the question in my eyes and she just met my gaze quietly. “Not that you need to, of course,” I added. But I wish you would.

“Why thank you, my dear,” she smirked, her face lighting up a little.

I took a breath and tried again. “It’s just… you should give it some thought first, you know. Before you decide anything. You can be a little, y’know, like I said… impulsive.”

Mom raised a dark-blonde eyebrow at me, an ironic smile still playing around her lips.

“Me?” I felt a warmth spread across my cheeks. “I might be hot-headed, but I’m a planner.” It’s true, you should see my will. No will with so few assets ever had so much detail. I focused on Mom’s face. “I don’t know what all this stuff means. The watch-keeper, and the rest. But I don’t think you should be making any plans until I sort it out.”

Mom’s face, which had been soft and amused as I stumbled through my attempt at bossing her around, grew tighter again at the mention of Blondie, and her eyes got that silvery sheen again too. “Poor baby,” she repeated. “To die so far from home.”

“Tell me again,” I said, like a child demanding a favorite tale. “Why do we send them?”

Mom sighed, and smoothed her hands on her lap. “Well, like I’ve told you before, Aegira’s been around for ten thousand years, and it’s a very… sophisticated civilization.”

I snorted. “Tell me about it. It’s got technology that’d give Bill Gates a wet dream.”

Mom frowned delicately, pushing hair behind that fairytale ear again. “Please, Rania.”

I raised my folded hands in supplication. “Sorry. Go on.”

“Well, I guess Aegira learned the lesson Earth is trying to learn now, some time ago. It was during the third millennium, remember. The reign of Queen Eistla.”

I flapped my hand. Yeah, yeah, cut to the chase.

She sighed. “We had learned so much, come so far, but we hadn’t learned the really important things. Our emissions began to threaten Aegira’s very existence.”

I nodded. I’d heard this part before. I often thought about it, when I read about acid rain or global warming. Aegira had been there, done that. Pulled itself from the brink just in time.

“Well, the early Aegirans, they took stock, remembered why Aegir sank their paradise in the first place, and re-dedicated themselves to living in harmony with all things. They started by learning to communicate with the creatures of the sea.”

“Especially the dolphins,” I interrupted quickly.

“Yes, darling, of course, especially the dolphins.” Mom laughed. “You and those dolphins. I never did quite understand your fascination. Anyway.” She shook her head, her blonde hair billowing out as she did like she was in a shampoo commercial. “Where was I? Oh yes, so, eventually we made treaties with them, the nations of the sea. Working to create a better world, on earth and sea. That’s when the tradition of watch-keeping began. And now, Aegira sends them — the most gifted young people — to keep an eye on The Land. And, of course, the land-dwellers. Keep track of innovation, borrow and learn from the best humans have to offer.”

I closed my burning eyes and it felt good. “So they only come for a short while, right?”

“A year at most. Their mission is to watch. Report. But not intervene.”

I placed my fingertips at my temples. “And they never know we’re here? The humans.”

I opened my eyes in time to catch Mom shudder prettily. “By the Goddess, I hope not.”

“And you really were the only one who ever stayed?”

Mom nodded, and I knew from experience this was where she would clam up. I’ve always supposed it was something to do with a man, the reason she ran away and never came back. But it’s just guesswork. I do know one thing – she’s pretty down on mermaids. She says she ended up in Dirtwater because no mermaid worth their salt (so to speak) would come within a thousand miles of such a barren place. After tonight, I guessed she was wrong.

“There’s something I should tell you,” she offered quietly, closing my aching eyes again with her fingertips and rubbing at my temples. If I was a dog, my eyeballs would be rolling back in my head and my back leg shaking madly. “A herald arrived today.”

“Huh?” I pulled her fingers away quickly and studied her face. “Only good herald’s a dead herald.” I was repeating the mantra Mom utters every time a herald comes calling.

“Amen, daughter.” Mom’s face was blank. She was totally crap at poker, so I knew she was working hard to keep her face neutral.

“Weird. So maybe there were four mermaids in the driest town on earth tonight?” I marked them off with my fingers. “One. Blondie. Two. The guy Dirty Dan and Missy saw, maybe? Plus three, the… shower guy -” My voice broke with the effort of sounding casual as I mentioned him. “And now four. The herald.” I picked up a piece of coconut bread and used it as a decoy while I studied Mom’s reaction carefully. “Never rains it pours huh?”

She nodded, making herself busy with pouring a cup of tea from a fine pot on the coffee table. “Licha. He was only here briefly, used the bath to hydroport out. Such skill.” She motioned at the table and for the first time I noticed the tiny blue-green fish, swimming around serenely in a tall glass of water. It stopped, as if aware of our attention, and blinked slowly at me.

“Mmm,” I agreed, watching the song-fish. “So what did they want with you this time?”

“They want us. Both of us.”

I froze, coconut bread in mid-air. “Us?”

“They want us home. For a royal wedding. The day after tomorrow.”

“By the freakin’ Goddess Ran,” I hissed, rolling my eyes.

I hadn’t been back to Aegira for thirteen years, and I had no intention of going now, like a kid called home for dinner. There’s not an unmarried 29 year old on the planet who likes going home for family weddings, and it’s no different when home is a magical underwater kingdom peopled by blonde guys who look like Gods because they descended from them. The mer-mamas may not harass me about meeting a nice fish and settling down, but they’ll sure as hell wonder why I’m living among barbarians when Mom was a Chosen One. Aegirans find the human tendency to violence so incomprehensible they even have a really tired joke about it. And believe me, they’re not known for their whacky sense of humor.

It goes something like this:

What’s the difference between a dolphin and a man?

Four trillion brain cells and a weapon.

Those crazy cats. It sends them into hysterics. And okay, okay, so dolphins are smarter than humans, but they’re smarter than Aegirans too. In fact, I’m betting dolphins are smarter than any life-form on Earth. Well, except wild blue Aegiran algae, but really, that’s a whole different form of intelligence and it’s kind of complicated to explain.

“Rania,” Mom chastised, calling me back. “Don’t profane the Mother. She hears all.”

Now it was her turn to study me. The flush that had started to speckle my chest when she had mentioned the herald calling us home deepened as she examined me. Her eyes widened and lost all trace of the silvery far-awayness as she pinned me with them. They were the wild, endless blue of the deepest ocean, and I knew where we were headed.

It was the same look she gave me every now and then when she saw me, hunched and concentrating, trying to meditate. Like Aldus, she tried to tell me once, in her own way, that not everyone is cut out for meditation. Some people are monks and some are warriors, baby.

But how could I tell her why I need to meditate? How could I break her heart?

Mom has never asked me directly what sent me off in my self-destructive spiral at sixteen, or why I never went back to Aegira again.

Just like I’ve never asked her — directly — why she left and went to live on The Land.

“We have to go. The Queen has specifically asked both of us to come,” she said firmly.

Mom never refuses a herald, although they spook her. Says it’s because we’re Gadula, the royal line descended from the first councilors to Aegir. But I know there’s something else.

“Wouldn’t you like to see Lecanora?” Mom quizzed me with a soft frown.

Oh yeah, and then some.

I sighed. “I dunno, Mom,” I mumbled. “It’s kinda complicated.”

Mom gave me a sad little frown and my heart squirmed uncomfortably under the spotlight of her misery.

So I decided.

Maybe this visit could be more closure. Say goodbye to all the pieces of my life. See Aegira, one last time. I pulled myself together and reminded myself that I didn’t need to be afraid of going to Aegira anymore because I was totally cool with the fact that I only had three weeks to go.

I embrace my fate and welcome each moment until my end.

“Okay, Mom,” I said, warmth suffusing me as I watched her face change. “I’ll come.” Mom opened her mouth but I just had to have the last word. “Although it’s not really fair, of course. You know, I’m not really Aegiran. Only, you know…” I shrugged. “Half.”

Mom opened her mouth again and just as quickly snapped it shut.

She wriggled a little nearer to me on the couch. When she was close enough that I could smell the honey sweetness of her hair, she picked up my hand in her cool, smooth one and turned it over. One long finger caressed the web of veins that lay there and she waited, her breath keeping pace with mine. We both saw it at the same time. “There,” she pointed triumphantly as the Alorah darted past our vision on its relentless journey through my bloodstream.

The fish of life. The mark of an Aegiran.

And here I thought I always had to have the last word. I shot her a look. The look daughters have been shooting mothers who know better down through the ages.

“You’re not half anything, baby,” Mom trilled happily, holding my wrist up to her cheek tenderly before placing it gently back down in my lap. “So. When should we leave?”

I shifted huffily, my brain still searching for the last word but realizing it had been trumped. “Just got some loose ends to tie up first. Speaking of which, you baking tomorrow?”

“Of course,” she smiled again, glad to be back on safer ground.

“You might need a double batch. Pay-off for Billy leaving Blondie alone til tomorrow.”

She laced her fingers delicately and lowered her voice. “What happens tomorrow?”

“It actually happens tonight. But I can’t tell. You’re the Mayor. You need deniability.”

“Okay,” she conceded. “So I’m making a double batch of brownies.”

Like a segue in a crappy dinner theatre farce, there was a knock and when I opened the door, the original Cookie Monster himself was standing there grinning from ear to ear. All big, dark six-foot-six of him. Like a pirate crossed with a very hot cowboy. I smiled into eyes the color of Swiss chocolate; the only soft point in a face that could have been carved by an Italian sculptor hundreds of years ago. If the nose hadn’t been broken so many times.

That nose sliced into an overdose of puritan beauty and lent him a rakish thrill.

And then there was the chin dimple…

It was good to have moments like this, with him lounging in my doorway like sex on legs, to remind me just what a fine piece of booty he was, and that I wasn’t so crazy to have messed with the easiest friendship I ever had by sleeping with him. But it sure was crazy that I was mentally comparing him with some guy I’d only met two hours ago.

Some strange, wet guy. Some very off-limits guy.

“Hi Doug,” I sighed. “Anyone ever tell you it’s rude to come calling at three am?”

“Yeah, Sheriff, but I shot him,” he offered, still grinning and in one swift move stepping over the threshold, picking me up and squeezing me in an almost terrifying bear-hug, surprisingly agile for such a muscly guy.

“Okay. Anyone ever tell you it’s poor form to keep dropping in on a girl you dumped?”

“Nah,” he sighed, depositing his tidy ass on the couch next to Mom, sweeping her along a little with one hip and helping himself to some coconut bread as he did. “And we’ve been through that. Interpretation error.” I sniffed and he scowled. “Anyway, I’m on a mission.”

It was only then that I noticed the parrot on Doug’s broad shoulder. I shook my head in case I was just having a misplaced pirate fantasy. Then I remembered it wasn’t the first time this had happened. The bird thing, I mean, not the pirate fantasy. Let’s not even go there.

“Just spent two hours getting Bridie here out of that old tree in Memorial Park again.”

Mom sighed this time and held her hand out to the brilliantly-colored bird, which hopped on her finger happily. “Doug dear, you are a soft touch.” Then, to the bird, “Come sweetheart, I’ll walk you next door to Mrs Murphy. She’ll be fretting and we can’t let Doug take you back again. He scared the daylights out of her last time he came knocking in the wee small hours.”

I’m pretty sure Doug is not Doug’s real name. It just doesn’t sit well. The thing is, I never bothered to ask about it when he moved to Dirtwater shortly after I moved back home two years ago. Kindred spirits, we’d hang out down at the range, or shoot pool at The End of Days. He made me laugh. And he made me forget. It was an easy friendship. And then, once the inevitable happened, it was kinda hard to ask “‘Scuse me, but what’s your real name...?”

As Doug watched Mom leave with clear affection in his eyes, he whispered to me from the corner of his mouth. “You know it wasn’t like that. I did not dump you.”

A lie. I raised my brow.

“You left town,” I reminded him. “Without telling me. For. Six. Months.”

He wriggled uncomfortably in his seat and ran one enormous paw over his stubble-dark jaw. He opened his mouth to speak but I beat him to it, speaking real slow and nasty. “It was my birthday. You said you had a surprise. I just didn’t know the surprise was standing me up.”

He opened his mouth again but I wasn’t done.

“Janice Dean was waiting table. I had to crawl out the potty window.”

Doug guffawed loudly, wiping away tears with that big hand. “Oh Sheriff, you know I feel real bad, but I sure do love that part of the story,” he grinned. “Especially how you tell it.”

I managed a tight smile. “That makes one of us.” I actually wasn’t as pissed as I liked to make out. I’d been milking Doug’s wrongdoing for a year.

“Aw come on, Sheriff.” Doug inched closer. “I told you I had no choice. I told you that even though I can’t tell you what happened I definitely, definitely did not dump you.” At these last few words, Doug’s voice came over all smoky growly and he slowed right down, moving one hand up to brush away the piece of hair that always fell across my eyes. His fingers felt hard and calloused on my cheek, the light, rough touch igniting the skin under it.

“Yeah, yeah,” I sniffed, smelling the pine needle and armor oil scent of him as I batted his hand away. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I would’ve gotten sick of you eventually, I’m sure.”

But the smoky look in his eyes as they met mine told me he knew I was lying this time.

“I’m sure,” Doug agreed. But he didn’t look sure. He looked like he thought I was spouting five kinds of horseshit. “Like I was too old to keep up with your fine young patooty.”

A third lie.

We avoided looking at each other as our minds went to the last time Doug had seen my fine young patooty. Something shifted in the air between us, hot and fast. I became aware of how tightly the black denim was stretched across quadriceps whose long, tight beauty I recalled only too well. I could count each rung on the six-pack outlined by the black t-shirt moulded to him by the sticky summer night. And, worst of all, I could hear each of his breaths as the moment stretched like so much elastic and I wondered which one of us would snap first.

“Anyway.” I patted his hand, going for casual. “That was a year ago. I heal fast.”

Doug sighed. “Course you do, Sheriff.” He studied those big brown hands of his as if weighing up the merit of trying something else with them. I tried to decide if I wanted him to. He lowered his voice. “Anyway, it’s easier being pals.” A clatter from the kitchen and Mom came back in. He lowered his voice further. “Not nearly so much fun, but easier…”

As Mom made her way back to the living room, the hot, dark moment disappeared as quickly as your self-respect when your dinner date stands you up. On your birthday.

“Any brownies, Mrs Aqualina?”

Mom looked at Doug with adoration. “Sorry, darling,” she clucked. “All gone.” Then, hopefully, artfully, “I’ll have made some more if you drop by tomorrow?”

Doug sighed like he was recalling a lost love, but consoled himself with coconut bread.

Mom loves earth people, thinks they’re original and cool. And I get it. Aegira is pretty vanilla, and Aegirans are like… underwater Swedes. Sometimes, when I’m there, I yearn to get messy. Not to mention going into serious nicotine withdrawal.

“If you can keep the rest of the scavengers away,” I bit off a little meanly.

Then something clicked into place, and I realized maybe Ran was helping me out.

“Drink, Doug?” Doug was looking confused as I got up to fix the drinks. Mom’s a teetotaller, so she got a hot chocolate. “Southern Comfort or Southern Comfort?”

“You know, you really let yourself down with that girly trip, Sheriff,” he clucked sadly, looking at me like maybe another choice would magically drop from my lips. “I guess it’ll have to be Southern Comfort,” he sighed when it didn’t.

“Good choice,” I consoled him. “And I am not the Sheriff.”

He snorted.

“Deputy,” I conceded.

I sized Doug up and considered the best way to ask my favor.

I sometimes wonder what Doug would think if he knew about us. He’s pretty shrewd, so he knows something’s different. For a start, I’m the only person (man or woman) who’s ever beat him in an arm wrestle. But he’s also kinda mysterious himself. Ex-Special Forces, when he turned up in Dirtwater with his special charge in tow, folks wondered but never asked. After all, it’s the kind of place people tend to use to lie low. Then there were his disappearing acts. I was in a better position than most to know that each time he comes back, he’s cashed up and has an extra scar and a new tattoo. And that sometimes he stays away a long time.

But Doug’s motto is “don’t ask, don’t tell”.

Or it was, until I explained that was also the official US policy regarding homosexuality in the forces. Now it’s “ask no questions, get no bullshit.”

I zoned back in and realized Mom was chatting to him. “So, darling, how is your Ma?”

The briefest flicker of grief flashed across that wanton profile before it was banished with a chuckle. “Well, yesterday she turned all my best underwear into a piece of modern art. I couldn’t get annoyed with her, she was so proud of it. And she gets upset real easy.”

Mom covered her mouth and Doug touched her free hand. “Mostly, she’s real good these days, Mrs A. Happy. Always singing.”

Mom nodded and twisted a lock of that golden hair around her finger.

“Actually, I’m heading off again next week. Don’t suppose you girls’d look in on her while I’m gone? She’ll have care round the clock, of course, but it’s not the same, y’know…”

As he started his favorite rant about how hard it is to get nursing staff who pay attention to the little things, Mom and I took a moment to admire the finely sculpted work of art that was Doug, before we started talking over him. It’s okay, it was telepathy. He couldn’t hear us.

Lovely boy, takes such good care of his Ma. Remind me why you broke up with him?

I ignored her. If she was a normal mother, she’d know that Doug falls into the category of guys you shouldn’t sleep with. Don’t get me wrong, he’s real funny, and sweet, and he can do things in bed that make it pretty clear where the Special Forces got the “special” bit from. But I bet Janice Dean’s Ma would have told Jancie that guys who can’t tell you where they’ve been or what they do for a living are not gonna be the most reliable lovers. I bet Janice Dean never climbed out any potty windows. I took a moment to think about the reliable Mrs Dean, with her blue rinse, yellow roses and green-eyed envy of everyone else’s lives. I shrugged inwardly.

Thank Ran for mermaid mothers.

I zoned back into the head of mine. Mom…about tonight. I need to…

I barely finished. It’s okay. You do what you’ve got to do. Just stay safe, my love.

I smiled at her. I’ll be home for brownie baking in the morning. Promise.

She frowned a little in response. Should I ask?

No way. No. I shouldn’t think so.

She was on the job immediately, yawning delicately. Part kitten, part woman.

“Mercy me, I am beat.” She leaned over and planted a soft kiss on Doug’s cheek.

He looked momentarily dazzled before squawking out a hoarse “Ni’night.”

Then he started talking again, but I wasn’t zoned in. I was visualizing his van, and how I was going to get it. It’d be tricky. Last time, Doug got his Harley back kinda bent out of shape.

“Oh, baby,” he crooned. “You really gotta try the shrimp fry over at the Dirty Boar.”

I momentarily forgot that I was trying to be nice so he’d let me borrow his van.

“Sweet mother, Doug, don’t you remember about my allergy?”

I had to stop and breathe, because the thought of piscinavores makes my throat do these weird little gulps. I’ve had to invent the seafood allergy to cover my tracks. What annoys me more than anything are the people who claim to be vegetarian, but say they eat fish. Leaving aside the sheer stupidity of the statement – you know, someone claiming to be a vegetarian while also referring to eating an animal – it just makes no sense. Being a piscinavore is like being a cannibal who says “I don’t eat people, only concert pianists and famous painters.” Me, I’m quite happy to eat some clueless old bovine, but fish. Man, fish are sentient beings.

“Go wash your hands. And rinse y’ freakin’ mouth. There’s Listerine on top. Go now.”

In Aegira, everyone’s vegetarian, but here on land I eat meat. It’s cool, I’ve looked inside the minds of cows and I can guarantee there’s nothing there. I even went to an abattoir once to check. Even as the poor things were lining up to go into the slaughterhouse, their minds showed up nothing but a picture of a blade of grass and vague feeling of an itch on the rump.

“Alright, alright,” Doug complained, making for the bathroom. “Although it’s not like I’m going to kiss ya, Sheriff.” He paused, then a dark look spread across that hot face. “Am I?”

Oh man, he looked good when he got that look in his eye. A hundred delicious memories competed for my attention, and they weren’t all of Doug naked. Not all of them.

I swallowed and pointed to the bathroom.

When he got back, I’d recovered enough to try again.

“Doug,” I began. “I might need your van. Later tonight. Look, it’s only for a few-”

“Oh no.” He was short. He sounded pretty definite. “No, no, no missy. Not after the Harley. I loved that bike.”

“Please, Doug,” I asked. “It’s important. I promise I’ll keep it safe.”

“This anything to do with that dead blonde?”

This freakin’ place and its freakin’ rumor mill. “No,” I lied smoothly.

“Right, so that’s a yes,” he said. Then paused. “Compromise?”

I was already mentally saying no. I never compromise.

“How ’bout I drive you wherever you need to go?”

It was my turn to be definite. “No way, baby. I gotta do something solo tonight.”

“Well, sorry then,” he said, and I could hear the ring of finality in his tone.

“Doug,” I wheedled. “Don’t make me steal it.”

“You steal it and I’ll tell your Mom about you and her assistant.”

Wow, I suddenly developed a whole new respect for his tactics. Dirty, clever. I liked it.

“Chip?” I was all innocence. “Poor boy’s only nineteen. That’s a terrible implication.”

He looked right into me. And I could see the tiniest scrap of hurt there. Which was so unfair. It had been eighteen months. And he dumped me. Kind of.

I made a decision.

“Okay Doug,” I said firmly. “You can drive. But you gotta stay in the car. I’m maybe gonna have to put a large object in the back and you are not to ask me about it.”

“Sure,” he agreed easily. “So where we taking the stiff once we swipe it?”