Page 26 of Seashells and Daiquiris

She's with me.

I’m like this for another few hours while Liam tends the bar, my palms locked in place on my laptop as my fingers find the right keys—which includes a lot of backspacing from typos. I even take a break for a moment to stare out at the ocean, really pleased with my progress.

My phone buzzes.

A text from Dove.

Just heard from three different people that Liam Dunmore has a girlfriend. Girl, you moved fast!

I stare at the screen, a flip in my gut telling me that I’m way more into this than I should be.

It's complicated!!!

FREDDIE BROWN. CALL ME IMMEDIATELY.

I put my phone face-down, and decide I’m going to need a tall daiquiri for this.

FREDDIE

It's been four days, and Dove was right that gossip spreads like a hurricane here.

Kira told a selkie. The selkie told her pod. The pod told the mermaids. The mermaids told everyone. By day two, the woman at the bakery handed me a free croissant with a wink, a man at the hardware store gave Liam a knowing nod, and Odessa sent me a handwritten note that simply said: Told you everything washes up eventually.

Dove has called me eleven times. I've answered five of them. The other eight I let go to voicemail because she keeps using the word "soulmate" and I'm not ready.

Because what if that’s seriously real? What if this hunk of a man is my actual soulmate? That’s so much bigger than any fake dating!

"The full moon gathering is in nineteen days," Liam reminds, setting a plate of eggs in front of me that I didn't ask for.

I stare at the fluffy, scrambled goodness, as if suddenly aware I’m in a dream as lucidity comes to me. “So, you know I make these nearly every morning for myself. Did I tell you that, or something?”

He pauses as he hovers the coffee pot over his mug, his head moving slightly as if he’s looking around for the answer. “I just figured it was an easy thing to make you.”

Right, right that has to be it. Not a soulmate thing or anything. So far all I’ve eaten were bagels because it felt like the least invasive breakfast option in his kitchen. “Well, thank you. You don’t have to make me breakfast, you know.”

“It’s called a polite gesture,” he teases.

I scoop up a decent bite of eggs, and admittedly… they’re really good. "Nineteen days," I repeat once I’m done chewing, wrapping both hands around my mug once I put the fork down. Of course, he uses a French press. “What happens again?” I ask, trying to get my bearings.

"At Silvertide Beach, the sea folk gather, there's food, music, the whole thing. And Thalassa will be there,” he says, sitting across from me at the table with his own breakfast slightly steaming in front of him. “We call it the Luminary. We do it four times a year.”

The morning light through the glass wall catches his hair, his jaw and the tattoos on his forearms, and I'm getting dangerously used to this view.

“And we’re just going to wing this entire thing? Show up as a couple?”

“The point is, we have to kiss under that moon. We don’t have to act like a couple if we don’t want to. That was just because of Brody at the bar, and you know, the fact you’re everywhere with me.”

“And what if… well, what if the kiss works?”

His gaze slowly raises to meet mine, and there’s an intensity in there I wasn’t quite expecting. Something extremely delicious, might I add. It’s a way that Tommy never looked at me, but I kind of always wanted him to. “Then we’ll be having a whole different conversation.”

I can’t stop the dirty thoughts from cycling through me, because if I kiss this merman and his curse breaks, then that means he’s my soulmate. So all mine, right? And if we’re kissing… well, I’m not going to stop any time soon.

I want to know just how much he likes my butt.

"So what does that mean, practically?" I ask with a high-pitch voice, clearing it.

“Like I said, Freddie, that’ll be a whole different conversation.”