Page 22 of Stranded With the Grumpy Mermaid

Up on the toes of her one good foot, one hand fisting my collar for balance, quick and fierce and half-desperate, like an argument she's decided to win by other means. The world goes down to firelight and salt and the taste of her mouth. My hands move, one at her waist, one in that impossible hair. She makes a small sound against my mouth that will be with me on my deathbed, and I kiss her back like my life depends on it.

The fire ticks. The kiss slows, deepens, stops being an argument.

That's the moment I feel it, the exact seriousness of this situation.

And I want this. I want it with a specific gravity I have not felt since before I devoted my life to science. Which is exactly why I can’t do this.

I gentle it down. Slow the kiss to a halt and take her face in both hands, and set my forehead against hers, both of us breathing like the trek uphill.

"Goodnight, Neri," I say, wrecked and quiet, into the inch between us.

She goes very still. “You don’t want this?”

"I want this more than you know.” I make it as plain as I know how to make anything, no jokes anywhere near it. “But you're hurt, you're exhausted, and you’ve been through a traumatic experience. We both have. I'd rather you kiss me on a day you didn't almost die in front of me."

A long pause. Firelight moving on stone.

"That was two days ago," she says, but there's no bite in it.

"Bed," I say. "Doctor's orders. I'm not that kind of doctor, but the island has a shortage. And I want to be clear that I’m not rejecting your kiss. I’m postponing it until we’re both in a sane setting.”

And she goes, hopping, regal, refusing assistance with one raised hand. She looks back at me for a moment with an expression I wish I could read.

“You’re a good man, Rafe," she says.

Chapter 11

Neri

Two days since I kissed Rafe, and the cottage has gotten smaller.

Not literally. Literally it’s the same four stone walls, the same fire, the same beds we retreat to each night with elaborate casualness, his by the hearth, mine by the wall. But something changed in the air pressure of the place, and now every ordinary thing is conducted through a charged medium. He hands me the kettle and an electric current runs through my body when our fingers brush. I re-wrap my ankle and I catch him watching. We are extremely, professionally normal with each other, all day, both of us, and it’s the most exhausting work I’ve done in my entire life.

I’m postponing, he said. It’s not the same thing, but I can’t help but feel the sting of rejection.

The man kissed me like a homecoming and then pushed me away like he was afraid I’d think he was taking advantage of me. The idea is ridiculous, especially since I’m the one who kissed him in the first place.

But I do have some semblance of dignity left in me, so I’m not going to bring it up again. Unless he does it first.

My ankle is healing and my body is fed and rested, which means my brain has spare capacity again. I don’t think I’ll ever eat another mussel after we leave this island, but for now, I’m not complaining.

Dinner is done and Rafe is dozing by the fire, cheek on his fist, glasses shoved up into his hair. I’m at the window, watching the light go long and bronze over the meadow.

The water in the cove at dusk is the color of jewels and the sea whispers in my ears like it hasn’t in years.

I’m out the door before I can think better of it.

The path down through the meadow is easy on my half-mended ankle, grass caressing my calves, roses breathing their last warmth into the evening, and then the grass gives out onto the pale crescent of beach. The beach runs down, shell-strewn, rippled, to the waterline.

And that’s where I stop. Toes of my ruined shoes a foot from the reach of the softest little waves in Maine.

The cove is glass. The tide is turning, that held-breath slack where the last light lies along the surface in bands of rose gold. The entire universe is calm, and patient, like it’s been waiting for me for five years.

My whole body knows it. The pull is there. It’s always there, it lives under my sternum like a second pulse, I’ve just been drowning it in so much work, it got tired. But here, now, on this island, this close to the ocean and no excuse anywhere in reach, it isn’t just a pull anymore. It’s a door, standing open, with everything that matters on the other side of it.

I want to move, but I stand frozen in place, with my arms wrapped around myself unable to leave the safety of the land behind.

Or maybe it’s my broken heart I can’t leave behind. I’m not really sure.