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To his credit, he doesn’t interrupt and doesn’t push for me to finish the sentence. He doesn’t even say I told you so.

“It’s been two days man, and I feel like I’m broken in half. What the fuck is that about anyway?”

“Is she your—”

“Don’t say it.” I hold up my hand. “Don’t even say it. That shit is all just wives’ tales and bullshit your grandparents spin you.”

Jack scoffs. “You moron. Have you seen how brightly Dad still glows for Mum? You think that’s bullshit?”

I don’t answer him.

After a while he whistles again. “Then she is your fated mate.”

“It’s not that. I mean it is, but it’s not just that. I didn’t want to fall…” I swallow, afraid to say the words. “I didn’t want to fall for her, but I couldn’t help it. It’s her. She’s just… She’s something else.”

Jack nods. “I wish I had an answer.”

“Thanks.”

There’s a pause. After a while, Jack pats my arm. “Try to get some sleep, OK? Want me to come down with you or leave you alone?”

I give him a sheepish look. “Come with.”

Jack opens the door, and as he’s getting out of the car, I blurt, “Thank you.”

He actually bends and sticks his head back in the car to grin at me. “Oh, you’ve got it bad, huh?”

He’s still laughing when I get out and shut the passenger door, scowling at him. “Watch it.”

He just chuckles. “Thank you! God. I’ve heard it all now. Come on. The ladder is already down.”

We strip and climb down the ladder that descends from the basement of the Inlet Views into the water of the inlet itself to our family’s underwater cavern. The secret part of my childhood home. I’m not expecting it, but actually floating with my tentacles wrapped around my old rails that Dad installed for me when I was a kid buys me a few hours of sleep.

It’s not much, but it’s enough to give me some clarity in the morning to form a plan.

I haven’t tried hard enough to warrant giving up.

I haven’t really tried at all.

I promise myself that I’m going to give this thing my best fucking show, starting today with a new phone, a long list of apologies and the most severe case of online stalking you’ve ever seen, oh, and a flight to the USA.

TWENTY SEVEN

Olivia

My stomach feels like it’s tied up in knots the whole flight home. I get up out of my seat three times in the first hour and know the man sitting next to me in the aisle is starting to lose his cool by the last time I make him pause his film and wrestle his way out of the tiny seat.

After that I make a concerted effort to sit still, but nothing distracts me from thinking about Noah. I try to watch a film, but twenty minutes in there’s a kiss, and it only makes me thinklongingly about the way he kisses me. Deep and hungry like he’ll never come up for air.

I try to close my eyes and get some sleep, but every time I do, I picture a time we were together, his tentacles curling around my thigh, his hands roving across my body.

There’s an ache in my heart and my pussy, and I’m restless with missing him. I hate knowing I’ll never feel his touch again or hear his whispered commands in my ear.

It doesn’t help that I cracked right before I boarded the plane and sent him a message telling him I miss him. I wish I could take it back, unsend the message and pretend I’m not as humiliatingly hung up on him as I still am. Most of all I wish I could check to see if he’s read it or if he responded. I don’t think he will, but I know I’ll check that stupid message ten times every day for the rest of my life wondering.

God, I’m pathetic.

Why am I doing this to myself?