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CHAPTER FOUR

Lucas

T hings moved faster on land than they did underwater. Not literally, of course. I could clock about fifty miles per hour when I was finning it flat-out in shallow water and the fasted recorded speed for a man on land was a little over twenty-seven miles per hour. When it came to relationship progression, though, landies moved so much faster than merpeople that it made my head spin.

“I’ve told you that I think this is a terrible idea, haven’t I?” my mom said as I talked to her on the phone while getting dressed on Friday night.

“Yes, Mom,” I sighed. “You’ve mentioned it about five times in the last ten minutes.”

I’d been so thrilled when we’d set up our underwater house to accommodate one of the special, magic-operated phones that allowed us to call people on land. It had seemed like such a great way to keep in touch with cousins and friends who were spending some dry time. Now, however, I was beginning to regret it.

“You’ve only just met this boy,” Mom said, impatience in her voice. “He’s practically a fetus.”

“Zack is twenty-seven, Mom,” I said, shrugging into the nice suit jacket I’d picked out especially for this date. It was tailor-made for alphas with broad shoulders and a long torso, and I thought I looked great in it. I especially liked that even though the jacket was grey, the lining was a pretty sea-green.

“All landies are babies,” Mom complained. “They only live for about three days anyhow. I don’t want you to get your hopes up or your heart broken.”

“Dad is only a little bit older than I am and he started out as a landie,” I reminded her. “There are ways to make humans last more than the blink of an eye.”

“Your father is a special case,” Mom said. “He’s my fated mate.”

Dad must have been standing right there with her, listening in to the call, because I heard a sort of humming, cutesy sound that happened when the two of them kissed.

“Maybe Zack is my fated mate,” I said, a spark of inspiration hitting me. “Did you ever think about that? Maybe he’s the whole reason I felt compelled to spend some time up here.”

In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I believed it was a distinct possibility.

“There’s something special about Zack,” I went on, leaning against the bureau in my bedroom and staring dreamily at the painting of the lakeshore on the opposite wall. The sky was the color of Zack’s eyes. “He’s twenty-seven, but he only looks about eighteen.”

“Leucosius!” Mom scolded. “Are you cradle-robbing?”

“No, Mom,” I huffed impatiently. “I’m just saying that I get a certain vibe from Zack, and sometimes immortals or people who are long-lived look way younger than they are for a long time. Heck, I’m six-hundred-and-twelve and I look like I’m maybe thirty.”

“All I’m saying is that you should be careful of your heart around landies,” Mom said. “Yes, your father and I have made things work?—”

“Have we ever,” I heard Dad’s frisky voice with it’s antique, Scandinavian accent interrupt.

“—but we’re outliers,” Mom continued. “There are far more stories of disaster when one of us tries to be with one of them than there are success stories.”

“It’ll be fine, Mom,” I said, pushing off from the bureau and checking my watch. I had to meet Zack downstairs in three minutes. “Oh,” I added with a grin. “Did I mention Zack is an omega and that he smells ripe?”

I ended the call with a laugh, deliberately teasing my mom and giving her something else to worry about.

Sure enough, before I could even leave my apartment, my phone was ringing again.

“I know, Mom,” I answered it. “I’m just teasing you. I’ll be careful.”

“You’d better be,” Mom said, probably boiling the water around her, she sounded so mad. “The last thing we need is another baby in this family.”

I laughed as I left my apartment. “Now I know you’re lying,” I said. “You’ve wanted more grandkids ever since Kelpie turned a hundred.”

Mom sighed. “Fine,” she said. “Go enjoy your date with the landie. But don’t get yourself or anyone else in trouble.”

“I won’t, Mom, I swear.”

I said those last words as I descended the stairs into the lobby of my apartment building. I’d taken a furnished apartment in the same building near the VPAC where Zack lived, half by accident, but half because I remembered him saying something about living nearby. It was incredibly convenient for meeting up, and for pretending we just happened to run into each other, in case anyone from the production, like, say, Eric, decided they wanted to tell on us for having a relationship.

“What does your mom not want you to do?” Zack asked as he bounced his way over to me, his expression bright with promise. “She doesn’t want you to date me,” he answered his own question right away. “She doesn’t think I’m good enough for you or that I’ll be a bad influence.”

I laughed, even though he was mostly right. “My mom doesn’t even know you,” I said, stopping in front of him.

I wanted to greet him with a kiss or hold his hand as we walked out the door at the very least. It was uncanny. We’d only met a week before, but I already felt like we’d known each other a lifetime. I felt like more than that, but I wasn’t about to freak Zack out by telling him so soon.

“Once she gets to know you, she’ll love you,” I went on.

Zack blinked then blushed. “You’re already planning to introduce me to your parents?”

I flushed hotter. “I guess I did sort of imply that, didn’t I,” I said, deliberately not answering the question. “Are you ready to step out?”

Take things slow, Leucosius , I scolded myself. You don’t actually know that he’s your fated mate. He might just be cute .

I totally knew.

“So is there anyplace special you’d like to go for dinner?” I asked as we left the building and started randomly walking.

Zack shrugged. “I don’t know. I just moved here myself.”

“I don’t really know the area either,” I said, swaying subtly closer to him. The urge to take his hand was almost overpowering. “I bet we’ll find something if we keep walking this way.”

“Yeah, I’m sure we will,” Zack said, gazing soppily up at me.

It didn’t bother me at all that he was clearly so smitten. I was, too. It didn’t matter what my mom or anyone else said, sometimes you just saw someone and knew the two of you were meant to be together forever. That’s how things had been with Mom and Dad. Especially after the shipwreck.

“So you’re from Philadelphia?” I asked as we made a turn onto one of the nicer streets filled with restaurants and shops.

“Yep,” Zack said. “I live with my grandma, which I know sounds weak for someone my age. But Grandma and I have a ton of fun.”

“I don’t think it’s odd for you to live with family at all,” I said, moving close enough to him to brush the back of his wrist with my knuckles. “Wanna know a secret?”

“Yes!” Zack answered enthusiastically.

I smiled and said, “I still live at home, too, and I’m way older than you.”

“You can’t be that much older than me,” Zack said.

Wanna bet?

“Where is home anyhow?” Zack asked, scanning the nearby restaurants for one that looked right.

I tensed for a second. How was I supposed to answer that?

I opted for as close to the truth as I could get without freaking the landie out.

“Oh, that way.” I gestured toward the lake.

“Near the lake?” Zack asked.

“Very near the lake.”

“Cool,” Zack said. “I love the water. I always have. We used to go down the shore when I was a kid. Not to Atlantic City, mind you. Grandma always said it was too commercial there and she despises the guy who owns so much property there. We used to go to Cape May. I can’t tell you how many times Grandma told me that it used to be a happening place in her heyday.”

“I’m glad that you love the water,” I said, meaning it more than Zack would know. “I love the ocean. Lake Erie is nice, but it’s a little provincial. I’d love to move out into the Atlantic someday.”

“That sounds amazing,” Zack sighed happily, totally missing my implication that there were cities out there. “Hey, how about we eat at that seafood place across the street to celebrate our mutual love of all things beyond the sea.”

I couldn’t stop myself from beaming from ear to ear. I loved Zack. I mean, I was head over heels for him already, despite the fact that it made zero sense, and I was ready to do whatever he wanted me to.

“I’m all for it,” I said.

I was all for it right up until we crossed the street and entered the tastefully decorated seafood restaurant and saw an old family portrait that had been painted in the eighteen-nineties hanging on the wall. And if that wasn’t enough, the hostess who came forward to greet us was my cousin Frisia.

“Well hello there,” Frisia said, smiling at me like she hadn’t seen me in ages. It wasn’t really ages. She’d been there for the family reunion in nineteen-seventy-three. “Fancy seeing you up here.”

I panicked a little and waved my hand, then touched my finger to my lips.

Frisia froze with her mouth open for a second, then said, “Right. Welcome to Fathoms Below. Table for two?”

“Yes,” I said.

“We’re on a first date,” Zack said, looking beyond thrilled.

“A first date?” Frisia looked at me as if she was both impressed and knew I was in a heap of trouble. I winced a little, but she laughed and said, “I have just the table for you. Right this way.”

I was happy to move away from the family portrait, just in case Zack noticed it. At least, I was happy until she took us to a shell-shaped table on a small dais with raised seat backs. It was very cozy and romantic and would have been wonderful…if not for the eighteenth-century painting of my mom flirting with my dad, who was dressed as a pirate, as he leaned over the edge of his ship’s railing. Worse still, the little boy mermaid clinging to one of her fins in the painting was me.

“Can I get you anything to start?” Frisia asked. “Water? Wine? Seaweed juice?”

“Seaweed juice? Bleh!” Zack said, making a face.

“Trust me, it’s not as bad as it sounds,” I said. I turned to Frisia with a frown and said, “Just water to start.”

“Fresh or salt?”

“Excuse me?” Zack asked.

“She’s kidding,” I laughed nervously, then told her, “Fresh.”

“Gotcha,” Frisia said, then winked and walked off.

“I’ve never heard of anyone serving seaweed juice before. Or salt water,” Zack said as he scanned the first page of the menu. “It must be a Valleywood specialty.”

“Must be,” I said, looking quickly at the menu myself.

Clearly, the restaurant catered to merfolk who were up from the bottom for a night out, or who lived on land and missed home-cooking. Obviously, we did all our cooking underwater with magic and we had an entirely different cuisine, but it looked as though whoever had established the restaurant had the necessary facilities to make whatever one of us could order.

“I think I’m going to be boring and just get the Caesar salad,” Zack said, laying his menu down. “With chicken, of course.”

“Of course,” I said.

I peeked at his menu and noticed it was different than mine. Frisia had given me a menu that must have been for merpeople and one to Zack that was clearly for landies. I wondered if she was trying to send me a message.

“I’ll probably get a salmon burger,” I said, closing my menu and putting it down, logo page up.

“Not a thick, juicy cheeseburger?” Zack asked, a teasing twinkle in his eyes. “I would think that a big, sexy alpha like you would want to wrap his hands around some buns and meat.”

He blinked suddenly, then went bright pink and slipped down, like he would slide under the table.

“Oh, god! That came out all wrong,” he said, hoarse with embarrassment. “I was not trying to hit on you, I swear.”

I laughed. “Please hit on me,” I said. “I love it.”

My gaze drifted up to the painting of my parents. Dad always liked it when Mom hit on him, too. I guess I was just as much like his side of the family as Mom’s.

“I don’t eat land meat,” I said before the moment could get too embarrassing.

“You don’t eat what?” Zack said, straightening again and looking at me curiously.

“I mean, I’m a pescatarian. I don’t eat red meat or chicken.”

“Oh. Gotcha,” Zack said. “Yeah, I keep hearing all these things about red meat being bad for your heart. I wouldn’t want anything to go wrong with my heart.”

He leaned one elbow on the table and looked at me with a moon-eyed expression.

He was so adorable that I could have eaten him for dinner. His scent was amazing, too. It was like sea spray and waterlilies, which was another, telling sign that we might be fated mates. Why else would he smell like my favorite things?

Frisia came back to take our orders, which meant Zack and I had to behave.

“So you’ve never lived anywhere other than Philadelphia?” I asked once she was gone.

Zack shook his head. “Nope. I don’t mind, though. I’ve traveled a little, mostly to Greece and the Mediterranean. That’s where Grandma’s family is from.”

“Oh,” I said, more curious by the second. “My mom’s family is from the Mediterranean, too. I used to spend holidays there back in the fifteen—er, um, back when I was around fifteen.”

“It’s nice, isn’t it?” Zack said, completely missing my slip. “I wonder if we were ever there at the same time.”

“Probably not,” I said, grinning and reaching for some of the seaweed bread Frisia had brought to the table. “I haven’t been back in a long time. I’d love to go again someday soon.”

“Maybe we could go together,” Zack suggested, reaching for a piece of bread as well.

Our fingers touched, and Zack blushed. It was the most gorgeous thing I’d ever seen.

“I’d like that,” I said, reluctantly pulling my hand away from his. “Especially since we both have roots there.”

“I’d love to discover more about my family,” Zack said, a little more seriously. “I don’t really know much, to be honest. My mom left when I was almost too young to remember her. My grandma always said she was a free spirit who needed to travel the world, bringing inspiration to artists in every land. I assume that means she’s an artist’s model or something.”

“You don’t know?” I asked.

Zack shrugged as he chewed on his bread, making a curious face at its unique taste. “I haven’t heard from her since I was a kid.”

“Doesn’t that bother you?” I asked. I might have had an unconventional family, but we were all pretty close. Even cousins, like Frisia, who brought our supper out just at that moment.

I was impatient to get through the whole, “Here you go, I hope you enjoy it, can I get you anything else” routine that Frisia seemed to drag out so she could grin at the two of us a little longer. Things about Zack weren’t exactly adding up. I needed to know more, but I was starting to form a theory about all the things that Zack didn’t appear to question about himself.

“What about you?” Zack asked once we were settled, Frisia was gone, and we’d started eating. “Are you close with your parents?”

I wondered if he was deliberately not answering my question or if he didn’t remember I’d asked it. He did seem a little nervous now, even though he hadn’t been before. His flush hadn’t gone away and he was squirming as if he was subconsciously uncomfortable. His scent had increased, too, like he was sweating a lot.

“I am close to my family, actually,” I said with what I hoped was a reassuring smile. “Mom is the matriarch of the family, of course. We all pretty much do what she says.”

“Is she an alpha?” Zack asked, sitting straighter with interest.

“No, she’s just, er, Mom.”

I had no idea how to explain to Zack that merpeople biology worked a little differently than landies, or that I got my alpha genes from my dad’s side of the family. That was a can of anemones I wasn’t ready to open.

“What did she say when you told her you’d gotten one of the leads in The Little Mermaid ?” Zack asked, tugging at his collar.

“She wasn’t really happy,” I confessed.

“What?” Zack blurted, reaching for his ice water. “How could she not be happy that you scored a lead role in a major musical?”

“She didn’t want me to come up here to audition,” I said. “I don’t think she approves of, um, theater.”

“Come up here?” Zack asked. “But I thought you said you lived by Lake Erie. You didn’t come up from the South?”

I reached for my water, too. I needed to buy some time to think about whether I wanted to confess everything to Zack straight away or let the truth come out in time.

“It’s a bit of a long story,” I said once I’d finished swallowing. I decided to try a little truth and see where that got me. “When I say I live in Lake Erie, I mean in the lake.”

“What, like on a houseboat?” Zack asked breathlessly.

I frowned. Something wasn’t right, and it had nothing to do with the conversation. Zack had gone as pink as coral and a fine sheen of sweat had broken out on his forehead.

“Zack, are you alright?” I asked, reaching across the table to take his hand, which twitched as he rested it on the table.

As soon as I touched it, I knew exactly what the problem was. I reacted so strongly to him that I was surprised the zipper on my trousers didn’t pop.

“Oh, god,” Zack gasped. “I didn’t think it was possible. I thought they just had the heating up too high or something. I’m not due for another two months.”

I sucked in a breath and Zack’s delicious, rich heat scent with it. I turned and searched desperately for Frisia, but she was busy with other customers.

“I think we need to get out of here and go home right now,” I said.

“No!” Zack wailed, sinking in on himself a little. “This is so embarrassing. This can’t be happening to me. I can’t put all this on you. I still have months to go.”

“No you don’t, guppy,” I said, ignoring the fact that he would find the term of endearment strange. “You’re going into heat right now.”