Page 13 of The Call of Azure (Unexpected Love #3)

“Gabrielllllll.” Evie drags out my name in an almost whine. “Come onnnnn. Tell us already, and then you have to come sing with me.”

The whole table laughs. Evie and I are the worst singers of the group by a long shot, which of course makes us the most popular karaoke performers.

I lean over the table a bit more with a wild grin. “Okay, so I was thinking that silk work is air and height and soaring, right? What if I were to pair it with water?”

Six foreheads wrinkle in confusion.

“How are you going to work with silks underwater?” Blue chuckles.

“Not me underwater! What if I performed with silks above, like a pool, or one of those big tanks at the aquarium where they have the merfolk performers, and one of them were to mirror my routine? Like, when I work my way up higher, they move in the same patterns toward the bottom of the pool, and when I do quick drops and fall toward the water, they can rush up toward me. I mean…that would look so fracking tight, right?”

Six pairs of eyes stare silently at me for a long enough moment that my heart starts to race, and I feel a little bit like throwing up because I think this is one of the most creative ideas I’ve ever had.

I know it might be hard to get the aquarium and one of their performers to agree to collaborate, and it will take a whole lot of planning since I don’t really know specifically what types of movements merfolk performers are capable of underwater and how often they need to surface for air and things like that, but they’ve always looked so fluid to me.

So free. They look like they’re flying. Even more than I do when I’m actually floating through the air on silks in a way.

I really think that if I can get the details to work out, the actual performance would be breathtaking.

“Oh. My. God!” Evie squeals in excitement, and that’s all it takes to finally get people blinking and moving and talking all at once.

“Gabriel, oh my god, man, that is such a great idea!”

Even though a few people are talking over one another as they offer me “good jobs” and “that’d be awesomes,” I automatically focus in on Blue.

The thing about having a best friend who feels like a brother is that I know he’d tell me the truth if it was a shitty idea.

The fact that he says it’s great has my chest filled to bursting with joy.

“You think so?” I try to keep any lingering doubt out of my voice, but he knows me, and I’m sure he hears it.

“Ya, man. I think if you can pull it together, it might just be the coolest show you’ve ever choreographed.” He reaches across the table and squeezes my hand tightly. “How did you even come up with something like that?”

I can’t help the way my face screws up in a cringe and the snort that escapes before I can stop it. “That stupid bloody card on the fridge.”

Blue’s head falls back in a laugh loud enough to startle the group up on stage, working their way through a mediocre performance of “It’s Raining Men.”

“The fucking tarot card? Oh my god. That is the best thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”

Last year, Blue and Ethan came to one of my performances at a local boat festival, and we had our tarot cards read while we were wandering through the pop-up stalls.

The one the crazy tarot lady pulled for me has lived on my refrigerator ever since, even though I’ve thrown it out half a dozen times.

I don’t know how, but I think Blue may have figured out where to order the same deck, and he keeps replacing them to mess with me.

That’s the explanation that I’m going with, no matter how much he denies it, because any other more…

magical…explanations really freak me out.

“It’s absolutely not, and I forbid you to think about the stupid thing anymore. You are only to think about my creative brilliance and the fact that you love me very, very much.”

He has to fight to keep from making any snarky comments. I know him well enough to see it in the way one corner of his mouth twitches and the small lines beside his eyes that are just a bit deeper than they normally are when he smiles, but he manages.

“That’s true. I do love you very, very much, and you are absolutely the most brilliant and creative performer I know.”

“Thank you. Also, you’ll be happy to know that once I was struck by this lightning bolt of wondrous creative brilliance, I took the dang thing and hid it in my underwear drawer.

It’s so crowded in there that it will never find its way out.

I don’t know why I let you put it back on the fridge after I moved anyway. ”

Blue shifts a bit closer to Ethan and covers his drink with his palm, both sure signs that he’s going to say something I won’t like, and he’s afraid I’ll attempt violence. He should cover his nipples. They’re open targets with one hand on mine and the other protecting his drink.

“What if it gets other ideas in there? What if it starts magically messing with your underwear or your dick once it’s in your underwear?”

“Please,” I scoff, not even bothering to go for his nipples with weak threats like that.

“You know I don’t believe in all that fate, destiny, tarot-magic, energy-crystal nonsense.

The only reason I even keep it is to commemorate our first weekend trip as a throuple, and now that it’s served the bonus purpose of inspiring me, it’s going to live out its days nice and peacefully in its little underwear-filled home.

It’s very lucky to get to retire there.”

Before either of us can say anything else about the stupid card…or my amazing idea, Ethan’s hand joins our hand pile on the table as he lays it on top of Blue’s and changes the subject. He knows the card irritates me, and he’s always been good at reading the room.

“There are merfolk shows at the aquarium?”

His bright-green eyes sparkle as the club’s disco balls throw glittery specks of light our way, and I can’t help but love him just a bit more because he seems genuinely excited by that.

He led a pretty quiet and sheltered life before he met us, and the fact that a thirty-something-year-old man can get so excited about seeing merfolk performers makes him basically the most endearing man on the planet.

The way Blue takes care of him, the way they take care of each other, definitely doesn’t leave me wishing I had someone to take care of like that. Nope. Absolutely not.

“Yeah, babe.” Blue laughs as he kisses Ethan’s cheek. “We can go see them soon if you want.”

“Oh my god, can we really? Sweet!” Ethan takes another sip of his disgusting whiskey before turning to me. “You want to come with us?”

There is no way I could ever say no to his adorable little eyes asking if I want to spend time with my best friends in the world, and for just a moment, I let down my guard and push aside all the doubt that has me constantly wondering why I’m never enough.

For just a moment, I actually believe that the two of them don’t keep me around because they feel bad for me or because they can’t figure out how to get rid of me.

They keep me around because they want to, and that is such an unfamiliar sensation for me, even after all this time, that it’s a battle to keep my voice steady as I reply.

“Ya, hun. I’d love that.”