Page 11 of The Merman’s Betrothal (Outcast Hearts #2)

R ory spent a long time staring at the wall after the tatted blue monster had left. He couldn’t work out where to begin even thinking about everything that had happened.

An old Katy Perry song came to mind and the words I kissed a guy and I liked it proceeded to dance around his brain for a solid twenty minutes.

He was sure he wasn’t gay. Never so much as looked at another man’s package before. Muscles? Those were background noise—everyone was built tough out here.

Rory counted up the women he’d slept with.

He’d scored anywhere between one and three lovely lasses per summer season, depending on his luck and the availability of similarly-minded partners.

He loved the ladies, so long as they didn’t come with too many complications.

And he was always clear with them about it first. Short-term affairs only.

Was there anything more heterosexual than that?

Rory caught sight of himself in the wardrobe mirror and grimaced. That sounded like an argument one of Graham’s work buddies would come up with. Being scared of commitment didn’t make him straight.

If he was being honest with himself, those summer flings had just been something to do.

Something to make the time pass a little less gratingly while he remained trapped in his own stasis of indecision.

When they were over, Rory often felt empty.

Like he hadn’t quite gotten what he needed.

Like he was hankering for some lasting warmth and connection.

Like he was a useless prick who wasn’t worth anyone’s time.

None of that was solid evidence of his heterosexuality, though.

By contrast, Rory couldn’t argue with his dick. And Jesus, had it put up a strong argument in favour of the blue bugger in the kilt.

The blue merman. The mer-Prince. The guy with actual gills on his actual neck. That, apparently, was what got him hard. Or, you know, it was being kissed by the guy. Being held by those beefy arms. Feeling the heat off his skin…

‘Come off it,’ Rory groaned as his cock stirred again. He’d never had such a strong reaction to anybody before.

More to reassure himself than to relieve his libido, Rory reached for his phone so he could look up some porn. This reminded him he was still missing trousers, and then he remembered why.

He’d fallen in the loch with his phone in his pocket. A hasty scrabble through the pile of wet clothes confirmed the worst: it was dead.

He daren’t wank to whatever his mind might cook up by itself. What if the blue man turned up in there? Much safer to find some safe, normal porn on his laptop instead.

You mean heterosexual, not normal, his conscience chided. Unless you want to try watching something gay.

Fuck, no.

Ironically, he navigated to the lesbian section and fapped out a quick release to the scene of two women eating each other out. It did the trick—his cock still worked, he still liked women. Presumably.

What if I like men and women?

Nooooooope. Rory shoved the thought down again. Despite this, it continued to bounce back up even as a pair of soft round tits bounced on his screen.

He snapped the laptop closed.

Rory cleaned up, feeling self-conscious despite being alone. He was also still avoiding thinking about the other part of the blue merman situation. The part that was still tugging on his chest like an invisible string. The part that the blue freak had called their bond .

Soul mates. Rory didn’t believe in anything like that.

But he hadn’t believed in mermen half an hour ago, either.

A booming knock at his front door had Rory jumping out of his skin. Was it the blue man, back to fuck some sense into him?

I did not just think that, Rory prayed, hoping his dick hadn’t heard.

He approached the door warily, then relaxed as Graham’s voice filtered from the other side.

‘Oy, oy, Rory! You in there?’

Rory opened the door. Graham seemed slightly worse for wear than when he’d left him—roughly five drinks worse for wear—but his face lit up on seeing Rory. ‘Ah, there you are. Got me worried.’

‘Worried?’ Rory raised an eyebrow. He desperately hoped nothing about the last hour was readable on his face. ‘What for?’

Graham leaned heavily against the door frame. His words were slurred but well-meaning. ‘We-ll. Seemed unlike you to pop off without a word.’

‘I might’ve been with a girl,’ Rory suggested coolly.

Graham snorted. ‘Ha, good one. Who you wasting time with when there’s Sara on your plate?’ He peered closer at Rory. ‘Oh, wait. You serious? There’s someone I don’t know about?’

Ah, fuck. Heat gathered in Rory’s cheeks. It was a little too close to the truth to admit he’d been with anyone at all. What if Graham could tell it was a guy? Was gaydar a real thing?

Even if it was, Graham wouldn’t be able to tell anything because Rory wasn’t gay.

‘No,’ Rory replied stiffly, trying to drown out this train of thought. ‘I just needed to get an early night.’

‘Oh, right.’ Graham’s eyes creased, troubled by something. ‘Just thought, y’know. We haven’t been out together in ages. Thought you’d want to let off some steam, right?’

‘I did. Now I need to sleep. Just tired from work, you know?’

Graham’s expression lifted in an instant, replaced by a coarse grin. ‘You work too hard. Stay on that boat too much an’ you’ll be looking at lobsters for company.’

‘Only if they’re as good looking as your mum,’ Rory replied weakly, which got a resounding laugh from Graham.

‘You enjoy your kip, then, like an old man.’ Graham made a mocking gesture of touching his forelock. ‘The rest of us will be out here living, if you choose to join us.’

Rory watched his swaying departure down the street. Graham soaked up alcohol like he was made of the same brick as the outhouse he resembled.

Now there was a jacked-up manly man, if ever there was one. Graham shared some traits with the blue guy—the height, the muscles, the tatts. And did Rory feel anything attractive about him? Nada. Zero. Resoundingly nope.

Thank fuck for that.

He locked the door and went to bury his head under his duvet.

That fact that Graham was checking on him bothered Rory.

They’d grown up together; been probably the closest thing either of them could call a best friend to each other.

Though in reality that friendship amounted to inventing new your mum jokes, trading industry info, and occasionally sharing a drink in the other’s company.

Throughout it all, Graham had looked out for Rory. Rory had been the scrawnier of the two of them when they were teenagers and Graham had stood in the way when bigger kids tried to shake him down for a laugh. And then he taught Rory how to punch back.

Machismo was something Rory had to learn to fit in, whereas for Graham it seemed to come naturally.

In the early days, it was Graham who helped Rory take the reigns of his dad’s boat. Back when Hamish Douglas had finally given up on the outside world and retreated to the cave of his house and the memory of his wife. The memory that Rory couldn’t live up to, no matter how fucking hard he tried.

Graham and Rory had spent days, months, working in all weathers, in both banter and silence, to keep the dying business afloat.

And even now, it was Graham trying to offer Rory a lifeline, a way out of his dismal situation with the dangling prospect of a new job.

Maybe a new life. Catching tourists instead of lobsters.

Same boat, different fish, Rory reflected. Graham didn’t realise it wasn’t the escape to Rory he thought it was.

And the fact he thought Rory needed rescuing at all was a boot to his pride. After all these years, did he still look pathetic? Did he still look like a failure? All Rory had ever done was work hard, and Graham seemed to see it as a kind of weakness.

I suppose if you’re already strong then you don’t need to work hard for it, Rory thought dully.

He rolled over to stare at the ceiling. His skin had begun itching again. A sort of crawling sensation all over his body, like tiny crabs were scuttling from his toes to his head.

He put it down to stress and went to take a bath.

* * *

Rory spent the whole of the weekend hiding at home, save for a single trip to check on his dad. He dreaded going back to work on Monday. How could he set foot on the Star knowing that an army of blue musclemen might be lurking beneath the waves?

He checked the weather forecast obsessively, hoping there would be storms and other good reasons to not take the Star out.

As if to spite him, the weather turned positively balmy with slower winds and a temperature hovering around fifteen degrees.

Even the sun could occasionally be spotted peeking through the clouds.

What’s worse, his bank balance provided an even greater argument for not shirking work. Months of poor yields had left him in a precarious financial situation.

So it was with great trepidation that Rory piloted the Wandering Star out of Ullapool’s harbour, following the tidal flow of Loch Broom west until it spilled out into the Minch. He was on his own today: a small blessing to not have Ol’ Doaty grousing in his ear.

Rory maneuvered the boat into position to drop his first line of creels and set to work.

He checked each mesh pot was baited before throwing the first over the side.

Then it was a painstaking process of paying out the rope via an antiquated pulley system while Rory nudged the Star forward a few metres, and then coming back to manually drop the next trap in.

Years ago, he’d tried to convince his father to buy equipment to mechanise the process like they did on larger creelers.

But Hamish Douglas was a man firmly set in his ways and wouldn’t hear a word against the ‘traditional’ way of running his boat and his business. Change was like poison to the old man.

Still, gruelling though it was, Rory enjoyed the solitude. And simple labour made it easy to forget what he was hiding from.