Swimming Without a Net

  “Fred.”

  She stopped pacing and stood over him. “And why do I even care, anyway? Don’t I have enough to worry about without giving a crap if Thomas likes a mermaid who isn’t me?”

  “Fred!”

  “What?” she snapped.

  “Move.” Jonas, clad in crimson swim trunks patterned with green sea horses, and sunglasses (which he’d picked up at the small gift shop off the kitchen), and nothing else, shaded his eyes with a forearm and squinted up at her. “You’re standing in my light. Then I’ll have a Fred-shaped shadow across my rock-hard abs, and Barb will laugh at me so much I’ll lose my hard-on.”

  “Gross!” she squealed.

  “Hey, it’s reality, baby. Deal. And speaking of reality, were you planning on hiding Thomas from all the other mermaids?”

  “No.”

  “And you’re not in love with him, or Artur. In fact, it sort of pisses you off when they start—how’d you put it? Slobbering? It’s no secret that you get mad when they slobber all over you.”

  “I know, I know! I’m aware of how stupid and junior high all of this is.”

  “Well, get your shit together,” her alleged best friend said heartlessly. “Either you want Thomas (or Artur), or you don’t want Thomas (or Artur). Pick one. Or don’t. But shouldn’t you be worrying more about the Pelagic than about the sad, pathetic state of your love life? Your love life is always pathetic, but Pelagics only come along once every three or four decades.”

  Fred plunked down on the concrete beside her best friend. Funny how Jonas’s sensible advice often sounded like the advice she gave herself. In fact, sometimes the advice she gave herself actually sounded like Jonas.

  “Yeah, everything you’re saying is a hundred percent right. But I’m not a computer, Jonas. I can’t turn it off like a switch.”

  “At last, she admits she has feelings!” He adjusted his sunglasses. “A breakthrough.”

  “Shut up.”

  “So what’d you end up doing?”

  “Oh, Tennian offered to show him the Cayman Trench.”

  Jonas snickered.

  “Don’t be such a pig. It’s not a sexual euphemism.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She ignored that. “He’ll need scuba gear, but she’ll give him an all-expense-paid mermaid tour.”

  “And of course he took her up on it.”

  “Of course!” Fred had to admit, even to herself, that Thomas could not be faulted for that, no matter how hard she tried. “He’s a mermaid geek, remember. He would have taken Artur or Kertal up on it, too. Not that Kertal would have asked. But—Oh, shit! That reminds me. My dad was a traitor.”

  “Yeah, I heard.”

  She nearly fell into the pool. “What?”

  Jonas adjusted his sunglasses. “Artur told me. He was worried some of the other mer-dudes might give you shit. I said you wouldn’t give a shit if they gave you shit. He seemed relieved about you not giving a shit about getting shit, and then he dropped the whole thing.”

  “Swell. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “He asked me not to. He was trying to figure out how to break it to you.”

  “And you agreed to this?”

  Jonas yawned, unmoved by her wrath. “Hey, calm down. I gave him until the end of the week. If he hadn’t spilled it to you by then, I would have.”

  “Neither of you did. Tennian gave me the whole story. And after Daddy-o’s little takeover failed, they kicked him out.”

  “Huh.” Jonas sat up, examined his (not very tan) stomach, then lay back down. “I didn’t get that part of the story.”

  “And then he washed up onshore and knocked up my mom.”

  “What a lovely ending to a depressing story.”

  “Which reminds me—”

  “—we aren’t telling Moon that your dad was the bad guy a generation ago. Got it.”

  Fred almost smiled. It was so comforting, being around someone who knew her so well.

  “Maybe you should go tell Thomas you want to fuck.”

  “What?”

  “Date! I meant date.”

  “Yeah, but…” She had tried to picture herself doing just that. And had frozen like a Mrs. Paul’s fish stick every time. Nor could she picture herself telling Artur the same thing.

  She wasn’t afraid of them. Not afraid they’d hurt her, at least. She wasn’t afraid of any man. And she liked sex (if memory served). But the thought of essentially telling one person, one man, “I’m going to make myself vulnerable to you, so hurt at will!” was terrifying. Her throat actually went dry when she contemplated it.

  “You’re such a chickenshit,” Jonas said kindly, accurately reading her expression. “Would it kill you to try being in a relationship?”

  “Says the guy who got dumped about a thousand times before hooking up with my boss.”

  “Yeah, and it was all worth it to find Barb, ya idjit!”

  Fred said nothing. It would be too cruel (even for her) to remind Jonas of all the times he’d sobbed into his couch. The times he’d ignored his personal grooming for as long as a week when he’d been dumped. The way he’d eat trans fats to get over a breakup. Or wear socks that didn’t match his tie.

  She shuddered, recalling the horror.

  Oh, sure, Dr. Barb was in his life now and everything was rosy. Oh, yes, everything was swell, including his view of all past breakups.

  No, she wouldn’t remind him of the pain he so conveniently glossed over. Nor was she in a hurry to go through anything like that on her own.

  She had the nagging thought that she was being a coward, and shoved it right back out of her brain.

  “Meanwhile,” her friend was nagging, “you’ve got two awesome guys who would chew off their own arms—or each other’s—for the chance to make you happy, and all you can do is freak out.”

  “Yup.” Fred glumly rested her chin in her hand. “Freaking out. That’s all I can do. It’s all I’ve been doing ever since I got here. And the damn Pelagic hasn’t even started yet!”

  “Well, worry about that, then. And if Tennian gets fresh with Thomas, sock her.”

  She grinned down at her friend. “Now that’s advice I can use.”

  Twenty

  To her extreme annoyance, Jonas’s mouth fell open and he stared past her as she bitched about the URV, Thomas, Tennian, the Pelagic, her mom, and her period, which was due within the week.

  “Oh my God, help me remember my hot girlfriend,” her friend murmured, and Fred knew without turning around that it was—

  “Good evening, Fredrika. Sir. I thought I might—if you did not mind, I thought I might…dine…with you?”

  “Tennian, Jonas. Jonas, you remember Tennian.” Tennian the hottie, who has apparently started following me around. “Sure. We’d love it if you had supper with us.”

  Jonas had bounded to his feet and was shaking hands with the nudely gleaming Tennian. “Hi there! Niceta see you again! Chilly this time of night, eh?”

  “It is good to see you, sir. I have heard many nice things about you.”

  “You have?” Jonas was frankly staring. “About me? Not from her, anyway.” Jerking a thumb in Fred’s direction.

  “You’d better drop it while you can still count to five on that hand,” she muttered. Then, louder: “Nice to see you again.”

  “Indeed!” Tennian glanced down at herself, then back up. “Fredrika, may I impose upon you? I require clothing.”

  “Sure, sure, there’s plenty in my hut.”

  “Nonsense!” boomed her friend (who, laughably, was thought to be gay by the casual bystander). “It’s a come-as-you-are dinner! No need for shorts. Or a shirt!”

  Tennian smiled at him. “You are kind, but I will abide by your customs.”

  “Nuts.”

  Without another word, Fred led Tennian toward her hut.

  Tennian was devouring meat loaf (What, Fred wondered, could it be made of? Were there cows on the island?) and listening to the others chatter. E
ven Fred, slightly begrudging the lovely girl’s company, couldn’t deny that Tennian was fascinated and thrilled to be taking a meal with them. It was kind of fun to be ringside.

  “—of course I came down like a shot. The prince was really great to invite me,” Thomas was saying, his plate untouched in front of him.

  Fred rudely stuck her finger in his mashed potatoes, then sucked on her finger. He noticed, but didn’t care…just pushed his plate closer to her.

  She hated mashed potatoes.

  “You give me too much honor,” Artur replied amiably, gulping down a fourth helping of conch chowder. “My good father invited you. I only extended the invitation on his behalf.”

  “Aw, come on, you’re being too modest.”

  “Not very damn likely,” Fred muttered to her corn chowder.

  “We’re breaking ground, right here.” Thomas gestured to the room, still creepily decorated with nets and baby dolls. And to the diners: himself, Artur, Jonas, Fred, Tennian. “Surface dwellers and Undersea Folk getting along fine. Shit, Fred and Jonas are best friends! I think this is really promising for how the Pelagic will turn out. And for future relations with our people, of course.”

  “Apples and oranges,” Fred muttered.

  “And Fred is a hybrid,” Artur said, nicely but with no doubt about his meaning. “Who did not know her people until recently. Who else did she have to befriend but Jonas? No offense, good sir,” he added hastily.

  “Hey, none taken,” Jonas said, working on his third Bloody Mary. “It was either me or Sandy Caturia, and Sandy was a nose picker.”

  Fred was startled into a snicker; she hadn’t thought of their nose-mining fellow student in many years. “Don’t sell yourself short, jerk. You’ve been a good friend.”

  “Yeah, but that’s not the issue, is it?” Thomas asked intently. “It’s not who Fred picked to be her friend, it’s who decided to befriend her. And even if she was buds with the president of the United States, the fact that she’s a hybrid would always bring doubt on that friendship, right?”

  Artur looked uncomfortable, but could not lie. Not that Fred gave a shit, but it was interesting to watch him wiggle. “You speak the truth, Thomas; it is one of your finest qualities, and also the most exasperating. Although I daresay Fred could befriend anyone she wished.”

  “Sure, she’s a regular Miss Congeniality,” Jonas snickered.

  “I have heard horror stories about surface dwellers for nearly all my fifty years,” Tennian commented, pausing for a minute to suck the meat out of a tiny lobster leg, then chew up said tiny leg, “but I had never known one well enough to talk to. You do not seem like barbarians to me.”

  Fred jabbed an elbow into Thomas’s side. “Fifty. Didja hear that? Fifty! Hope you packed the URV with Depends.”

  “I think it’s like anything else,” Jonas said, getting up to fix himself another Bloody Mary. “With every species. Some of ’em are assholes, some of ’em are saints, but most fall somewhere in between.”

  “O my Tennian,” Artur said, smiling, “you will have your nose everywhere, will you not? So it has been,” he told the others, “since we were children together.”

  “Your Highness implies equality among our families when there is none. You lead, we follow. That is the way of it.”

  Hmm, Fred hmm’d. Tennian was being too modest. She came from important people; that was obvious. Maybe the Undersea Folk equivalent of aristocrats?

  “In this, you are leading, and it pleases me greatly,” Artur said.

  Tennian didn’t blush, but she stared into her glass and said nothing. Fred figured Artur meant the huge step of walking out of the ocean and taking a meal with Traitor Bait.

  “His Highness knows of my stubborn streak.”

  “His Highness,” Artur said, creepily referring to himself in the third person, “has had cause to be grateful for it more than once.”

  The two Undersea Folk shared a warm look which Fred, later by her own admission, would admit she completely misread.

  So she slid over until she and Artur were hip to hip, climbed onto his lap, and planted a kiss on his mouth (which was hanging open with surprise).

  Twenty-one

  “Whuf?” Artur managed, or something close to it. But Fred was lost in the sea of sensation she had brought upon herself. She could feel her thighs warming against Artur’s (darned cutoffs); could feel his warm mouth recover from the surprise and begin actively kissing her back; could feel his ridiculously strong arms wrap around her.

  She kissed him, she kissed him, she kissed him and forgot about the Pelagic, and her father, and the way Tennian had apparently bewitched both of the men Fred refused to date. She even, for a brief glorious moment, forgot about Moon, Jonas, and Dr. Barb.

  “Say, is that the time?” Jonas exclaimed, speak of the devil. “It’s so late, it’s, uh, way past my bedtime. Way way way past.”

  “It’s seven twenty-five,” Thomas said, sounding (hooray! Wait, what?) disgruntled.

  “Right, that’s what I meant. Time to call Fred’s boss and get me some phone sex.”

  “Is this, ah, I don’t mean to intrude on a cultural taboo,” Tennian said, “but is this normal for—”

  “Fred? No. Ordinary people surrounded by hotties? Yes. Come on, gorgeous. I’m dying to fix your hair.”

  “It does not need fixing,” Tennian commented, and, thank goodness, her voice was getting fainter.

  “Oh, honey! The things you don’t know, living like a slug on the bottom of the sea. First we’ll do a protein pack. Then a trim, I think. How about a crew cut? Your bone structure would be killer with that look.”

  The door shut and, with sweet suddenness, Fred and Artur were alone.

  She stopped kissing him at once.

  “Ah, my Rika, I think you have left this tiny portion of my mouth unexplored.” Her legs dangled as he pointed to a minuscule spot on his lower lip. “Perhaps you should see to it at once.”

  “Don’t get any funny ideas,” she warned him, looking around. Yep, Jonas and Tennian were gone. So was Thomas, although she hadn’t heard him leave. The guy could move like a cat when he wanted. “I was just—just—”

  “Marking your territory, as do your dogs?” the prince teased, shifting her weight on his lap so she rested easier. “I have no objection to being marked, Little Rika. Not by one such as you.”

  “She has a lot of nerve, don’t you think?” Fred cried, beating her fists on Artur’s chest. “First she bewitches Thomas, then she throws herself at you. There’s only so much a girl can take, even one with a (sometimes) tail.”

  Artur stared at her for a moment, then threw back his head and did the kingly booming laugh thing. “Tennian! And I! Oh no, oh no, oh no-no-no.”

  He tapered off into snorts and giggles, but when she tried to climb out of his lap he tightened his grip and she stopped. “Don’t even say it.”

  “I do not have to, Little Rika, you have deduced it on your own.”

  “Tennian wasn’t making a play for you.”

  “We are cousins,” he explained gently, but his red eyes gleamed and gleamed until they looked like lamps. “We played together as babies.”

  “Oh, friggin’ great!” Fred threw up her hands and nearly dislodged herself from Artur’s lap. “Cousins! Which nobody bothered to tell me! Doesn’t that make her an earl or a duchess or something?”

  “Tennian’s family has always eschewed titles,” he explained, stroking her waist with both hands. “She did not knowingly deceive you.”

  “She doesn’t knowingly irritate the shit out of me, either, but guess what?”

  “That is not what I would deem an exclusive club, Little Rika.”

  “Hmph.” Fred slumped, sulked, crossed her arms over her chest, kicked her feet. “I guess it’s not such a big deal, then.”

  “Ah, but it is, Little Rika. I like your jealousy. In fact, I adore it greatly.”

  “I wasn’t jealous,” she lied. “Just showing her she’s not t
he only hottie at the table.”

  “Very wise,” he said gravely, “but even now I am having inappropriate thoughts about my father’s brother’s daughter. Perhaps you should remind me of your hottie status.”

  “You wish,” she began, but his lips covered hers and that was as far as she got.

  Twenty-two

  Fred spent another sleepless night fantasizing about surgically removing Tennian’s ears and then stuffing them in her mouth.

  And wondering if she had “bad” blood…traitor’s blood.

  And wishing King Mekkam wasn’t quite so infatuated with the Deadwood prostitutes. (Apparently the queen, Artur’s mother, was long dead.)

  And wondering if she shied away from committing to either of the men in her life because of honest disinterest, or fear.

  It hadn’t been easy, extricating herself from Artur’s lap and grasp. Not least because she had been way too tempted to remain. But after a few well-placed kicks she’d been free to go…though if she’d known she was going to be in for a night of staring at the ceiling, she might have lingered.

  The alarm went off—not that it woke her—and she was glad. Anything was better than lying in bed fretting.

  And it was all so stupid! It’s not like she’d been hurt in other relationships, she thought, throwing the blankets back and beginning to get dressed. In fact, far from it.

  Her adult life had been a series of one or two dates, blind dates, and occasional work dates. She hadn’t been interested in boys as a high school student, and then she’d been so busy at UMass there hadn’t been time for a steady relationship. And then she’d been concentrating on getting her Ph.D., and then her work at the aquarium had pretty much consumed her time.

  She’d just never had time for a serious relationship. It had nothing at all to do with keeping men at a distance so they couldn’t reject her as a freak of nature.

  Wait. Where had that come from?

  Then she realized what she was doing, cursed, and pulled off all the clothes she’d just carefully put on. She couldn’t wear clothes to the Pelagic, for God’s sake! Nobody else would, that was for sure. She’d stand out enough without showing up in shorts and a shirt.