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“Not really. Just long enough for him to find out I’m a mermaid,” I said, before burning my lips on my coffee.
Allison clapped a hand over her mouth. “He knows?”
“How else do you think I dragged him out of the ocean?” I said, lowering my voice.
“Are you sure you can trust him to keep that secret?” Kira asked.
“I’m sure.” I settled for spooning foam into my mouth to let my coffee cool down. “He promised.”
Kira and Allison exchanged amused looks.
“What?” I said.
“You guys are so sweet on each other!” Allison squealed.
“Keep it down.” I stole some foam from Allison’s cup and she turned her finger into a stick and poked me.
I couldn’t have anyone my family knew overhearing this conversation. Apparently, even working with an Everhart was punishable.
“Be honest with us,” Kira said, fluttering her wings on her coffee to cool it down. “Do you like him?”
I dropped my spoon and leaned back in my seat. “I really like him.”
It was more than like. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something connected us that ran deeper than surface level attraction. Although we had spent little time together. But the time we had spent…
Allison clutched her face.
“I thought after we found out who each other was, that was it,” I said. “But when he nearly drowned… it made all of this seem so stupid. All this fighting, when I could have lost him… it’s so pointless.”
“Ooooh…” Allison rocked back and forth, her eyes glazed over. “You’re in deep, girl.”
“Poor choice of words, Ali.” Kira picked up her coffee and took a gulp. “Maeve, listen, you’ve got to go ahead with this. You can’t let your families stop you from being together.”
I balked, wrapping my hands around my coffee for comfort. “You sound really sure about that.”
“I’ve never been more sure about anything.” Kira’s wings fluttered indignantly. “Don’t you find it suspicious that you two matched so closely and that you needed each other to solve Tyler’s murder?”
I sipped my coffee. “I mean, it’s a pretty strange coincidence, yeah.”
“Are you listening to this bitch?” Kira gestured at me as she exchanged exasperated looks with Allison. “Maeve, haven’t you thought that this might be fate? That the gods might have intended for you two to get together?”
“Now that’s a stretch,” I said, grabbing a sugar packet. The coffee was too bitter.
“Is it?” Allison asked. “Your family’s feud has basically defined this island since they got here. What if it’s too much… bad juju or something?”
Kira slapped a hand to her face. “Real coherent there, Ali.”
“Oh, like you could do better.” Allison picked up her cup and hunched her shoulders. She was done talking.
I patted her back. Some days, she had the confidence of a sapling in a hurricane.
“What she means to say is that maybe this is how the curse breaks? With you two uniting the families?” Kira said.
I froze.
Nobody knew how the curse really came to be, other than the betrayal of both families simultaneously causing some sort of magical interference. What if the opposite was true?
“When Rose was about to give birth, we were terrified we were going to lose you,” Kira said. “What if someone else has a baby? What if you’re next? We can’t live like that, Maeve. You owe it to everyone to see if this is what it is.”
