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“Forget the pickle. The gym’s in some hot water.” She paused, grimaced, then threw her hands up. “Ack, damnit! The gym’s in trouble, Bree.”
A dollop of tuna landed on my finger. I licked it off. “You could have just said that, you know.”
Gripping the edges of the desk, Frankie stared at me, her brown irises becoming tinged with violet. The fae woman was about to lose her mind.
That was what she got for using human sayings with a siren, especially one like me. “What kind of trouble?”
The violet hue faded back to brown. Crisis averted.
“Financial.”
Just kidding. Crisis reinstated and lunch officially ruined.
My stomach dropped into a churning abyss. I set the rest of my sub on the table, and Frankie shot me a sympathetic look. Money problems weren’t something I could fix.
I licked my suddenly dry lips. “Do Riss and I need to move out?”
“What? No.” Frankie shook her head so hard a few curls sprung loose from the pencil holding the rest back. Her idea of a makeshift hair clip. “Not yet, anyway. I’m hopin’ not ever. Unless it’s by choice.”
I nodded slowly, not convinced. Frankie and the gym had been in one kind of debt or another since the day Marissa and I showed up in D.C., soaking wet and starving. Money issues had never been a secret between us, but she’d never had to involve me before.
If she was bringing it up now, things were bad. Bad as in Marissa and I could end up homeless again.
“I only have so much in savings, but I can?—”
Frankie held up a hand. “I’m not askin’ for your money.”
I frowned, not sure where she was going with this. There was no way she’d ask me to do something drastic like become a stripper.
She eyed me as if expecting a certain reaction, I just didn’t know what reaction she expected. “I want you to fight.”
My eyes widened. Well, she’d just proved me wrong—she was going with drastic.
“I know you’re about to object, but hear me out.” Frankie leaned forward, placing her forearms on the desk and clasping her hands together. “No one has seen someone like you do…what you do.”
She waved a hand in the air to demonstrate my magic. At least, I assumed that’s what she meant by that gesture. “Your abilities would bring in a huge crowd, guaranteed. We’d have this place out of debt within a week.”
My heart pounded painfully against my ribs, and my lungs burned as if the air had been sucked from the room. There was no way I could do what she was asking. That kind of visibility would draw eyes, prying eyes that could unveil our secret and expose us to my father’s relentless pursuit, bringing him straight to our doorsteps.
I was paranoid enough already.
My father, a sea king driven by tradition and ambition, had sought to marry my sister and me off to other kingdoms. I vowed to protect us both from that fate, and it would all be for nothing if he found us. The possible consequences of the attention Frankie’s suggestion would bring were too dire to ignore.
For the last ten years, she had been our savior, the one who took us in when we had nowhere else to go. I owed her my gratitude, my loyalty. Maybe even my life. But the path she was suggesting, this so-called solution to our financial woes, sent a chill down my spine.
After everything we’d gone through together, there was nothing I wouldn’t do for her.
Except this.
Frankie must have seen the hesitation on my face. “Listen, kiddo, I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t desperate. You know that, right?”
I nodded and swallowed the growing lump in my throat. “And I would do it if I could, honestly. But it’s…complicated.”
After a long pause, Frankie leaned back in her chair and kicked her boots up on the desk. Her expression and body language said she was unfazed, but there was no hiding the hurt and disappointment in her eyes. “Okay, sure, kid. Forget I asked. I’ll figure somethin’ else out. I always do.”
“Frankie, it’s just—” I paused and sucked in a deep breath, “I haven’t been completely honest with you about…about our past.”
“You think after all these years I haven’t realized that?” One of her eyebrows rose. “Everyone’s got secrets, kid. You wanna tell me yours, that’s up to you.”
