Page 44 of Stranded With the Grumpy Mermaid

There it is. She finally said the quiet part out loud. I should have understood that days ago.

The boat’s engine is loud enough now that I can hear it between the waves.

“And what about us?” I ask. “What do you want?”

Her lips part.

A spotlight washes over the beach before she can answer, and voices carry across the water, breaking our days-long solitude.

Neri turns toward them and the moment is gone.

Then everything comes fast after that: the larger boat stands off beyond the shallows, a rigid inflatable roars toward the beach, voices carry over the engine, red-and-white strobes turning our quiet cove bright.

Two crew members splash ashore asking if we’re injured, if there’s anyone else on the island, how many people need transport.

“Two,” I say. “Just us.”

Then a third figure comes over the side of the inflatable into knee-deep water.

I know him before my brain catches up.

Beige fur, silvered at the muzzle now in the strobe light. A voice I last heard shouting about squall lines, cracking wide open across the fire-lit sand:

“BOTH OF THEM! By all the deep and drowned, look at the pair of you, BREATHING!”

Captain Fergus.

He hits us like the solid wall of muscle and fur that he is. One arm hauls me in, the other takes possession of Neri. He’s got a grip like a vise and he smells of diesel. He’s also crying, this furred barrel of a man, completely uninterested in hiding it, whiskers shaking, his laughter and his sobbing melting together in the same sound.

“I spent three days in the water and all I could think about was the two of you.” His voice breaks. “I washed up on a ledge off Matinicus like a drowned dog.”

He grips both of us tighter. He pulls back enough to look at us, tears running unchecked into his fur, then his gaze settles on Neri.

“I should have listened to you.” His voice goes rough again. “I’m sorry. I’ll be sorry for a long time.”

Neri blinks at him.

Then he grabs her again.

“Still breathing,” he says into her hair. “Both of you.”

Fergus survived. He survived and he was able to tell the rescue team where the Belle capsized. That’s why there was a boat out here tonight. I’m laughing and my face is wet from tears. Along the way, someone wraps me in an actual blanket. Another appears around Neri’s shoulders. There are radios, shouted instructions, hands checking us for injuries, and a thermos of coffee that tastes terrible and might be the best thing I’ve ever swallowed.

I look for Neri in the middle of all of it. She’s standing very still near the edge of the water.

Looking at the boat. Not at me.

She steps close, and my whole stupid heart lifts toward her out of reflex even now, but there’s something in her face that stops me from reaching for her.

She says, quietly, so only I hear it over the radios:

“Rafe. Whatever happened between us, it stays here.”

“No.”

The word comes out before I can soften it.

Her mouth trembles once.