Page 11 of Dry as a Fish
"Awwwww," Orcalia sighed, clasping her hands up by her cheek.
"Fine," Sloane rose to her feet and gave a firm nod.
"Fine?" I asked, slowly rising to my feet as well.
"Fated merman fiance, only we'll say that the Lord brought us together," Sloane said. "That works better than I ran away to join a devil college."
"Lord of what?" I asked. Then I caught up with the other word she said. "Wait, you want to get married?"
"She won't if you ask her like that," Orcalia scolded.
"Fake fiancé with vitiligo might work," Sloane said as she eyed me. "Especially if you wore more clothes. Just to get me back in the door. I need to stay at my parents until I figure out what I want to do next, and if I show up with no explanation... just trust me, it will be better for me if you come along."
"Don't go anywhere, I will be right back, I have something you will need!" Orcalia rushed out of the room.
"Is this actually what you want?" I asked.
Sloane stepped closer to me and looked up at me through her lashes. For a moment, my heart stuttered as she put her soft hand on my chest, her skin cool against my radiating heat.
She spoke in a low, quiet voice, a deep red flush spreading across her cheeks with her words. "From the moment you kissed me, I keep thinking of riding you like a mechanical bull. I have been so hot and bothered by you, part of me actually was hoping you would have your way with me, and that part of me is both not helpful and also desperate to have you on me and in me. If you had thrown out a sob story about dying without me rather than agreeing to take me home, I probably still would have wanted to get with you, but you didn't, and your attempt to just give me what I wanted was so, so much hotter."
She flushed a deeper color and bit her lip as she looked up at me, and I was certain I was having a heart attack.
"At least that is what I would say if I actually wanted to marry you or was the kind of person who said things like that," she said as she stepped back and put her hands on her hips. I felt the absence of her touch like I'd been on land without sight of water for weeks, a craving for something I didn't know how badly I needed until it was gone.
"You’re not the kind of woman who says things like that?" I asked.
“I was brought up right," she said.
“I think the kind of woman who says what she is thinking is the kind of woman who was brought up right,” I said.
She pressed her lips together, narrowing her eyes as she stared at me for a long moment.
"Can you muck a stall?" she asked.
"I can do anything," I replied, still reeling from the whiplash of her words.
"Good," she said. "I hope you aren't allergic to hay."
Chapter
Six
SLOANE
This was a mistake.
The gravel from the driveway pressed through the thin soles of the lightweight dancing shoes I'd borrowed from my roommate to wear to the party. The sirens didn't wear shoes, so there wasn't anything to replace them. With some help from Orcalia and Delphon, we had managed to rig up several sarongs to cover me enough that the modesty of my outfit wouldn't be in question. We also covered up Delphon enough that his strange-looking skin was obscured by the fabric to some extent.
I stared at the prefabricated double-wide home my parents had plopped down on the land they had gotten when I was young, my eyes gazing over the pale gray siding and the paint peeling on the uneven porch my dad had built out front. The wood was already starting to rot. He had gotten a deal on it andonly later realized that he should have done something to treat the wood to make it resistant to the cold, wet winters.
I rubbed my hand against the familiar ache in my chest, the feeling I never really understood when I thought about home. It felt like I was missing something, like there was something I'd lost that should be there but wasn't. That strange ache never made sense to me, as why would I miss my own home when I was standing in front of it?
I thought about how Delphon's sister was so happy. She was a bubbly bundle of energy, of happiness that exploded out of having the same and the freedom to be her over-the-top excited self. No one compressed her or tried to fit her into a mold, at least not that I could see.
This was a mistake, because what I was about to put Delphon through was downright cruel.
I heard the hum of the portal closing behind me, and I glanced back over my shoulder to see Delphon using a knife to carve runes into the two trees he'd used to anchor the portal on this side.
