Total pages in book: 170
Estimated words: 168980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 845(@200wpm)___ 676(@250wpm)___ 563(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 168980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 845(@200wpm)___ 676(@250wpm)___ 563(@300wpm)
“Day and night.” I stand up. “But I’m no mer-man. I’d probably sink to the bottom.”
“I’d save you. No beefcake is dying on my watch.”
I laugh into a smile. Beefcake. Looking her over, I notice her reddened cheeks and nose. “And no mermaid is getting burned on mine.” I grab the sunscreen, then come back and sit down near the edge of the pool. Right beside Sulli, who stays submerged.
She watches me stretch my legs out on the stone patio. “You think Akara is okay?”
I click my mic on my collar. “Banks to Akara, what’s your status?”
He rogers up fast. “Akara to Banks, I just closed the gym until I can get a new manager. I’m on my way back to the penthouse.”
“Copy that,” I say to him, and then to her, I say, “He’s on his way.”
She breathes out in relief. “He works too much.”
I nod. “He puts a lot of pressure on himself.”
Her eyes soften. “I fucking get that. When I was training for the Olympics, I had a one-track mind. No time for anything else…or anyone else. Sometimes I think if Akara weren’t paid to follow me around, I would’ve been really lonely.”
“He was a good friend to you back then,” I assume.
“The best,” she says into an exhale. “And I want to be a good girlfriend, but it’s not exactly easy taking work off his shoulders when I am his work. Now he’s not even letting me pay for security anymore.”
Yep, Akara decreed that this morning. And I thought I was the dumbass. He’s on Sulli’s detail for free. He’s still paying my salary, though. Where he’s pinching pennies, I don’t know, and I’m trying not to stress over money. He’d just tell me, I’m handling it. As long as I can afford to take Sulli out on a nice date, I’m good to go.
I scan the sky, then look to Sulli. “You might be his work, but I doubt you’ve been like work to Akara.”
She watches me uncap the sunscreen. “What do you mean?”
I lift a shoulder. “You’ve made him happy. For years, he’s stayed on your detail because he never wanted to leave—I saw that. Most of SFO saw that.” I block the sun with my hand. “For what it’s worth, I think Akara taking time away from you is a fucking dumb move.”
She contemplates this and wades more in the water. “So what’s the solution?”
“I don’t know. I feel the exact same as you. I want to be a good…metamour.” I cock my head, not sure if the term used to describe my relationship with Akara is catching on or not. Anyway, I continue, “But it feels like the only person who can unsink himself from the hole he climbed in is Akara himself.” I grimace, partly from the sun, partly from the quicksand Akara is in. “It’s eating at me because I’d love to just jump down and shovel him out.”
“Fucking same.” She sighs. “We can’t do anything, can we?”
“Right now, I think we just gotta be there.” I hate feeling helpless, but Akara is involved in shit that outranks me and Sulli. “Your nose is burning.”
“Oh fuck…can you…?” Her voice trails off since I’m already rubbing a layer of sunscreen on her nose. With my fingers, I swipe sunscreen over her cheeks that pull in a smile.
I smile back. “Who fucking knew, mermaids burn?” The rest of her is tan.
We enjoy this quiet moment together, and after I finish rubbing sunscreen along her nose, I try my best to pay attention to the drones. But Sulli is a much better sight than the sun and the sky. Her wet hair glistens in the light, and her green eyes are orbed like world globes.
“You coming in?” Sulli asks with hope.
What I’d give to drop into the water with her. I can’t take off my boots. The net gun rests next to me. Still on-duty. Maybe if I were Akara, the boss—the one with more leeway to cut corners—I’d cut this one to shreds.
But half-assing my job will only add more stress onto him, my friend, my metamour.
“Can’t,” I say with the raise of my net gun. “I have to keep my boots on.”
Instead of sulking, Sulli immediately pulls herself mostly out of the water. She sits right beside me on the stone, keeping her calves submerged.
My chest rises in something close to longing. She wasn’t kidding when she said living in the water was dependent on if I’d be there. I smile down at her.
Sulli swishes the water with her legs, then asks, “Do you think you’ll tell your mom about us?”
“Yeah, eventually I hope everyone in my family will know too.”
She shields the sun with her palm. “That doesn’t freak you out?”
“Not really.” I tuck my hair behind my left ear, then right. “No one’s gonna give a shit what I do with my life, as long as I’m not in jail or doing hard drugs.”