The Summer of Chasing Mermaids

by Sarah Ockler

  But in our time together, through the jokes, through the notes, through the shared glances and smoldering stares, through the lunches, the smiles, the vulnerable moments, through the small touches and deep kisses, through the nights I’d imagined his hands on me, through all of his “sweet dreams” texts, it had changed into something so much more.

  We slipped out of our jeans, undergarments, the last threads of all that stood between us.

  With our mouths pressed hotly together, he twined his hands into my hair, and I wrapped myself around him, pulled our naked bodies closer.

  I drank in the curves of his shoulders, the shadowed line of his jaw, his lips, all of him delicious in the moonlight.

  I want you, I said again.

  He shifted between my legs, slid inside me. His movements were slow and deliberate, and then fast, fast, faster still. I inhaled the sea-and-mango scent of him, focused on the feel of his body, the muscles of his shoulders and back taut beneath my hands as I arched my hips.

  Christian moaned, his lips fluttering down my chin, my neck, landing soft as starlight in the hollow of my throat. This time I didn’t flinch, didn’t run. I felt his heat, lips tracing the shape of my silver scar, and as my whole body trembled around him, I let out a shuddering breath I’d been holding for five months.

  Chapter 29

  “Limited-time offer,” Christian said. We were lying in the berth later, naked and warm, the moon our only light. I’d been trying to bribe him to reveal his secrets, one kiss at a time, and this was his response. “Ask me anything. But in exchange for answers, I get to do something to you.”

  What? I didn’t bother hiding my grin.

  “That’s for me to know, and you to experience.” He pressed his lips to my mouth, traced the edges with the tip of his tongue.

  Before things got too hot and heavy again, I grabbed his hand to stop him, found a Sharpie on the shelf.

  On the back of an old nautical chart we mapped out pieces of each other’s histories, trading childhood stories for kisses. I told him about being born in the sea, and how we’d gone to Tobago to live with Granna after that. He told me about the day they brought Sebastian home from the hospital, a bundle of chubby pink limbs with a shock of white-blond curls, and how Christian fell in love with him instantly.

  Finally, when all the safe topics had been exhausted, I found the courage to write the question I’d most been pondering.

  Once you said you almost weren’t his. Why?

  The muscles of his jaw ticked. He knew I’d meant his father, and for a moment I regretted bringing it up, weighting the lightness between us. But I was chasing away my own secret admissions, and this was something Christian held deep, almost hidden. Knowing him seemed utterly wrapped up in this mystery.

  “God,” he said, rolling his eyes in a gesture that failed to be as dismissive as he’d intended. “You don’t want to hear that weeper. Trust me.”

  I do, I mouthed. If you want to tell.

  For a moment he said nothing, his face turned toward the forward hatch, which we’d left open to the night sky. He seemed lost among the stars, and I thought maybe he wouldn’t answer after all, that we’d reached the outer boundaries of that limited-time offer.

  But then he shook his head, ran a hand through his hair.

  “Before I was born,” he said, soft and low, “my mother had an affair. He was another long-term renter here, down the north end of the shore, near town.”

  I tried to keep my face neutral, but shock rippled through me. For all her coldness, her snippiness with Mr. Kane, her awkwardness with me, her long hours hiding away in her office, the tears on tarot night, I never would’ve suspected Mrs. Kane had been the one to cheat.

  Christian’s confession was just another reminder that no matter how much you thought you knew about someone, no matter how much you guessed from their movements and actions and words, you never had access to the inside. Never saw the complete, intricate, messy, shades-of-gray picture.

  “It went on a few years,” he said, “though Dad supposedly had no idea. Fast forward a decade, and it all comes out one night during this huge fight. I’m in the next room, supposed to be sleeping but obviously not.”

  I tried to imagine Christian as a little boy, ear pressed to the wall, scared and confused. Blood pulsed behind my scar, my throat tightening at the memories as if they were mine.

  “After a lot of yelling, Mom admitted that she couldn’t say for certain whether Dad was my biological father. Dad said he didn’t care, and I felt this . . .” Christian pressed his fist against his heart, spread his fingers. “Like, a wave of relief. But then something shifted, and I got it. He wasn’t saying it like, ‘He’s my son no matter whose DNA he has.’ He was saying that he didn’t trust anything Mom told him. I was standing in the doorway at that point, and when my father finally noticed me, the look on his face . . .” Christian closed his eyes. “It was like I’d gone from his kid to this disgusting thing. He stormed out of the room, didn’t even touch me. I felt like a ghost.”

  I grabbed his hand, squeezed.

  “He made us take a paternity test,” he said. “I think he was already preparing for the bad news, and a divorce to follow.”

  Christian turned back toward the stars again, found a bright one to focus on.

  Vega, watching over us.

  “He loved us, I figured,” he said. “He wouldn’t have cut ties on his own. But after what Mom did? It’s a lot easier to walk away when someone else cuts the ties for you.” Christian looked at me again, his eyes sad and lost.

  “But as it turns out, I’m his real kid. Lucky me, right?” He sighed. “I waited for weeks for things to get back to normal. Months. Years. But the damage was done. The test results didn’t matter, because all I’d ever be was evidence of Mom’s affair. Even more fucked up? I think Mom wanted to bail. Like she was almost hoping the test would be different, then she could have a legit reason to walk away.”

  I didn’t know what to do, to say. So I just moved closer, pressed my lips to his shoulder.

  “It’s the thing I’ll never understand, never respect about her,” Christian said, tightening his grip on my hand. “She could’ve just divorced him. She stayed, though. Not because she thought they could work it out. She stayed because she didn’t know what else to do.”

  That much I understood.

  It was the same reason I’d left Tobago.

  I didn’t know what else to do.

  It was possible Christian couldn’t see past his own hurt, the rawness of his own memories, to understand that maybe she had other reasons for staying.

  Webs, sticky and layered.

  Who was I to judge?

  Maybe I couldn’t see through my own hurt and raw memories either, and I’d pushed my family away because of it. Pushed my sister away.

  Webs, gossamer and strong.

  I took Christian’s face in my hands, turned him toward me. I’m so sorry.

  “Oh, this tale gets better. Sebastian? He was supposed to be the do-over kid. Mom and Dad wanted to work it out, and I guess they thought they could get a fresh start. But Sebastian doesn’t meet Dad’s criteria for the perfect son either.”

  Gently I grabbed his arm, turned it over to the pale skin that stretched over his veins. From wrist to elbow, I wrote:

  I think the Kane brothers are perfect.

  Christian sighed. “Sometimes I wish I could just take him, you know? Go start our own thing somewhere before my dad does any more ­damage. But he wouldn’t want that, not really. Sebastian still looks up to our parents—poor kid. Yeah, I say that, then I feel like the world’s biggest dick because I’m not married; I don’t know what they went through. Just because they screwed up, does that make them bad people?”

  Human, I mouthed.

  “Sometimes I think he wants to sell the house because the Cove re
minds him of all that bad shit. How could it not? Just because the dude’s not here anymore doesn’t mean his ghost isn’t.” Christian shook his head, cleared the cobwebs. “Fuck. You just Oprahed me, didn’t you?” He shook his head again. “Forget it. You’re not getting anything else out of me tonight. Except, maybe . . .” He flashed me a dangerous look that sent a shock of heat between my thighs.

  I pretended to cower away, but he only laughed.

  “You’re always writing on me,” he teased. “Let’s see how you like it.” He grabbed my foot, stole the Sharpie from my grasp. I squirmed beneath his touch, loving every searing-hot minute of it.

  “Hold still,” he warned. “You’ll mess up my art.”

  I waited until he’d finished scribbling on the bottoms of both feet before I lifted them to see. Each was inked with a sunshine wearing a pair of sunglasses and a smile.

  “Now wherever you go, you’ll be walking on sunshine,” he said.

  I rolled my eyes. Everyone’s a poet.

  He handed over the marker. “Money, mouth. Put them together.”

  I knelt before him in the small space of the berth, ran my fingers along his jaw, down to his collarbone, then to his chest. I kissed his neck, traced the lines of the tattoo on his shoulder, ship and compass, the black sea.

  Beneath my touch, his heart beat strong, steady.

  With the marker pressed against his skin, I spun words in the moonlight, tattooed them over his heart.

  For all the strength of men

  And the divine power of their gods

  But for a spell in a pale blue dream

  Not even the wisest among them

  Can harness the silver moon

  Nor cease with thoughts or words

  The beating of their own fragile hearts

  He read upside down, his fingers lightly touching the words.

  “Okay, show-off. That’s just . . . epic.”

  I gave him a casual shrug. Had enough?

  “Oh, I’m just getting started, Stowaway.” Gently he pushed me back onto the bed, took my foot into his hands. He started to write something on the top, but then he ditched the marker. “Wait. I think we’re doing this wrong.” His lips landed softly on my ankle, trailed a line of kisses up to my knee. “I’m about to make you wish you’d kept your clothes on.”

  After, our skin bathed again in moonlight, Christian reclaimed the marker, painting letters on my back, slow, soft.

  I turned to meet his eyes over my shoulder, raised my brows in question.

  “For later,” he said, capping the marker. Before I could turn over, he was beside me, close, his hands gathering my hair and lifting it off my neck. His kiss was gentle, drawing a path down the back of my neck, across my shoulder, across the front of my chest, finally landing on my lips.

  He watched me endlessly, his eyes tracing the planes of my face, fingers following in gentle strokes that threatened to put me to sleep.

  “I want you to do the honors,” he whispered, and I knew he meant the boat. My heart swelled at the immensity of the gesture. “We don’t have to keep the Queen part if you don’t like it. Up to you.”

  It came to me in an instant, a flash. Lemon’s tarot cards, the compassionate queen and her golden chalice. The night of the reading, Lemon had said that the Queen of Cups awaited me, that if I could finally let go, find my way back to myself, open my heart to her, she’d be there to embrace me, to help me on this journey. Lemon had meant friendship and compassion, maybe even the chance at love. But it was the boat, too. I was certain now. For me, they were bound—the boat and my heart. Broken and damaged, but maybe—hopefully—not irreparably so.

  I thought of all the things that had happened, leading us to this moment, to this opportunity for me to name the vessel upon which I’d spent my first weeks here hiding out. The vessel that might save my home. Chance encounters. Dedication and care. Friendship. Passion. Lots of things had brought us together, and lots of things could make us whole again.

  There was no other name for her. I wrote on my hand:

  Queen of Cups

  I held it up to his eyes, watched the smile stretch across his face.

  “Queen of Cups.” He kissed me on the mouth, bolted back into the saloon where we’d left the champagne. He grabbed the bottle and nodded for me to follow him above deck.

  Nude and free and wholly unconcerned, we christened the boat under her new name, splashing champagne over the hull. Christian poured a final glass, held it to the stars. With a glint in his eyes, he dumped it overboard.

  “To Neptune,” he proclaimed.

  He kissed me passionately, then ducked belowdecks alone, leaving me to whisper my own prayers to the god of the sea.

  Moments later, switches and fans flipped on, and the engine purred to life.

  “That’s our girl,” he shouted over the noise. “That’s our girl.”

  Christian eased the Queen of Cups out of the slip, and in an instant, a moment, a heartbeat, we were on the open water. Choppy. Foaming at the mouth. Hungry.

  Panic flooded my limbs, icing me from head to toe. The boat shimmied against the waves, and everything in me shook. I tried to make my legs move, make them carry me belowdecks to tell him to stop, but they wouldn’t budge.

  I was anchored to the deck, naked and shivering, and all around me the stars blinked into blackness.

  I was sinking.

  Cold.

  Falling.

  Dropping like a stone to the bottom of the sea, and Christian wouldn’t even know I’d fallen.

  I’ve been waiting for you. . . .

  The mermaid’s voice was in my head. She reached out through the water, pale fingers stretching to reach me, to ensnare me, to pull me into the depths. . . .

  “Elyse!”

  I opened my eyes, surprised to find myself on deck, the Vega bobbing innocently in the slip. We’d never even left, I saw then.

  Christian was looking up at me through the companionway, his face panicked and confused. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  I shook my head. I can’t.

  “Can’t what?” He killed the motor and fans, climbed up top to reach me. His hands were warm on my bare arms. “You can’t tell me? No way. You can tell me anything.”

  I shook my head again. Sail.

  “Sell?”

  Sail.

  Christian squinted, brow creased with fresh concern.

  I looked at him, mute, willing him to fish the words from my heart, to speak them aloud where I could only mutter and hiss. But he didn’t. He couldn’t, of course, and here I stood, cursing again the star at my throat, the gash it had covered.

  We went back inside the saloon. I grabbed the nautical chart, found a clean spot where we hadn’t written our secrets.

  With the Sharpie, I wrote furiously.

  I wish I had the words to say this out loud, because I owe you that much.

  I’ve loved our time together this summer, all the work we put into the boat.

  I want you to win the regatta. Not just because of the house, or to prove your dad wrong.

  But because you love this boat, and the sea, and you deserve it.

  I know you’ll do it, you’ll beat Noah and you’ll race through the finish first.

  But you won’t be doing it with me.

  I can’t sail.

  I can’t face the open sea again.

  I’m so sorry.

  As Christian read the words, I looked out through the hatch at Vega, patron star, and outside, the gray-blue Pacific swirled and sputtered against the boat, as if to taunt me.

  “Elyse,” he said gently, reaching for my shoulder.

  I turned to face him, shame burning my skin, a painful heat made worse by the compassion in his eyes. I dropped my gaze to his shoulders, the collarbone I’d only
moments ago tattooed with my lips, the heart I’d tattooed with my words.

  “What the hell happened to you out there?” His eyes were blazing again, belying the gentleness in his voice. I didn’t know if he’d meant out there, on the deck of the Queen of Cups. Or out there, in the Caribbean. Or maybe some other out there that had scarred me this way, inside and out.

  Still, I could only shake my head, lower my eyes in a weak ­apology.

  “We’ll figure this out. But you need to trust me,” he said.

  Understanding. Hope. Encouragement. His voice was thick with all three, and if I’d had the courage to look him in the eyes, I knew I would’ve seen it there, too.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  Not with my sister, my Granna. Not with my father. Not with all the well-meaning friends and neighbors who’d sent their endless cards and flowers.

  And now, it wasn’t enough with Christian Kane.

  I closed my eyes.

  Shook my head.

  Slipped his gentle caress.

  Reached for my bra and panties and clothes.

  “Elyse, look at me. Please.”

  I finally did.

  His eyes seared me. “You can do this.”

  I’ve been waiting for you. . . .

  Her voice was in my head again, and I shook it to silence her.

  “You can,” Christian said. Firm. Final. Definite. Uncompromising.

  No. I met his eyes again, set my shoulders. Firm. Final. Definite. Uncompromising.

  I’m not ready, Christian. I’m just not ready.

  Chapter 30

  Lemon once told me that a woman’s heart was infinite, that there was room for light and dark and everything in between. Now my heart took on a new weight, haunted endlessly by the look in Christian’s eyes, the last I’d seen as I’d walked away.

  Disappointment.

  I knew I’d carry it always, for I was the one who put it there. I let him down, doused the fire in his sea-storm eyes.