Celeste laughed.“More than you have, honey.”They grew thoughtful, pressing a manicured finger to his lip, “Unless you let Ryan and me have the apartment to ourselves for a few days…”
“Forget it.”Blake glowered at them.He was not making promises on Ryan’s behalf—especially when it came to all this hocus pocus hoopla.“I’ll do it myself.What do I need to do?”
Celeste sighed in disappointment, folding their arms over their chest.“I guess it would be easiest for you to get up on the ship.Try to get to the very edge so you can bend over and reach its face.”
Blake nodded and scaled the slide below Marin.Clambering up onto the edge, he walked out onto the piece of fiberglass that jutted out from the front of the boat where Marin was carved.The merman leaned out into midair, peering up as Blake laid himself down over the bowsprit.
“Okay, now what?”Blake asked.
“Cool,” Celeste responded with a great amount of nonchalance.“Now you just need to kiss it.”
“WHAT?!”Blake and Marin cried in unison.Celeste looked up at them, nonplussed.
“That’s the only way to check,” they shrugged.“A normal possessed object wouldn’t have the same reaction to getting kissed that a pygmalion would.”
“And what kind of reaction am I looking for?”Blake asked, fighting back the heat that threatened to envelop his cheeks.
“An interesting one,” Celeste answered with a mysterious smile.“I mean, unless you’re not… you know.”They raised their hand before letting their wrist go limp.“Sorry, I kind of assumed you’re queer, given your friend group.”
“No, you were right on the money.”Blake confirmed.
He hedged a glance at the handsome merman and promptly deflated.It wasn’t like he was a stranger to kissing, or even to sex.He was twenty-four years old, for Christ’s sake.But kissing a stranger—even if it was a fiberglass merman tacked onto a kiddie pool pirate boat—wasn’t exactly at the top of his to-do list.
“Look, I’m not going to do it if you don’t tell me what’ll happen.”
“Fine,” Celeste shrugged.“Enjoy all the dead kids floating around when that thing turns out to be a demon and goes feral.”
“Really, Celeste?Not funny.He hasn’t hurt anyone since this place has been built,” Blake said.Even Marin looked pissed at the insinuation.“Why would he start now?”
“I’dnevereat a child,” Marin insisted, folding his arms over his chest in offense.
“Maybe it’s like Pennywise and it wakes up every so often to feed,” Celeste teased, fluttering their fingers like they were telling a spooky story.
“I’m not kissing him,” Blake insisted.
“Why not?”Marin asked.Now he looked offended for different reasons.
“Because I don’t know what’s going to happen!”Blake insisted.
“I won’t bite,” Marin teased.
Great, now they’rebothpeer-pressuring me, Blake thought, hanging his head in defeat.
“Look,you’rethe one who agreed to meet me out here in the middle of the night,” he said to Celeste.“Wouldn’t it be a waste of your time not to tell me?”
“You’rethe one payingme.And currently you owe me…” Celeste told him, taking out their phone to check something.“Forty-three dollars and fifty-two cents plus travel fees.”
“You drove less than two miles!”
“Might I remind you thatgas is six dollars a gallon?Just kiss the damn thing so I can get back to bingingSuits.”
Blake continued to glare.
He didn’t like the way that Celeste had started referring to Marin as athingand not aperson.He may have been made of fiberglass, but even Celeste had explained that if Marin was a pygmalion, then he had a living soul.It was clear that Celeste had no regard for his personhood, let alone the merman’s potential plight—unless it made them money.And the longer they stayed cagey about the details, the more cash they could wring out of Blake.
“Exploitive asshole,” he hissed through grit teeth.“Fine.”
He leaned over the bowsprit and faced Marin.The angle was odd, but they could easily touch lips if they both turned their heads.
