He just stares at me, but that’s fine. I wasn’t expecting any reply or reaction. He looked after me last night. Now it’s my turn. I turn my back to Blue so I can face the door like I promised.
“I think we are going to be very good friends,” I say, and a warm feeling bubbles through me.
Friends. I like the sound of that.
Blue and Sammy. Best friends forever.
Chapter seven
Blue
Sammy is mesmerizing. He is sitting by my pool in the bright summer sunshine, telling a story about people I’ve never met, in a situation I don’t understand because it is some human thing.
But I can’t stop watching him. His hands dance as he talks. They move exuberantly through the air. Creating pictures and casting shadows.
His eyes are as bright as the sky. He is like light incarnate. And I don’t understand how. I have seen the darkness in his eyes. I’ve heard him cry. The sound of his pain and loneliness has wrapped around my soul.
Yet here he is. Shining brightly. As if he doesn’t have a care in the world. While I’m lurking in my pool. Sullen. Skittish. Broken.
I’m nothing like Sammy. Nothing at all. But he still wants to be my friend. Even after witnessing me fall apart.
Shame coils low and heavy in my gut. Insidious and dark. Scowling, I try to banish it. Sammy made it clear he doesn’t care. It hasn’t made him think less of me. He took it in his stride and simply picked up his baseball bat to protect me.
I don’t need to be ashamed.
Besides, we are even now. I held him while he sobbed his heart out. He protected me while I cowered in fear.
Sammy was damn right when he laughed about what a pair we are. Two lost and broken souls. Yet another reason why it would be ridiculous to accept our mate bond.
I need to stick to my decision to undo this and find him someone special. Even though the mere thought of it causes a physical pain in my chest.
Approaching footsteps snatches my attention, but it’s only Jade. He plonks down on the grass right by the edge of my pool and kicks off his shoes with a weary sigh.
“Can I stick my feet in?” he asks.
I nod and back away a little. I feel bad for inadvertently claiming the swimming pool as my own. I have a bedroom just like everyone else. I don’t deserve two spaces. Even Lello doesn’t have that, and he is a creature of the water too. He is happy for a daily swim and doesn’t even mind that the pool is salt water, instead of the freshwater of his natural habitat.
Back in the harem, he had his own fresh water pool. It seems unfair that he has to go without now. Though he claims he is too in love with his new mate to care about anything else.
My gaze snaps back to Sammy. Can being mated really make people so deliriously happy? It sounds nice, if a little farfetched.
“How was work?” Sammy asks Jade.
Jade groans as he swishes his feet in the water. “It sucked.”
“Why do it then?” I ask. I know he has compensation like me and the others. Red says it is enough to live on for eighty years.
Jade blinks, as if he is surprised to hear me talk. I suppose that makes sense. If I forget I can speak sometimes, it is only rational that people who knew me when I was masked would also not remember.
Jade gives me a long look, then he turns to Sammy. Oh no. Please don’t tell me he can sense the mate bond. Cold horror trickles down my spine.
But he just shrugs. “I want to be normal. I want independence.”
Thank you, Amphitrite. It doesn’t look like he can tell that I’ve mated Sammy.
“I get that,” says Sammy earnestly.
My stomach twists. Memories swirl of him leaning in that strange man’s car. Offering his body. Prepared to let strangers touch him. All because he thinks he needs money.
