Three pairs of eyes turn to me. Everyone chuckles. The mood lifts. Gravity lightens. Sammy is such a blessing.
“Let’s call it a night,” says Ned.
That’s an excellent idea. Clearly, we are all tired and fraught. Hours and hours of reading and handling magical texts can’t be good for you. I should be disappointed that we have found nothing useful, but for some reason, I’m not.
I’m simply glad that I have friends willing to help me. And now that we are done, I can slope off to Sammy’s room and spend time with him.
“Come on boys, I have a bottle of whiskey in my room that I need help with drinking,” says Ned.
I shake my head. “Thanks, but I’m going to see Sammy.”
“And I…um…have stuff to do,” blushes Pink.
We all chuckle at him, and his blush deepens. Seems I am not the only one that knows he is far fonder of his mage than he admits.
Ned whacks Jade on the back. “Just you and me then, kid.”
Jade rolls his eyes and shakes his head, but he gets to his feet and follows the vampire out.
Pink mumbles something before fleeing, and suddenly I’m all alone. But not for long. Sammy is only up the hall, and I know he will be happy to see me.
As I get to my feet, I’m smiling so broadly my face is hurting.
Chapter sixteen
Sammy
“Take the next left,” I say.
It sucks that Blue has to drive to his own surprise, but my driving is terrible and I don’t have a license. Actually, does Blue have a license? How does a siren get things like human identity documents? Wow, there is so much I don’t know.
I start to look anxiously out of the window. It would be just my luck to get pulled over by the police when we are so nearly there.
It’s late at night, but hopefully not so late as to arouse suspicion. Though it is a strange part of town to be in at this time. Oh well, it can’t be helped now. If we get pulled over, Blue could probably use his voice powers and tell the cop to let us go.
“Left again.”
Blue nods and smoothly maneuvers the car. I like seeing him like this, all competent and capable. It’s proof that he is braver and tougher than he gives himself credit for.
“Okay, park anywhere along here.”
He flashes me a quizzical look, but pulls the car over to the side of the road. At least finding a parking space isn’t tricky at this time of night.
“Ta da!” I exclaim brightly as I gesture at the large square building across the street from us.
Blue glances at it and then back at me in confusion. Oh shit. He does know what an aquarium is, doesn’t he?
I tap my pocket. “I have the code for the back door and the security guy has put the cameras on a loop from earlier this evening.”
Blue is staring at me.
“I’m sorry it’s not the ocean, but I thought it might be the next best thing. So I called in some favors and said my boyfriend has a pretending to be a merman fetish.” I’m babbling, I know I am but I can’t stop it.
Blue looks away from me to stare at the aquarium. I can’t read his expression at all, but anxiety and unease are swirling around me.
Oh no. I thought he’d love this. I wanted to make him happy. But it looks like I got it wrong.
“We don’t have to go in if you don’t want to,” I say softly.
