He points, apparently unable to speak. I move in the direction he indicates, passing through a giant room where music plays softly, a totally ridiculous light made of crystals hanging down from the ceiling, and I see a door. There are words written on a sign that do not make sense to me. The little icon of a swimming human tells me I am going the right way, though, and finally, I exit onto a concrete walkway.
Pool. There it is.
I see my Darla immediately. She is seated at one of the tables beneath an umbrella, sipping from a mug while that pasty fuck yammers at her. She is wearing her hair down and around her like a curtain, and as I draw closer, it occurs to me that she is hiding bite marks.
Swallowing heavily, I flick aside a couple of humans and trudge forward, Darla’s beautiful eyes widening when she clocks my arrival.
“Moby,” she breathes, standing up slowly.
“That’s him,” Leonardo leans across the table to whisper furiously. “That’s the freak of nature I saw your daughter with last night.”
A woman in a brimmed hat turns in her chair to look at me, jolting. “Oh, my word!” She turns a disbelieving stare on Darla. “Do you know this man?”
“Yes.” Her green gaze goes soft and dreamlike, making my throat tight. “Hi, Moby.”
“I couldn’t wait for you to get back,” I explain, my voice sounding funny. “The room is just a prison, unless you’re in it with me.”
“Darla!” Hat woman—is that her mother?—splits a gaping look between me and Darla. “This…this freak was in yourroom?”
The fact that this woman calls me a freak means nothing. It is of little consequence.
Darla, on the other hand, does not like it one bit.
Twin spots of color appear on her cheeks. She picks up a fork and stabs it into a roll that is sitting on her mother’s plate. “Donotcall him that ever again.”
“Since we’re already yelling at people,” I say, stopping at the edge of the table and jabbing a finger in Leonardo’s direction. “Stay the hell away from my mate.”
“Mate?” Leonardo echoes with an incredulous laugh. “This man is a lunatic.”
“No, he’s not,” Darla snaps, retrieving the fork from her mother’s roll and holding it at a threatening angle. God, her fierce behavior is making me horny.
Truth be told, I’m a little shocked that Leonardo hasn’t run for his life by now, between Darla holding her fork aloft and me training my murderous eyes on him. He must really have an affinity for Darla. How unfortunate for him.
“I have an idea,” Leonardo says, whipping off his T-shirt to present a sickly physique. “I challenge you to a swimming contest,Moby. Whoever wins gets to spend the day with Darla.” When Darla’s mother hisses something at Leonardo, he wavesher off. “Don’t worry, I can’t lose. I’m lean and nimble, he’s big and heavy. Physics is on my side.”
Leonardo might have been correct. If I wasn’t a whale.
“You’re on,” I say, trying to hide my smile.
Darla straightens with alarm, her fork/weapon clattering to the table. “But—”
I wink at her.
She rocks back on her heels, her protests silenced. A curious expression crosses her face, and she simply stares at me with that cute, little frown.
While Leonardo puts himself through an absurd stretching routine a few yards away, I pick up a basket holding bread and toss the rolls into my mouth, one by one, swallowing. I point at Darla’s plate and she nods her permission, so I pick it up and shovel eggs and potatoes into my mouth, sending the tasty morsels down to my empty stomach.
“Human food isn’t bad, I suppose,” I admit grudgingly, turning and walking to the edge of the pool to await the pukey pipsqueak. He joins me at the concrete rim of the pool, cracking his knuckles and looking smug, the absolute numbskull.
“To the end of the pool and back,” Leonardo says. “Freestyle.Can you handle it?”
I give him my deadest stare. “Count it off, idiot.”
Leonardo bristles, but does as he’s told, counting backward from five. Just as he reaches one, I whip off my towel and dive into the pool, the gasps following me underwater. Ahh, it feels good, the wash of cool against my skin, even if the chlorine is repugnant. I focus on my task, cutting through the blue water, arm over arm, head down, Leonardo nowhere in my periphery. I am not timing myself, but If I had to guess, I would say it only takes me fifteen seconds to swim to one end of the pool and back.
When I arrive back at the start, Leonardo has only dog paddled ten feet.
“What were you saying about physics?” I ask.
