He rolled his eyes. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“No. I mean, really different.”
He narrowed his eyes. “What kind of different are we talking about here? Super-talented-and-a-little-eccentric different? Or head-spinning-around-spitting-pea-soup different? Because if you’re possessed, I’m not sure I want to know.”
Only Logan could make me laugh about something so difficult. “I’m not possessed.” Then I put my hands together, pinky to pinky, palms facing up. And, turning my body so that no one else could see what I was doing, I kick-started the phosphorescence that made me visible in the depths of the ocean.
Logan’s face went slack. “I don’t suppose you have a glow stick hidden between your fingers?”
I split them apart so he could see I wasn’t messing with him.
He looked from my hands to my face and then back again. “So, what? You’re part fish?”
My mouth dropped open in shock. “Why would you say that?”
“I was joking. I just don’t know of anything else that glows like that—except for vampires, I mean.”
“Well, I’m not a vampire.”
He laughed. “I didn’t think you were.”
I kept looking at him, waiting for him to connect the dots. I could see the moment it dawned on him that I hadn’t denied the fish thing. He stopped laughing and just stared at me. Then he whispered, “You’re a fish?”
It was my turn to roll my eyes. “I’m mermaid.”
“Mermaid?”
“Yes.”
“So green tail—”
“Mine’s purple. Like the phosphorescence. And my tattoos.”
His eyes bugged out of his head and he didn’t say anything for long seconds. “Like swim underwater, wear a bikini made of shells, have King Triton for a dad mermaid?”
“I’m a mermaid, not the Little Mermaid,” I told him softly. “And my life isn’t exactly a Disney movie.”
“Yeah, well, mine’s beginning to feel like an episode of The Twilight Zone.” He shook his head. “Are you messing with me?”
“Look at me, Logan. Really look at me.”
His eyes darted up to mine, and I relaxed all the safeguards I usually used to keep myself human. I let my gills pop out behind my ears, let my eyes do the thin, nearly invisible film thing that kept salt water from stinging them. Even let my face and hair glow purple, just for a second.
“Holy shit.”
I took his hand, rubbed his fingers over my gills.
“Holy shit.”
I blinked and in a split second my whole body returned to its purely human state.
“Holy—”
I put my hand over his mouth. “I get it. You’re shocked.”
“I’m a long way from shocked, Tempe.” He stared at me for a while. “Can you really grow a tail?”
“Of course.”
“Can I see it?”
“Not here.”He groaned. “Only you would pick the middle of a football game to tell me this.”
“I didn’t want to lie to you anymore.” I didn’t want to lie anymore at all. I knew it was necessary, required even. But Logan knowing, Mark knowing … it was better.
He glanced over his shoulder to where Bach was totally absorbed in his conversation with Scooter. “I want to see it,” he repeated, still whispering.
“You know, I don’t show my tail to just anyone. It’s kind of personal.”
“Seriously?” I could all but see his brain boggling at that one.
I laughed. “No, not seriously. But you should have seen your face.”
“Ha-ha. So if you’re not in Hawaii …”
“I’m not all that far from Hawaii. Just underwater instead of above it.”
“Right. Of course.” He looked a little shell-shocked.
“Are you going to be okay with this?”
“Are you? Something tells me being ‘different’ is dangerous for you.”
“I am going to be okay.” I had to be—for a while longer, anyway—or no one and nothing I cared about would be safe.
He must have heard the conviction in my voice because he nodded. “All right then. But if you ever need—” He broke off, sighed heavily. “If you ever need anything, call—”
“I know. Ghostbusters.”
“Not quite what I was going to say. But they work, too.”
I laughed, rested my head on his shoulder. “I know I can call you.”
“You’d better. We Australians know our way around a fight.”
“Yeah, but where I’m going there are no kangaroos.”
He glared at me. “I told you that story in confidence.”
“Hey, I haven’t told anyone that you once got your ass kicked by a baby kangaroo.”
“It wasn’t a baby. And those things are vicious. Have you ever seen a kangaroo up close?”
“Poor thing,” I cooed in mock sympathy. “And here I thought fending off sharks was dangerous. Who knew that what I should really be worrying about was kangaroos?”
“Really?” His eyes narrowed with sudden, intense focus. “Do they bother you when you’re … you know?”
I thought of Tiamat’s shark-men, but decided they were too much for Logan’s brain to handle right now. He’d dealt with the mermaid thing pretty well, but there was no reason to completely blow his mind. Besides, I needed him sane. That way, if anything happened to me, Mark would have someone to talk to who really understood what had happened—and what he was going through.
Logan looked like he wanted to say more, but Mark chose that moment to jostle his way back down the row to us.
As Mark settled beside us, carrying a tray loaded with three drinks and an extra-large tray of nachos, Logan gave up his questions. And I gave myself up to the simple pleasure of watching a game with my best friends. If I squinted a little, and didn’t think too hard, it could be like I’d never left.
“Hey, thanks for the pizza!” I called after Logan, Scooter, and Bach as they made their way down the block to where Bach had parked his old Chevy Blazer three hours before. We’d gone to Frazoni’s for pizza and cannolis after the game let out, and much to my shock, we had closed the place down. It was after one in the morning and I had absolutely no recollection of how it had gotten that late. One minute we were ordering pizza and talking over one another as the guys filled me in on everything I’d missed since the last time I’d been home (a lot), and the next the Frazoni’s staff was hustling us out the front door because they wanted to go home.
Bach raised his hand in a casual acknowledgment of my thanks, then yelled, “We’d better see you in the mañana, Tempe. On the beach, six thirty, or there will be hell to pay. Got it, chica? Hell to pay.”
“I got it. I got it.”
“You’d better,” Logan chimed in. “Or I’m coming for you. I will totally drag your ass out of bed and down to the sand in your pajamas.”
“What if she doesn’t wear pajamas?” Scooter demanded.
“Well, that’s even more incentive for us to drag her out of bed,” Logan told him.