Waterborn (The Emerald Series Book 1) (23 page)

T
wo days later
, I woke to a bright blue sky and the sun blasting through my open door as though heralding the news I was just as happy to forget. Rolling over, I stared at the picture of my mother. Hard not to think about her today, considering it was my birthday. Hard not to think about my dad either. Birthdays had always been a big deal between us.

My fifteenth had been my most memorable. I’d been grounded at the time. Logan Stevens, the rat, had dumped me via text only to hookup with Katie Thompson that very night. A very public hookup under the bleachers during a football game. I might have dumped my cheesy nachos on her head. And after she’d yelled, “Maybe if you didn’t look like a boy, a real one would want to date you!” Well, my Coke had followed, and really, I had done her a service, the jalapeño juice and all. Katie more than filled out a C-cup and had long wavy hair. We were pretty much polar opposites and I hated her for it, because it seemed that’s what Logan Stevens preferred.

I’d been grounded for a month, but by the next week my dad had surprised me with concert tickets to see Tegan and Sara. I could honestly say it had been the best birthday ever. I sang so loud I had nearly busted a lung and had talked to the girls after the show. They’d signed my vinyl copy of my favorite album
The Con.

How had he done it all those years? Acting all excited for a day that had to be a grim reminder of all he’d lost, the big bad secret. Didn’t seem like a whole lot to celebrate now that I knew the circumstances of my birth.

Eighteen. My first day of official adulthood and it was going to totally suck.

I tiptoed downstairs, feeling like a coward in my own house, not relaxing until I heard my dad’s muffled voice coming from behind his closed office door.

The coffee was still warm and I poured a cup, stopping short when I turned around and saw what was on the counter. My dad had left me a cupcake, chocolate with chocolate frosting, monstrous in size with colored sprinkles on top. The same breakfast I’d eaten on my birthday for as long as I could remember. He’d left a note, handwritten in his illegible scrawl.

Happy Birthday, Caris
.

He’d even drawn a smiley face. He always drew a smiley face. A reminder of all the good things between us, the small things that added up to a good life together. Better than a good life, a happy life. I took a bite. Icing smeared over my lip. I swallowed through the lump in my throat then ate the whole entire thing, as if following through with this ritual could change the fact that my father had given me more than his eyes. He’d given me some inane ability to produce rain from nothing. He’d given me a brother.

All it did was make me feel queasy.

I walked down the hall, intent on at least offering a thank you. I almost made it too. My hand lifted to knock on his door before I stopped, my fingers curling in on themselves. A voice nagged in my head, a cruel voice that wanted me to believe he wouldn’t love me anymore if he knew how much like my father I really was, a man he so despised. So I dropped my hand and slinked away. If I had that tail Noah insisted I wouldn’t grow, it would be tucked between my legs in shame. I found a pen in the kitchen and wrote “thanks” on the note and left it on the empty plate.

Back up in my room, I hurried through my rudimentary routine of making myself presentable. Dressed in the most modest bathing suit I could find, I pulled my hair back into a ponytail and headed out to the beach.

I stood for a few minutes watching the waves roll in. I had wanted to do this so many times in the last forty-eight hours. Walk out here and sing to Noah for no other reason than to beg him to kiss me again.

Noah. God, that mouth. I had known kissing him would be like that. Forget fireworks. It had been like rockets shooting to the moon, to the stars. If he had pressed even a little bit it would have been so much more than kisses.

So why wasn’t I happy? Why wasn’t I walking on a cloud this morning?

I held my ground as a seagull landed a foot away. I eyed him, making sure he wouldn’t come any closer then lifted my face to the wind and did the one thing I said I wasn’t going to do.

I sang my Song and waited.

“
T
ook you long enough
,” I said when Noah finally emerged from the surf in all his god-like glory. My voice sounded more snarky than I had intended. He reached for me, but I shied away.

His lips, his eyes, his body. I kind of wanted to fall down and worship him with my own, but instead I was filled with a sense of self-loathing. I hated this. Hated that he was here because he had no choice, mainly because it seemed I had so few of my own.

“I got here as soon as I could,” he said, understandably wary. The last time we were together we’d been all over each other.

I couldn’t meet his eyes. Not while I was being so unreasonable. Not when the last time I had seen him it had been so perfect. Now I just felt unsure of myself when all I wanted to do was plaster my face to his and hear him tell me I was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. But that’s not why he was here. He was here because I needed something and I was going to use him to get it.

“Sorry I’m such an imposition.” And now that I had started it, I couldn’t stop with the bitchiness, but it was as if he could see right through me and knew it was a cover-up for something else.

“Caris, what’s wrong?”

His voice gentled over me, and I closed my eyes because he was being so sweet and he was so beautiful and gracious it hurt to look at him. He made me feel petty in comparison when I felt so strapped down by anger and resentment.

“It’s my birthday,” I said, choking back a sob that I didn’t even know I was holding back.

He took a step toward me and put his hands on my face, the touch so gentle I thought I might crack completely open. His eyes roved over my face and when they finally settled on mine, his lips broke into the most devastating smile I had ever seen. And it was all for me.

“Well, happy birthday.”

“Is it?” My lip quivered under his thumb.

I knew he could hear me. My Song echoed in my own ears, but more importantly, I knew he understood it, and for once I was thankful for my Song, that I didn’t have to voice my feelings out loud. Ugly feelings that I didn’t know how to get rid of even though I wanted to. He already knew them, and still he looked at me like he had meant it when he’d told me I was amazing.

“I happen to be very happy you were born,” he said.

“I’m sorry.” I let out a shaky breath. “I don’t know how to do this. Be a siren or whatever.”

“I would say you’re doing all right. I’m here, aren’t I?” His lips touched mine, and just like the first time, I was so totally lost in him. “Now,” he said. “Let’s start over. You rang?”

I hesitated. He’d had to fight to get us in this place and I was about to ruin it. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t want to cooperate.

“I need you to take me somewhere. Specifically, to see someone.”

“Who?” His brows descended. They were a shade darker than his hair and the same shade as his eyelashes that looked like butterfly wings. I found something new to admire about him every day, like suddenly discovering a new favorite song on an album you’d listened to a dozen times.

“Sol.”

He dropped his hands. “Why would I do that? Especially after the other night. And why would you even want to?”

“Because he’s caught me off guard twice now and I don’t like it. It makes me feel vulnerable and I feel like now that he knows who I am, we should talk about it. Obviously I can’t simply avoid him.”

“Yes, you can. It’s what I do.” He had backed up from me, replacing that once adoring expression with one of deprecation.

“Well,” I said, sensing I had lost my edge, “I’m telling you to take me to see him. I don’t know how to find him.”

“It doesn’t work like that, Caris.” He put a little extra punch into saying my name. “I may have to come when you sing, but after that it’s all free will.” He tapped the side of his head with his pointy finger. “I don’t want to take you to see your brother.”

Clearly bullying wasn’t going to work, so I took another approach. I closed the distance between us, close enough to feel the heat simmering off his body. I took his hand, lacing my fingers through his.

“Okay, then forget the whole siren thing. I’m your friend, Noah, and I’m asking you to help me as a friend. It would mean a lot to me. I don’t want to have to worry about running into him anymore. I’m tired of being his victim.”

It was kind of like watching wax melt as his shoulders slowly slumped and every muscle in his body seemed to relax in a wave of surrender. Even his eyes lost their bluster, dissolving into green pools of total capitulation.

Putty. Absolute putty.

“This isn’t fair,” he said.

Yeah, I felt bad about it too.

“Please, Noah. I need to do this, and I’d rather have you with me.”

He let out one long sigh and caught me with both hands, wrapping them tight around my arms.

“Fine.” He kissed me, lips stiff with protest. Then it was my turn to be putty. “But I don’t guarantee I won’t punch him in the face again.”

N
oah was all business
, exhibiting none of the playfulness we’d shared last time he’d taken me into the Deep. I got the impression he was sulking a bit. And while I appreciated the solid hotness gliding underneath me, I was distracted by my own worrying thoughts. Taking the upper hand had seemed like a good plan, but now that I had put that plan into action, I was having doubts. Sol didn’t strike me as the type of person who appreciated surprises. On the other hand, from what I knew of him, it felt like something he would do—show up unannounced, brandishing a knife, making demands.

I could see the hull of the boat slightly sunken under the surface of the Gulf. Noah turned his head up to me and nodded. I held on and waited for the explosion.

I gasped when we rocketed into the open air, Noah’s hand a steadying force when we landed on the deck of the boat. It rocked gently under our feet as water splashed over the sleek wood.

I hadn’t been on many boats. Well, one other to be exact. And while I didn’t know much about them, this one seemed especially nice. Thirty maybe forty feet in length, it was shiny and new, and smelled like pure luxury. It also looked empty.

“Do you think he’s here?” I dripped across the deck, nosing up to the glass windows that encased the cabin, a cavernous hole thanks to the dark tint.

“We’re about to find out.” Noah pounded on the glass making the boat shiver in the process.

Nothing happened for a few minutes and I was beginning to think Sol wasn’t here when I saw movement through the glass. Sol walked up to the glass and clicked the latch that unlocked the door and slid it open.

His mane of hair was suffering from bed head, thick and coiling. The tie on his shorts was undone. He wedged his fingers underneath the open flap as though he were stowing a gun in its holster.

His eyes were as black and fathomless as I remembered and traveled between us before his face broke out into a smile.

“Well, well, if it isn’t our own little X-man. I bet daddy is so proud.” He leaned his shoulder into the doorframe. “And I assume as shocked as I am.”

“Yeah, well, that makes three of us,” I said, not really wanting to have anything in common with my father.

“One big happy family.” He turned toward Noah. “I bet you’re just thrilled.”

“Ecstatic,” Noah said, the corner of his mouth lifting in a lopsided smile.

“Well, don’t stay on my account. Go do whatever it is you do and let me and lil’ sis here get acquainted.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” Noah crossed his arms over his chest and leveled a searing gaze on Sol.

Sol held up his hands. “Hey, that scene on the beach could have been prevented if you would have told me who she was when I asked. And for the record, it was like kissing my sister. Won’t happen again.”

“You can go, Noah. I’d kind of like to talk to him alone.” I could tell by his expression he didn’t like the idea very much, but I really didn’t want an audience for this. I felt awkward enough.

Noah’s gaze held mine for endless seconds, the silent question swirling between us. I nodded in reassurance.

“And let’s not forget the built-in panic button she has if I misbehave,” Sol reminded him.

Noah’s eyes darted from me to Sol. He let out a pent up breath.

“Relax, Noah. It won’t come to that,” Sol said in a tone that actually sounded genuine. Maybe a little bit sorry.

“If you’re sure.” Noah’s eyes softened when they met mine.

“I’m sure. Give us half an hour.”

He nodded then performed some overly acrobatic move that delivered him into the water like the shot of an arrow.

“Show off,” I muttered.

“I didn’t know he had such a ferocious side. You might be good for him after all.”

“What is your beef with Noah?” It was obvious they didn’t like each other much, but I also sensed a sort of begrudging respect that neither one of them was willing to acknowledge.

“No beef. He just goes out of his way to be noble to the point of denial. And he has this habit of aligning himself on the wrong side of things,” Sol said.

“You got a problem with being noble?” An interesting word choice, but one I thought accurate.

“When it gets you dead I do. That’s what it got Jamie. Dead. And I like having options. Being noble limits your options. Not to mention it’s boring as hell.”

“I’ve experienced your idea of options. Is that what gets you off? Cutting people, forcing yourself on them?” Yes, this was much better. I was on solid footing here, on the offensive.

”Absolutely.” He smiled at me. “And if you’re waiting for an apology you’re not going to get it.” He waved at me over his retreating back. “I will feed you breakfast though.”

I followed him inside the cabin. It was every bit as opulent as I expected. He was already busy in the kitchen, pulling out bowls and scrounging in a drawer for spoons. The kitchen took up one side of the space and opened into a full bar. The living area was complete with a set of swiveling leather chairs, a sectional sofa, and a flat-screen plasma television on the far wall. Very neat, with a sweet fragrance courtesy of a vase of bright, exotic flowers on one table. Through a door toward the bow, I spied a large bed covered in silk sheets dyed a rich, dark purple. The whole setup very stately and sophisticated.