A Thousand Salt Kisses Forever (Third Book in Salt Kisses series)

Containment

The next day I tiptoed into my kitchen and closed the back door behind me, trying not to make a squeak. Maurice was asleep in the laundry room next door, where his basket was. I was always ever so careful not to wake him in the mornings.

I had wriggled my wet body back into my jeans and t-shirt, and my phone was still tucked away in my back pocket. Having successfully managed to pass by Maurice's room and out into the hall, I now gazed up at the stairs.

Over the past six weeks, I had managed through the process of trial and error, to establish where every creak was.

I was thus able to ascend without a sound and quickly crept into my room locking the door behind me. I had a quick shower, and afterward I turned on my phone. I had remembered on my journey home, that I had not texted back Sam. He may well be waiting and I should not keep him hanging on.

As I was replying a message popped up on my Facebook. It was from some girl Michelle, who lived on the other side of the island. What does she want? I hadn't even seen her since school.

"I know it's SF secret, but OMG!! Please, can you tell me how to meet one?"

The phone dropped from my hands onto the carpet, and I felt tears sting at my eyes.

She had told people. I was right to worry about Portia.

My instant thought was Ri and the sea people. I was quite sure they would be furious if they found out about this. I mean, it was one thing the Islanders knowing of the mer, but dating each other was a whole different ball game. When Llyr's best friend Nephys had a baby with a fisherman from the Starfish, she was nearly banished from both kingdoms, and her father was the king of Evergreen. It made me fret that even the rulers' children were not exempt from these rules.

If there was one thing I knew about Nephys's half-human child, George, it was that his heritage was kept top secret for sixty-six years. I was the only person on the island he ever told.

Ri would be so angry with Llyr.

I shook my head and picked up my phone again. I had to speak with Rosie. She needed to find out who knew about this and find a way of containing it.

***

"Urgh, I can't believe she sent you that message," said Rosie, gulping down her coffee, some hours later. "I mean, what was she thinking?"

Rosie had groggily invited me over, and now I sat on her bed with my own cup of coffee. Not that I had touched it, I was already a jittery wreck.

"I don't know, Rose," I said, shaking my head. "Some people are just indiscrete, I guess."

"Typical Starfisher," said Rosie, shaking her head.

"I'm just so worried," I continued. "If it gets back to them... "

"Okay, but as unsubtle as Michelle is being, isn't this kind of inevitable?" said Rosie.

I looked at her, surprised. "Well, we have been so careful... I just thought if we carried on with our routine, nobody would ever see us... I mean it's just unfortunate that you, Portia and Jemima were up that day... What are the chances of that?"

"Crystal, it would have happened one day," said Rosie. "You can't blame us entirely."

My eyes widened and I put a hand on Rosie's arm. "Oh no, Rose, I wasn't blaming you. I just think it's seriously unlucky that you guys were there at that time."

"Hun, trust me, if it wasn't us, it would have been someone else. Someone on their way to the airport to catch an early morning flight, a fisherman, heading home early feeling unwell... your neighbour Mrs. Hart looking out of the window one day. And should it have happened when the sea is even colder, there would be no doubt what he was – what you are! It would have happened, I'm convinced."

I let out a big sigh. Has Ri been right to worry all along? Are me and Llyr just so naive, so hopelessly in love, that we've lost sight of reality? All this was really getting me thinking. When I moved to The Jewel, we were going to have to work out very, very clever ways for me to return to land for my visits. I mean, maybe I will have to always sail back on a boat or something.

"He's ridiculously hot though," said Rosie, cutting through my thoughts.

"He is," I agreed, laughing and looking down a little bashful. It was so strange for a friend to actually get to see him. He was the love of my life, yet nobody I knew had even met him.

"I definitely get the obsession now," said Rosie, getting up and sitting at her dressing table. "And you looked so sweet together looking out at the sun rise. Lucky you, Crystal White."

I smiled. "What about you? Seen anyone you like, lately?"

"No... no sexy secret man for me... although, you'll never guess who's going to the wedding?"

"Oh God, who else?" I moaned, suddenly remembering that I still hadn't texted back Sam.

"Will," said Rosie, dragging a brush through her hair.

"No way!" I cried.

Will was Jemima's fiancé, Allan's friend. Rosie had gone out with him years ago, until he had randomly gone off to Australia, saying he had to get some traveling out of his system. Rosie had been completely depressed over the matter, and asides from a few flings, she had barely had a relationship since. I found it really odd, she was so beautiful. Will never came back from Oz and I sometimes wondered if the whole experience had really scarred her.

"Maybe he's finally over his quarter-life crisis," I said, shaking my head.

"Maybe babe, awkward though. I always fantasized that the next time I saw him, I would be on the arm of some gorgeous rich man, not a sad singleton at a wedding."

"Err, super successful, singleton," I reminded her. And rich, dammit. Rosie was our local celebrity entrepreneur and was just closing a deal on a three-story house on the mainland. "Anyway, I will be there so you can be on the arm of a gorgeous, but poor mer-human freak instead."

Rosie cackled. "You are a bit of a weirdo aren't you?" she said, sitting back down on the bed again.

I rolled my eyes and smiled before I remembered my predicament all over again.

"Rose?" I said.

"Yeah?"

"Do me a favour? Please find out who knows and beg them to stop gossiping. I know it's a lot to ask, and you think it's inevitable. It's just I really have a bad feeling about the whole island finding out."