I turned to look at her. She looked downright jolly with my predicament, her green eyes twinkling, and lips spread in a mischievous smile that would rival even Hip.
I pouted. “I would have thought you would act like the responsible and wise older sibling and tell me who to choose.”
“Why choose?” She asked before taking a large bite out of her napoleon ice cream sandwich.
She wasn't very helpful.
That night, I lay awake thinking about the guys. They were all mysterious and hiding something. Granted, it seemed the whole town had something to hide. Jason, Theseus, and now Ajax were definitely on my 'suspicious' list, but I did not think that they were up to no good. They seemed like genuine people…well, possibly people.
The nagging mermaid theory was still floating in the back of my brain. However, my logic said that maybe they were practicing hypnotists' and part of some magician's cult. Because that made so much more sense than magical creatures.
I snorted to myself and shifted over in my cot to stare up at the ceiling. Some of the roof was rotted away in places, but at least it wasn’t bad enough to leak water through. Yet.
I wondered where Hip and Percy fell into all of this. Were they in on it too, or just Average Joes who just happened to know more than they should?
Percy definitely knew something, but his lips were sealed tight. Monday, I would have to test Hip. See if he would be the one to slip up.
Thinking up a plan, my mind finally settled, and I was able to drift off to sleep.
Sunday was a lazy day. Cal, Dad, and I all had the day off, so we took our fishing rods and went down the cliff to go fishing. Someone, probably the original owner of the cabin, built a tall dock that went far out into to waves.
Dad inspected it and gave it his seal of approval before allowing us to step foot on it.
The three of us sat at the end of the dock, sometimes sitting in a comfortable silence, sometimes in joyful banter, with our fishing lines cast far out into the water.
I was practically pulling in a smorgasbord. Within the first 30 minutes of casting my line out in the water, I pulled in my first fish. Unhooking it, we placed it in a bucket filled with ocean water. About 45 minutes later, I caught my second fish. And then my third. Cal and Dad weren’t so lucky. At the end of it all, they each only caught one fish while I reeled in six!
I was dubbed ‘Queen of the Rod’ by Cal, much to my chagrin and my father's discomfort.
As the sun began to sink lower, we collected our winnings and made our way back up to the house. Dad spent the evening cleaning and storing the fish in the large freezer box we found around back.
I was surprised to see that I had gotten a text from an unknown number. In the text was a photo of a very familiar table.
I brought the phone close to my face and texted the number back.
“Jason?”
“Yep. I realized after I dropped you off yesterday that I didn’t have your number. I hope you don’t mind but I finagled it from Dorris.”
I personally didn’t mind, but I hoped she didn’t make a habit of handing my number out to people.
I texted him back.
“I’m glad to see the table is fixed. Did you tell your parents?”
“I did not. I’m curious to see if they will ever notice. I think I did a great patch job.”
With that text came a close-up photo of what I assumed was the leg that I broke. I could see a thin line of glue running across the leg, but otherwise it looked fine.
“It looks great.”
“Glad you like it. I think I’d be happy to break it all over again ;)”
I paused before replying, remembering our lust filled make-out session from yesterday. Just thinking about having his hands on me warmed my core. I wanted to do it again. Before I could tell him as much, the phone buzzed in my hands again.
“How was your day?”
“It was good, went fishing. I caught the most fish :)”
“That’s awesome! Queen of the sea!”
“My sister dubbed me Queen of the Rod”
“Lol. Hope I get to have you rule over my rod someday.”
My mouth dropped open and the small warmth that had been burning in my core shot up to a blaze. I licked at my dry lips as I stared down at the words on the screen.
“Too much?”
“No! It’s just-
I bit my lip, wanting to tell him he was making me horny, but I didn’t know if I could be that bold. But I had to say something. I squeezed my eyes shut and hit send.
“No! You’re just making me horny is all.”
“That’s good to hear >:)”
He sent a text immediately after, cranking the heat level from a three to an eight.
“I like the idea of making you wet for me. Especially since I didn’t get a chance to touch you there yesterday.”
I was sure that if I slid my hand into my underwear right now, I would be wet. And while I was extremely tempted to touch myself and calm the burning that had begun in my center, I smiled at the thought of having one of the guys taking care of it for me and decided to wait it out.
“Soon.”
I texted back to him, before turning off my phone and closing my eyes. Eventually, I drifted off to sexy dreams of half-naked men.
Monday came and before I knew it, school was over. Not nearly as successful as I had hoped it to be. All my attempts to pull something out of Hip were thwarted when he either conveniently remembered he had to do something or somehow would drive the conversation in the complete opposite direction without me even realizing it.
I would get my chance, though. The swim team would be meeting at the community center after school tomorrow, and I had an inkling that it would be my chance to catch Jason or Hip in the act. In the act of what, I didn’t know, but I bet something strange was going to happen.
I was at the library again. Not having work today, I laid sprawled in one of the reading chairs with a good book. Percy was off doing some organizing and Jason had a student body president thing, so he was stuck at school. Hip sat across from me in one of the other chairs, bobbing his head up and down to music pouring from his large headset. He had given me a ride today, offering after Jason told us about his after-school meeting.
At first, I thought it would be another chance to weasel something out of him, but once we got here, he popped on those headphones and hadn’t said much since. He didn’t seem to be ignoring me, just drifting off his own little world. Occasionally, we would make eye contact and he would give a little smile. His eyes, which looked like mine at the moment, brown with hints of green, sparkled with their usual mischief.
I sighed and turned my mind back towards the book. It was a steamy cliché romance book that you’d typically pick up at a Walmart or something, where the characters had no real connection or depth. But it wasn’t horrible, and still entertaining. Downright hilarious in some places, doing a good job of keeping my thoughts distracted. It did have one downside, though. The sex scenes were doing a good job of keeping my arousal level sitting at a solid five.