The wave of students turns into a traffic jam. The obligatory honking becomes less frequent as cars packed with human adolescents migrate to the highway. Behind him, Galen hears someone on a skateboard make the acquaintance of asphalt and the accompanying groan of pain.
He glances at the car parked beside his. Where is she?
When she appears at the double doors, the air between them seems to crackle with energy. She locks eyes with him. Disappointed when she doesn’t smile, he pushes away from the car, reaching her before she can take ten steps. “Let me carry your pack. You look tired. Are you okay?”
Emma doesn’t fight about the backpack this time. Instead, she hands it over and pulls all her white hair to the side. “Just have a headache. And wow. You skipped an entire day of school after you fought with me about changing my schedule.”
He grins. “I didn’t think about it like that. I just knew you wouldn’t concentrate on class if I stayed. You’d be bothering me all day about your secret, and you’ve missed enough school already.”
“Thanks, Dad,” she says, rolling her eyes. When they reach their cars, he throws her bag into the backseat of his convertible.
“What are you doing?” she says.
“I thought we made plans for the beach.”
She crosses her arms. “You made plans. Then you left.”
He crosses his arms, too. “You agreed to it Monday, before you hit your head.”
“Yep, you keep saying that.”
Without thinking, he takes her hand into his. Emma’s eyes widen—she’s as surprised as he is. What am I doing? “Fine, so you don’t remember me asking you. But I’m asking now. Will you please come to the beach with me?”
She tugs her hand free, glancing at a few kids passing by who shield their whispers behind a yellow folder. “What does the beach have to do with my eyes? And why are you wearing contacts on yours?”
“Rach— Uh, my mom says they’ll help me blend in better. She says the color would just draw attention to me.”
Emma snorts. “Oh, she’s definitely right. Blue eyes make you look so much more average. In fact, I almost didn’t notice you standing there.”
“That hurts my feelings, Emma.” He grins.
She giggles.
He says, “I’d consider forgiving you—if you come with me to the beach.”
She sighs. “I can’t go with you, Galen.”
He runs a hand through his hair. “Honestly, Emma, I don’t know how much more rejection I can take,” he blurts out. In fact, he doesn’t remember ever being rejected, except by Emma. Of course, that could be due to the fact that he’s a Royal. Or maybe it’s because he doesn’t spend a lot of time with his kind anyway, let alone the females. Actually, he doesn’t spend a lot of time with anyone except Rachel. And Rachel would give him her beating heart if he asked for it.
“I’m sorry. It’s not about you this time. Well, actually, it kind of is. My mom … well, she thinks we’re dating.” Her cheeks—and those lips—deepen to red.
“Dating?” What is dating, again? He tries to remember what Rachel told him.… She said it’s easy to remember because it’s almost the same as … what is the rhyme for it? And then he remembers. “It’s easy to remember, because dating rhymes with mating, and they’re almost the same,” she’d said. He blinks at Emma. “Your mom thinks we’re ma— Uh, dating?”
She nods, biting her lip.
For reasons he can’t explain, this pleases him. He leans against the passenger door of her car. “Oh. Well. What does it matter if she thinks that?”
“I told her we weren’t dating, though. Just this morning. Going to the beach with you makes me look like a liar.”
He scratches the back of his neck. “I don’t understand. If you told her we weren’t dating, then why does she think we are?”
She relaxes against his driver-side door. “Well, this is all actually your fault, not mine.”
“I’m obviously not asking the right questions—”
“The way you acted toward me when I hit my head, Galen. Some people saw that. And they told my mom. She thinks I’ve been hiding you from her, keeping you a secret. Because she thinks we’ve been … we’ve been…”
“Dating?” he offers. He can’t understand why she’d have a difficult time discussing dating, if it means what he thinks it does—spending time with one human more than others to see if he or she would be a good mate.
The Syrena do the same, only they call it sifting—and sifting doesn’t take nearly as long as dating. A Syrena can sift out a mate within a few days. He’d laughed when Rachel said some humans date for years. So indecisive. Then an echo of Toraf’s voice whispers to him, calling him a hypocrite. You’re twenty years old. Why haven’t you sifted for a mate? But that doesn’t make him indecisive. He just hasn’t had time to sift and keep his responsibility watching the humans. If it weren’t for that, he’d already be settled down. How can Toraf think Emma’s the reason he hasn’t sifted yet? Up until three weeks ago, he didn’t even know she existed.
Emma nods, then shakes her head. “Dating, yes. But she thinks we’re, uh, more than dating.”
“Oh,” he says, thoughtful. Then he grins. “Oh.” The reason her lips are turning his favorite color is because Emma’s mom thinks they’ve been dating and mating. The blush extends down her neck and disappears into her T-shirt. He should probably say something to make her feel more comfortable. But teasing her seems so much more fun. “Well then, the least she could do is give us some privacy—”