I nod. “Sorry. It’s just that—”

He laughs. “Funny that you feel you should be apologizing to me.”

“I tempted you and I shouldn’t have. I’ll keep up my end of the deal from now on, I promise.”

This seems to startle him. “Deal?”

“That you’ll wait for me if I wait for you.”

He’s quiet for a long time then nods. My legs are now falling asleep. This position wasn’t so awkward five minutes ago, but now it’s pretty close to torture. I brace myself on the driver’s side door, ready to move back to my own seat, when Galen pulls me in for one last kiss.

And when he does, someone taps on the window. Fan-flipping-tastic.

Galen stiffens underneath me. “You’ve got to be kidding,” he mutters into my neck.

That’s when I have the good sense to be mortified. Not so much at how far we’d gone, how close we’d come. No, I’d already apologized for that, felt the appropriate shame. But this, this is a new kind of horror. Because it’s a public one. We are still in a less-than-ideal position. On the side of the flipping interstate.

“Everything okay in there? Having car troubles?” a man says. Then that rotund stranger proceeds to make a mask of his hands and peer into the freaking window, pressing his porous nose onto the glass and blowing a circle of steam on it. Mother of pearl.

“Oh,” he says. “Beg your pardon.” He eases away from the window just as I’m positioning myself back into the refuge of my own seat. Galen has already somehow put his shirt back on. Which is, of course, both a relief and devastating to me at the same time.

He rolls the window down and somehow manages to sound polite when he says, “May I help you?” But his voice is thick, full of appetite. He’s as affected as I am, just from the beginnings of a kiss.

The man’s face is as red as the rash of kisses Galen left on my neck. “Sorry about that,” the man says, tucking his thumbs into the straps of his overalls. “I was just making sure y’all were all right. I saw you had an out-of-state tag.”

How he could have noticed that from the canal of speeding cars that is the interstate, I couldn’t say. Unless, of course, Tennessee is full of the type of do-gooders that would actually turn around and help someone. Any other day, any other second in the existence of the universe, I would appreciate that.

But as it stands right now, I want to choke this man. And curse Tennessee for churning out such helpful citizens.

Galen frowns at the man. “We aren’t in need of assistance, thank you.”

The man glances past Galen, making an obvious show of scrutinizing the situation. He looks like his name could be Herschel. Or Grady. “Everything okay here, young lady?” he says to me.

Galen must realize his purpose, because he leans back in the seat, allowing Herschel/Grady a good look at me. I’m going to kill Galen. And not just because a complete stranger is more worried about my virtue than he is at the moment.

“It was,” I tell him pointedly.

The man clears his throat. “Well, I apologize for the, uh … interruption. Have yourself a good day.” It looks as though he might grace us with his absence, but then he turns back to the window. He scratches the back of his neck in an almost superstitious way. “You know, a purdy rough storm is moving in. Might want to think about getting where you want to go.” With this, he departs. We wait until we hear his truck door slam shut before we breathe again.

Or at least, I do.

Galen grips the steering wheel tightly with both hands. “I think we should stop for the day.”

I know he’s not great at driving in bad weather. But I don’t think he’s talking about driving. A tiny knot of rejection grows in my stomach. “Okay,” I tell him. But what did I expect? He’s just doing the right thing. Do I want him to, or not?

He whips his gaze to me. “No, I mean, if it’s going to rain, then maybe we should … I mean…”

I laugh. “Tongue-tied?”

He catches my double meaning, too. “Emma.”

It’s then that I turn away from him. Looking at him for one second longer would guarantee another visit to his lap, which is clearly not what he wants right now. I’m starting to think I don’t know what Galen wants. And I’m starting to doubt whether he knows what he wants, either.

Maybe by the end of this trip, we’ll both have it figured out.

I pull out my phone and peruse the screen for the link I’d found earlier. I feel the heat receding from my cheeks. My lips still feel like they’re on fire, though. “There are some touristy areas nearby. Springs. Caves. Sounds ideal for stretching.”

Galen lets out a breath. “Sounds perfect, actually. The farther away from people, the better.”

I can’t help but search for double meaning in that, too.

6

GALEN STEPS into the shallow water, startling some nearby frogs whose songlike croaks stop immediately. Even as the wind chops up the surface of the spring, a school of frenzied minnows whip up some ripples of their own. Galen marvels that no birds are taking this opportunity to feed. He supposes all the winged creatures here are fat and happy though, what with all the potential food above water—frogs and insects and other crawly things—why bother getting wet at all? Birds are meant for the air.

Just as Syrena are meant for the water. He tries to stop it, but the thought pushes through anyway. If Syrena are meant for the water, what am I doing here on land?