“If there are two things I know about you, Lily Sanderson,” he says, his mouth kicking up into that smirky half smile, “it’s that you are persistent and you have a good heart.”
I sigh. “How do either of those things help me?”
“They won’t solve your problem,” he says. “But they will make sure you keep trying until you do.”
“Sometimes you don’t make any sense,” I tell him.
He laughs, and his good mood relaxes me. “Maybe not,” he says. “But I’m always right.”
“Always?” I ask with a raised brow.
He nods, leaning in close to whisper, “Always,” against my lips.
He might not make sense, but he believes in me.
“You want a ride?” he asks. “Or should I roll along beside you like a creepy stalker?”
I scrunch up my face, like I’m trying to decide. “Well, you do have a history of peeping in my bathroom window. . . .”
“I never saw a thing.” He lets his gaze drift over me, and I feel my skin tingle all over. His voice is low as he says, “Promise.”
I turn and saunter toward the motorcycle. I call out over my shoulder, “Did you ever stop to think that maybe I was the one doing the watching?”
Quince’s booted footsteps thud on the concrete as I open the storage compartment on his bike and pull out my pink helmet. I’m not startled when his arms wrap around me from behind.
“I always knew you had a bad-girl streak,” he murmurs against my ear.
I smile and lean back into him. “Only for you.”
“Wouldn’t want it any other way.” He presses a warm kiss onto the side of my neck. “Come on,” he says, stepping back and grabbing his helmet off the handle. “Let’s go home.”
I nod and climb onto Princess behind him. It’s late, it’s been a stressful day, and I still have a lot of thinking to do. Somehow I have to figure out how to get a diverse group of kings and queens to stop bickering long enough to realize that helping one another is the only solution to the environmental problems facing our world. That’s a tall order, even for a princess with a bad-girl streak.
By morning, I have the beginnings of an idea. Not an idea of what to do, exactly, but an idea of who I can talk to who might. Seaview High’s earth science teacher has been trying to help me plan my future, and she just happens to have a degree in marine biology. Maybe she can help me shape my beginnings of a plan, too.
Besides, after ditching two important interviews she set up for me recently, I owe her a big apology.
I knock on her open classroom door. “Um, Miss Molina?”
“Yes?” She looks up, sees me, and frowns a little. “Lily.”
I can tell she’s disappointed. And maybe a little upset. That’s totally understandable. When I thought I wanted to give up my crown and stay on land, I decided marine biology would be an ideal—and obvious—career path. Miss Molina studied marine biology in college and still has connections in the department at Seaview Community College. She went out of her way to set up—and then reschedule—an interview with her friend there.
She didn’t have to help me, but she did. Then I had to bail on both interviews for various mer-world emergency situations.
I can’t exactly explain how two weeks ago I’d planned to stay on land and go to college and have a career, and now I’m taking up my duties as a mermaid princess so I won’t be needing her connections at the community college after all. I have no choice but to let her be disappointed in me. I just hope she can see past that and still help me.
“I know that you’re mad that I missed the second interview,” I blurt before she can say anything. “You have every right to be. I can’t give you a good excuse, except that an urgent family situation came up at the last minute.”
She closes her eyes and sighs. That’s the same lame—and yet not untrue—excuse I gave the first time. She probably thinks I’m totally full of it, and if I were her I’d think so too.
No way is she going to want to help me after I made her look bad to her friend at the college.
I’m about to turn around and abort my plan, to find some other way to get advice, when she opens her eyes and half smiles. She rubs her lips together for a second and then nods.
“I know you’re not a flake, Lily,” she says. “If you had to miss the interview, I’m sure you had a good reason.”
If she only knew.
“I’m really sorry,” I repeat. “I hope your friend isn’t mad at you because of me. I can talk to her and tell her that it was all my—”
“It’s fine, Lily,” she says, waving me into the room. “Really.”
I give her a grateful smile for forgiving me as I drop into the chair next to her desk.
“Actually, I have something else I wanted to talk to you about,” I say. “I need some advice.”
Now I have to figure out how to present the problem.
Last night as I stared out my bedroom window for hours, counting stars, I let my mind drift, thinking about everything that’s happened in the last few weeks. I got over my crush on Brody and started my relationship with Quince. I nearly gave up my crown and then bonded with Tellin so I could keep it. I thought I wanted nothing more than to return to Thalassinia with Brody at my side, then decided to stay on land with Quince, and finally realized I couldn’t abandon my royal duties like that. All that thinking left me a little uncertain about where I’m supposed to be, exactly—land, water, both?—but I’m starting to think it can’t be one or the other with me.