Swimming? No thanks

Chapter 12

Alex's POV

"I'm so nervous. I really want this date to go well," I told the guys as I fixed my hair for the billionth time tonight.

Jack, Cam, Dalton, and that new guy, Thomas, had come over to help me prepare for my date.

"You'll be fine. It'll go great. I was like this on my first date with Diana and things turned out great. Just calm down," Jack told me.

"I can't. What if I do something wrong and Sarah runs off again," I worried.

"She probably had a good reason for running off and it wasn't because of something you did," Cam assured me.

"Yeah, girls can be nuts sometimes," Dalton said.

"But her excuses, their excuses, never make sense. A fear of the ocean and then swimming off without any explanation as to where. She never came up for air. I didn't even see her after she dove in. Nobody can last that long without air. It's impossible. Then with them all being bad at swimming, it's just unbelievable. I mean, all four of them not swimming? It's just suspicious." I looked up to see them sharing nervous glances. Do they know something about the girls that I don't?

"I think it's possible. I mean, I've known Diana and Max since first grade and Alyssa since she moved here, and they've never liked swimming," Cam explained, avoiding eye contact with us. He is definitely hiding something. I may have just recently met them, but I know what they do when they're lying or keeping a secret.

"Yeah, I've never seen the girls swim in all the years that I've known them," Dalton said.

"I know when you guys are lying or keeping a secret and this is definitely one of those times. What's up?"

"We can't tell you. This is between you and the girls. When they want to tell you, they will," Jack informed me. Dalton shot Jack a glare and a "we'll talk later" look. Jack just shrugged apologetically.

"Why won't they just tell me what it is? I can't stop thinking about how I know that Sarah is keeping secrets from me. Why did they tell you and not me? Why can't you tell me?"

"Now that Jack has blabbed, it's not our place to tell you. We all found out by accident or when the girls had a short lapse in judgement. They'll tell you eventually. It's not something that she can avoid telling you forever. She'll tell you when she's ready," Thomas reassured.

"You know what? Just forget about it," I told them, defeated.

"Jack, can we go talk in the other room for a minute?" Dalton nodded to the hallway.

"Sure." They walked off to a room down the hall.

Dalton's POV

I shut the door and looked at Jack. "Are you crazy? You almost exposed us all!" I whisper-shouted at him.

"I'm sorry. I suck at keeping secrets!"

"You'd better get better at it or I'll wipe your memory of all things mermaid and merman," I warned.

"That's one of your powers?" He asked astonished.

"No, but you have to keep the secret or you will have some serious merperson revenge coming your way from all five of us. Now, we have to convince Alex that the girls aren't keeping anything from him. You just made things worse. I have to tell the girls about this. I'll be back out there in a couple minutes. Now, go. Cam and Thomas are probably already trying to convince Alex that there is no secret. You need to go help fix the problem that you created."

"Okay." He walked out as I pulled out my phone. I dialed Max's number and she immediately picked up.

"Hey, what's up?"