Under the Sea *Book One* Water Trilogy

~Twenty Six~

 Two weeks went by and I hadn't heard anything from Meri, my parents were trying to get me to travel with them to Arizona for a week, and my boss freaked me out. What else could possibly pop up? Oh, that's right, Seth bumped into me at the store the other day and tried to ask me out and now Addison wants to ring my neck. Guess Seth forgot he had a girlfriend. Or maybe he's a polygamist.

I sat on my couch and attempted to watch a British show but my mind kept wandering.

"Hey, Audrey, I'm gonna go outside," an out of breath Connor said. I turned to look at him. In his arms he held a wad of something wrapped in a towel.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"Nothing," he answered quickly before shooting out the front door.

"That wasn't suspicious," I muttered to myself before turning my attention back to my show. Even though I was curious to see what Connor was up to I was too lazy to get up. According to the scale I had gained ten pounds, probably from the tubs of chunky monkey that seemed to disappear in the middle of the night.

I heard a soft click of the front door. I sighed. "Connor, if you're trying to sneak in you're failing miserably." I looked over the couch at the front door only to find nothing there. My eyebrows pulled together in confusion. "Weird."

"What if it isn't Connor?" A deep voice whispered in my ear causing shivers to run up and down my spine.

"Well, then I think I know who it is instead," I broke into a huge grin as I turned to see Finn bending over me on the couch.

"And?"

"And I think I want to kiss the intruder." I grabbed each side of his face and kissed him. Passion flared as his hands caressed my sides. I laid back on the couch with Finn over me. I could feel each muscle in his body as he held himself up. My legs wrapped around his waist-

"Oh gross!" my brother Connor wailed and slapped his hands down at his sides. He looked at us in disbelief. "On the couch? You couldn't make it to your bedroom? You couldn't have warned me before hand?"

Finn lifted himself off of me with a laugh. "Sorry Connor. We'll get off the couch." I let out a scream of laughter as Finn swooped me up and carried me over his shoulder to my room. He dropped me on my bed and leaned over me, trapping me underneath him. I couldn't pull away as I stared into his big sea green eyes and forgot to breathe.

"I've missed you," he said softly.

"I've missed you too," tears rimmed my eyes, on the verge of over flowing. "I don't ever want you to leave again."

"I won't, I promise."

"But you have to, it's not like I can hide you in my closet until I move out." The thought made me laugh and I was half tempted to try the crazy idea.

"Nope, it turns out that there's an elderly mermaid who lives a few houses down," he explained. "My mother helped me find her and now I am going to be staying with her until I get my own house. I get to have senior year with you."

"How? You don't have any records-"

"We have people in the system who create things like that for us," my shocked expression must have worried him. There were people high in power who manipulated the system so that they could live on land? "Audrey, we have to adapt with civilization. If we don't, then we wouldn't be able to just get out of the water when we wanted and live among you."

I was so happy I nearly pushed him off the bed. "We're gonna have senior year together!" I yelled.

"Calm down, Audrey," Finn snickered before pulling me into a hug.