Second Chances in New Port Stephen - Chapter 49

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Second Chances in New Port Stephen - Chapter 49

He wasn’t sure if lying to a small child made him an irredeemable villain, but he caught Nick’s
face in the rearview mirror and saw how he mouthed thank you. That was good enough.
“You know,” Eli said, thinking fast, “your Ah Ma used to call your dad and me mermaids when
we were kids.”
Nick’s eyes met his again in the mirror. He looked impossibly fond and sad at the same time, but
his imperceptible nod let Eli know he wasn’t overstepping by mentioning his mom.
Zoe’s eyes went wide. “She did?”
This, at least, wasn’t a lie. “Yep. We could swim so fast and for so long, she would swear we
were going to sprout tails one day.” He slid his hand over his thighs like they were covered in
slippery scales. “Zoom! She made plans to leave us food on the beach to make sure we were
getting enough to eat.”
“But not at night,” Zoe said. “Because by then, you’d be way underwater.”
“Exactly.” Eli launched into a fanciful retelling of Mrs. Wu’s laments about their aquatic lifestyle,
including the time she threatened to drain the local pool so Nick and Eli would come back to
solid land. Zoe listened with rapt attention, her tears forgotten.
“Here we are, home sweet home,” Nick announced as they pulled into a driveway about twenty
minutes later. Eli had been so distracted with calming Zoe, he hadn’t even noticed they were
approaching Palmetto Drive, by the canal. He peered out the window at the small yellow house
with a patch of grass for a front yard.
“Nice place,” he said, because it seemed like the polite thing to do.
“I’m renting, it’s temporary,” Nick said a bit defensively.
Nick went through the rigamarole of getting Zoe freed from her seat while Eli dawdled on the
driveway. He caught sight of a light in a window of the house next door. The curtain twitched
like someone had been watching them and then got out of sight abruptly. Eli suppressed the
shiver that tickled at his spine. Fucking suburbia.

-- 149 of 228 --

Nick’s voice cut through the cricket-laced night. “Do you want to come in?”
Eli turned. The words were on his tongue: He should get back to his parents’ place. Nick had Zoe
to deal with, and after all, Christmas Eve was their special night. He could call his dad to come
pick him up or even walk. But—
Nick was standing in the circle of light cast by his front porch’s bulb. Zoe was in his arms, her
face smashed into the space between his neck and shoulder. Even though she must have been
unwieldy with her gangly limbs, Nick didn’t seem to be struggling under her weight. The only
sign of his previous frazzlement was the unruly twist to his shirt collar, one point of it lifting
toward the sky.
“It’s almost Zoe’s bedtime,” he said. “You could hang out. If you wanted. It’s too dark out for you
to walk home, anyway. At least come in and wait for an Uber.”