Page 73 of 'Til All the Seas Run Dry

“Ooooh, a little Netflix and chill?”

“I don’t think anyone says that anymore. No, he’s cooking for me.”

“So, a little cooking and cun?—”

“Esther!”

Esther’s laugh was a bright sound over the dull whirr of the heat and defrost of Jory’s car.

“Why does he want to cook? He can’t eat anything he’d make. Oh! Areyouthe meal?”

Jory snorted. “Unlikely.”

“It’s your second date, right?”

“Yes.”

“So…”

“If you’re trying to ask me if I’m gonna sleep with him, the answer is no. He has it in his head that he has to wait for the third date.”

“Girl, I tried to wear Hank like a weighted blanket the first night I met him. No date involved.”

“I’d say it worked out for you.”

Esther sighed. “Yeah. But why the third date? Weren’t y’all like… married?” she asked, her Georgia accent thick and saccharine.

Now it was Jory’s turn to sigh. “Yes. But that was lifetimes ago. And Callum is… stubborn. Besides, the more I think about it, the more I don’t know if I even want to go down that road with him if I’m going to be leaving town.”

Esther was silent. This was a sore subject, and Jory knew it. Which is why she made it a point to bring it up at least once a day to acclimate Esther to the eventuality.

“Yeah,” Esther said, her voice flat. “You’re probably right.”

“It’s not personal, Est,” Jory said.

“I know.”

“And not for a few weeks.”

“I know.”

Jory wanted to console her friend that she would have her phone and they could text every day. Which would be true… until it wasn’t. She couldn’t take an iPhone to the depths. And once she went home, who knew when—or if—she would return. The loss of Esther’s friendship would be near the top of the list of things she would mourn. She’d never had a friend as fiercely loyal as Esther, who supported and loved her with a dogged enthusiasm that Jory had never known before. She would miss her desperately.

But she wanted to go home. Didn’t she? Wasn’t it all she’d been able to think about for centuries? Leaving her human form behind and returning to the arms of her family, to the velvety darkness of the sea?

“I love you, Esther,” she said, because what else could she say?

Esther sniffed. “I love you too. And don’t think for a second I’m giving up on convincing you to stay.”

Jory chuckled. “Fair enough. There are far more people on your team than on mine, I assure you.”

Jory pulled the car onto the gravel access road that led past Magda’s house and back to the little A-frame cabin where Callum was staying. The gravel rumbled under her slow-moving tires and the lights of the cabin in the distance had her heart thumping with something that straddled the divide between excitement and anxiety. “Anxietment,” as Esther called it.

“Well, I’m pulling in.”

“Okay,” Esther said, chewing something now. “Be safe. Have fun. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“Is there anything you wouldn’t do?”