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  “Did you just paraphrase Winnie the Pooh?”

  Clearly, they were a proper match if Leigh knew that. “There are many outdoor movie showings near bodies of water. It is quite wonderful the way people sit together on blankets and enjoy stories told that way.”

  “Star Wars. The Little Mermaid. Winnie the Pooh.” Finally Leigh’s hand dropped from the door. “Tolly, does everything you know about humans come from movies?”

  “Mostly.”

  Leigh’s eyes shone with fear again. “Great. This is going to go… great.” He pushed on the door at last, leaving Tolly to follow him.

  Tolly liked to think Leigh was right—things would go “great”—but unless he was mistaken, he was fairly certain that had been sarcasm too.

  Chapter 3

  A MERMAID. Leigh was walking down the streets of Cove City with a flesh and blood mermaid.

  If he hadn’t been so dumbfounded when he first took in Tolly’s tail, he would have spent longer cataloging the way it looked and touched it like Tolly had offered. Deep red-and-gold scales adorned by fins along the sides as well as the tailfin at the end. The fins were near transparent, while the scales glittered like precious metal.

  Low at Tolly’s hips, the red began to fade into his olive skin, leading into his human half. He still had sunspots. In fact, the ones that had been on his legs freckled his tail in darker red. Whether showing off his tail or sporting long limbs, he was positively breathtaking. Magical, even.

  Leigh was in so much trouble.

  Tolly was a literal walking disaster—his entire knowledge base of humans came from films he’d watched at outdoor drive-ins and movies in the park—but at least he was good, selfless, and endearing. Leigh couldn’t let someone like that, a mythical creature no less, get messed up in his life of darkness and misdeeds.

  If he had lived a different life, he would have welcomed having a beautiful man like Tolly enter it, so open and heartfelt, already professing a desire to know Leigh, to be with him—to date him. To stay with him forever.

  Leigh wasn’t worth that kind of blind devotion. Tolly didn’t know him. Love was a burden in Leigh’s eyes, something people used against each other more than positively, and Leigh would be no exception if handed a fragile heart like Tolly’s. Once Tolly came to see the kind of person Leigh was, he would dive headfirst back into the water.

  When Leigh glanced at the merfolk-maid-man beside him as they hurried down the street to Sweeney’s club, he expected to see disappointment creeping into Tolly’s expression. The neighborhood by the docks wasn’t exactly a glowing example of city life. The streets were dirty, shops run-down, some closed, fewer and fewer families or children about other than Deanna’s kids and Ralph. It wasn’t a place anyone wanted to be other than aging folks like Miss Maggie with rent control and stubborn resolve to never move. Or criminals like Leigh.

  To his surprise, though, with the morning light glinting off oil stains along the street and people smoking on corners and eyeing pockets to pick, Tolly looked captivated and smiled at everyone they passed. The sheer joy on his face to simply be here made it hard for Leigh to suppress his own smile.

  “Are they moving in?” Tolly asked as they paused at a street corner for the walk sign to change. The shop there, a little electronics store that Leigh had thought would be there forever, had boxes all around and bustling activity of employees packing up. “Are they new?”

  “No. Must be rearranging.” Or leaving. Leigh wouldn’t be surprised, but he didn’t have time to stop and ask. The light changed, and they continued.

  “I know this is urgent, but perhaps when we return home, we can take more time to explore. It is all so thrilling. I would like to see more.”

  Leigh tried not to be tripped up by Tolly already calling his apartment “home.” He really was naïve if he thought the ghetto was thrilling, but his exuberance was hard to say no to. “Maybe,” he said. “If we have time.” And if I’m not running for my life.

  “Do you think—” Tolly started to ask another question but broke off when Leigh’s cell phone trilled from his pocket. He was lucky he’d only had a burner phone on him last night when he was dropped in the river. He always left his real phone at home if he was on a job.

  Answering it now, he wondered if it would be Alvin telling him to hurry—or scram—but his parole officer’s name blinked instead.

  “We have an appointment in fifteen minutes,” Leigh answered by way of greeting.

  “Yes, we do,” Tabitha Beckett said. She was a good woman but tough as reinforced leather. She tended to call in reminders of their check-ins since he’d missed a few, and she’d made it clear that many more would not end well for him.

  “Gotta ask a favor today, Beckett. Can we make it tomorrow?”

  “Give me one good reason, William.”

  Leigh glanced at Tolly beside him, who looked back at him curiously. “I have a new roommate I’m showing around the neighborhood.”

  “A roommate?” Tabitha deadpanned.

  “Someone to keep me out of trouble. Figured you’d be pleased.”

  “In that case, bring him by tomorrow. I can’t wait to meet him.”

  “Already planning on it.” Honestly, Tolly meeting Tabitha was a lot less terrifying than where they were headed now. “8:00 a.m. sharp. I owe you one.”

  “Be on time tomorrow and stay away from Arthur Sweeney. That’s all you owe me.”

  Leigh reached out to push open the door to the club as he said, “Don’t even remember the last time I saw Sweeney. Later, Beckett. See.” He turned to Tolly after hanging up the call. “Liar.”

  Tolly’s lips pursed in concern or maybe deep thought, but he didn’t reply. Better if Leigh started pushing him away now, before he got it into his head that there was anything redeeming about him. He was exactly what he’d told Tolly, and that wasn’t going to change.

  The club was quiet as they entered, not open to the public at this hour but still housing Sweeney’s best and brightest loyal goons.

  Bruiser Jake Theilen and honeypot Rosa Brookes were immediately visible, as well as hacker Cary Pettinger, the resident expert for getting around security or into bank records. Leigh ignored the gauging stares at Tolly and headed for Alvin sitting at the bar with a glass of milk. Even if it hadn’t been morning, he wasn’t one for liquor.

  “You brought the boy toy. Hi again.” Alvin spun on his stool. “Dad’s waiting for you in the back. The Morettis think you’re good and gone, and the word on the streets is minimal.”

  “Good. How mad is he?” Leigh nodded beyond the bar.

  “You know Pops. He doesn’t get mad.”

  Just homicidal.

  “And you’re my best friend. He’ll fix this.”

  Right. Tolly wasn’t the only naïve one in Leigh’s company. “Watch him so he doesn’t try making friends,” Leigh said to Alvin, and Tolly immediately straightened.

  “You are leaving me? I cannot protect you if I am not with you.”

  “I don’t need protection from Sweeney.” At least Leigh hoped not.

  Not wanting to risk an argument, he pushed past Tolly. He’d be fine in Alvin’s company.

  The back room was Sweeney’s private office, where ledgers were kept and dirty dealings done. As Leigh entered, Sweeney wasn’t sitting at his desk but poised on top of it, expertly shuffling a deck of cards to the feigned delight of runner Selene Cook. Everyone knew to pretend to enjoy his magic tricks or risk his wrath.

  He was an average-looking man, shorter than Alvin, though Alvin had his father’s same pronounced nose and wide grin. “Pick a card, Miss Cook, pick a card.” Sweeney held them out to her.

  She obediently reached for one, but just before her fingers touched the edge, the cards burst upward in a shower of rectangles that ended in the appearance of a fake bouquet of flowers.

  “Got me again, Boss.” She chuckled.

  “Mr. Hurley, care for the bouquet?” Sweeney dramatically thrust the flowers at him as he
continued his approach, while Selene bent to attend to the fifty-two-card pickup.

  Leigh knew better than to refuse the offer and pulled on a smile as he got in close to smell the plastic, expecting a spray of water or something equally childish. Instead, Sweeney reached into the center of the bouquet and gave a tug, reverting the illusion to a cloth bag that he then pulled from his hand to reveal—

  A gun.

  The flowers and bag fell to the floor and Sweeney was left grinning with the barrel pointed in Leigh’s face. He really should have expected that.

  “I can explain,” he said, hands rising to delay the inevitable.

  “Can you? Well that might change everything.” Sweeney tilted the gun upward and stepped back, but a second later, his smile dropped and he pointed the gun at Leigh’s head again. “Then again, it might not.”

  Click. Leigh’s heart very nearly stopped as a flag with the actual word BANG on it shot out the end of the fake gun to go with the fake flowers. He hated this man. Alvin was a good sort, Leigh’s best friend, no doubt, but that didn’t excuse his father, and it certainly didn’t protect Leigh from him.

  “Your face!” Laughter erupted from Sweeney, which meant Selene had to laugh too, and Leigh forced a chuckle of his own. “You didn’t actually think I’d shoot you for some little tiff with Leo Moretti, did you?”

  “Well….”

  “No, no, no. William, if I decide to shoot you, I’ll let Mark do it.”

  Click—this time from behind Leigh, where his spatial awareness should have alerted him to the presence of someone else there, but he’d been too distracted. That click was a real gun that he soon felt pressed to the side of his temple.

  Selene never went anywhere without Mark Gaines. This whole damn mob family traveled in pairs, aside from Leigh.

  “Now,” Sweeney said with deadly seriousness in his wild eyes, “explain to me why I shouldn’t have Mark put a bullet in your brain.”

  “TA DA!” Alvin said as he pulled the bag from his glass of milk to reveal a bouquet of plastic flowers that he thrust at Tolly in offering.

  Tolly clapped joyously. He loved human magic. Sleight of hand and illusion were much more fun than real spells.

  “You’re a gem, Slim,” Alvin said, setting the bouquet on the bar top. “Leigh barely cracks a smile at my tricks anymore.”

  Perhaps Leigh needed an opportunity to relax to find the humor in life again. Having someone attempt to murder him was hardly helpful.

  Tolly intended to ask Alvin about that, about what specifically Leigh had done to these Moretti men that had upset them so, but before he could, he noticed Alvin’s eyes drift into the distance. Tolly followed his gaze to one of the other men in the club, near their same age but slight of stature, with glasses and a sharp edge about him like his tongue would cut quick if Tolly attempted to talk to him.

  Regardless of the man’s countenance, Alvin looked at him with longing that Tolly recognized too well.

  “Is he yours?” Tolly asked, though he assumed the answer to be no.

  “I wish. Cary’s a bit of a cold fish. More the love ’em and leave ’em type,” Alvin said with a shrug, “and me, well… I’m a romantic.”

  “Your flower trick is romantic.”

  “He’d laugh in my face if I tried that.” Alvin turned on his stool to stare down at the bar.

  Tolly mirrored his posture. “But you do desire him?”

  “All the partners around here are just that… partners. Not warranted by my pops or anything, just sorta happened. We’re the only ones who aren’t.”

  “But Leigh….”

  “He’s always been a loner, that’s different. Odd number and all. Though not anymore with you around.” The playful smile Alvin afforded Tolly was encouraging, though he was concerned he might have already overstepped.

  “I worry that Leigh, too, is a… cold fish.”

  “He doesn’t mean to be,” Alvin said, as though there was a story there.

  “Did someone break his heart once?”

  “Yeah. His parents. Mom died when he was little. Dad was an asshole until he died too. Leigh’s been alone ever since. We’ve been friends for years and he still closes off sometimes. Cutie like you would be good for him.” Leaning to the side, Alvin nudged Tolly’s shoulder, but his friendly smiled turned mischievous. “I gotta ask, though. What aren’t you telling me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re hiding something about last night. Come on, you can tell me if you two shared the bed.”

  If only, but Tolly had been slow to believe the magic would work, slow to believe he would be wanted, so he had not found Leigh until morning. “We did not. I convinced Leigh to let me stay so I could watch over him. I am quite strong, I swear to you. I wish to help so that he does not take any more… swims with the fishes.”

  Alvin snorted. “Okay, but… why? You’re divine, honey, but you don’t even know Leigh.”

  Leigh had said the same. But Tolly did know him, deep in his soul. The rest, the little things, the details would only prove to make Tolly want him more once he learned them.

  “Would you believe in love at first sight?”

  “Seriously? No, I don’t believe in that. I believe in lust at first sight and love over time. You want Leigh, that’s fine by me. You saved his life. You want to love him, you gotta earn that, and it won’t be easy. Maybe you’ll change your tune after you get to know him.” Alvin was testing Tolly because he cared for his friend. Tolly appreciated that, but he knew the truth.

  “I will not. I feel it. We are a good match.”

  “Good luck, then,” Alvin said. “You’re gonna need it.”

  “It is not luck. It is faith and perseverance. Which is all you need as well.”

  “I think I need more than that.” Alvin tilted his head to look at Cary again, sitting far from the other pair in the club, who kept eyeing Tolly in open contempt despite not knowing him yet.

  “May I help?” Tolly asked.

  “Help how?”

  “You are afraid to make a wrong move but wish to know more of your partner to woo him. I do not think a ruse like in Roxanne would serve you here.”

  “You mean that Steve Martin flick where he does all the thinking and coming up with poetry but the dumb guy does all the talking?”

  “Precisely!” Tolly had seen many movies over the years, but his favorites were modern romances, which he also took as the closest to normal human life, since he recognized early that films like Star Wars were not applicable to reality. “You are hardly dumb, however. How about I befriend your quarry to find out what would work best and let you know what I discover?”

  “Not like hitting on him, though?”

  “Oh no. I would make sure my intentions are clear, that I only wish to have Leigh.”

  “You’d do that for me?”

  “I would like for us to be friends. Friends help each other, do they not?”

  Alvin snorted and patted Tolly’s back. “You got a weird way of talking, String Bean, but I like you.”

  “I am glad. But please, I would prefer that ‘String Bean’ not be a lasting nickname.”

  Alvin laughed harder.

  It was then that Leigh reappeared from the back. Everything about him from his face to his walk was visibly tenser. Tolly immediately hopped down from his stool.

  “Is everything all right?”

  “Fine,” Leigh answered curtly.

  Alvin hopped down as well, not appearing to notice Leigh’s distress. “See. Told ya Dad would fix everything.”

  “Yeah. Good ol’ Dad.”

  “You can work it off, right? He’s got a plan?”

  “He does. We’ll talk about it later. For now, I’m off the radar and playing dead as best I can. So if anyone asks….”

  “I never saw you,” Alvin said. “Really broken up about your disappearance too.”

  “Thanks, Al,” Leigh said gratefully.

  “Anytime. Be safe. And you be g
ood, Tol-man.”

  Tolly understood that as their cue to leave, to “lie low” as the saying went, so he wished Alvin well as he followed Leigh to the door. Hopefully he would get the chance to speak with Cary soon and fulfill his promise. For now, he cast the man a quick glance, but Cary sat alone at a table in the corner with an open laptop, completely engrossed in his work. Tolly saw him reach up to rub at his ear, but he otherwise gave no indication that he cared to meet Tolly’s stare or had even noticed it.

  The pair at another table, however, stood as if to stop them.

  “Hey, Hurley!” the man called. “Aren’t you gonna introduce us to your friend?”

  “Nope,” Leigh said without looking at them and grabbed Tolly’s arm to usher him out the door.

  “You were not being truthful with Alvin,” Tolly said once they were outside.

  “No, I was not.”

  “What does Arthur Sweeney wish for you to do? Will he not help you?”

  “He’ll help. But I have to prove myself first.”

  Oh. That was never a good thing, not in the movies or in Tolly’s world. “How?”

  “Well ain’t that just the least surprisin’ thing,” a gruff voice said before Leigh could respond, coming from behind them, farther down the street. “Runner Hurley coming out of Boss Sweeney’s nightclub.”

  Tolly whirled about to see two men getting out of a car. At first he worried they were Moretti men, but they wore neat suits, one with a tie, the one who had spoken without, and had detective badges hanging from their necks.

  Police and mobsters rarely got along.

  Leigh turned around much slower than Tolly had. “Detective Perez. What, a guy can’t go to a club anymore without being harassed?”

  “Like we don’t know what goes on in that place,” Perez said, burly and large and mean-looking as he approached, in contrast to the man with him, who while taller and also large, had a calm and gentler expression.

  “Now, Nick, wait a second…,” he tried.