Page 110 of When We Believed in Mermaids

She glances at me, moving into traffic smoothly. “I get it. And I am the worst. Taste this.”

I take a sip, and she’s right—it’s like a milkshake. “Too much for me.”

We ride along in the quiet until I gather my nerve and ask, “How did it go after we left?”

She shakes her head. Sips her coffee. “Simon is a proud man, and he’s cut of old-school cloth—men are meant to be men, manly and strong.” She sighs. “I have no idea what will happen.”

For the first time, I reach for her, squeeze her arm. “I’m so sorry for my part in this, Josie.”

“It’s not your fault. None of it.”

“Still. I’m sorry.”

She nods, changes lanes. “I was going to take you down to Raglan, but the surf forecast for Piha is awesome, and it’s not so far.”

“Crazy how you always know now, isn’t it?”

“Right? Just call up the reports, and Bob’s your uncle.”

I laugh. “What did you just say?”

“Bob’s your uncle, mate.” She laughs. “Best slang in the world, right here.”

“I get why you love it here. It’s amazing.”

“It is. I’m never leaving.”

It’s an overcast morning, and the traffic is heavy as she makes her way through town. The radio plays a local pop station, modern top-forty stuff. “When did you start liking pop?” I ask. She was always into the heavy-metal bands of the ’80s and ’90s, Guns N’ Roses, Pearl Jam, Nirvana and the doomed Kurt Cobain.

She shrugs, easy in herself in a way she never was back then. “Heavy metal makes too much noise in my head,” she says simply. “I start disappearing, and then I make bad choices.”

I nod.

“What do you like?”

“The same things I always have, really. Easy things to listen to.”

Her sideways smile is sly. “Like flamenco?”

The word gives me a flash of Javier playing last night, his body and the guitar becoming one thing, lighting every nerve center in my body. “I never knew I liked flamenco before, but yeah.”

“How long have you been dating Javier?”

I laugh slightly. “‘Dating’ is overstating it a bit. I just met him.”

“What?”

“Yeah, he sat down next to me the first night I got here, at this little Italian place in an alleyway by my apartment, and we struck up a conversation.”

She’s quiet for a minute. “It doesn’t look like a new relationship.”

“Again, ‘relationship’ is overstating it.”

“He looks at you like you created the earth and heavens all by yourself.”

It jolts me. “What are you talking about?”

“Are you kidding me? You don’t see it?”