Page 67 of Edge of Stars

“So I see the honeymoon has already begun. I mean, we were hedging bets on the way over—”

“And now you owe me fifty bucks,” says the second traveler down the water chute—a sight that has me sprinting down the boards as fast as my wife.

“Kell!” she screams.

“North?” I’m ecstatic about blurting my identifier too—layered, no doubt, by several octaves of bewilderment.

My best friend is really here, and really in his trademark wheelchair—only I’m watching him and it as they float atop the liquid exit ramp from Po’s conveyance. Once he glides safely onto the dock, his wheels work the way they always do, including their rubbery fwooks as he pops back and executes a full turn.

“I’d yell surprise, dude, but your junk is a serious vibe killer.” With a twisted expression, he whips his face away. I laugh, not blaming him for repositioning his chair by the same degree. “Now are you glad I suggested we stop in the changing rooms at the sanctuary?” he levels at Kell.

“Should’ve known better than to argue,” she replies good-naturedly. “But you’re still not getting more than those fifty bucks. And do not ogle my sister.”

To her, Jesse’s all about the cocky chuff and the roguish grin. But beneath his breath, so low it’s not even intended for my ears, he’s a much different person. Someone I haven’t seen since he crushed on Ramona Stacey our whole eighth grade year.

“Wasn’t your sister I was looking at, starfighter.”

There’s no ground for me to stand on for even half a groan, considering the very bare necessities of the moment. But inwardly I dogear the observation. It will be revisited when I’m alone—and clothed—with the idiot.

Damn it, Jesse.

Out loud, my mouth already has sharper axes to throw. “Oh, fuck it all. Seriously?” Four of them, to be exact—which I struggle to wind around more profanities as soon as the bubble gives up another occupant.

Between the sluicing sides of the aquacraft’s departure door, it’s not my uncle who steps forward. There are similarities, like the messy mix of ginger and blond hair as well as the towering stature and graceful arrogance, but at the point where Po would check his ego, my father’s grows on. And on.

“Hmmm.” He strolls out onto the dock as if he owns everything he surveys plus the whole island beyond. “Not bad, brother. Not bad at all.”

“An opinion I didn’t ask for nor care about.” My uncle stops to hurl the words when he’s only halfway out of the bubble, his form rising up and down by gradual inches on the waters that support him.

He can have the swells. I’m claiming the waves. Massive ones that hit the shores of my psyche from right and left, alternating sets between disbelief and rage.

“And why isn’t that one hitting like you wish it would?”

The retort barely clears my lips than Poseidon is clearing the last three feet of the water ramp with a lithe leap. But that’s not the move feeding my highest irritation. That comes from his expression, continuing a stare at me that evokes a politician who’s gotten away with fraud. Wise enough to take the allegation seriously without copping to the lock-me-up-now smirk.

“Maximus. I know what this looks like.”

“A lie?” I cock my head. “That the word you’re looking for? Though let me know if that one’s already been used in this party game. I can get you a bigger list. Deception. Fiction. Lip service. Whopper order. I like them all, especially when it comes to gods who promise one thing, like the literal implementation of a concept called Velo but deliver on another entirely.”

His nostrils flare. “You think I let him ride along because he offered good snacks? Listen to m—”

“You told us we’d be hidden here, from all of them! Especially from Hecate and him!”

My father tsks past his expressionless mouth. “And I thought you only make odd oaths like that when you want to get in your sirens’ gills.”

I pierce him with a glare. “Not the time for a Golden Girls moment, Daddio.”

“Not the time for a Playgirl one either, stud. So can you put that thing away so we can all access a much-needed hive mind here?”

Kara jolts. Not by much but enough that I swing up a hand to wordlessly request her restraint.

“This isn’t over,” I grumble while jabbing legs into the joggers that Jesse’s fished out of his chair’s side bag. “Damn it, Po. You waxed poetic about why you named this place. How Kara and I would be cloaked until we decided when to leave.”

“You’re right. I did.” The apologetic overtone is more effort than expected, considering how the bastard has jettisoned every shred of his cordiality from ten hours ago. That means I’m really struggling to field the curve ball of his follow-up mutter. “But there are bigger decisions to face now.”

“Huh?”

I hate how it’s the only thing I can find to say. It feels marginally better when Po doesn’t have anything to fling in return. He opts for standing there, more discomfited than before, just twirling his trident half a circle one way then back the next. And now I’m wishing it was all only monarchal posturing.