Pretty in Pearls: A Forgive My Fins Novella (HarperTeen Impulse) by Tera Lynn Childs Read Free Book Online Page A

around the counter . . . and sees me waiting there.
    “Peri.” He obviously didn’t expect to see me back here anytime soon.
    You and me both.
    “I need to pick up a selection for my mom,” I explain, so he doesn’t get the wrong idea and think I’m here to beg him to date me, or something equally stupid.
    “Right.” He shakes his head, like he has to remind himself to be professional. “I’ll help you as soon as I get Mr. Zafra checked out.”
    I cross my arms and float against the counter, determined not to notice how kind he’s being to the elderly man. Or how the silver shells in his hair sparkle in the filtered sunlight. Or how his smile—and the shallow dimples in his cheeks—seem totally genuine. I am not interested in noticing anything worth admiring.
    When Mr. Zafra has paid and swum off, another customer approaches Riatus. He puts her off. “Just let me help Peri,” he tells her. “Her order will only take a moment.”
    The woman nods and goes back to browsing.
    When Riatus turns back to face me, his cheeks are slightly pink and he doesn’t quite look me in the eye. “How many does your mom need?”
    “Two thousand.”
    “What colors?”
    I hand him the list Mom wrote up. He gets to work, gathering a hundred in one shade, three hundred in another. I keep my eyes on the stall floor.
    He swims back over and waves the list in front of my face.
    “What does that last item say?” he asks. “I can’t make it out.”
    I glance at the paper. Now it’s my turn to blush. “Copper. Fifty copper seed pearls.”
    Which is not actually what the note says. Mom wrote Fifty Peri seed . Those must be for my dress, copper to match my tail fin. She’s been very secretive about the design.
    A moment later, Riatus has the whole order collected and bagged. I join him at the cash register.
    “You got home okay the other night?”
    The question completely throws me off my guard. I’m trying to keep this professional—nothing but business, like the incident at the edge of the forest never happened. He can’t ask me about that night. He just can’t.
    “Yes,” I answer.
    “Good,” he says. “I was worried about you.”
    Even though his attention is focused on totaling up the order, I shrug in response. I don’t care if he doesn’t see it.
    He starts to punch numbers into the register. “I wanted to apologize.”
    “There’s nothing to apologize for.”
    “I think there is.” He looks up. “I wish I could—”
    “Excuse me,” a male customer asks, swimming up next to me. “Miss, may I borrow your opinion?”
    “Mine?” I gesture at my chest.
    “I need some advice.”
    He holds up two strands of classic white pearls. The strand in his left hand is made up of large-diameter pearls, more valuable and ostentatious than the other, smaller-diameter strand. Most mermen would go for the bigger pearls—the bigger, the better. But there is something to be said for understated elegance.
    “Personally,” I reply, “I would choose the more delicate strand.”
    His face scrunches up like he’s surprised by my response. “Not what I expected,” he say. “But you are obviously a mergirl of impeccable taste.”
    He winks at me and then swims off to put the larger strand back.
    When I turn back to the register, Riatus looks annoyed. What did I do?
    Then I realize he’s not looking at me; he’s looking at the other customer. Okay, what did he do? You know what, I don’t even care. I just want to get out of here before my luck flows south again.
    “What’s my total?”
    He ignores the cash register. “Peri, we need to talk.”
    I don’t think so. He did plenty of talking the other night. I’m pretty much all talked out right now.
    “Sorry,” I say, even though I’m not. “I’m in a hurry.”
    He scowls. “It will only take a minute.”
    “No matter how much I might want to”—how does he like hearing those words?— “right now I just can’t.”
    His jaw muscles tighten and his gaze