Page 31 of Riding the Tide

After a shower, he dressed then spoke with the landlady, letting her know he was there and he planned to stay for a little while. He had an agreement with her—along with the rent, he also paid her a bonus for keeping an eye on his apartment since he wasn’t there all the time.

Once he’d checked in with her, he picked up a few things to tide him over for the next couple of days and returned to his apartment. He put everything up, and yawning every other breath, finally relented and returned to bed.

THE NEXT few days passed in an endless cycle of erotic dreams and binging on Netflix. Tossing his bedsheets into the washing machineagain—courtesy of yet another wet dream—he prowled around his small kitchen.

He glared at the coffeemaker silently demanding it to hurry up. Damn thing with useless. He’d dropped a pretty penny on the stupid thing and it ran slower than Christmas. He gritted his teeth.Come on, come on, come on.

He needed caffeine, and he needed it yesterday, because by God, he was tired. He slept like shit, and the stupid dreams were driving him crazy, not to mention his cock might fall off from overuse.

“Come on already!” Blair yelled at the coffeemaker, fist clenched.

The urge to toss it across the room was overpowering and… whoa. Was he seriously getting ready to beat the crap out of an inanimate object? Flabbergasted, he stared at the poor, defenseless coffeemaker. That wasn’t who he was. He wasn’t prone to such violent outbursts.

Then he cringed. Lately he’d done a lot of things that were out of the norm for him… like being such a colossal ass. He dropped onto the kitchen chair and buried his head in his hands. His temper was frayed, and he was unraveling faster than a ball of yarn.

For the past several nights his dreams consisted of him and Marcus together, making love. Sometimes Marcus had legs, sometimes he had a tail. The thought of Marcus making love to him in his merman form inflamed Blair. Or maybe it was simply the thought of Marcus. Either way he couldn’t get the merman out of his head.

“What have I done?” Blair groaned.

He panicked, pure and simple, and he couldn’t believe he did that. Looking back on it, he saw clearly what he did. Of course, he was also sitting in his apartment in New York City and not in a resort run by one of Marcus’ friends.

Why had he got it in his head Marcus was going to do something shifty? Neither he nor Brett remotely did anything to make Blair feel that way. No, he just took a thought and ran with it… and ran in the stupid direction.

He panicked, and how mortifying was that? He lived for danger, but this time he completely lost his shit. He never panicked. But there was no getting around the fact he most certainly did this go around. But that wasn’t the worst of it.

He stood Marcus up.

“He’s never going to forgive me. And why should he?” Blair lifted his head and ran his hand through his hair. How could he have done that? He knew what it felt like—how mortifying it was. “And I did that to him.”

And as bad as that was? There was the issue of him being Marcus’ mate. He didn’t understand the pull Brett tried to explain to him, but he knew what it and get hurt. Times that by hundred and he still probably wouldn’t come close to what he did to Marcus.

“Shit.”

The coffeemaker beeped, and he fixed a cup. He sipped the lifesaving brew as his thoughts circled in his head. He screwed up. There was no getting around that fact. He let his fear decide his course of action… which was running—after claiming he wouldn’t run around screaming. He was an idiot.

While there were no doubt valid concerns, he let everything get blown out of proportion. He sighed. Panic wanted to sink its icy cold grip in him again, but this time for a different reason. He refused to let that happen, so what exactly did he do now?

Marcus apparently considered Blair his mate, but hadn’t told him. So why hadn’t he? Now that Blair’s thoughts were calm, the reason was obvious. He didn’t tell him because he didn’t want Blair to panic. Which he did anyway.

He also knew Marcus must have told Brett, and Brett hadn’t realized what he let slip when he told Blair. The man ran a multimillion-dollar resort so stupid he was not. Brett probably wouldn’t have told him if he realized Blair didn’t know. It was a good guess Brett wasn’t trying to run Blair off.

And finally, would Marcus forgive him? Or had he screwed up any chance with Marcus? He set his coffee cup down. Now wasn’t that an interesting thought? He hadn’t decided what he wanted to do and here he was worrying about future chances.

“Well, obviously I want one, or I wouldn’t have thought that.”

How did one go about wooing a merman who was probably not only hurt by Blair’s actions, but also pissed off? And how pissed off was pissed off?

“Lord, what a mess.” It wasn’t as if he could Google “satisfying your merman” or look up in a magazine article about “making amends to the merman you pissed off by standing him up.” “What do what I do?”

There were no books or lectures to help him out. There was nothing. Merman didn’t exist. So…? Brooding, he stared into his coffee, the dark liquid surface… dark. His coffee was black since he didn’t normally doctor it like some people, and that darkness reminded him of a certain someone’s black hair and dark skin.

“Hell yeah!” He jumped up, hurried to his bedroom, and grabbed his laptop. “Come on, come on.” He navigated to the site he wanted and clicked through several tabs until he found what he wanted. “Yes!”

He grabbed his cell, and with fingers crossed, made the call.

YEP, THE conversation turned out to be as unpleasant as he thought it’d be. He found the number for Brett’s resort and called it directly. He tried sweet-talking whoever was on the phone, and when that didn’t work, flat out begged to talk to Brett. He finally gave the person his name and promised them Brettwouldbe very interested in speaking with him.

While he was on hold, he mused Brett probably would indeed like to speak to him… to rip him a new one for what he did. Desperation set in when Brett finally picked up the phone… and yes, the coldness in Brett’s voice left Blair shivering. He honestly didn’t think Brett was going to help him, and he finally broke.

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