My shoulder drooped. “I’m sorry, Speedy.”
She stopped her pacing and studied us for several moments. “I’ll take your sorry. But so you know, I’m going to be mad at you,” her glare slid to the other two. "At all of you. For at least three days.”
I blinked, not expecting this reaction. Usually when a girl was mad, they would throw a fit like a toddler. Waving their arms and screeching like a banshee. Actually, I had expected her to bolt and we would have had to chase her down. But instead she stood, quietly fuming, her mind running a mile a minute.
Finally, she sighed and softly said, "This isn’t the first time we’ve been found out. It happened a few times in the early days, but it’s been several years since the last incident. Usually we would be packing our bags and ditching town before you could even finish making your morning coffee. But…well, things have clearly changed.”
“Why the fake names? Are you in Witness Protection or something?” I asked.
“Not technically. But I’m not really up to talking about it right now, okay?”
“Atalanta—” Theseus began.
“You need to understand,” she interrupted. “The fact that I’m not burning this name and hopping on the next bus out of here is hard enough. This has been my life for almost ten years. It’s going to take more than a pretty smile to get me to tell you everything.”
Theseus nodded slowly. “Fair enough.”
“You wanted one truth?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m really scared about what’s going to happen. I don’t know what I’ll do if my trouble ends up at your doorsteps. But something tells me that if I stick with you guys, it’s going to turn out okay.”
We all smiled warmly at that. It was a bit cheesy for my taste, but it still made little flutters in my stomach. When no one said anything for a solid minute, I knew I needed to break this weird mix of warm and fuzzy yet also uncomfortable atmosphere.
I snorted. “That’s a boring truth. I was hoping for something like…you pick your nose when no one is looking.”
She scrunched her nose. “Very mature.”
I shrugged. “Just doing my job.”
Jason jabbed me in the ribs and I started laughing.
Theseus walked up to Atalanta and wrapped his arms around her, his nose nuzzling into her hair. “Will you forgive us for snooping?”
She tugged on his shirt collar and dragged him to face her and grumbled. “I said three days.”
“Awe, come on. How can you be mad at me? Your favorite cripple.” He grinned.
She scoffed and shook her head. “That’s messed up and you know it.”
I walked up to her other side and hugged her as well. “And you think he’s the sweet one. Just you wait till you see how messed up he can be.”
“You’re one to talk.” Jason snorted.
I glanced over at him and saw jealousy in his eyes. Keeping my gaze locked on his, I hugged Atalanta closer to me and watch that spark turn into a small flame. I basked in satisfaction before I remembered that we were supposed to be on a truce. I let go of Atalanta and backed away from her, sliding my hands into hers.
I smirked and leaned in to whisper in Atalanta’s ear. “You may be mad, but it seems you trust us a bit more now.”
She looked down at her now human hands, her smile widening as she slipped her hands out of mind and studied the short fingernails.
Jason came closer. "Well, would you look at that.”
“We’ll be able to go inside now.” Theseus said.
Atalanta looked at the three of us. “I’ve never been to the aquarium before.”
Jason took her hand and pulled her towards the large blue building in front of us. The parking lot was full of cars and there were a few people trickling in and out of the large glass doors I could see in the distance. Theseus had parked us pretty far in the back, which had played to our advantage.
Inside was relatively crowded as the atrium had booths lined up along the edges. Scanning them, I saw that they mostly were from the local college. Students running the booths were handing out pamphlets and bracelets saying things like Save the Sea Turtles and Coral for the Homeless. A few of them were selling trinkets, but most of them were just giving information on sea life and charities people could donate to.
I stopped in front of a booth that was run by the aquarium and selling stuffed animal from the gift shop. It had a large colorful banner on the front of it saying, “Adopt a Sea Buddy!”. I glanced over my shoulder to see the others checking out a booth that talked about the importance of getting rid of the plastic in our ocean. I scrunched my nose as I remembered the many times I had pulled fishing line off of sea life. Turning back to the booth in front of me, I spied a turtle.
Picking it up, I liked how squishy it was. Stuffed animals nowadays were too stiff for my liking. The turtle was about as large as a basketball and covered in soft faux fur. It was cute, its green flippers hanging at its sides, making it look really cuddly. The eyes were really lopsided though, and it had a tear in one of the flippers. A factory defect on top of being damaged.
“How much?” I asked, looking up at the girl who was covering the booth.
Close to my age with curls of blond, she was staring at me with a familiar expression. Eyes glazed over, cheeks flushed with heat, mouth slightly open. I watched as her eyes moved slowly up and down my body.
I coughed to try to get her attention and smothered my grin when she snapped her mouth shut and spluttered.
“I’m sorry. I seemed to have spaced out. How can I help you?”
Yes. ‘Spaced out' was a good cover word for checking me out.
“That’s alright. I can’t imagine you find too much excitement here on a normal day.” I held up the turtle. “How much?”
She began to twirl her dirty blond locks around her finger. “Yeah, it can get pretty boring. Today isn’t too bad, though. Um, that one is $34.”
I winced internally as I pulled out my wallet. They wanted to charge that much for a defected toy? I reminded myself that places like this always jacked up prices.
I opened my wallet to check inside. I only had a twenty. All the cash I had saved up from the market went to the new helmet I got Atalanta.
I sighed and put down the turtle. Oh, well.
I gave my best flirtatious smile to the clerk. “Seems this buddy won’t be finding a home today, at least not with me. Thank you for your time.”
The clerk’s smile fell into a pout and looked as if she were about to say something but I just gave her a wink and walked away.
I walked up to the others, who were still standing at the booth from before.
“Hey, find anything interesting?” Atalanta asked.
“I did, but it wasn’t in the cards for me.” I sighed dramatically.
She frowned. “And here I thought you were one to always be able to get what you wanted.”
I smirked and a few moments later, I felt a tap on my shoulder. Turning around, I looked down at the clerk.
“Here.” She held up a bag for me. “Since he’s defective, no one would have bought him. Maybe he can go home with you today, after all.”
I smiled wide and took the bag from her. “Thank you. I think he’ll be well loved.”
She leaned over and whispered in my ear. "My number’s in the bag. Call me some time.”
With a wink, she walked away, her body swaying with purpose.
I turned back to Atalanta, who stared at me, eyebrow cocked and lips thin.
I grinned and held up the bag. “I guess you’re right.”
The guys were glaring daggers at me.
“Did you just—”
“Right in front of Atalanta? Dude, not cool.”