A Mermaid's Kiss

by Katie Holland

  Several hours later, Bodie jumped up and said, “Gotcha, you bastard.”

  “You found him?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Do you know anyone named Wesley Lawrence?”

  “The name isn’t familiar. Is there a picture or something else to go on?”

  “Give me a minute,” he told me.

  Bodie went back to typing, and a few minutes later, he had everything we needed to know.

  “Son of a bitch,” I said, when I saw who it was. “You up for a road trip in the morning?”

  “Sure. But can we get a little sleep first.”

  “Yeah, just remember to bring your laptop so we can prove to Kayleigh who did this.”

  Chapter 45

  Kayleigh

  Despite everything that happened yesterday, I was feeling really good about the meet today. I’d heard nothing more from Major. I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad, but I wasn’t going to let it affect my performance.

  We’d walked over to the swimming center as a team. I noticed Wes look at me several times. He probably wondered if I was mentally stable today or not. Being on the swim team was my way to a college education. I wasn’t going to let anything or anyone get in the way of that.

  We warmed up while we waited for the heats to begin. Karma and I both had our headphones on so we could get into our competition zone. As usual, I focused on the music and blocked everything else out. I was pumped and anxious to start competing.

  By the end of the day, I’d had one of my best competitions and Coach Cross was really happy with me. I’d managed to get a lot of points for our team. Karma and I had finished showering and were just getting dressed, when another woman on my team addressed me.

  “Hey Kayleigh, your boyfriend’s outside waiting for you,” she said.

  “Huh? Who? I don’t have a boyfriend.”

  “He just said to tell you that Major is waiting for you.”

  “Oh, okay thanks,” I said. “What is he doing here?” I looked at Karma.

  “Only one way to find out. Let’s go see what he wants,” she said.

  We quickly finished getting dressed and left the locker room. Sure enough, Major was out there and Bodie was with him.

  “Um hi?” I said. “What are you doing here Major?”

  “I know who was messing with you. We figured it out last night.”

  “We?” Bodie said with a smile.

  “Fine. Bodie found the guy.”

  I started to say something about Bodie knowing, but Major beat me to it.

  “Bodie is a computer hacker from hell, Kayleigh. If we were going to track the link I needed Bodie to do it.”

  “Kayleigh,” Bodie said, “you’re secret is safe with me. Besides, whatever this is between you two is making Major a better person.” He grinned at me while Major punched him on the arm.

  “Anyway,” Major continued, “we know who it is.”

  “The suspense is killing me,” Karma said. “Spit it out.”

  “First, I need to talk to your coaches,” he said.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I need to know if you can ride back with us, or you have to go on the bus.”

  “Okay. Mine’s right over there,” I said, pointing out Coach Cross to him.

  “I’ll be right back,” Major said.

  Karma and I gave each other a confused look. We watched Major talk to my coach. It looked like it was taking some convincing to let us drive back with Major. A couple of minutes later, he was back.

  “Your coach said it was okay if you rode back with us as long as we followed the bus and he’s going to pass on the message to your coach, Karma. Technically, the school is responsible for you until you get back to Bay State, but I was able to use my charm to allow you girls to ride with us. So are you two ready to go?”

  We nodded. I was still unsure of what was going on. Why wouldn’t he just tell me? The four of us walked out to the parking lot and waited while Major moved his truck and parked it behind the bus. It was several minutes before the bus started moving and we followed them out.

  “I can’t wait anymore,” I said, as we hit the highway. “What did you find out?”

  “Bodie,” Major said, “show her what you found.”

  “It took me most of the night to trace the source of the original link. It was well hidden in a lot of mess, but I finally found the person who created it. Here, see for yourself.”

  Bodie handed me his laptop and I was shocked at what I saw on the screen.

  “Wes?” I whispered.

  “Let me see,” Karma said, so I turned it to show her. “That motherfucker. I’ll kill him.”

  “You read my mind,” Major said.

  “I owe you an apology, Major,” I told him.

  “No, you don’t, Kayleigh. You had every reason to believe it was me since that’s how he made it look. If it weren’t for Bodie there’s no way I’d have been able to prove it to you.”

  “I understand now why you waited to tell me until we were alone. I would have made a huge scene at the pool.”

  “I would have ripped his balls off,” Karma said, making me smile and the boys wince. “What are we going to do about this?”

  “Nothing for now,” Major said. Karma started to say something, but he stopped her. “We need to find the right way to handle this without any of us getting kicked out of school.”

  “But what about other people reading the texts?” I asked. That was my primary concern at the moment.

  It was Bodie that answered. “The only people that saw the link are us and Wes. He lied when he said other people had received it. I also fixed it so that if he does send it to anyone and they click on it, they’ll be taken to a dummy site that goes to nothing.”

  “Thank you, Bodie,” I said relieved. “I really didn’t want my private thoughts out there for the world to see.”

  “Anytime Kayleigh. Actually, if you give me your phone I’ll put an app on it that will alert you to anyone trying to get into your phone. I already put it on Major’s.”

  “Oh sure. Here.” I handed him my phone. He gave it back a couple of minutes later. “What do I do if I see an alert?”

  “Call Major and we’ll deal with it. Okay?”

  “Okay. Thanks, Bodie.”

  I spent the next few hours mostly listening to everyone talk. I chimed in every once and a while, but my thoughts were generally about what Wes had done. I couldn’t understand it. I thought he was my friend. We’d been eating lunch together three times a week for over a month. Was he plotting this the whole time? I didn’t know what I was going to do the next time I saw him.

  It was late when we got back to the University. Major and Bodie walked us all the way to our room. I think it was to make sure that Wes didn’t try to talk to me. It sucked that we lived in the same building. I was already thinking of ways to avoid him. I knew that if I saw him right now I would lose it, and I really didn’t want to make a scene in front of other people.

  The boys said goodnight and made sure we locked the door. Karma and I plopped down on the couch.

  “What the hell,” Karma said.

  “Exactly.”

  “Wes seemed like a nice guy. But obviously, he’s a little stalkerish.”

  “No shit. Why me Karma?”

  “I don’t have a good answer for that sweetie. The only thing I can think of is that you’re too nice.”

  I raised my eyebrows at her.

  “What? I’m not sure what else to tell you. It probably has nothing to do with you actually. It’ll be something in his mind that’s not right.”

  “So you’re saying I attract crazy?”

  “It’s a possibility,” Karma said grinning at me.

  I hit her with a pillow when there was a knock on the door. Karma got up to see who it was. She looked through the peephole and turned back to me.

  “It’s Wes,” she mouthed at me.

  I mouthed “no” back at her and shook my head. I went to my room as quietly as I c
ould. I left the door open just a crack so I could hear what they said.

  “What do you want?” Karma said, opening the door. I could tell just by her voice that she wanted to hurt him.

  “Um … is Kayleigh here?”

  “She’s sleeping. Something was bothering her and she didn’t sleep much last night.”

  “Oh, um, okay. I guess I’ll see her tomorrow.”

  “Bye,” Karma said, and shut the door in his face.

  I opened my bedroom door and went to look out the peephole to make sure he was gone. Thankfully he was.

  “Now that guy, he’s definitely a twat waffle,” Karma said, sitting back on the couch.

  I giggled, I couldn’t help it. I always thought it was funny when she said twat waffle.

  “I’m impressed. You showed great restraint not punching him in the face,” I told her.

  “You bet your ass I did. I wanted to kick him in the balls. No one hurts my Kayleigh,” she said fiercely.

  “Awww, I love you too, Karma.”

  “How are you really feeling about this?” she asked me.

  “I think I’m more confused than anything. I don’t get why he would do that. What would the point be?”

  “Maybe he’s one of those guys that likes to rescue the damsel in distress.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He tells you something that he knows will upset you and hopes that you’ll turn to him for comfort?”

  “That’s just weird,” I told her.

  “I agree, but then again not everyone is as awesome as we are.” Karma grinned at me and I had to smile back.

  “What would I do without you?”

  “You’d be a lost little sheep with no friends and terrible taste in clothes.”

  I laughed. “Good thing you’re here then.”

  We both went to bed a little while later. It was late, and I was tired from the competition. Luckily, we didn’t have practice tomorrow, so I could sleep as late as I wanted.

  Chapter 46

  Major

  “I don’t like leaving her in that dorm with him so close,” I said to Bodie, when we left Kayleigh’s building.

  “She’ll be fine man, and she’s got Karma to protect her. That girl can be scary sometimes.”

  I had to smile at that. I knew Karma would do anything to protect Kayleigh, and I was really glad that Kayleigh had her.

  “I know, but I still don’t like the fact that they live in the same building. What are we going to do about him?” I asked.

  “Well I have an idea, but I’m not sure you’re going to like it,” Bodie said.

  “Why wouldn’t I like it?’

  “Because it doesn’t involve you kicking his ass. The last thing you need is to get in trouble for fighting or something like that. He’d be the type of guy to report you and make himself look innocent.”

  “So what’s your idea?”

  “We get him kicked out of school in the same way he tried to hurt Kayleigh.”

  I gave him a questioning look.

  “I already have all the information I need to pretend to be him online. He’s an IT major so everyone will believe he has the skills to do what I’m planning.”

  “And what exactly are you planning?”

  “I’m going to hack into the school grading system and give him grades that’ll be noticed by his professors. I also plan to send some nasty emails to female students in his name. There’s no way it won’t go unnoticed.”

  “You’re a devious son of a bitch. I’m glad you’re on my side.”

  Bodie grinned at me. This was going to be fun for him and help Kayleigh all at the same time.

  “When are you going to do this?”

  “Tonight. That way we’ll have a lot of angry women come Monday morning and once they start looking into him, they’ll be sure to find the grades. Poof, they kick him out of school just like that.”

  “Are you sure this can’t come back at you?”

  “I’m way better than that. Everything will only show his name and IP address. They’ll never be able to trace it back to me.”

  “Fine, I just don’t want you to get in any kind of trouble.”

  “It’ll be all good,” he told me.

  “Alright. Do your thing. Just let me know if you need anything from me.”

  “Actually,” Bodie said, “You can write some of the things for the emails. Just think of anything that would get you kicked in the balls or slapped in the face.”

  I nodded. I could be an asshole when I wanted, and had a pretty crude mouth at times. This was something I could do. Bodie handed me a notebook and a pen and I started writing.

  About an hour later, I had a long list of things that would get me killed if I actually said them to a woman. I handed them to Bodie.

  “You really are an asshole,” he said with a grin after reading a few of them. “This is great. There will be some pissed off chicks tomorrow.”

  “How can you be sure they’ll report him and not just find him and kick his ass?”

  “I’ve planned ahead my friend. I’m also going to forward some of the emails to the Dean’s office so that it seems like they’re reporting him.”

  “And you say I’m an asshole.”

  “You are, but so am I. At least this time it’s being put to good use.”

  I watched as Bodie started typing on his computer. I was good with computers, but he was ten times better than I was. I never got into the hacking thing. I’d rather build a new computer or design software. His hands flew over the keyboard as he worked. Things popped up on the screen so fast I wasn’t sure he was even reading them. He got into the email system and started sending nasty emails to random women. Even I cringed at some of the things I’d written. Then he easily got into the grading system. He adjusted Wes’s grades so that he had a 4.0 average. It was past 2 am when Bodie finally closed his laptop.

  “There,” he said. “Now all we can do is wait.

  “You’re sure this will work?”

  “Positive.”

  “What do we tell the girls?”

  “I included them in the emails so you might want to talk to Kayleigh first thing in the morning. I don’t want her to get more upset. But, talk to her in person. We can’t have any evidence of this on our phones or laptops.”

  “Okay. Thank you, Bodie.”

  “Anytime man.” He let out a big yawn. “I'm beat. It’s time for me to crash.”

  Bodie went to his room and I did the same thing. I knew it was late, but I wanted to let Kayleigh know I had to talk to her. I decided a text would be best.

  Me: I need to talk to you. It’s about the incident. Call me as soon as you wake up.

  I hoped that she understood what I was talking about and that I didn’t give away too much. I stripped out of my clothes and got into bed. I read back through some of our texts. I was pretty sure she didn’t really have a clue about how much she affected me. She’d managed to hold my attention like no one had before. She was a mix of innocence and sexiness that I found irresistible. She said she wasn’t very good at talking about sex, but her texts told me otherwise.

  Just reading through some of our messages was enough to get my dick twitching. And when I thought back to when I came for her in the bathroom of that frat house, I was instantly hard. That was still one of the hottest things I’d ever done, and we didn’t even have sex. I started to imagine what sex with her would be like as I stroked my dick until I came.

  * * *

  My phone ringing woke me up the next morning.

  “Hello?” I said, without even looking at the screen. I heard a giggle on the other end that told me it was Kayleigh.

  “Hi. Did I wake you up?”

  “Yeah, but it’s okay. What time is it?”

  “8:30.”

  “Don’t you ever sleep in?”

  “This is sleeping in for me. I’m usually up at 5:30, remember.”

  “That’s too fucking early.”

  “You
made it seem like it was important to call you. Is everything okay?” she asked.

  “Yes. I just need to talk to you before …” I paused not sure what to say exactly.

  “Major?”

  “Uh, yeah. I just need to talk to you, so don’t do anything until I get there. I’m going to get dressed and come right over.”

  “Okay,” she said, sounding a little suspicious.

  “See you in a few minutes.”

  I hung up and got dressed. I made a quick stop in the bathroom and practically ran to Kayleigh’s room. Less than five minutes after her call, I was knocking on her door. I wasn’t expecting the sight that greeted me when she opened it. She was still in her pajamas, if you could call them that. She was wearing a pair of tight shorts and a matching t-shirt.

  “Major, are you okay?” she asked me.

  I realized I was just standing there staring at her and hadn’t said anything yet.

  “You really shouldn’t answer the door like that,” I told her.

  She gave me a confused look.

  “Why aren’t you dressed?” I asked her.

  “You said to not do anything until you got here, so I didn’t.”

  “Oh. I meant, never mind. But can you please do me a favor and put more clothes on.”

  “Don’t you like my sleeping attire?”

  “I like it a little too much. Please go put more clothes on. I’ll wait right here for you.”

  “Okay.”

  I watched her walk to her room and was willing my dick to stop noticing that a little bit of her ass was showing at the bottom of her shorts. I needed to do something to distract me, so I went to the little kitchenette and made myself a cup of coffee. When it was ready, I made one for Kayleigh as well. She was back a few minutes later in leggings and an oversized sweater.

  “Better?” she asked.

  “No, but at least I can’t see your ass anymore.”

  I watched as her cheeks turned a little pink, but not like they used to. I knew I could still make her whole face red with just a few words. Maybe I’d do that later. Right now I was here for a reason. I handed her a cup of coffee and we sat on the couch.