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“It’s a leopard seal, Ethan. Not a selkie,” he said patiently, as he would to a toddler. “And it’s dead because animals that get caught in bad weather sometimes die.” Ethan patted his cheek. “Sure, yeah. So, the next time you’re caught in bad weather and someone plops you on my doorstep, I’ll cash in your life insurance and call it a day. How’s that sound?” Peter winced. “You’re impossible.”
As it turned out, marriage wasn’t exactly what everyone made it out to be. It was coexisting in the same place, building bridges when arguments landed like grenades, worrying ceaselessly about each other, being irrevocably consumed by each other. Marriage in the fiscal sense? Simple. Money could be made and tracked and divided. Marriage in the lifetime sense? Complicated. Because love was indomitable, but it could be lost and ruined and squandered.
“I would’ve bled every drop of magic to bring you back. I would’ve killed to bring you back. That selkie got a small taste of me; you were given the opportunity to take all of me. There’s your difference, darling. If that botched ritual had called for a sacrifice, I would’ve slit the first throat within reach. Surely, you’re aware I wouldn’t do the same for a seal.”
They slept partially tangled, as they did most nights, with the ocean at their window, shushing and singing.
It was a heady type of missing when you missed a person you already belonged to. Loneliness knotted in his chest. He had someone. Loved someone. Honored vows with someone. But he missed the desire, missed being lusted after.
He was absolutely, no-questions-asked positive the creature—selkie or not—was hurt. Badly, if he had to guess. And if it wanted to swim, to survive, it’d need tending to. “Stupid water dog,” Ethan mumbled and rinsed his hands.
Ethan leaned backward, glancing between them. “Anyway, I’m his partner—hello, again—yes, me, the one who breathed life into your lifeless body.” He gave a sarcastic, little wave. “Peter happens to captain a fishing rig, and you happened to swim into his net. And by the good grace of Hecate, he happens to have a witch for a spouse. So, let’s all take a breath and be thankful to know one another.”
Instead, he’d been caught in Captain Vásquez’s net—a man who would mistake a selkie for a leopard seal, drag the poor thing home, and cry when it refused to wake up.
“Absolutely nothing. I know what sorrow sounds like, though.” Nico’s voice weakened, gentled even. “I’m not sure what you’ve done to me, what your magic’s done to me. But I don’t think I can handle ever hearing you like that again. The fruit helps. I’ve seen as such. So, let’s go get you some.”
Magic made threads, though, and theirs had formed a stubborn knot.
“I don’t get you,” Nico said haughtily. “I almost took your hand off; I don’t know how to speak to you; I put a knife to your throat. Why bother with me? What am I to you?” “An asshole with no manners,” Ethan mumbled. He wiped the knife with a rag and slid it back into the cutlery block.
The butcher wrapped the bacon in white paper and handed it over. “Anything else, Mr. Vásquez?” Ethan hadn’t taken Peter’s last name, but the sentiment still floated around town. Sometimes Peter was Shaw; most of the time Ethan was Vásquez.
“You probably have a bit of amnesia. It’ll pass.” Ethan waved his hand dismissively. “Besides, you’re our very rude, very broody guest.” Nico huffed. “You’re tiny and awful. You know that, right?” “I do.”
An unexpected smile crept to his face. Maybe it was the bag squished against his chest, or the familiarity blooming between him and the hostile selkie that’d washed onto his shore, or the attention Peter had given him this morning. Maybe he was feeling a type of relief he’d never experienced, or maybe the scent of the fruit had calmed his nerves, or maybe he’d needed to give himself another outlet, another way to revisit the idea of creation, parenthood, life.
Where hope trembled like an arrow ready to loose, fear stripped away his armor. Left him bare and easy to hurt.
Peter leaned forward and took a slice with his teeth, nipping Ethan’s fingertips. “Weird,” he said while he chewed and furrowed his brow. “Reminds me of a funny grape. Like, a sour one you get on New Year’s for a bad month, you know?” “What?” Nico asked, then mumbled, “Thank you,” under his breath as Peter handed him a drink. “Las doce uvas de la suerte?” Peter frowned, sighing patiently. “Bad luck not to eat grapes on New Year’s Eve,” he said, like a parent would to a child. “You eat one every minute for the first twelve minutes of the new year. Each grape represents a month. The grapes
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“Ethan tells me you’re quite a fisherman,” Nico said. Peter snorted, grinning sheepishly. “I caught you, didn’t I?” At that, Nico’s blush worsened, and Ethan drained the rest of his whiskey.
That’s what’s wrong with me. I’m utterly unhinged.
“You’re a menace,” Ethan hissed. “And you’re a coward.” “How dare you—” It was then that Nico kissed him.
“You’re not a coward,” he said, defeated. “You’re kind and smart and good, and you scare me. That’s all.”
“You’re the love of my life, Ethan Shaw,” he whispered, poking at a carrot in the bottom of his bowl. “That’ll never change.” Ethan’s heart lurched. You perfect idiot, he thought and met Peter’s dulce-brown eyes. “And you’re mine, Peter Vásquez. Even when you bring home dead seals.” “Handsome seals,” Peter corrected.
“What?” Nico barked. “Easy, darling. Everything’s fine,” Ethan said. Darling. He’d never used the term for anyone except Peter and Miranda’s half-feral housecat.
Ethan almost said yes, but he remembered Nico’s fertility recommendations—stay off caffeine—and shook his head. He couldn’t revolve his life around possibility, chance, lost time. Couldn’t keep himself trapped in the same toxic mental cycle. Maybe this month, maybe next month, maybe a year from now. If I lift my legs higher, if I stay on my back, if I eat healthier. But this maybe, this if seemed insignificant compared to the rest. Something he could try without heartache, like eating the snow plum.
And perhaps a part of him would always try. He knew the bottlenecked fear he’d carried for years had driven him into a spiral, but how does a witch rework a ritual he’d never paid attention to? How does someone snap a heartbreaking habit in half?
But the deadly, daring beast that’d raged inside their garden shed was gone, and Nico Locke was lovingly tame.
Here we are. Alive and breathing, loved and safe. Here I am. Held and holding life. Holding life.
