“No, it was honest,” Lani said. “It’s only fair that we give you a bit of honesty in return. We’ve never, uh, just picked up a random guy to pin to the sand, never even felt the urge to until today. You’re different. The problem is, we can be a bit territorial, so if we take things in the direction we all seem to want this to go, you might find yourself stuck with us.”
“The kind of stuck that requires medical intervention, or the kind that means U-Hauls in driveways and long, drawn-out debates on whose artwork goes where,” Kekoa shot back. “Not that I have any artwork or enough stuff to fit in a U-Haul, since I’ve made an art form out of traveling light, but you get my meaning. Hope it’s not a disappointment that I don’t really have anything that will require you to rearrange half your house.”
“Doesn’t bother me any,” I said. “The part that truly snagged my attention the other night was when you said you’d relocated to the island for good.”
“Do jellyfish get bondmarks?” Lani blurted, thank fuck for that, and his impatience because it was past time to stop tap dancing around the elephant in the sand.
“We do not, at least not the way you guys do,” they explained. “When we bond with our mates, our colors change in our jellyfish forms, lightening so we’re not as vivid and thus attractive to potential mates. Our hair changes to match, though it never changes enough to match human tones.”
“Yeah, um, about that?” I said, gesturing towards his long, wavy brown locks. “Why doesn’t your hair match your jellyfish form?”
“Because having purple and green hair attracts too much attention.”
“So…the color change is how you know,” Lani asked. “But you can’t know in this form because your hair is dyed.”
“Pretty much,” Kekoa said.
“So, when you say bond, what does that entail?” I asked.
“Just, um, you know, kind of what we’ve been doing all morning,” they explained. “Hanging out, vibing, sharing good eats and ridiculous stories. I’m guessing you asked because something has changed with the marks on your wrists.”
“You could say that,” Lani said, holding his wrist out so Kekoa could see the changes in our bondmark.
“It’s not half-formed anymore,” they muttered as they studied it.
“Nope, it’s just about whole,” Lani said as Kekoa reached out until their fingers hovered over it, though they didn’t touch.
“It’s okay if you touch it,” Lani said, peering up at them. “In fact, I’d like it if you did. Maybe it will help with the whole bonding process.”
“You’re certain it’s me?” They asked, still hesitant to touch.
“You’re the only new person we’ve met?” I explained, “And earlier, when you were touching us, riding on us, there was something intensely intimate about it.”
“I felt it too,” Kekoa admitted as they finally traced the marks on Lani’s wrist. “I thought it was just the rush of getting to enjoy the feel of someone else, but this makes it so much more.”
“Yeah, it does,” I said. “You kind of get to decide for all of us how we proceed from here.”
“What are the options?” they asked. “Is there something you need me to do?”
“Just, um, don’t go ghost on us or anything,” I said. “Right now, with us just getting to know each other, spending time together is super important, unless you, um, aren’t interested in being our mate.”
“Oh, I’m interested,” they replied. “And I have no intention of ghosting you, but I have no idea how these things are supposed to work out. Like, you two already live together.Would you want me to move in? Would we maintain separate households? Is there some kind of ceremony to make it official? I can invite my siblings, but it might take some planning since they are scattered all over the place. I told you about my folks, so there won’t be a shovel talk in your future. I just, I’ve never known anyone who had a mate that wasn’t the same species, so I’m completely lost over here.”
“What, um, happened to your folks?” I asked. “I know you said they’d passed, and I’m guessing it was sudden.”
“It was a skiing accident of all things,” Kekoa replied. “Like seriously, I never understood how a pair of jellyfish could be so in love with the cold, but they were caught in an avalanche while on one of their ski vacations. They loved lodge weekends, especially my mom; she had this whole ski bunny vibe going on and constantly sent photos of them in their snowsuits with a mountain of the white fluffy stuff behind them. It was just their thing.”
“I’m sorry,” Lani said. “It can’t be easy moving on after that.”
“No, it wasn’t; let’s just say that my siblings and I hadn’t strayed too far from the nest at that point,” they replied. “I mean, we’d all moved out and all, but we were still in Santa Monica and constantly dropped by for meals or just to hang out. Still had our regular family game night every Sunday too, so yeah, it was hard to let go of all that. We kept the house; they loved that house, and my brother Tristan had just found his mate, so the rest of us agreed that they should have it. I bummed around coastal Cali for a while, then hopped a flight to Hawaii to work for a housepainter there. He had a nephew that graduated from high school this past May and started getting into trouble, so he brought him in to work part-time with us, and the kid actually turned out to be a solid worker. When I saw the job opening here, I jumped on it, since it felt like fate was giving me the chance to do what my parents hadn’t had the chance to do andmove back, plus my leaving would allow my boss’s nephew to work with him full time, so it was win-win for everyone.”
“Including us,” I said. “Where did they fall in love with skiing?”
“Japan,” they explained. “They were stationed there together before they transferred here.”
“Is that where they were when they passed away?”
“No, they were in Aspen; it’s where they honeymooned, so every few years they’d go back to make new memories. They’d have gotten a kick out of hearing about how we met. They loved telling the story about how Dad ran a red light and rear-ended Mom’s car when she stopped short to avoid hitting something in the road. It was mushy as hell, with Dad claiming the rear fender on her old Datsun was so curvy that he couldn’t take his eyes off it and Mom claiming it wasn’t the Datsun’s rear that had captured my old man’s attention. They exchanged phone numbers, and Dad called to check on her later that night and the following morning, when he offered to bring over coffee and donuts. She declined because she had to work, so he called back several more times over the following week, checking on her, arranging to pay for the damage, making sure she’d had a mechanic check the car over to make sure the only damage was cosmetic, and of course, to see if she was free to get a bite to eat with him. After the fifth time he called, she took pity on him and asked him if he wanted to go to her favorite noodle hut. They were married three months later.”
