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Luke paused. The next part was where the judgment usually started. “She didn’t want to be a mom, never wanted kids of her own. I did. So she did me—God, I can’t even call it a favor, it’s too big. She didn’t have to keep the pregnancy, but she did. For me. And I can never repay her for what she’s given me. But she didn’t change her mind about what she wanted. She sees him sometimes, but it can be hard for her to come back. People get…” Luke cleared his throat. “They don’t understand.”

They could be assholes, was the truth of it. As much as Luke loved his town, it could get claustrophobic when everyone knew everyone’s business. It didn’t matter that Gina had a successful career working on wildlife documentaries, one that required constant travel. It didn’t matter that she’d put her life and that same career on hold for an entire year so Luke could have Colby. The town judged her harshly, and they let her know it. Even Luke’s own sister couldn’t hold it in sometimes.

Luke finished his rambling and waited to see the unconscious grimace, the telltale sign of disapproval on Syrus’s face. But the merman’s curious gaze returned to the monitor. “A gift,” he said softly.

Something painfully sweet twisted deep in Luke’s chest. “Yes,” he agreed. “A gift.”

Syrus continued to stare at the monitor, and it seemed rude not to return the curiosity. “You don’t have…spawn of your own?” Luke asked.

In answer, Syrus parted his robe, his hands moving too quickly for Luke to register his own alarm until it was already happening. But Syrus wasn’t actually undressing—he was showing Luke his scar, the one on his lower abdomen.

“I cannot,” Syrus said, tracing the raised tissue.

“I’m so sorry,” Luke told him, and he meant it.

They held each other’s gazes, and time seemed to stretch. As foreign as Syrus was to Luke in so many ways, there was understanding here. Connection. The force of it was strong enough to make Luke’s breath stutter.

But then Syrus was grinning as he tossed his mane of wavy hair behind his shoulder. “Yes, it was a great sorrow to the birthers in my pod.” He sprawled back with both arms over the couch, his robe gaping open in a dangerous way. “I have a very pleasing form, you know.”

No fucking kidding. It was bad enough sneaking glances, but now it was like Syrus wanted Luke to look. Like he was putting himself on display, waiting for Luke to take notice.

How the hell was Luke not supposed to notice?

But he was saved by Colby’s little voice calling out, tinny on the monitor, “Dada! Dadaaa!”

Syrus’s gleaming eyes narrowed. He pointed his chin toward the stairs. “Off you go.”

Luke fled.

Colby woke hungry, so Luke took him to the kitchen for a snack, passing by Syrus without any incident, but afterward it didn’t seem right to take Colby upstairs and leave Syrus by his lonesome. Especially since Colby usually played in the living room in the afternoons, anyway. His bedroom was more for sleeping and bedtime routines than anything else.

So Luke brought Colby to the rug in the middle of the living room floor and brought out some puzzles and wooden blocks, hyperaware all the while of the way Syrus watched them.

Well, he was always watching Luke, but now, after their conversation and with Colby at his side, Luke could sense a change.

There was longing there, wasn’t there? A yearning for something.

Syrus really had wanted a child of his own.

Luke lasted maybe twenty minutes of constructing block towers for Colby to demolish before he broke. “Tell me about your pod.”

Syrus shifted on the couch, propping his head on his hand to gaze askance at Luke. “What do you wish to know?”

“Are there a lot of you?”

Syrus hummed in thought. “Not by human standards, I suppose. We’re small but strong.”

“And are there…many children?”

If Luke wasn’t mistaken, there was a flash of pain in Syrus’s dark eyes, there and gone. “Not many, no. Children are…rare. It’s the aim of a younger pod to produce as many as we can.”

Luke didn’t know how to ask what he wanted to ask, but Syrus seemed to sense his unspoken question.

“And as I am out of the running as mate or protector,” he continued, “I do what else I can. Search out new grounds for us, new food sources.”

Right. Syrus had said something about reconnaissance as the reason why he’d been out close to the shore, hadn’t he?

“And that’s how you were caught?” Luke asked. “Searching out new territory on your own?”