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Luke shrugged. He supposed it was obvious enough without having to admit it. “Why aren’t you?”

Seth pursed his lips as he cocked his head in thought. “I am, I guess. A tiny bit. But Riley won’t put himself in any unnecessary danger. He’s cautious. He had to be growing up. The only time he’s ever put himself at risk was because of me. And I’m here, safe and sound.”

Luke nodded, as if that made sense, even as his mind once again began running over all the things that could go wrong. It was like Colby’s first day of day care all over again, when Luke’s brain hadn’t been able to stop projecting all the possible worst-case scenarios.

“Some kiss.”

Luke startled. He hadn’t realized Seth was still watching him. “What?”

“That goodbye kiss,” Seth clarified with a grin. “From the merman you ‘found on the beach.’” For some reason, Seth made his fingers into little air quotes for those last words.

Luke cleared his throat, inwardly bemoaning the flush he could feel blooming on his cheeks. He’d really thought they had an unspoken agreement on silence about all that. “He’s very…tactile.”

“I bet.” Those two words reeked of underlying insinuation, but Luke didn’t rise to the bait.

Except Seth kept eyeing him in that weird way.

Didn’t the guy have work to do?

“What?” Luke asked after another minute of scrutiny, a defensive edge to his voice.

Seth didn’t seem to mind the touch of temper, his smile staying firmly in place. “Can I ask you something kind of rude?”

Luke nodded warily. Although if Seth started asking about where mermen dicks were hidden, he reserved the right to flee faster than a harried Trent.

“You have a child.”

Luke waited for more, but Seth seemed content to leave it at that. “I do.”

Seth’s smile faltered, and he worried at his lower lip. “There’s a certain amount of…inherent danger, I guess, when the paranormal are involved. Or at least that’s been my experience. I’d think you might be a little more wary of letting someone like that into your life.”

Luke waited for the flash of indignant anger over someone questioning his parenting choices, but it didn’t come. Seth wasn’t acting judgmental about it, more curious and maybe a little concerned. Still, Luke took a pause before speaking. “There’s a certain amount of inherent danger in anything worth doing,” he said slowly. “It’s a constant battle, when you have a child, between wanting to protect them and wanting them to experience everything life has to offer. Trampolines, bicycles, pools, even playgrounds. One wrong slip or moment of inattention and something terrible could happen. But you can’t keep them in a bubble, can you?”

He hadn’t articulated it before—not even to himself—but the words felt right. Luke couldn’t protect Colby from everything, and that was the hard truth. It was the permanent pain of parenthood, an ache in his heart that never lessened, knowing there was only so much safety a parent could provide.

If Luke had held any doubt about Syrus himself, that would have been different. Inviting danger knowingly into his home wasn’t on the same level as acknowledging the inherent risks of being alive. But Syrus would never hurt them. Luke knew that deep in his bones. And, for that matter, Syrus hadn’t brought the institute here. That evil had come all on its own.

Luke thought that was all he had to say, but he was speaking again before he knew it. “When I was a kid, I loved these pirate books my dad got for me. They were…fantasy-adjacent, I guess. Sea battles but with kraken appearing, or ghost captains sabotaging things, or”—Luke smiled as he remembered—“buxom mermaids causing trouble. I used to look out at the boats on the water and imagine what else might be out there. But then at some point, you stop wondering. The real world gets in the way, and you slowly realize magic isn’t out there, and that every adult around you already knew it and let you think otherwise. It’s just play. Pretend.”

Luke hadn’t thought about those books in ages. He hadn’t even realized he’d remembered them at all. He should see if they were stashed somewhere, pass them down to Colby.

“And you think Syrus is real magic,” Seth surmised.

“Isn’t he?”

He sure felt like it, Luke’s merman. His presence, the effect he had on Luke. The sight of him in the water, his tail shimmering in the morning sun.

Luke caught Seth’s eye. “You look skeptical.”

Seth shrugged. “I’m not. What do I know about parenting? I guess I’m just working out what I would have done if it had been more than me in the picture when Riley came into my life. But I guess it’s a little different.” He gave a half laugh. “Fate was brought into it, you know.”

It was Luke’s turn to be skeptical. He didn’t know what he would have done if Syrus had started spouting something about destined mates to him at their first meeting, but he probably wouldn’t have been overly accepting. “And you heard it was fate and just ran with it?”

Seth laughed for real. “No. Definitely not. But it wasn’t just the words. It was this…pull. Something inevitable, I guess. Irresistible.”

Luke nodded. That all sounded familiar enough. “Then you do know what I’m dealing with.”

There was a moment of silence, and then Seth sighed. “Oh, Luke.” The skepticism in his eyes had been replaced by pure sympathy. “You’re a goner, aren’t you?”