“I know,” I agreed, “and you’re awesome friends, and Silas is a great brother, and I have everyone here I love but…I still want more, you know?  I want my own family.”  I frowned a little.  “Is that selfish?”

“No, it’s not selfish, but also no, that isn’t what I meant.”  Sidney grabbed my bowl and his and dropped them off to one side out of the way.  Then, quite to my surprise, he swam forward and grabbed my face between his hands.

“Sage, love, people here like you a lot.  They like you too much, maybe, because everyone’s afraid to ask you out because they feel like they’d be selfish and might take you away from the community, in a way, if you had your own family to focus on first, which isn’t really fair to you, but then people aren’t thinking this through rationally and – oh, nevermind, that’s not the point.”

He took a deep breath.  “The point is, we want to be selfish.  With you.  We weren’t going to say anything at first because we thought you were happy – actually, I sort of thought you might be aromantic, to be honest.  Then the whole thing with the centaur herd freaked us out because you almost got hurt and I couldn’t really deal with that.”  He grimaced.  “Jett can confirm, I came back after sending you home that day and was shaking for, like, hours.  I know you weren’t in that much danger, but it still scared me – us – and seeing you broken down again hurt, too.  So then I wanted to say something, and we talked about it a lot but we were going to wait until the thing with Kate was past and you were feeling yourself again, and then Charlotte asked you out and I couldn’t really interfere with that if you wanted it, you know?  I tried to be a supportive friend but to be honest, I hated the idea of you going out with her, and then when I found out it didn’t work out, I felt happy, but then I felt bad for feeling that way when you were clearly upset, and I wouldn’t have said anything tonight except – we can’t just let you leave, okay?  Not without at least trying!”

I listened to Sidney’s entire speech, my face still trapped between his hands, but I felt like I understood about half of it because I seemed to be missing the premise for this.  Like…the main idea of what was going on.

I looked over at Jett, hoping he’d translate for me.

He smiled gently at me, sensing my confusion.  “Sidney is trying to say we like you.  As in, more than a friend.  And we’d like you to consider us as a potential dating option.  I know,” he added swiftly, “that dating two people isn’t normal and is probably…overwhelming, but we already consider you family, really, so to us, it kind of makes the most sense.”  He shrugged awkwardly, like he wasn’t satisfied with that but couldn’t figure out how to say it better.

I was pretty sure my brain must have short-circuited because this sounded an awful lot like they were asking me to date both of them, but that made no sense.

“You’re married,” I pointed out.

“We are,” Jett agreed.

“I am not breaking up my friends’ marriage!”  I nearly cried at the thought.  “You guys are way too important to me to get in the way of that!  I didn’t mean to – when I said I wanted a family, I didn’t mean I wanted to take someone else’s!”

“No, no, no,” Sidney instantly crushed me into a hug.  “Shh, shh, we’re not breaking up, I promise.  We love each other just as much as ever, and that’s not going to change.  We just want to love you, too.  In addition to each other, not instead of.”

“Sage,” Jett came over closer and gently tugged on my braid, “tell us something – if we weren’t together, would you consider dating Sidney?”

I thought about that, then nodded.

“Would you consider dating me?”  He went on.

Again, another nod.  They were some of the most important people to me and I loved them – I mean, no, that sounded bad, I didn’t want to interfere with their marriage and somehow I was doing that by accident and oh, this was bad.

“Then the only reason you’re really objecting to either of us is because we’re married,” Jett concluded.  “But we’re trying to tell you that dating you won’t affect our marriage.  We just want to expand our family to include you in it.  Unless you’re not interested in dating both of us at the same time,” he added, that awkward expression coming back.  “Which is fine, of course, but, um, we’d like to prove that we could be an amazing family with the three of us – and Zoey, and any other kids that come along.”

I had to put off the whole thought about kids because right now my mind could only handle so much and I was still attempting to understand what they were suggesting.

“Saaaage,” Sidney’s hands moved somewhat from a hug to where they were just resting on my waist.  “We love you, you know that.  We really want you to be part of our family.  A partner to and with both of us.  It’s not particularly normal, but then, kraken aren’t normal, so we’ll just blame it on Jett.”

Jett sputtered indignantly for a second, but Sidney’s joke did manage to get a smile out of me.

“Besides,” Sidney argued, “you and I – we can be male or female at will, that’s not normal, either.  Supernaturals in general aren’t ‘normal.’  And besides, ‘normal’ is overrated – too boring and stifling if that’s not you.  So our family could have three partners instead of two, who cares?  If we want to do things that way, it’s not really anyone else’s business.  Love can take more than one form and other people shouldn’t get to decide how our relationship looks.”

“Look, if you don’t want to try dating us,” Jett reached out to softly stroke my cheek with the back of his knuckles, “we won’t stop being friends with you or caring about you, but before you run off to someplace else to try to find someone, we just – we want you to consider us.  As a possibility.  Because we’re asking.”

I opened my mouth, but the connection between my brain and my mouth didn’t seem to be working anymore because I couldn’t make anything come out.

“You kind of terrified me,” Sidney admitted abruptly.  “When you said you wanted to consider traveling to find someone.  I can’t fault you for wanting a family, that’s perfectly normal, but it scared me to think we could lose you without ever even saying anything so I had to say something and just try, just in case you might be willing, and I know it’s a lot and all but we’ve known each other for forever, we know each other pretty well and you love us too, right?  Just maybe you never thought about us that way while we have thought about you that way, we’ve actually talked about it a lot because we didn’t know what to do, but like I said, the centaur nearly hurting you kind of freaked us both out enough we figured we needed to stop pretending we didn’t have feelings for you and then it just sort of all went from there.”

Jett interrupted before Sidney’s rambling could continue.  “Do you want to think about it?”  He suggested tentatively.  “I know it’s probably a lot to consider, but there is one thing you need to understand.  Two things, actually.”  He pulled me slightly so I was out of Sidney’s hands, facing him, and he tilted my face towards his so he could look deep in my eyes.

“First, you seem to be under the very mistaken impression that people here don’t find you attractive or consider you as a potential partner.  That’s just wrong.  People do, so even if you decide not to date us, please don’t leave – if you’re interested in someone, ask them out.  Trust me, there are a lot more people here than you might think who’d be dying to go on a date with you.

“Second, though,” he went on before Sidney, who was looking a little huffy, could interrupt, “is please understand – we do love you.  We’ve been close friends for years, so with that comes a certain amount of affection, but ours goes beyond that.  If you’re willing, we’d really love the chance to prove to you that you belong in our family.”  And then he leaned forward and very gently kissed my forehead.  “Please think about it, Sage.”

Then Sidney crushed me into one of his hugs, pressing his face against my neck.  “Please, please, please,” he begged.  “At least consider it.  Please.”

“I – I will,” I finally managed, still feeling dazed.  “I, uh, will go home and think about it.”

I wasn’t even aware, entirely, of the swim back.  I couldn’t even have told anyone if I’d seen another soul or anyone had talked to me the entire swim, because all I was doing is replaying the conversation over and over again in my head.

At first, just to make sure I hadn’t misunderstood.  I was initially convinced I had, but the more I thought over their words, it just didn’t seem like there could be any other meaning.  They were really asking me to consider dating them.  Both of them.  My best friends wanted me to date them.

Once that part had sunk in, I started to really think about not just what they’d said, but how they’d acted.  Jett had spoken more tonight than I’d probably ever heard him speak in one sitting, and he’d looked anxious as he tried to make me understand.  Then there was Sidney, who seemed almost panicked a couple of times, especially when I’d mentioned traveling, I realized.  And…that expression back on his face when he was helping me prepare for my date.  That suddenly made more sense now.  As did Jett’s relief when he heard about my date.  They really weren’t kidding.  They were actually interested in me and had been jealous of my date, and then scared I might find someone else.

I nearly laughed at the thought as I hugged my pillow to myself.  Them, jealous over me?  That was…I didn’t even know how to feel about that!  It kind of made me feel warm and fuzzy, to be honest, because it felt nice that they actually liked me that much.

I didn’t entirely buy Jett’s whole thing about a lot of the community being interested in me, but honestly, it was enough that just they were.  It wasn’t even about it being rare for someone to be interested in me and feeling like I had to go along with anyone who was, because that wasn’t what I felt at all.  I wasn’t that desperate.  No, it was more about the fact that it was Sidney and Jett who were interested, and I loved them already, I’d just never thought of loving them that way.

But now that I did…it didn’t seem like it would be hard to.  I had to admit, Jett’s voice had always given me those quiet thrills, and I enjoyed Sidney’s crushing hugs.  Even before Silas, I would rather turn to them for help.  Look at what happened with the centaur herd – it was Sidney who helped me when I wanted to go home, and he even knew what I meant by that, that I wanted to go back to the ocean.  And I’d told them about Kate and what she’d said all those years ago when I hadn’t told anyone else.  Sidney and Jett made me feel safe and warm and – oh.  Oh my.  I…really?

Had I actually had feelings for them all this time and just never noticed?  Was that why I’d never even seen anyone else’s interest in me – if Jett was right about that – or why it had felt wrong when I’d agreed to go out with Charlotte?  It didn’t feel wrong with them.  My only concern was that I didn’t want to interfere with their relationship, but they were pretty adamant that I wouldn’t.  The idea of dating them, though, unlike dating Charlotte, made me happy.  In fact, I bit back a shy smile at the idea as excited little butterflies bounced their way through my stomach.

Being with Sidney and Jett, probably my two favorite people in the world, that would be pretty perfect, wouldn’t it?  I could be family with them, I would love it if they were my family.  And Zoey, she was cute and sweet and I wouldn’t mind getting to snuggle her even more, even if she decided to sometimes turn kraken on me.

I was pretty sure that was my answer.  I didn’t know entirely how it would work out but now that the idea was sinking in, now that I realized it could be a thing – my heart wanted it.  I was pretty sure my heart would have a temper tantrum, in fact, if I hesitated.

So without really thinking about it, I swam back in the middle of the night and knocked on their door until a startled Jett opened it.

“I’ve thought about it,” I explained without preamble.  “I want to be family with you.”