I laughed a little.  “I suppose this is all kind of a moot point,” I shrugged ruefully.  “I mean, it mostly came up because I always figured I have the potential to have a dolphin shifter kid, which now I know I won’t, but it’s not really likely I’ll have any kids, so it’s not like it really matters.”

I glanced over at Zoey, who was sleeping – for once – in her crib.  I turned back to find Sidney surveying me, his head cocked to one side as he looked a mixture of thoughtfulness and maybe a bit of disappointment.

“You don’t want kids?”

“No, I didn’t mean that!”  I immediately panicked my way into a flurry of words.  “I like kids, I love Zoey, it’s not like I don’t want kids of my own, I mean I sort of assumed I’d have some eventually, but I don’t need to, either, and that’s not a thing now, right?  I mean,” I tried to clarify, although I felt like I was digging myself deeper into the hole, “it’s not like I’d have kids with you or Jett.  Or, um, no, I mean, that’s – oh bother, I mean that’s your thing, right?  And I’m…moral support?”  That sounded like a terrible bunch of sentences together, but at least Sidney seemed to understand.

His eyes got softer, but his lips were starting to smirk a little.  “Sage, love, we don’t intend to exclude you from the bedroom, if that’s what you want.  We want you to be an equal member of this relationship – if you just want us to be platonic and kiss and snuggle and whatever, it’s fine if you want to draw the line there, but if you’re worried that we’re not attracted to you, that’s just not a thing.  If you want it, we do intend for you to have sex with us eventually, and, well, maybe kids.  With one or both of us.  Depends on what you want, really.”

I kind of looked at him, somewhere in between embarrassed and shocked, but my brain managed to get a question out – of course, the worst question it could come up with.

“How do you even manage that with Jett?  You don’t seem to go up to the surface regularly for that.”  My face promptly started turning pink at my question and I wondered why my brain thought it was okay to ask.

Sidney, however, seemed fine with the question – at least if the sly smile and wink he gave me were any indication.

“Magic,” he explained, then clarified as he swam over to their bedroom.  “Okay, so you know oceanids like you and me can be together in aquatic form, but we can’t be with non-oceanids like Jett since we can’t turn into our human forms underwater.  Buuut we didn’t want to get a surface house just to sleep together.  Everyone would know what we were doing every time we visited it, for one thing, which is just weird.”  He rolled his eyes, then started releasing magic from his fingertips.  “So I make a bubble underwater, using water and air magic.  We turn our entire room into an air pocket,” he finished demonstrating, “and see?  I can transform in here now, so we can easily do whatever we want whenever we feel like.”  He started to swim forward like he was going to demonstrate, but I grabbed his arm and practically yanked him to a stop

“Sidney!”  I was pretty sure my face was all red.  “I believe you, you don’t have to prove it to me!”

“Whaaat?”  He smirked innocently.  “You know perfectly well what male forms look like, you have one of your own.”

That didn’t mean I was prepared to see his!  I mean, I saw his form all the time, but not like that – not while he didn’t have any coverings prepared.  Oceanids were, due to how our transformations worked, fairly used to seeing and showing more skin than many people, but there were still some parts of our bodies that we tended not to show to other people unless they were, well, lovers.

“Sidney,” Jett’s voice came from behind me as he entered the house, his tone kind of indulgent, “what are you doing?  Sage looks like she’s about to have a heart attack.”

He paused to kiss my temple, which did help distract me some as I tried to focus on anything other than Sidney’s, uh “threat.”

Sidney released the magic, letting the room refill.  “I was just proving a point!”  He pouted, crossing his arms.

“Which was?”  Jett came over to give him a kiss, too.

“That we can make sex work with Sage!”

“You could prove your point without actually going in the room!”  I argued.

Sidney winked flirtatiously at me.  “But that wouldn’t be as much fun!”

Jett glanced at me, but apparently figured I was going to die of embarrassment if this conversation continued, so thankfully he just redirected Sidney into getting his orders ready for Jett to take to the surface.

As soon as Sidney was distracted, Jett came over to me.

“Don’t mind him – it’s his way of flirting.”  He gave me a gentle smile.  “On our first date, we went up to an island, and he didn’t bring anything to cover himself – intentionally.  He was very disappointed to learn we weren’t going to get frisky on the beach.  He’s not trying to embarrass you – he’s trying to flirt.  Not maybe the best way to go about it,” he allowed, “but that’s Sidney.”

Probably my lack of experience was showing that the idea of seeing someone else like that was making me so flustered, but at least Jett was trying to help me find my way back to normalcy.

But since I was already embarrassed, might as well ask now before I went back to normal and had to start the embarrassing cycle all over again, right?

“Sidney said you are both, um, interested in me that way?”

Jett shot me a searching glance, apparently trying to figure out how I felt about it, because he relaxed some when he realized I wasn’t upset with the idea.

“We are,” he confirmed.  “But only if you want our relationship to take that shape.  We can sort of decide however we want this relationship to look like, so if that’s not something you want, that’s fine.”

I tilted my head, feeling kind of confused.  “Both you and Sidney seem to really think I don’t want that.  Is there a reason for it?  I mean, I appreciate that you’re trying to be thoughtful and all, but I don’t – it’s not like I don’t like you that way, so I’m confused.”

Jett considered for a moment.  “We were under the impression that you were probably ace and/or aro.  Asexual or aromantic,” he explained when I no doubt looked lost.  “You never seemed interested in anyone sexually or romantically so I – we – kind of thought you were probably on the ace spectrum somewhere and that was why you never seemed interested in anyone.  If you’re not, that’s fine, and if you are ace or aro, we don’t want to put you in a position you’d be uncomfortable with.”

I thought about that for a few minutes, trying to piece together how I felt.  “I don’t think I am attracted to most people like that,” I admitted slowly.  “For most people, I like them as friends, but it doesn’t go beyond that.  I don’t look at people and think about whether I’d like to sleep with them or even just go on dates with them, you know?  With Charlotte, I knew her and liked her, but…not in a romantic way.  I just kind of figured that might come as we dated.  But it’s different for you and Sidney.  Maybe because we’re close?  I don’t know, but I feel like I like the idea of going on dates and cuddling and kissing and stuff with both of you.  I think I like the idea of more, too, but it’s way out of my comfort zone so I don’t know yet, I just know I don’t dislike the idea, at least?”

Jett nodded, then, to my surprise, gently slid his arm around my waist to pull me to his side.  I suppose I had just indicated I actually wanted that, but now that he’d done it, I was kind of happy and rested my head on his shoulder.

“I think you might be demiromantic,” he mused.  “You need a strong emotional connection before you can develop romantic feelings towards someone – not that every emotional connection will end up with romantic feelings, either.  That might explain why you feel romantic towards Sidney and me but not your average person.  As far as to whether you’re also ace or demisexual or something else…well, let’s just take it slow and figure that out?  We’ll just gauge how you feel as we go along, and if it’s not something you’re good with, then we back off and figure out what you are good with.”

I took a deep sigh.  “That – sounds good.  Thank you.”  I did want to see if I was comfortable with more, but I was incredibly glad that Jett and Sidney were okay with just taking it slow and helping me figure out where my boundaries were.  And even that they understood things like demiromantic and whatever else I might be, that I hadn’t even figured out myself.

“How come you know all this stuff about demi and ace and all?”  I asked curiously.

“Ah, well,” Jett sounded a tad embarrassed himself now, “I looked into it.  After Sidney and I both realized we were interested in you but we noticed that even when people tried to flirt with you, you just…never seemed to even notice, I started researching LGBT stuff because I’d heard of asexuality before and I wondered if it might apply.  I know, it’s probably rude to try to figure out someone else’s sexuality without their permission, but we were trying to figure out where we stood with you – or might stand if we ever tried to date you – and figure out what you might be comfortable with.  I’m sorry if I was too nosy, though.”

“No.”  I shook my head.  “Actually, I appreciate it that you were trying to be thoughtful.  I’ve never actually looked into any of that stuff, I haven’t really thought much about it, so it kind of helps that you already have some ideas that sound like they might apply.”  I tilted my head back so I could look into his face.  “I know you’re supposed to be a big scary sea monster and all, but I think you’re really sweet.”

Jett actually blushed – much to my delight – but we were interrupted from further talk by Zoey waking up and letting out a mini kraken call that made my eardrums ring.

I spent a little while longer with them before heading out to help people around the community, promising Sidney that tomorrow I would go collect shells for him.

A swim along the ocean floor looking for shells for one of my boyfriends.  It sounded like a nice, peaceful day.  What could possibly go wrong?