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There’s nothing to prove anymore. I’m here, waiting for a score, to be recognized for the perfect performance I’ll always share with the man who stood by me when everyone else in this sport looked the other way.

Even that notion is beginning to unravel. Cora is out there, and the merpeople I’ve met through Javier—Zephyr and Cadmus and Amara, all people who I can now call friends. There was a story I told myself about community, about friendship and abandonment. Now, I know there are exceptions.

Up on the elevated panel, I watch the judges calculate our scores. There are whispered conversations between them. Heads shaking. Quick nods. My gaze lingers on my mother, on her pinched face and rigid posture.

She doesn’t love me. I hate that there is still a part of myself that feels betrayed by her rejection. She doesn’t love me, she doesn’t want me, she never wanted you for more than your body, for more than you being an instrument in the water—

—Sireno.

Javier’s voice is a careful caress in my mind. I hadn’t realized I’d been projecting my thoughts to him.

—I’m okay—I reassure him.

—You are loved. You are wanted. You are incredible, and you are so much more than an instrument in the water.

The crowd goes quiet around us as our score posts to the jumbotron. The final number is a result of dropping the highest and lowest of the judge’s scores, and averaging the remaining numbers.

Oh, gods. A smile stretches across my face and I grab Javier’s hand. It’s a good score, good enough to—

The leaderboard shifts.

“Holy shit,” I breathe, and I’m full, so fucking full, only this time it isn’t rage or revenge buoying me. It’s love and hope and mate mate Javier mine Daddy, and when I look at him, he’s already watching me with a proud, brilliant smile.

“Javi,” I whisper to the sweating and fidgeting man standing beside me. “You need to stop moving.”

It works for about three seconds, before his large body starts shifting from side to side again. Once again, we’re standing on the pool deck, only now there’s a podium set up in front of the gathered crowd.

I’ve done this part before, too. I’ve given half of my attention to a producer with a headset and clipboard reminding us of the logistics of walking the twenty feet from where we stand to the podium. I’ve followed the exact cues for when to walk out, where to face, and when to climb up onto the correct step of the three-tiered podium.

Javier’s anxious movements are making it impossible to concentrate. “Do you need to pee?”

That gets his attention. “Are you trying to Daddy me right now?” He tries to keep his voice low, but the human producer still shoots us a disapproving look.

I press my lips together, trying not to laugh.

“Parthenope and Zamora, you are up,” the producer announces.

I move on auto pilot, and it takes me a moment to realize Javier isn’t moving. Reaching back, I thread our fingers together and tug him into step beside me.

—You okay, Daddy?

—Yes. No. I am nervous.

I squeeze his hand. —This is the easy part. All you have to do is stand there and look pretty.

Javier’s low huff is barely audible over the sound of the crowd, applause and cheers surrounding us. I smile, and my eyes burn because these strangers who watch us, at least, have accepted that I am here.

Hand in hand, Javier and I step onto the lowest level of the podium. We bend forward, and when the weight of the bronze medal settles around my neck, I watch a tear fall from my cheek, darkening the ground below me.

“In third place in the duet category, for the first time in Clash of Creatures history, siren and human mates, Aleks Parthenope and Javier Zamora.”

We straighten as the sound swells around us, but I only have eyes for Javier. His shirt is too small, and I love how it rides up his belly, exposing a strip of hairy skin. The medal resting on his chest looks almost comically small. It’s still hard to believe I get to call him mine.

His smile is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

—I am so proud of you—his words slip across our bond.

There’s a mic shoved in my face. I want to find Javier, but as soon as the medal ceremony wrapped up we were both swarmed by reporters.