“Sorry,” he says, his face heating up. “It’s the director in me. Your face is just too beautiful not to capture.” He gives me that expectant look again, his dimples deepening like the craters on the moon as a smile slowly spreads across his face.

Now it’s my turn to blush. I don’t know what to say. I’ll never forget seeing the moon like that. I’ll tell every Journeyfin from here on out that they have to find a telescope their first night on land and look at the sky every evening until they come back home. I don’t know that any word exists in this language or my own that could fully express how thankful I am.

So I lean forward and our mouths meet, his plump pink lips engulfing my own. I kiss him harder than I ever have before. And maybe it’s the power of the moon, pushing me into Sean like it pushes the tides up and down the beach, but I press into him. I feel him beneath me; I feel that part of him that lets me know he’s enjoying this just as much as I am, that makes me feel connected and nervous and alive that I could make another living being feel like that. It doesn’t matter that he’s human or that I’m mer. What matters is that we’re sharing this moment, here and now, and with a gasp-inducing thought, I know for sure that I want to share more with him.

“What is it?” Sean asks. “Are you okay?”

I nod, fast. “More than okay.” I shiver, the energy from our kiss overwhelming my body.

In one fluid movement, Sean pulls his Shoreline Dolphins sweatshirt over his head and drapes it around my shoulders. “You’re cold.”

The smell of his skin, his cedar deodorant, and the slight hint of chlorine envelops me. I don’t hate it. I don’t hate it at all.

“Can we get out of here?” I ask. “Somewhere we can be alone?”

Sean swallows, that slow smile replaced by a glowering look. It is the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.

He takes my hand, lacing our fingers, our palms coming together like two halves of a clamshell.

“Let’s go.”

     Sean