Chapter 33
THIRTY-THREE
ALEXANDER
The elevator doors slide open, and the penthouse greets me with silence.
No music. No clatter from the kitchen. Just stillness.
I wander toward the balcony, instinctively. It’s empty. But the birthday decorations Lucas put up are still there—streamers caught in the breeze, soft fairy lights still glowing against the night. There’s a sweetness to it. A quiet, careful kind of love that makes my chest ache.
I head back inside, tugging off my suit jacket as I climb the stairs. Lucas had texted that they’d be in the cinema after dinner. I push open the cinema door and the soft glow of the screen washes over the room in a cool, pale blue.
They’re on the massive floor cushion, tucked close.
Lucas is curled up under a gray throw blanket, his body a small crescent pressed into Tyler’s side.
His cheek rests on Tyler’s shoulder, breath even, eyes shut.
He looks peaceful… but there’s a tension in the way his fingers are clenched into the edge of the blanket.
Like, even in sleep, he’s bracing for something.
Tyler’s the only one awake. He’s got a half-empty popcorn box on his lap, eyes fixed on the screen, a quiet smile on his lips.
It’s soft—makes him look softer, gentler.
So different from the sharp, cold expression he gave me the first time we met.
The one he wore when he told me he’d gut me if I hurt Lucas.
Then he sees me.
His eyes widen.
“Oh shit—you’re back,” he whispers, still chewing.
I give him a nod and step in, letting the door ease shut behind me.
“Thanks… for the gifts,” he says after a moment, awkward but sincere. “You really didn’t have to.”
“I wanted to.”
He glances at me, chewing the inside of his cheek like he wants to say more.
“Your assistant called earlier,” he adds, almost casually. “I told her I don’t want anything else.”
I raise a brow.
“Can you sit for a sec?” He asks, his voice a little nervous, like he’s unsure how this will go.
I lower myself to the edge of the floor cushion, close to Lucas. He stirs slightly, his body shifting toward the warmth between us, but he doesn’t wake. Still, there’s a faint crease between his brows, something troubled pressing in behind closed lids.
Tyler shifts closer, brushing his fingers through Lucas’s curls in a motion that’s far too practiced. There’s a tenderness in it, one that tells me he’s done this a thousand times—held Lucas through sleepless nights, quieted his shaking, grounded him when the world got too loud.
I should feel something sharp in my chest at the sight. Jealousy. Possessiveness. Something.
But I don’t.
Maybe because Lucas already told me more than once not to get jealous of Tyler. That whatever they share is something sacred and safe, not romantic. Maybe because I’ve seen the way Lucas looks at him—like family. Like oxygen. And I’ve also seen the way he looks at me.
Lucas and Tyler almost look alike in appearance, but while Lucas is the softer one, quiet, cautious, all big eyes and smaller movements.
Tyler, though, carries a sharper edge beneath himself, a kind of confident sweetness, like someone who’s had to survive by being both gentle and fierce, a version of Lucas that decided to fight the world by being louder, pettier, and more feminine.
Tyler breaks the silence first.
“Actually… the only birthday gift I really want is for you to take care of him.”
I glance at him. His eyes are already on mine, steady and unflinching.
“He won’t tell you,” Tyler says, voice quiet but steady. “He won’t say it, but… he’s never let anyone in like this before. Not even me. Not really. Whatever you two have, it’s different for him. Big. And if this is something temporary, or something you’re not sure about…”
He pauses, then looks down at Lucas. “It’ll break him, not a little. All the way.”
“It’s not a game,” I say, and my voice is low, but certain. “Whatever this is between us… I’m in it.”
Tyler stares at me for a second, eyes narrowing like he’s trying to decide if he believes me. Then, finally, a slow smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.
“Yeah,” he says with a quiet laugh. “I figured. I mean, who makes a damn trust fund of over half a million for someone they’re just messing around with? I’m also glad he signed the trust.”
I let out a breath, half a laugh, but my eyes go back to Lucas.
His fingers twitch under the blanket again. His shoulders rise in a strange, shallow breath. My brows knit together. I’ve never seen him look this… unsettled in his sleep before. Not like this.
“He finally talked to me today,” Tyler says, voice soft, almost dazed.
I drag my eyes away from Lucas and glance at him.
Tyler’s gaze is still locked on Lucas, but there’s a shift in his expression, something tender, something cracked.
“I was a little jealous,” he admits with a strained smile.
“That he could use his voice with you. He hasn’t really spoken to me in five years.
Just a few words here and there—mostly to wish me a happy birthday.
But today…” He swallows. “Today, he actually talked to me. Like, really talked. It filled me with so much joy I thought my chest might split open.”
His voice breaks at the end. And when I look at him again, his eyes are glassy, holding back something too heavy to carry, but too sacred to spill.
And just like that, it hits me again.
Something happened to Lucas.
Not just a hard childhood or a distant mother.
Something awful.
Something deeper and darker than I ever let myself imagine.
“I want to know what happened to him,” I say, and my voice feels like it’s scraped raw.
“I want to ask. I want to dig. I want to do my own goddamn findings if I have to—” I pause, clenching my jaw.
“But something in me keeps saying I shouldn’t do that, I should wait.
That if I really care about him, I’ll let him tell me when he’s ready. ”
Tyler doesn’t respond right away. His posture shifts slightly, just enough to make me notice. His eyes flick away from mine. That small movement… it sets off something in me.
My chest tightens.
“It’s something bad, isn’t it?” I ask, voice low. Hard. “How bad, Tyler?”
He shakes his head quickly, looking away like I just stepped on a landmine.
“It’s not my place to tell you,” he says, barely above a whisper.
I swallow down the frustration that rises, sharp and helpless, but before I can respond, a broken sound—Half cry, half choke cuts through the room.
We both whip our heads toward Lucas.
His body jolts under the blanket, a violent twitch that doesn’t look like normal sleep. His brows are drawn tight, his mouth parted like he’s gasping for air he can’t find. Then comes another sound—
A raw, strangled cry.
Not like the soft, broken one from before.
This one is guttural. Desperate. As if something inside him is being torn out.
His fingers claw at his neck suddenly, scratching and dragging like he’s trying to tear something off.
Something we can’t see.
I shoot to my feet, my heart spiking.
“Lucas—wake up!” Tyler’s voice cracks with panic. The popcorn box hits the floor as he scrambles, grabbing at Lucas, trying to hold him still.
“Oh fuck, fuck, not this again, please—” Tyler’s breath hitches as Lucas thrashes.
Lucas jerks hard like he’s been shocked, eyes flying open—
But they’re wide, glassy, unseeing.
He stares blankly at the ceiling, chest heaving, gasping like he’s drowning in invisible water.
His hands reach for his own throat again, at the collar of his shirt, his skin.
Like it’s crawling.
Like it’s burning.
Like something is still there.
Still hurting him.
“Lucas!” Tyler grabs his face gently but firmly, cradling him like glass. “Hey, hey, breathe—breathe, you’re safe, you’re with me, look at me. Lucas, please!”
Lucas doesn’t respond.
His whole body is shaking, mouth parted in shallow, frantic breaths, his gaze flickering like he doesn’t even recognize where he is.
Like he’s still there. Wherever there is.
And I just stand there.
Frozen.
Because I’ve never seen him like this.
Not Lucas—the boy who always meets my kisses with a blush. The one who eats the dishes I make with joy and gives me that soft, unsure smile like he’s still surprised anyone can be into him.
That boy isn’t here right now.
Right now, he looks hunted.
I drop down beside them, heart pounding like it’s trying to break through my ribs.
Compassion isn’t something I’m built for.
I don’t do soft. I never have.
I don’t know how to be careful with people.
But Lucas… he opens that part of me.
The part I didn’t think existed.
“Lucas,” I say, voice low, steadying even though my insides are anything but. “It’s okay. You’re safe here. Just breathe…”
His eyes—wild, confused, still wet with panic find mine for a brief, scary second.
And when I reach for him, just a hand, just a slight touch, he flinches hard, and a panicked noise tears from him, like I burned him, jerking away from me so violently that my own hand recoils on instinct.
My stomach drops, and Something inside me twists.
Then, as if his mind finally catches up, he realizes it was me he recoiled from—
His expression crumples.
A look of sheer regret, of guilt so raw it makes my chest ache, flickers across his face.
And then he breaks.
A sob leaves him, it’s guttural and sharp, like it was ripped straight out of him.
“Lucas—” I start again, softer this time, almost a whisper.
But he doesn’t look at me.
He turns into Tyler instead, curls into him like he’s trying to disappear, bury himself somewhere safer than this moment as the sobs shake through him.
Real sobs.
Deep and soul-twisting ones. The kind that comes from something too heavy to name.
Tyler pulls him in like muscle memory. Like he’s done this before.
He cradles and rocks him slowly, whispering something I can’t hear over the sound of him breaking.
Something comforting. Something that sounds like home.