16. Leah
LEAH
Kitchen table honesty.
It isn’t quite as satisfying as Emmett’s pancakes, but it comes close, and I’d take it over anything sweet any day of the week. Because that’s a lesson foster care teaches you early and teaches you well. People will pour sugar on all kinds of things. It doesn’t make them real.
Declan wraps both hands around his coffee mug without lifting it, and the steam curls up between us. “Last night was new for us. All of it. We’ve never shared a woman, and until you, we never wanted to. I don’t want you thinking this is something we planned on.”
“I didn’t think that.”
“Good.” He finally drinks, a long swallow, and sets the mug down. “Because I don’t know how to do this any more than you do. I just know I’m not giving you up.”
Emmett sits in the chair beside him with a plate stacked high and a fork already in his hand. “What he said.” He points the fork at me.
I laugh, and the sound of it surprises me, because it feels almost too good to be true, and I don’t want it to be. Despite everything Kian did to me and every lie he told, I believe these two.
“Then let me ask something.” I set my mug down and flatten both hands on the wood of the table. “What if I decide I want you both? Not for the weekend. Not until Madeline has the baby and my lease at the tower is up. What if I mean indefinitely?”
Declan opens his mouth. Emmett opens his.
The front door opens before anyone speaks.
Rowan steps inside with a bag over one shoulder. He stops in the entryway and takes in the three of us at the table.
“I’m not sure what I just walked in on.” He lets the bag slide off his shoulder to the floor. “But I’ll admit I’m curious. Somebody want to fill me in?”
“Gladly.” Declan hooks a foot around the leg of the empty chair beside him and drags it out.
They lay it out for Rowan, all of it. Last night, minus the details he probably doesn’t want to know. This morning, and what I just asked.
Declan does most of the talking, and Emmett fills in the parts Declan skips because he has a knack for making serious conversations easier to hear.
There’s no contest between them, and neither one is stepping back.
Everything is my choice, and nobody makes me choose. And both of them say it more than once, in different words, that this is what they want. Neither of them is giving anything up.
I watch Rowan while they talk. He listens with his whole body, arms crossed, eyes moving from one brother to the other and never once landing on me.
He’s thinking hard. I can see that much.
What I can’t see is what he’s thinking, because he’s better at keeping his thoughts contained than anyone I’ve ever met.
When they finish, both brothers look expectantly at Rowan, waiting to hear his response.
But Emmett and Declan left something out, and I blame myself. I haven’t told them that I have feelings for Rowan, too.
The last thing I want is for Rowan to feel interchangeable with his brothers, because he is not. I want Rowan, just as much as I want Declan and Emmett. Not because I’m selfish. Not because I feel like I deserve him.
But because he gives me something completely unique. He notices the details—the million little things that make a life worth living. Like the tea. Like my drafty window.
“What if I have feelings for Rowan, too?” I blurt out, overcome with emotion.
Declan and Emmett both turn toward me, then look at each other, and without even speaking about it, they turn back to their brother.
“If he wants to be part of this, then nothing changes.” Emmett sets the fork down. “Same rules. Your choice, Leah, always. And if he doesn’t, that’s his call.”
I wait. Part of me already knows what he’s going to say, and the rest of me is hoping I’m wrong.
He doesn’t respond at first, his mind likely weighing out the pros and cons. And when he opens his mouth, he gives the answer I didn’t want.
“I can’t.”
Two words. Not no. Not I don’t want to.
My heart drops, but I shouldn’t be surprised. What I’m asking is ridiculous, and I know that.
“You were in love with Kian.” He’s holding my eyes now. “I can’t spend the rest of my life wondering if you’re comparing us. Every time we’d be together, I’d be asking myself who you were seeing.”
Not my brothers. Not Declan and Emmett. It isn’t the two men who had me last night that he can’t get past. It’s the one who had me first. That’s the only brother he’s competing with, and he isn’t even in the room.
I want to tell him I don’t see Kian in him at all, but I’ve already told him that. That despite the face, the two of them have about as much in common as a bird and a stone. But saying it now would be pushing him, and I won’t do that, because it wouldn’t be fair.
Kian has already done enough damage to both of us.
“Okay.” I make my voice steady. “I hear you. I’m not asking you for anything you don’t want to give, Rowan.”
He flinches. It’s small, barely a tightening around the eyes, but I catch it when I use the word want.
Enough to make me wonder whether he’s choosing this or just refusing to let himself have it.
Either way, there’s nothing to do about it this morning.
It doesn’t change anything, and I don’t want to change him.
“Then here’s where I am.” I turn back to Declan and Emmett. “I’m in. I accept this, whatever we’re calling it. On one condition.” I look at each of them in turn, and I let it land on Rowan last. “No secrets. Not ever. I’ve had a lifetime’s worth.”
“Deal.” Emmett raises his coffee like a toast. “No secrets.”
“That was always a given,” Declan tells me.
Rowan doesn’t speak. He nods, once.
“So are you three going public?” He asks it after a moment, dry, arms still crossed. “Because that changes the story Leah and I have been giving the media.”
“No,” I answer before the others. “Everybody else still has to believe that we’re together until after Madeline has the baby. It’s what she asked me for, and it’s the least I owe her after everything she’s been through, even though it wasn’t my fault.”
“Agreed.” His voice is steady, but his eyes aren’t.
I can’t help but wonder whether pretending to be with me is about to get a lot harder for him now that his brothers actually are.
“Then it’s settled.” Declan pushes his chair back and stands, and I think he’s seen the same thing I have. “We have a plan.”
“And we have breakfast.” Emmett slides the platter into the middle of the table. “Eat. I didn’t make these for decoration.”
Declan and Emmett fall into talk about the lake, the boat, whether it’s too cold to take it out this late in the year. Rowan pulls his chair in, serves himself, and eats without a word.
I want to reach across the table and put my hand over his. I don’t, because it would only make it harder.
It’s a strange way to feel over breakfast, full of something that might be love and something that’s definitely excitement, and still aware of the empty place at the table where the last piece should go.