Chapter Six
WITH FIVE PEOPLE and one bedroom, bedtime isn’t so much an individual decision as a consensus.
The autumn sun sets early, and it’s not long after dinner that Wyatt pushes to his feet with a quiet wince.
Ryder gets up too, steadying him by the arm and guiding him toward the bedroom. The rest of us take the cue.
Damian gathers the plates while I pull out the couch, the metal frame sighing as I unfold it.
Jake spreads out the top sheet over it. We move around each other in easy silence, each knowing where to step without colliding.
These men were trained to share barracks, to live shoulder to shoulder, and I grew up learning how to live in borrowed rooms and take up as little space as possible.
None of us seem to mind the closeness, but it’s more than that.
The five of us just fit together so easily.
Through the bedroom doorway, the bedside lamp paints Wyatt and Ryder’s profiles in gold. Wyatt sits stiffly on the edge of the bed, Ryder crouched in front of him, unwrapping the bandage from his ribs. The tape pulls softly from his skin.
“Looks clean,” Ryder says. “We’ll change it again in the morning.”
Damian disappears into the washroom and returns smelling of soap and toothpaste, while Jake grabs a flashlight and heads outside to turn off the generator. When he does, a sudden quiet settles over everything.
He comes back in as Ryder is pulling Wyatt’s bedroom door partially closed behind him. Damian crouches by the hearth, raking the coals into a glowing mound and laying one last log across them.
“Let’s all try to get a decent night’s sleep,” Ryder says, stretching the tension out of his neck.
Damian smirks in the firelight. “In that case,” he says, “maybe you and Max shouldn’t sleep next to each other. Save us the midnight entertainment.”
Jake snorts and heat floods my face.
Ryder arches an eyebrow. For a second I can see the wheels turning, as he puts it together: Damian knows.
Jake knows. But he recovers quickly. “You got a problem with the sleeping arrangements, Voss?” he asks, as if the real issue is his authority being questioned.
It’s the kind of voice used for battlefield obedience.
But Damian just lifts both hands, grinning. “Not a problem, just an observation. Easier to sleep without all the heavy breathing.”
Behind him, Jake snickers.
The tips of my ears burn. Last night, I’d assumed everyone was fast asleep, and apparently Ryder did too, given the fury tightening his jaw. The moment of silence he lets drag out after Damian’s quip grows painfully long.
Finally, he exhales through his nose, lips pressed thin. “You had the chair last night,” he says. “You should stretch out on the mattress. I’ll take the chair.”
Damian barely suppresses a grin. “You sure, boss?”
Ryder glares at him and drops into the recliner, the leather groaning. I get the point he’s making—that he won’t admit to anything, but he’s not about to let it happen twice. Still, part of me aches at the distance. I’ll miss his smell. The heat of him.
Damian shrugs and holds up a corner of the sheet, gesturing for me to take the middle. I crawl in and then he follows after, the metal frame creaking beneath his weight. Jake settles on my other side. We smooth the sheet over so it covers all three of us.
For a while, it’s quiet. Jake and Damian’s shoulders press against mine, a warmth that’s both comforting and complicated. I’ve fallen asleep between them like this before, and it feels familiar. Maybe too familiar.
Damian shifts first, a tiny movement. His knees bump mine—once, then again. I nudge him back under the blanket, half playful, half warning. He doesn’t stop. His foot finds mine and presses lightly, on purpose.
“Cut it out,” I whisper.
No answer. The mattress squeaks. Another nudge.
Then he turns onto his side, facing me, his breath ghosting closer to my ear. I freeze, trying to keep my own breathing steady. Silence stretches. Then his knees brush mine again, and one foot wriggles between my ankles with a ridiculous persistence that makes my lips twitch.
“Voss,” Jake hisses, “if your foot touches me in the night, I will kick you to death by accident.”
The laugh I’ve been suppressing escapes me as a snort. Damian answers with a choked, breathy laugh that makes Jake chuckle quietly as well.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Ryder grumbles from the chair.
There’s half a beat of stillness…and then we all burst out laughing.
It comes up bright and uncontrollable, bubbling out of me.
Jake lets out a high-pitched giggle that gets Damian and I going even harder, and then Ryder readjusts pointedly, which only makes it worse.
We giggle, laugh, snort, try to suppress it.
Eventually the wave ebbs, leaving us breathless and trembling.
Damian exhales, and I can hear the smile in it. Jake clears his throat, pretending at seriousness. My heart is thumping too fast.
After a while, Damian shifts again. This time, his foot brushes mine by accident, but a toenail scrapes the arch of my foot and I jolt, kicking my foot sideways and accidentally hitting Jake’s shin.
A squeal of hysteria escapes Damian as Jake yelps and retaliates instantly, sliding his foot between my ankles to jab Damian with a bark of laughter.
“Get your fucking foot away from me,” he cries, laughing so hard his voice cracks.
I wheeze. Damian folds, burying his face in the mattress, shoulders shaking. Giggling, Jake reaches over me to smack him.
In the firelight I catch Jake’s wide grin, the sharp angles of his face, the spark in those green eyes—and joy surges through me. I’m laughing so hard tears spill over, pinned under Jake’s weight as he leans across me to thump Damian again.
“Jesus Christ,” Ryder mutters. “This is the sixth-grade sleepover of my nightmares.”
Damian flails an arm over me to smack Jake back, hands windmilling wildly, and I duck into the pillow with a helpless, delighted choke.
“That’s it,” Jake says, voice breaking, “you’re asking for it.”
He reaches over the edge of the bed, grabs a couch cushion from the floor, and hurls it toward Damian.
It arcs perfectly through the dim firelight…misses Damian by a foot…and hits Ryder square in the shoulder with a heavy whump.
Ryder snaps, “Jesus Christ,” batting it away.
There’s one frozen heartbeat—and then we collapse into hysterics.
Damian emits a keening sound that is so completely unrestrained it has Jake and I doubling over.
I’m helpless against the absolute hysteria that has gripped me.
Every time it starts to die, I catch sight of one of them shaking with laughter and I lose it all over again.
I’m laughing so hard my face hurts. My stomach starts to cramp.
Jake is facedown in the mattress making strangled noises, and Damian is curled like a shrimp, feet kicking uselessly.
It is beyond unhinged and absolutely out of control, and somehow Ryder doesn’t crack for a second.
He folds his arms and turns away from us, which only makes it all seem more ridiculous.
It’s Wyatt who finally shuts us down. His voice appears from the bedroom doorway, rough with sleep. “Sorry, idiots, but I need to get some rest.”
He closes the door with a click. The reminder of his condition cuts through the hysteria somewhat. We try to quiet ourselves, lying back with shaking breaths. The silence settles with a charge—I know the second someone cracks, we’ll all go again.
Damian snorts.
I erupt.
We spiral through it. A small leak of laughter, clamp down, breathe, try again. Another slip, another near-silent wheeze, another tremor of suppressed hysterics. Damian’s shoulders shake. My own breath keeps hitching.
Another giggle escapes Damian and I sit up and slap a hand over his mouth. “Stop,” I whisper as I lean over him, grinning so hard my face hurts. “Or they’re going to kill us.”
His eyes lock on mine, bright, daring, wicked, and for a heartbeat the intimacy steals the air from my lungs. His lips are warm under my palm, his jaw sharp under my fingers. The laughter drains from him in slow, uneven breaths and heat pools in my stomach.
I want to take my hand away and put my mouth where my hand is, turn all this frantic, fizzy energy into something slower and deeper. But I don’t move.
Jake is inches away, Ryder is in the chair, Wyatt’s asleep in the other room, and I have no idea what the rules are between us.
Damian reads the whole thing in my eyes. He reaches up and curls his fingers around my wrist, gently peeling my hand from his mouth. His eyes glint darkly.
“I’ve got a good idea how you could shut me up,” he murmurs, gaze dropping to my lips before lifting again.
Ryder’s voice slices through the dark, low and threatening. “That’s enough.”
But Damian doesn’t look away. Neither do I. For a suspended second, it feels like we’re standing on the edge of something.
But I break the moment, easing back and rolling onto my side. Damian exhales.
I leave my hand on his chest, just above his heart, and his body settles under my touch, my breathing slowly falling into rhythm with his. Finally, somehow, we all drift into sleep.
A cough wakes me. Low at first, then rattling.
Wyatt.
I blink in the dark. The fire’s gone to embers. The door to the bedroom is still closed, but I can hear him coughing through the wall.
Carefully, I slide my hand off Damian, lift the sheet with two fingers, and inch myself toward the foot of the mattress.
Jake is heat along my other side. I shift my hips a fraction, then another, until my calves find open air.
The frame gives one tiny groan, but no one stirs.
I curl the pillow under my arm and ooze off the edge, my socks whispering against the floorboards as I tiptoe across the room.
I open the bedroom door slowly so it doesn’t creak.
“Hey,” I whisper into the dark. “You okay?”
Wyatt’s sitting half-upright, braced on one arm, coughing into the other. I cross to him and hand him the water glass from his bedside table.
“Small sips.” I steady the glass for him, count his breaths with my fingers resting light on his sternum the way Ryder showed me—four in, six out, again. His face eases. The cough loosens, then fades.
“Didn’t mean to wake you,” he rasps.
“You should have both pillows,” I whisper back, sliding my pillow behind him. “You shouldn’t be sleeping flat.”
“Bossy,” he says with a smile.
“You love it.”
He tips his head back, conceding with a tired sigh, then he lifts the corner of the blanket up, an invitation. I slip in beside him carefully, and lay my palm on his shoulder to feel the steady rise and fall of his breath.
For a while we just lie there. It’s so nice to lie beside him. We slept like this for weeks at the clubhouse, side by side, sharing body heat in the dark, and I’ve missed it, the warmth of him, the way he smells. Just being near him is so calming.
“You all right?” he whispers, and I know there’s more in the question than just tonight.
“Getting there,” I say softly, smoothing my thumb along his arm. “You?”
He nods and exhales slow. I lower my forehead to his shoulder and breathe him in.
“God,” he murmurs, resting his head against mine. “We made it. I can’t lie, there was a moment I didn’t think we would.”
“Yeah.” My throat tightens. “Same. But they came for us.”
“You did good leaving the voicemail.”
I go quiet for a bit. “I’ve had to explain myself to everyone,” I whisper finally. “For not telling them about the O.D. I feel like shit about it.”
He reaches over, patting for my head and finding my cheek instead.
“Jake’s pissed,” I go on. “Damian took it the best. And you.”
“Jake’s an easygoing guy—until the ground shifts under him,” Wyatt says. “He’ll come around once he’s steady again.”
“Yeah.” I murmur. I’ve missed having time alone with him, this quiet space where everything feels simple and close.
“Sounds like he’s already coming around, judging by the racket earlier,” he says, smile audible.
I laugh under my breath. “Sorry about that.”
“Don’t be.”
“Just got a case of the giggles. Then it got out of control.”
He snorts a quiet laugh, and I grin in the dark.
“Ryder didn’t like it.”
Wyatt finds my hand under the blanket, fingers closing gently around mine. “No one ever called him easygoing.”
“Fact,” I whisper, smiling against his shoulder.
Silence settles between us again, softer now. Then Wyatt says quietly, “It’s not easy, what you’re all trying to figure out. The lines aren’t clear. Feelings never are.”
The words make me draw in a breath. I know what he’s saying. That he’s making it about me and them—not him. Not us. That he’s letting me go without making me choose.
And it stings. But, “Yeah,” is all I say. I don’t know how to sort through the mess of what I’ve made here.
He squeezes my hand once, thumb tracing the edge of my knuckle, and we fall quiet again.
I mean to go back to the couch. I do. But lying beside Wyatt, a warm, heavy sleepiness takes over me. The comfort of being close to him. I want to stay right here, next to the body I’ve missed so much.
“Love you,” I whisper, half asleep.
“Love you too,” he whispers back, his voice thin, with just the faintest splinter of pain through it.