Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
The mansion feels quieter than it should as we step through the door, the weight of the dinner still hanging in the air. Levi tugs at his collar as if it’s choking him, muttering about needing to wash his face to scrub Veronica’s air kisses off his skin.
“Get the poison off myself,” he clarifies as he kicks off his shoes and heads toward the stairs. “I can’t stand it.”
I huff. “A bit dramatic, don’t you think?”
Koen shrugs out of his jacket, running a hand through his hair. “He’s not wrong. I need to get out of this suit too. You need anything?”
“I’ll change in a minute.” I brush at the skirt of my dress. “I want some water first.” My throat hurts as if I choked on a breath the whole evening.
“I’ll grab it for you,” Koen offers, but Ezra steps in.
“Go change. I’ll get her a glass.”
Koen hesitates for a fraction of a second before nodding and kissing my temple, then he disappears up the stairs after Levi, and I follow Ezra into the kitchen.
The tension feels different now, less about Veronica and more about us. Ezra pulls a glass from the cupboard and fills it. He slides it toward me across the counter, then grabs a glass for himself.
I take a long sip, letting the cool water soothe my throat. “Do you think all of this is a good idea?”
“No.” Ezra doesn’t hesitate. “But it’s not like anybody ever listens to me in this house.”
I chuckle, leaning my hip against the counter. “That can’t be true. You give off big brother, man-in-charge vibes.”
He snorts. “Yeah? Tell Dove that. That little brat does whatever the hell he wants.”
I smirk, swirling the water in my glass. “Speaking of Levi—”
“Don’t.” His tone is sharp but not unkind.
“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
“Oh, I know.” Ezra’s gaze flicks to me, and there’s something guarded in his eyes. “I know you’ve figured it out, just like Alaric did. Ask him how that’s going for him. Giving me all these looks like he wants me to know he cracked my secret.”
“Why is it a secret in the first place?” I tilt my head, watching him closely. “Are you uncomfortable with being—”
“I’m not,” he interrupts, the words quick and clipped. I raise a brow, letting the silence linger, waiting him out. Ezra sighs, the tension in his shoulders easing slightly. “It doesn’t matter what I am or what I’m not.”
“Why?” I press gently.
“Because it was only ever him. And I can’t have him.”
“That’s not true.” I step closer, setting my glass down on the counter. “What are you talking about? Why are you holding back?”
“Oscar,” Ezra’s jaw tightens, his gaze dropping to the glass in his hand. “He saw it, too, when Levi came to live with us.”
“How come you were living with him? Are you related or…”
“My dad was a light technician for his shows. During a rehearsal, he fell off a scaffolding and broke his neck.”
Fuck.
Poor Ezra.
“Oscar was devastated. He blamed himself, though no one else did. He helped my mom and me financially for years after that. When I was thirteen, and my mom was diagnosed with cancer, he took us in.”
I stay silent, surprised he’s sharing something so private with me.
“When she died, Oscar just… kept me,” Ezra continues. “He didn’t have to, but he did. And when the twins came to live with us, I was eighteen. Levi was almost sixteen, and I… I developed a crush on him. Stupid, I know.”
“It’s not stupid,” I say softly.
Ezra doesn’t acknowledge the words, continuing, “Oscar told me to hold back. He said we were too young, that I could ruin our family. That Levi was impulsive, and if we broke up, it’d destroy our whole dynamic. And he was right. I couldn’t risk it.”
“Levi told me he’s loved you for more than a decade.” I know telling him this is probably not my place, but somebody needs to make sure they get their heads out of their asses.
This can’t take them another decade to figure out.
I touch his forearm. “That doesn’t sound impulsive to me.”
Ezra’s head snaps up, his eyes searching mine. “He did?”
“Yeah.” I nod. “He is very much in love with you, too, Ezra. And you’re not kids anymore. You’re both in your thirties. Maybe it’s time to stop holding back. I bet Oscar would think so, too, now.”
He looks away, his jaw working, the silence stretching out. When he finally meets my gaze again, there’s something raw in his expression—a crack in the armor he wears around me.
“It’s not that simple,” he murmurs.
“Maybe it is,” I counter. “And maybe it’s worth it.”
Ezra doesn’t respond, but the way his hand tightens around the glass tells me he’s thinking about it.
The sound of footsteps on the stairs pulls my attention toward the hallway, and moments later, Sylus bounds into view. Behind him, Ace descends at a slower pace.
Sylus strides into the kitchen, grabs me around the waist, and pulls me up into the air with a playful twirl that makes me yelp. “There’s my Sparkle!” he says before his lips crash onto mine in a kiss so dramatic it has me laughing against his mouth.
When he finally pulls back, it’s only to pepper kisses all over my face, forehead, nose, and cheeks while I squeal and try to squirm free. “Stop!”
“Shut up, you love me.” He grins, setting me back on my feet but keeping his arms looped around my waist as he leans in for another kiss, slower this time. This one is the kind that makes my toes curl and my heart skip. “So? How was it? Did you dazzle everyone?”
I’m lost in the chaos that is Sylus, his unfiltered affection and absolute lack of hesitation.
But then my gaze drifts past him, landing on Ace.
My heart stutters as a flicker of guilt ripples through me.
Sylus is loud and bold and so unapologetically present, and I wonder what Ace thinks, seeing this. Seeing me like this.
Does it hurt him? Does it feel like Sylus is claiming a piece of me that should be his? The thought weaves a thread of panic through the happiness Sylus’s hug brought me. I can’t bear the idea of making Ace feel as though there’s no space for him like he’s a shadow in a room that’s already full.
But then Ace meets my gaze, and there’s no anger, no jealousy. Instead, he offers me the smallest, softest smile. It’s enough to take the weight off my chest but not enough to stop my heart from aching for him.
“How do you think it was?” Ezra’s dry voice pulls me out of my thoughts as he walks out of the kitchen.
Sylus watches him go, his eyebrows raised.
“What a grump.” He leans in to kiss my cheek, his lips lingering a second longer than necessary.
“I’ll go check on him.” Then, with a wink, he saunters off after Ezra, leaving me alone with Ace, who stands by the counter, his ice-blue eyes still locked on me.
His quiet intensity is so different from Sylus’s playful chaos, yet it pulls me in just the same. “You look beautiful,” he compliments, and the sincerity in it makes my heart stutter.
“Thank you.” I glance down, smoothing the fabric of my dress. “How are you? I haven’t seen you since…”
“… our chat,” he finishes for me, offering a faint, almost self-conscious smile. “I’m managing.”
I take a step closer, searching his expression. “Managing?”
“I’m trying,” he admits. “Trying to… work things out. To be better for you.”
“You don’t have to be anything for me except yourself.”
“I do,” he disagrees. “And I will be.”
“I missed you,” I confess, the words slipping out before I can second-guess them.
“I missed you too.”
Koen appears at the kitchen’s entry. “Are you two joining us in the living room?” he asks, now dressed in black sweatpants and a shirt. Levi, who walks past us after Koen, is still his glittery self, but his face is bare of makeup.
“Sure,” I say quickly, putting down the glass of water. But as I move to walk past Ace, he reaches out, letting his hand brush against me and his pinky hook around mine.
It’s the same way Rosalee used to hold my pinky—her silent promise that she was there, always—through scraped knees, whispered secrets under the covers, and even that last night. God, if I’d known it was the last one, I would’ve held her pinky tighter. I would’ve told her how much she meant to me.
I blink hard, trying to push the ache back down, but Ace’s voice cuts through my thoughts. “That okay?”
His eyes are searching mine, and something in them twists my heart like he’s asking permission not only to touch my hand but to anchor himself to me—to make it through all of this together.
I swallow, nodding even though the lump in my throat threatens to choke me. “More than okay.”
His lips twitch with the barest hint of a smile, and it’s almost enough to break me right there because it’s the kind of smile that’s a lifeline when you’ve been drowning for so long you’ve forgotten what air feels like.
As we walk toward the living room, our pinkies still linked, the world narrows to this one fragile connection. It’s such a small thing, but somehow, it’s everything. It’s as if that tiny point of contact is healing parts of me I thought were beyond saving.
I don’t know if he feels it, too, the way his touch feels like hope. Or maybe it’s just me, desperate to believe that something as small as hooked pinkies can undo eight years of silence and grief.
But I hold on anyway.
As we step into the room, Ace lets go of my pinky, his hand brushing mine one last time before falling to his side.
The absence is immediate like a piece of armor I didn’t know I needed has been stripped away.
But my attention is drawn to the other side of the room, where Ezra and Sylus are huddled together.
Sylus’s hands are moving wildly, punctuating whatever he’s saying, while Ezra’s expression grows darker with each passing second.
“What’s that about?” I murmur, glancing up at Koen, whose sharp eyes are already locked on the pair.
“I have no idea.”
Before either of us can step closer to ask what’s going on, the faint groan of the gates opening fills the room. Ezra’s and Sylus’s whispering halts, their heads snapping toward the windows.