25. Parker
PARKER
I’ve read the same job posting three times and still can’t tell you what the company even does.
My laptop’s open on the kitchen counter.
The afternoon sunlight’s coming in at the wrong angle through the blinds, striping the laminate floor like bars.
There’s a cold cup of coffee next to my elbow, half-drunk and bitter.
And me? I’m still in a sweatshirt I stole from Phil when I was nineteen, hair in a messy bun, glasses sliding down my nose because I can’t be bothered with contacts today.
The twins are at school. I packed their lunches.
Made sure Lyra’s backpack had her library book, even though she swears the librarian is out to get her.
Kissed Levi’s forehead even though he squirmed and said he’s “too big” for that now.
And then I came back here. To this silence.
To this low, grinding ache in my chest that won’t let me breathe deep.
I’ve cleaned the kitchen twice. Sorted the mail. Reorganized the spice rack alphabetically. And still, every few minutes, I catch myself placing a hand over my stomach.
I’m not even showing yet. But I feel it. The weight of it. The change. The life inside me—and the absolute, unrelenting fear that I’ve ruined everything for this child before they’re even born.
Half of the job listings are scams. The other half ask for ten years of experience and the blood of a unicorn. I’m barely twenty-five and somehow already feel like I’ve aged out of everything good.
A knock at the door nearly sends my heart into my throat.
I freeze.
Nobody knocks in the middle of the morning. Unless it’s Mom with some homemade bread. But then the knock comes again. Firmer this time. The police?
When I open the door, there they are. All three of them.
Gavin in his dark suit, no tie, looking too polished for the apartment building hallway. Jack in jeans and a blazer, the least formal I’ve seen since the cabin and somehow ten times more intense. And Harrison—arms crossed, curls wild, eyes fixed on me like he’s afraid I’ll vanish if he looks away.
My breath catches. My knees forget how to be knees. “Hi,” I say, barely above a whisper.
Jack steps forward first. “We need to see you.”
I look at Gavin. His jaw’s tight, but his eyes—God, his eyes. They’ve always been fire. Today they’re glowing with something else entirely. Harrison doesn’t say anything. He just holds my gaze.
And I forget how to breathe.
I don’t move at first. I just stare at them like my brain can’t catch up with the moment. Maybe it can’t. Maybe this is just another dream—like the ones I’ve been having all week, the ones where they come back, where everything is okay, where I don’t wake up with tears already drying on my cheeks.
But then Jack shifts his weight, Gavin’s brow furrows, and Harrison lets out the breath he’s clearly been holding. They’re real.
They’re here.
And they’re waiting for me to let them in.
I step aside, and they file in silently. None of them say much at first. The air changes the moment the door shuts behind them. It’s not threatening. It’s not loud. It’s just…charged. Like the whole apartment’s been holding its breath as long as I have.
Jack is the first to speak. He steps close, not touching me, but close enough that I feel the heat of him. “You ran,” he says, voice low. There’s no accusation in it—just the kind of raw honesty he always hides under sarcasm.
My eyes sting. “I had to. I ruined everything.”
“You made everything better.” His voice cracks just a little. “You made us better.”
Gavin steps forward next. His suit jacket shifts with the motion, but he doesn’t fidget.
He just stands tall, composed, and then says something I never expected him to say—not this plainly.
“I love you,” he says. “I’ve tried not to.
Tried to focus on the company. The fallout.
The risks. But you’re the first thing I think about when I wake up.
The only thing that cuts through the noise. ”
I blink. My chest aches. I feel every heartbeat in my throat.
He’s not finished. “You didn’t ruin anything. You made me remember what I’m fighting for. You made me remember who I am.”
Harrison doesn’t speak right away. Just closes the distance between us and takes my hand in his—big and calloused and warm.
“I don’t want to lose you,” he says. “Not after everything I gave up to get here. I was ready to walk away from all of it, Parker. For you. But I don’t want to. Not anymore. I want both.”
All three of them. Standing there like it’s the most normal thing in the world. My eyes fill, and I try to speak, but the words feel stuck behind my ribs.
I take a breath. Then another. “I love you,” I whisper. I say it to all of them. “I love you so much it terrifies me.”
Jack exhales like he’s been underwater. Gavin closes his eyes. Then Harrison tilts his head. “So…how exactly are we telling Phil?”
The question hangs there a moment, absurd and real and hilarious. And I can’t help it—I laugh. A full, shocked, teary laugh. “Fuck Phil.”
Harrison laughs as he kisses me. Jack’s laughter breaks into the kiss, rough and delighted. Gavin grins. And for the first time in weeks, I feel like everything might actually, finally be okay.
The kiss doesn’t end where it starts.
Harrison’s mouth on mine is soft at first—warm, steady, his palm against my jaw like he’s trying to memorize my skin.
Jack’s laughter fades behind us, but it lingers in the room like sunlight, grounding everything in something real.
Gavin hasn’t touched me yet, but I feel him, the weight of his stare, the restraint in his breathing.
He’s always been the one to hold back. The last one to move, the first one to blame himself when he does.
Harrison kisses me like he never wants to stop.
And then Gavin does touch me. Just a brush of his knuckles down my arm, so light it makes me shiver.
I turn to look at him, and whatever’s on my face must break something open in him, because in the next second, he’s kissing me too—no hesitation this time.
Just fire. Hunger. A quiet sort of desperation.
Jack steps in behind me, one hand sliding around my waist, his chest at my back, mouth brushing my ear. “You have no idea how many times I almost broke down your door.”
“You could’ve,” I whisper.
He chuckles, voice low and hoarse. “Would’ve scared the neighbors.”
I laugh, but it’s shaky, because Gavin is still kissing me and Harrison’s fingers are tracing my wrist and Jack’s hand is inching lower like he can’t wait anymore.
But we’re not rushing this. We can’t. There’s too much weight behind it. Too many apologies we haven’t said out loud. Too many nights apart and too much silence to pretend this is just lust.
It’s not. It never was.
I step back and they let me, give me space, even though none of us want distance right now.
I look at them—three men I never should’ve fallen for.
Three men I love more than I thought I was allowed to.
Jack, with his scowl and his aching tenderness.
Gavin, all precision and guarded passion.
Harrison, steady as gravity, built like he could carry the world and does.
I don’t want to wait anymore.
“I need you,” I say, and it’s not a plea. It’s a truth.
Jack’s jaw flexes. Gavin steps forward, hands on my hips. Harrison tugs me gently toward the couch.
We fall together, a tangle of hands and mouths and murmured apologies. My sweatshirt hits the floor first, followed by Gavin’s jacket. Jack lifts me into his lap like I weigh nothing, and Harrison kneels beside us, his hand sliding up my thigh, slow and reverent.
There’s nothing messy about this—not anymore. No more chaos. No more secrets. Just the four of us, finally in the same place, finally moving in the same direction.
Gavin presses his forehead to mine, breath shaking. “You don’t have to be afraid anymore.”
I nod. “I’m not.”
Harrison kisses the inside of my knee. Jack cups my jaw. And I let go of everything else. I don’t know whose hands are where first. I just know I want them all.
I want Jack’s mouth on my throat while Harrison presses heat between my legs.
I want Gavin’s hands framing my face like I’m something sacred, even as he lets the rest of him go.
I want the weight of them around me, the warmth, the tension, the breathless edge we’ve all been holding for far too long.
We’re not rushed. We take our time.
Jack tugs my leggings down slow, eyes on me like he’s still memorizing every inch. “Been thinking about this every damn night,” he murmurs, kissing my hip, then the soft curve just below my stomach. “Missed you more than I knew how to admit.”
Gavin kneels behind me, one hand on my lower back, the other trailing fire down my spine. His mouth brushes my shoulder. “You don’t get to leave us again.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I whisper.
Harrison doesn’t speak. He doesn’t need to. He’s already in motion, his fingers sliding between my thighs. I gasp, my body arching toward his touch. His lips find my thigh, the inside of my hip. When he finally replaces his fingers with his mouth, I nearly sob.
The men around me move like they’ve rehearsed this—not the motions, but the meaning. The rhythm of what it means to worship someone not out of duty or ownership, but love. The real kind. The messy, painful, irreplaceable kind.
Gavin rises to kiss me again while Harrison makes me tremble on his tongue, and just as I crest into a climax, they switch it up again. Jack slides his hands beneath me as Harrison fingers me to the finish line. When I fall apart, I fall into all of them.
But it doesn’t stop there. Jack pulls me into his lap next, letting me straddle him as his hands guide me down. The stretch of him is everything—full and deep. He breathes my name like it’s a confession.
Gavin’s mouth is on my back, my shoulders, the slope of my neck. Heat rises and falls and rises again. His hands curve around my waist, helping Jack hold me in place while I move, as if I’d try to escape them.
Never.
Or maybe it’s sheer possessiveness. Maybe he needs to hold on to me, even now while I ride Jack. To know I’m not going anywhere. When he knows I’m close, he pushes me down Jack’s full length, forcing me to come on Jack’s cock as he drowns me with kisses.
Then Gavin pulls me off Jack and replaces him by pulling me onto his cock.
It’s a different kind of fire—controlled, deliberate, devastating.
He looks into my eyes the whole time, like he’s daring me to believe I’m really his.
That this is real. I believe it. I believe it when his control falters and he curses under his breath as he spills into me, forehead pressed to mine as we breathe each other’s breath.
When Harrison lifts me last, he does it like I’m made of something breakable—but he moves like I’m not.
He fucks me with strength and heat and everything he’s kept locked away since the moment I left.
He holds my hips like he never wants to let go.
I grip his shoulders and cry out his name as he groans into my mouth and breaks apart with me.
Afterward, we collapse on the couch, tangled and breathless and ruined in the best way.
Jack is the first to speak, his voice low and raw. “So, what now?”
I curl against him, Gavin at my back, Harrison curled behind my knees, his hand still gripping my ankle. “Now we figure it out,” I say. “Together.”
Gavin presses a kiss to my shoulder. “No more secrets.”
“No more running,” I agree.
Jack hums. “Good. Because I’m not letting you quit again.”
Harrison squeezes my ankle. “Me neither.”
I smile. “Me either.”
For the first time in weeks, maybe months, I feel like I can exhale. Because they’re here. I’m not alone. I never will be again.