Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
PENELOPE
The next morning tastes like exhaustion and reheated stress.
No one slept—actually slept—because every time the place went quiet, someone shifted, breathed too hard, or muttered in their sleep-adjacent stupor, and all our brains snapped back to Minxy. But we pretended. We all did the “closing our eyes” thing for optics, and now we’re paying the price.
Gideon is already at the table again, laptop open, hair sticking up like it’s lost the will to live. Silas is on the opposite side, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor like he’s mentally mapping the clinic’s entire escape route again. Neither of them acknowledges it, but they’re fried.
And Talon—
Talon is standing by the front door waiting for me. He’s dressed for class: black hoodie, ripped jeans, backpack slung over one shoulder. He looks like a guy pretending his entire life isn’t collapsing under him in slow motion. His eyes flick to mine, and it hits like static.
“We should go,” he says quietly. “I’ve got my first class at nine AM.”
“Yeah,” I say, grabbing my bag off the counter. “I’ll drive. You look like you shouldn’t operate a spoon right now, let alone a vehicle.”
A ghost of a smile appears on his face. “Fair.”
Gideon glances up long enough to say, “Take my car.” He throws his keys my way and I catch them. “Text when you get there.”
Silas adds, “And text when you leave.”
I roll my eyes. “Yes, dads.”
Silas gives me a look that is absolutely not dad-like.
Talon shifts his weight as if the comment physically hit him, and that’s when it clicks:
he’s still not quite sure where he fits in here…neither am I, really. But I know there is something there, and well, Talon needs all the closeness he can get right now.
We leave the apartment, and the door clicks shut behind us. The hallway is quiet.
Talon’s steps echo beside mine. When we reach Gideon’s car, he hesitates at the passenger door.
“You don’t have to take me,” he says, voice low. “I can walk.”
“It’s three miles,” I say. “And you slept maybe eleven minutes. Get in. Gideon has never let me drive his car, so I’m taking full advantage. Don’t ruin this for me.”
He doesn’t move. Something fragile cracks between us. Last night he took in my touch as though it was a lifeline. Now he’s staying three inches too far away, like he’s protecting me from himself.
“Talon,” I say softly, “get in the car.”
A muscle jumps in his jaw, and he ducks his head, the tips of his ears going a little red. He taps the door twice, steadying himself, maybe, and exhales through his nose before sliding in.
The moment I slide into my seat, the air shifts—warm, tense, full of unspoken things. I start the engine. “Seatbelt.”
He clicks it on, staring out the windshield. “About last night…”
Here it comes. The spiral. The apology for existing.
“No,” I cut in. “Don’t do that thing where you pretend vulnerability is a crime.”
He winces. “I wasn’t going to—”
“I know you were,” I say. “You think falling apart makes you weak. It doesn’t.”
He finally looks at me, and the full force of that wounded loyalty hits like a punch to the sternum. “It’s fine. I’m fine. Just… thanks for not letting me drown yesterday.”
“You weren’t drowning,” I whisper. “You were human.”
I pull out of the parking lot, and he watches me instead of the road—one of those moments that shifts something neither of us is ready to admit.
The closer we get to campus, the quieter he becomes. Not the broody, mysterious quiet he sometimes wears like a second skin. This is the brittle quiet—the kind that means he’s thinking himself in circles and losing every round.
I pull into the parking lot, sliding into an open space near the back where the trees hide half the view. I shift the car into park, but don’t turn off the engine yet. He’s staring at the windshield again, jaw tight, fingers twitching on his thigh.
“Talon,” I say softly.
“I owe you an apology.” His voice is low. “For… a lot of things.”
“Which things?” I ask carefully.
He laughs once—sharp, cracked at the edges. “All of them? The way I acted. The shit I said. Threatening to go to your dad.” He shakes his head, disgust twisting his mouth. “That was….fuck, Penelope. That was fucking low.”
“It was,” I agree, because pretending otherwise would insult both of us. “But it was also want. And want makes people cruel when they don’t know what to do with it.”
His breath stutters. Not in panic—in recognition.
“Don’t,” he mutters, eyes snapping to mine. “Don’t make it sound better than it was.”
“I’m not,” I say. “I’m making it accurate.”
He looks away fast, jaw tight, throat working. “I wanted you. And it pissed me off. I’m not used to wanting something I can’t have. And you—” He huffs, frustrated. “You shut me down like it was nothing. Like one word from you, and I didn’t know my own fucking body anymore.”
Heat curls low in my stomach.
“Talon…”
He presses on, voice rougher now. “You touched my body that night for half a second, and I swear to God I forgot my own name. You said no, and every part of me listened like I had no choice.” His hand fists on his thigh. “I wanted you, and you held the reins. No one’s ever done that to me.”
Silence fills the car because for the first time in maybe my whole life… I’m speechless.
“I shouldn’t have taken it out on you,” he says finally, looking down at his hands like they might admit something he won’t. “I shouldn’t’ve talked to you like that. I shouldn’t have used your dad. That was me being pissed at myself, not you.”
“That,” I say softly, “is the truth.”
He nods once, jaw trembling just enough to show the crack. “You didn’t deserve it. Not the threats. Not the tone. Not the bullshit power play.”
I watch him—this hard-edged, sharp-mouthed boy who can’t hide the cracks I’ve already seen. “No,” I say. “But you’re here. And you’re owning it. That matters.”
His breath shivers out of him.
“I don’t know what you did to me,” he whispers, voice frayed. “But you said one word, and I broke. You kissed me and I melted. You blew a breath on my cock and—” He cuts himself off, cheeks flushed, mortified. “Christ, I came undone like some inexperienced idiot.”
My pulse spikes.
“Talon.” It comes out lower than I mean it to.
“I didn’t mean the shit I threw at you,” he says, voice raspy. “I meant… I didn’t know how to be around you without losing my grip.”
“And now you’re trying,” I tell him. “That’s what I care about.”
He leans back, eyes glassy, chest rising too fast. “I don’t deserve forgiveness.”
“You don’t get to decide that,” I say. “I do.”
He blinks, eyes burning as he turns his face away. A fractured exhale slips out, almost a sob he won’t allow.
I reach over, touch his forearm lightly. He freezes, then his whole body loosens, like every tense line dissolves under my hand.
“Go to class,” I murmur. “Text me when you’re out. Here's my number.” I airdrop my contact.
He nods slowly. “Okay.”
He unbuckles, fingers shaking, and gets out. But before closing the door, he leans in again, forehead almost brushing the frame.
“Thank you,” he whispers, voice wrecked. “For not walking away.”
Then he shuts the door and heads toward the building, and for a second I just sit there, gripping the steering wheel like it might stop my brain from spinning.
God, Talon.
It shouldn’t feel like this. Not with everything happening. Not with Abi circling like a vulture, my dad probably two breaths away from being the next missing husband, and Minxy sitting in that school with a target painted on her back.
I shouldn’t be thinking about the shape of his mouth when he apologized. Or the way his voice dipped when he said I held the reins. Or how it felt having him look at me like I was the only person who’d ever told him no and meant it.
It’s stupid. It’s dangerous. It’s the worst possible time to feel anything for anyone, let alone a boy in my class.
A boy I technically shouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole and a lawyer present. A boy who wants me with every messed-up, furious, hungry part of himself.
And the worst part?
I want him too.
Not in the cute crush way I could ignore. Not even in the “he’s pretty, whatever” way.
No—this is that deep, hot, magnetic pull that drags low in my stomach and whispers things I have no business wanting when my life is hanging by a thread, and duct tape.
Three men.
Three men who look at me like I’m gravity and they’ve been floating too long.
Three men who make my pulse trip over itself without trying.
Three men who move like they were engineered in a lab to destroy my self-control.
Honestly? That should be illegal.
Well… I did practically pull them from the same gene pool.
The realization hits, and a laugh bursts out of me—loud, sharp, unexpected. I clamp a hand over my mouth, still laughing into my palm.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter, shaking my head. “I’m doomed.”
I grab my bag, shove the car door open, and step out into the chilly morning air. Time to put my brain back onto something safe. Normal.
Clinical notes class.
I straighten my shirt, pull in a breath, and try—fail—to wipe the lingering smile off my face as I head toward the building.