Epilogue
HAVEN
The hot house hummed softly around us. I was used to it now. Especially in the hours after midnight, which was when we liked to come.
Heat wrapped close, settling into my skin, sinking deeper with every breath. The wood beneath me was warm, the air thick and still, broken only by the low shift of movement here and there.
No music.
No shouting.
No pressure.
Just… us.
I sat with my back to the wall, towel loosely wrapped around me, knees pulled in just enough to feel grounded.
Across from me, Sebastian leaned forward, elbows on his thighs, hands clasped loosely together. He wasn’t talking for once.
Which… said a lot.
Ares sat to my right, stretched out like he owned the place — which, honestly, he kind of did. One arm rested along the bench behind me, not quite touching.
Not yet.
Grayson stood for a moment longer than the others had, watching. He finally sat down on the other side of me, our legs touching.
For a while, no one said anything. Not because we didn’t have anything to say, because we did. Too much of it maybe.
But for once, no one rushed to fill the silence.
“I should probably say something,” I murmured eventually.
My voice sounded different in here. Softer, thicker. Like it belonged.
“You, talk?” Sebastian laughed quietly. “That’d be new.”
“I’ve been trying to figure out what this is,” I said, ignoring him.
No one interrupted, now. No one joked.
“Since the beginning,” I went on, “Since the house. The job. All of it.”
A breath.
“I kept thinking it would… settle.”
I shook my head slowly.
“Sort itself out.”
“It has,” Ares said.
I looked at him.
“Has it?”
His jaw went a little bit tighter.
“Yeah,” he said. “It has.”
Sebastian shifted forward. The muscles in his shoulders flexed, momentarily distracting me.
“That doesn’t sound convincing.”
“It’s not supposed to,” Ares shot back.
Grayson took a moment before responding. When he did, I could feel the shift.
“It’s not simple,” he said finally.
I let out a breath that felt like I’d been holding it for weeks.
“No,” I agreed. “It’s not.”
Quiet settled again. The heat in the room, rising slowly in the midnight silence.
I had to say it. Before I lost my nerve.
“I don’t want to choose.”
It came out before I could soften it. Before I could shape it into something easier.
Something less… final.
No one moved.
“I thought I would,” I admitted. “I thought eventually it would just… click. That I’d figure out who it was supposed to be.”
I laughed quietly, shaking my head.
“That one of you would just… make more sense.”
Sebastian looked down, while Ares refused to look away.
Grayson held my gaze, however. Steady. Unshaken.
“But that’s not what happened,” I said.
A beat.
“I didn’t fall for one of you.”
My voice dropped, just slightly.
“I fell for all of you.”
The words hung in the cedar-infused silence. Real. Solid.
Impossible to take back.
Ares mopped his face with one corner of his towel. Sebastian dragged his hand through his tangle of hair.
“Jesus,” he muttered.
I looked to Grayson — always to Grayson. His face was calm. Not even slightly surprised.
“Okay,” he said.
That was it.
I blinked.
“Okay?”
One corner of his mouth lifted.
“Yeah.”
“That’s your response?” Sebastian cut in. “She just—”
“I heard her,” Grayson said calmly. “Didn’t you?”
Ares let out a low laugh.
“I heard her just fine.”
I looked between them, my heartbeat picking up even more. There were no nerves, though. Now that I’d gotten it out, I felt something else entirely.
Something steady.
Something that felt like standing on solid ground.
“You’re not torn, are you?” Grayson asked, his voice even. “You’re telling us what you want.”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat.
“Yes.”
He nodded once.
“Then say it again.”
I looked at all of them.
“I’m not choosing.”
Ares flashed a slow, dangerous smile.
“Good.”
A new warmth blossomed in my chest — even hotter than the room.
It was spreading fast.
“Because I’m not going anywhere,” Ares said like he was stating fact.
His glacial blue eyes shifted to Sebastian, as did mine.
“Yeah… same.”
I felt their presence around me. Not judging. Waiting. Giving me time to come up with the right words.
But that was the problem.
There were no right words.
“I— I don’t know how this works,” I admitted.
Sebastian’s smile was reassuring. My heart fluttered.
“Neither do we,” he said.
Ares smirked. “Speak for yourself.”
Grayson shot him a look.
“You don’t,” he said flatly. “None of us do.”
He placed a hand over mine, interlacing our fingers.
“But we can figure it out,” he said softly.
“How?”
A beat.
“Together.”
Silence returned, blanketing the four of us. This time it wasn’t uncertain.
It was full.
I looked again at all of them — really looked.
At Ares — steady, grounded, unmovable in the ways that mattered.
At Sebastian — open, real, incapable of hiding anything even if he tried.
At Grayson — still watching, still seeing everything. My rock. My anchor.
And all of them, somehow, in some way…
Totally mine.
I could’ve analyzed the situation as I did everything else in my life. Tried to convince myself it was greedy. Stupid. Wrong.
But no, not this.
Not when everything felt this right.
This perfect.
“I know this doesn’t make sense,” I said softly. “I just—”
Ares’s fingers touched my chin, pulling my face to his. He kissed me with a slow, thunderous passion, swallowing my words. Stopping me from whatever nonsense I was about to say next.
I was still in a daze when Sebastian rose and took me next. He held me by the cheeks, sweeping my hair back with both thumbs as his lips worked their magic against mine.
My heart was pounding. My emotions completely overriding my brain, as Grayson guided me his way. He went straight into kissing me, not even leaving me room to breathe. I was dizzy from lack of oxygen. Weak-kneed from being passed so easily from kiss to kiss, lover to lover.
“It doesn’t have to make sense,” Grayson whispered, as he finally let go.
I was in a daze. My brain, fogged with my desire for all three of them.
“I—It doesn’t?” I murmured softly.
“No,” said Ares, his voice authoritative. “Not even a little.”
I looked to Sebastian, who only smiled and shrugged.
“It’s perfectly imperfect,” he chuckled, sitting back. “Put that on your spreadsheet.”
That did it. I laughed.
Actually laughed.
The kind that breaks something open instead of holding it in.
“Okay,” I said, and I meant it.
I chuckled through a long, gratified sigh.
“Just remember,” I said, gesturing to myself grandly. “You boys asked for this.”
Ares arm finally settled against me. It was heavy. Certain.
“Yeah,” he murmured. “We definitely did.”
His big hand rubbed the back of my neck. I could’ve melted straight into a puddle.
“Pretty sure you’re the one who should be worried anyway,” Grayson needled.
“Oh?”
He stretched his arms overhead and cracked his knuckles.
“You’re outnumbered,” he said. “Three on one.”
“Three on one…” I repeated, almost hypnotically.
Ares’s touch sent goosebumps down my arms.
“Know what happens in a three-on-one?” Sebastian asked.
Heat flushed through me. I pretended to think for a moment.
“I have an idea,” I teased. “But tell me anyway.”
He leaned in, lips brushing my ear in the most unfair way possible.
“Somebody always scores.”
I laughed, shaking my head.
“Wow,” I said. “That’s the line you went with?”
Sebastian grinned. “Hey, it’s on brand.”
Ares snorted softly. “He’s not wrong.”
Grayson’s hand settled on my thigh, tightening slightly.
“Don’t worry,” he added. “We’ll demonstrate if needed.”
I laughed again — lighter this time. Easier.
God…
When had it gotten so easy?
I leaned into Ares without thinking, as Sebastian shifted closer. Grayson’s hand stayed where it was, steady and grounding.
For a while we just sat there.
No one rushing it.
No one trying to define it.
Just… letting it be.
Outside, somewhere beyond the thick walls, the world kept moving.
Playoffs.
Games.
Everything that came next.
But in here? There was no pressure. No expectations.
No choices waiting to be made.
Just this.
Four people.
One impossible, undeniable truth.
I closed my eyes, letting the heat sink even deeper into my skin, into my bones.
Into something that felt a lot like home.
We’d figure it out.
The details.
The complications.
All the things that didn’t make sense yet.
Together.
Right now though, I wasn’t trying to solve it. I wasn’t trying to control it.
I was just… in it.
With them.
Exactly where I was meant to be.