Chapter 16 Silas
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Silas
Boone jerks back as if he’s been shot.
Delaney slams into the counter, air whooshing out of her in a noise I will absolutely never tease her about out loud, because something about the look on her face says she might actually perish on the spot.
They both whip toward the doorway.
I lift two fingers in a little salute.
“Sup.”
For a solid three seconds, no one breathes.
Boone looks murderous.
Delaney looks for a trapdoor to open under her feet and swallow her directly into the earth’s molten core.
The kitchen smells of lemon, rosemary, and sex.
Not awkward at all.
“Silas,” Boone growls, low in that way he uses when he’s one wrong word away from committing a felony.
I raise a brow. “Boone.”
Delaney’s still plastered against the counter, holding it up with her spine. Her jeans are halfway up, her shirt is wrinkled, and she looks so gorgeous and wrecked and alive that my chest does a weird, sharp twist I don’t have time to unpack.
She makes a noise, a strangled little squeak, and shoots off the counter, pulling her jeans up.
That’s new… I don’t usually care what happens after.
With Delaney, I do.
“I… I need to, uh, I have to…” She gestures vaguely toward the hallway, face flaming. “Timer! My room! I left… I forgot, I’ll just…”
She flees.
I watch her go, torn somewhere between impressed and mildly concerned she’s going to run straight into a wall.
The second she’s gone, Boone turns on me.
A storm pivoting directions.
“Don’t,” he warns, low enough to vibrate the floorboards.
I blink innocently. “Don’t what?”
He advances one step. Just one. Enough for the temperature in the room to drop five degrees.
“Silas.”
“Boone,” I answer, matching his tone because someone has to lighten this catastrophe before he pops a vein. “Buddy. Friend. Neighbor. Coworker. Trusted advisor—”
He points at me. “Shut. Up.”
I grin. “Can’t. It’s genetic.”
His jaw ticks so hard I swear I hear enamel strain. His hands flex open and closed. He’s trying to decide which part of my body he’d most enjoy throttling first.
“I swear,” he grits out, “if you say one thing, one single thing, about what you just saw…”
“Oh, please,” I cut in. “It’s not like any of this is new territory. You, me, Caleb… we’ve done worse in places with less counter space.”
His expression curdles.
“That was different,” he snaps.
“Oh?” I lean back against the doorframe, crossing my arms. “Because this one actually matters?”
That hits.
I see it land behind his eyes. A punch he wasn’t braced for.
He looks away.
Which is how I know I’m right.
His hands brace on the counter, shoulders tight enough to snap.
“It won’t happen again,” he mutters.
I laugh.
Loud. Delighted. Can’t help it.
“Oh, man. You actually believe that, don’t you?”
He lifts his head, glaring knives at me. “It won’t.”
“Boone,” I say gently, as if he’s Sadie insisting gravity isn’t real, “you had your mouth between her thighs two minutes ago. You think that ship is sailing into the sunset without circling the harbor at least twelve more times?”
“Silas.”
I shrug. “Just an observation.”
His nostrils flare, classic Boone about to blow, but I see the panic beneath it. The guilt. The fear. The this is dangerous, and I can’t screw it up that lives in his bones.
I soften my voice.
“You okay?”
“No,” he snaps. Then softer: “I don’t know.”
There.
That right there is the thing Boone Taylor never says out loud.
He turns away, scrubbing a hand over his face. “She works for me. She lives here. Sadie—”
“I know,” I say. “Believe me, I know.”
I step closer, not enough to crowd him, but enough so he knows I’m not joking anymore.
“But you didn’t take advantage of her,” I remind him. “You didn’t trick her. You didn’t trap her. She wasn’t thinking about her job, or the ranch, or the goddamn PTA bake sale, Boone. She looked at you like she was choosing you.”
He flinches at that.
Which, frankly, is fascinating.
“Whatever this is,” I continue, “it isn’t one-sided.”
He doesn’t deny it.
Can’t.
He just presses his palms harder into the counter until the wood groans.
“I shouldn’t have done it,” he mutters. “I can’t be that man. Not with her.”
I sigh. Dramatic enough to make him twitch.
“Well,” I say, “if it makes you feel any better… I already beat you to it.”
Boone goes still.
Not regular still.
Statue still.
Someone hit pause on a very large, very dangerous man.
“What?” he says carefully.
“Okay,” I hold up both palms, hands open in peace, “before you rip my head off and feed it to the horses, let me clarify: it was before I knew who she was. Before I knew she worked here. Before I even knew her last name.”
His eyelid twitches.
Uh oh.
Time to rip the Band-Aid.
“I slept with her,” I say plainly. “At The Hollow. About a week before she moved in.”
Boone inhales sharply, acting as if I just punched him in the sternum.
“It wasn’t planned,” I add quickly. “I didn’t know she was your new chef. She walked into the bar looking like someone dipped sunshine into heartbreak and set it loose on the world, and—”
“Silas.”
“—and she laughed at one of my jokes.”
His glare sharpens. “You’ll sleep with anyone who laughs at one of your jokes.”
“Incorrect,” I say, deeply offended. “I have standards. And Delaney isn’t just anyone.”
The second it’s out of my mouth, I see the way the words land.
Boone’s jaw tightens. His shoulders bunch. Heat floods his neck, a mix of anger and a redness that looks suspiciously jealous.
Interesting.
Boone turns away, bracing both hands on the counter again. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I just didn’t.”
He doesn’t answer.
He’s breathing too hard for a man who didn’t run anywhere.
So I keep talking, because that’s what I do best, dig holes and fill them with inappropriate honesty.
“And before you start spiraling,” I add, “she feels something for you.
His head jerks slightly. He wasn’t expecting that.
“She looked at you,” I say, shrugging one shoulder, “like she was going to melt through the damn counter.”
Still no response.
But the tension in his jaw isn’t quite the same flavor.
Not anger.
Not only guilt.
Something else is mixing in there now.
Inconvenient.
Inevitable.
“And,” I say lightly, “I’m… pretty sure Caleb is into her too.”
Boone turns his head slowly. “What?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I mean, he hasn’t said anything, obviously. Because he’s Caleb. He’ll die of internalized pining before he admits to having a single human emotion. But I’ve seen the way he looks at her.”
Boone just stares.
So I list it out for him.
“Number one: he avoids looking directly at her, which is a dead giveaway. Two: he gets weirdly quiet around her, which is saying something. Three: she brings him coffee in the barn, and he gets that ridiculous soft face he only ever gets with horses and Sadie.”
Boone scrubs his hand over his face.
“And four,” I add, “I caught him smiling at her cooking. Smiling, Boone. Actual teeth. I thought he was having a stroke.”
Boone groans into his palms.
“And five,” I finish, because I believe in thoroughness, “he called her ‘good people.’ You know how many people Caleb has called ‘good people’ in the last decade? Four. Me, you, Sadie, and one geriatric horse named Daisy who died in 2019.”
Boone lets his hands fall, staring straight ahead.
Then:
“This is a disaster.”
“Incorrect,” I say cheerfully. “This is a developing situation.”
His glare returns. “Silas.”
“What? It’s not like the three of us haven’t… shared before.”
“That was different,” he snaps again.
“Sure,” I nod. “Because those women weren’t Delaney.”
He goes quiet.
And there it is.
The real thing simmering in his chest.
The complication neither of us wants to name.
“She’s not just some fling,” he mutters, more to himself than to me. “She’s not someone we can just… bring into this house and then—”
“Let her go,” I finish.
He flinches.
I exhale, leaning back against the island.
“Yeah,” I say softly. “I know.”
The moment stretches as the truth settles in.
Three men. One woman.
History and chemistry tangled up between us.
A kid who adores her, a past she’s running from, and a future none of us are prepared for.