Chapter Nineteen #2
Liam is very still. The defiance has drained out of him, leaving something more honest in its wake.
“For who?” Knox asks, quieter now. “You said distance would be easier. Easier for who?”
Liam’s shoulders drop. When he speaks, the words come slow.
“For me.” He swallows hard. “I couldn’t be around you without wanting . . .”
He trails off.
“Without wanting what?”
Liam meets his eyes. Holds the contact this time, even though he looks like he’d rather be anywhere else.
“You know what.”
The cabin feels smaller suddenly. The walls pressing in. Nobody moves. I’m holding my breath without meaning to, watching
twelve years of silence finally break.
Knox takes a step forward. Not aggressive this time.
“Twelve years,” he says. “Twelve years, and you never said anything.”
“Neither did you.”
“I didn’t know how.”
“Neither did I.”
They’re close again. Not fighting anymore, but not quite anything else either. Suspended somewhere in between, balanced on
an edge neither of them seems willing to tip over.
I watch them from the couch, my heart beating in a rhythm that feels unfamiliar. There’s jealousy there, maybe. A twinge of
it. But underneath that, something stronger. Something that looks a lot like want.
Both of them. Together.
With me.
The thought lands before I can stop it. I push it down before it can fully form, but it leaves echoes in its wake. Warmth
spreading through my chest. An ache between my thighs that has no business existing right now.
We have bigger problems. Marlena and her deadline. The diamond and its location. Survival, escape, all the things that should
be occupying every corner of my brain.
But right now, watching Knox and Liam stop pretending, all I can think about is what it would feel like to be caught between
them both.
“So.” I break the silence before it can swallow us whole. “Now what?”
They both turn to look at me. Knox’s gaze is dark, heated. Liam’s gone feral in a way I remember from late nights in hotel
rooms, when we’d finish a job and need somewhere to put all that adrenaline.
“Now we figure out how to survive the next ten days,” Knox says. But he’s not fooling anyone, and he’s still standing too
close to Liam, and nothing about this feels like it’s actually about survival at all.
“Together?” Liam asks. The question has layers I don’t think he intended.
Knox looks at me. Then at Liam. Back at me.
“Together.”
None of us moves for a long moment. Then Knox clears his throat and turns toward the kitchen, and the spell fractures just
enough for us to breathe again.
Evening comes slowly. We cook dinner together because there’s nothing else to do and because the alternative is sitting in
separate corners pretending we don’t feel whatever is building between us. Marlena’s gourmet kitchen is fully stocked. Steaks,
vegetables, that Malbec she mentioned. Everything we need for a meal none of us is hungry for.
The kitchen area is barely big enough for one person, let alone three.
Every movement brings contact. Liam’s hip brushing mine as he reaches for a cutting board.
Knox’s hand grazing my lower back as he passes behind me.
Liam and Knox colliding at the sink, their bodies pressing together for one moment before they separate.
Nobody apologizes. Nobody pulls away faster than necessary.
“You’ve got flour on your sweater,” Liam says, nodding at my chest. “Your very pink sweater.”
“I will poison your steak.”
“I’m just saying, it’s a good look on you. Very domestic.”
“You’re a dead man, Calloway.”
Knox snorts, and when I glare at him, he holds up both hands. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You were thinking it.”
“I was thinking you look beautiful.” He turns back to the steaks, but not before I catch the smirk. “The pink really does
bring out your eyes.”
“I want it on record that I hate both of you.”
“Noted,” they say in unison, and something about the synchronicity makes my stomach flip.
I slice vegetables and try not to think about the way my skin tingles everywhere they’ve touched me. Knox seasons the steaks
with methodical focus, his forearms flexing as he works. Liam opens the wine and pours three glasses, his fingers lingering
on mine when he hands me a glass.
We eat at the small table near the windows. Three chairs, barely enough room to fit. Our knees knock together underneath.
Knox’s thigh presses against mine on one side, warm through the denim. Liam’s foot brushes my ankle on the other.
The Malbec is incredible. Marlena was right about that, at least.
“So,” Liam says, swirling his wine. “Our captor has good taste.”
“In wine,” I agree. “Also in victims, apparently.”
Knox snorts. “She called me sexy.”
“You are sexy,” I say without thinking.
His eyes meet mine across the table. Want flares there, banked but unmistakable.
“So are you,” he says quietly. Then his mouth curves. “Even in pink.”
“Oh my god.”
Liam is watching us both. Like he’s on the outside looking in. He doesn’t say anything. Just drains his wine and pours himself
another glass.
Knox turns to look at him. Really look, the way he’s been avoiding all day. The moment stretches. Almost imperceptible, but
I notice. I notice everything right now, every visible emotion, every shift in body language. The three of us are orbiting
each other, pulled together by something we can’t seem to fight.
After dinner, we clean up without speaking. The silence isn’t uncomfortable anymore. It’s anticipatory, like the air before
a storm breaks.
Knox washes dishes. Liam dries. I put things away, reaching past them both, my body sliding between theirs in the cramped
space. Every brush of contact sends sparks up my spine.
When the last plate is put away, we stand there. Three people, no more tasks to hide behind.
“I should shower,” I say, because someone has to break whatever this is before it breaks us.
Knox barely gets the words out. “Go ahead. We’ll figure out sleeping arrangements.”
Right. One bed. Three people. The social experiment Marlena is so excited about.
I lock myself in the bathroom, leaning against the door for a moment to catch my breath. My reflection in the mirror looks
flushed. Wild-eyed. The pink sweater is ridiculous and I’m ridiculous and this whole situation is completely insane.
The hot water helps. Not much, but some. I stand under the spray and let it beat against my shoulders, trying to organize
my thoughts into something coherent.
Liam and Knox. Knox and Liam. The two of them together, their history tangled up in silence and want. And me, caught between
them, wanting things I shouldn’t want, feeling things I can’t name.
Ten days.
Ten days of this. Of their proximity, their bodies, their unresolved history bleeding into every interaction. Ten days of
one bed and no privacy and Marlena watching everything, waiting to see if her hypothesis proves true.
I turn off the water and dry myself slowly, delaying the moment I have to go back out there and face whatever comes next.
When I emerge, wrapped in the softest robe I’ve ever worn—cream colored, because fuck my life—the cabin is quiet. Knox sits
on the couch, staring into the fire. Liam stands by the window, watching snow fall against the glass.
They both look up when I step out. Both of them, at the same time, and for a second nobody seems to know where to look.
“Sleeping arrangements,” Knox says. “We need to figure them out.”
“One bed,” Liam points out. “Not a lot of options.”
“Someone takes the couch,” I say. “We can rotate.”
“Or.” Liam pauses. “We could share.”
Knox goes very still. I feel my heart rate spike.
“Share,” Knox repeats.
“None of us slept last night. Whatever she drugged us with doesn’t count.” Liam leans against the window frame, arms crossed.
“If we’re going to figure out how to get out of here, we need to actually rest. That couch is five feet long. Neither of you
is sleeping on it and being worth a damn tomorrow.”
He’s not wrong. I got the bed to myself last night and they didn’t. I can’t exactly claim it all to myself two nights in a
row.
“Fine by me,” I say, surprising myself. “If you two can manage to stay on your own sides.”
The challenge hangs in the air between us. Knox looks at Liam. Liam looks at Knox.
“We can manage,” Knox says.
But the way he says it makes me think managing is the last thing any of us is going to do.
We turn off the lights and climb into bed together. Me in the middle, Knox on my left, Liam on my right. The mattress dips under our combined weight. Sheets rustle as we each try to find comfortable positions that don’t involve touching.
It’s impossible. The bed is big, but not that big. Knox’s shoulder presses against mine. Liam’s leg brushes my calf. We’re
breathing in syncopated rhythm, none of us sleeping, all of us pretending.
I lie there in the dark, acutely aware of the warmth radiating from both of them. Knox, whom I’ve spent a year circling without
ever closing the distance. Liam, whom I spent five years trying to forget. Both of them inches away, and the darkness making
everything feel closer than it should.
The snow falls. I close my eyes and listen to them breathe, feeling their bodies against mine, and wonder how long any of
us can hold out before something gives.