31. Josie #2
“Except somewhere in the middle of pretending, it stopped being pretend. For me.” The words scrape on the way out.
“I fell in love with you. All three of you.
And I know that's not what you signed up for. I know you were doing me a favor, and I went and turned it into something it was never supposed to be.”
Finn's jaw works. Nobody says anything, and I make myself keep going before the silence swallows me.
“I kept waiting for one of you to let something slip. Some sign it was real on your end too. It never came, so I did the math and got the only answer that made sense — that it was the arrangement for you, and only ever real for me.” I breathe, and it shakes.
“I made my peace with that. I'd have taken it to my grave before I made it your problem.
But I couldn't let you put your hands on me tonight and have you think I was only doing this because my body left me no choice.
It's not the heat. It's you. It's been you for weeks.
That's all. That's the whole thing I needed to say.”
For a second none of them breathe.
Then Logan makes a low sound in his chest and closes the distance, takes my face in one careful hand like it might come apart if he's not gentle.
“It was never fake.” His voice is wrecked.
“Not for one day, Josie. You want the truth?
That fence at your school's been done for five weeks.
I kept un-finishing it. Sanding rails that were already smooth, resetting posts that were already straight, because it bought me two o'clock at your fence line with you.” His thumb moves over my cheek.
“Five years I've been finding reasons to be wherever you are.
I made you that coaster so there'd be one thing of mine sitting in your house.”
I can't breathe.
“I fell over a wall of rope,” Hudson says, and all the performance is gone out of him.
“First week you were in town, five years back. You brought my whole display down and then looked up out of the middle of it and asked, so polite, to buy one yard.” He shakes his head.
“I told myself for the longest time it was just that you were fun. That I liked having you around. Took me way too long to cop to what it actually was, and then I got very good at hiding it behind a grin.”
He scrubs a hand down his face.
“And we didn't know about each other until Monday.
I dragged Finn out to Logan's build site and made us all say it out loud — three grown men, gone for you, not one of us doing a thing about it.” A rough laugh.
“We told ourselves we were giving you space.
Truth is we were exactly as scared as you just were.
Terrified you'd look at us and feel nothing back.
You beat all three of us to it tonight. Bravest thing I've ever seen.”
“Craft closet,” Finn says, which for him is a monologue.
“You found me hiding from my mother under a shelf of googly eyes, and you didn't laugh. You just said scooch, sat down, and handed me a can of buttons to sort.” His eyes don't leave mine.
“Two months I've been carrying that around. It was never the reunion for me, Josie. It was the buttons.”
And I break.
Not gently. All at once. Five years of deciding in advance that nobody stays, that if I make the joke first and keep everyone at arm's length then it won't gut me when they go — and it turns out I built that whole wall against a thing that was never going to happen.
The tears come and I let them, because I don't have anything left to hold them back with.
“This is a terrible time to tell me all this,” I get out, half a laugh, half a sob, my whole body still humming with heat. “I'm barely a person right now. I can't even— I have wanted to hear this for weeks and I'm too far gone to do anything but leak about it.”
Logan huffs something that's almost a laugh, brushing a tear off my cheek. “Leak all you want.”
“You were all just here.” It comes out wrecked, honest in a way I never let myself be.
“This whole time. And I was so busy getting the joke in first, so nobody could leave before I'd decided I didn't care, that I never once looked up to check if you were staying.” Another wave rolls through me and I shudder through it, gripping the nearest arm, which turns out to be Finn's.
“I had myself completely convinced the best thing in my life was a story I made up.”
“You didn't make it up.” Logan brushes another tear away, gentle. “It was real the whole time. You just couldn't see us seeing you.”
“We don't want the arrangement.” Hudson's close now too, and Finn, all three folding in around me until I'm surrounded on every side. “We want the whole embarrassing thing. You, a pack, courting you in broad daylight, flowers on your desk, the works. For as long as you'll put up with us.”
“You're going to regret offering,” I manage, still crying, still somehow smiling through it. “I've never once been chosen. I'm going to be unbearable about it.”
“Good,” Finn says.
And there it is. Everything I braced to hand back, put right into my hands instead.
So I stop bracing.
“Then here's what I want.” I look at each of them, and I have never been more sure of anything in my life.
“I want you to stop keeping your distance.
I want your hands on me. All three of you.
I want you to claim me — now, while I've still got my head clear enough to mean it, so no one can ever tell me it was only the heat.” My voice cracks and I let it crack.
“I want your bites. I want to wake up on the other side of this bonded to the three men who came when I told them not to. Please.”
The silence lasts exactly one second.
And then all three of them move at once.