Chapter 43
Chapter Forty-Three
Alberto
I ease down beside them, careful not to jostle the bed.
Vesper’s breathing is slow now—gentle and deep, her face relaxed in a way I haven’t seen in weeks.
One of her hands is curled against her chest, the other’s resting lightly on Callaway’s wrist like she needs to know we’re still there even in sleep.
But Cally . . .
Cally’s quiet in a different way.
He’s still on his side, one arm wrapped around her, his body curled into hers like he’s holding in what’s left of himself. His hair is damp with sweat, sticking to his temple. His shoulders tremble once, and then go still.
I don’t ask if he’s okay.
Instead, I move.
I cross to the ensuite, grab a cold water bottle from the mini fridge, and return without a word. He hasn’t shifted. Still curled into her, still quiet in that way that tells me everything.
I press the bottle into his hand, curling my fingers around his wrist just long enough to make him feel me.
He blinks, dazed, but drinks. Slow sips. His lips are still kiss-bruised. His skin flushed. He’s wrecked—and beautiful.
When he lowers the bottle, I set it aside and kiss his temple.
“Let me take care of you now,” I murmur.
He doesn’t argue.
I shift down the bed, careful not to disturb Vesper. She murmurs something in her sleep, but doesn’t wake. Her body curves instinctively toward Callaway’s even in rest, like her gravity still knows him.
When I reach his hips, I run a hand gently over his thigh. His breath stutters, but he stays still—watching me with wide, wrecked eyes.
I murmur something quiet, a breath more than words, and then slowly—so slowly—I ease the condom off him.
His cock is still flushed and sensitive, twitching as I peel the latex away. I wrap it in tissue and toss it into the small wastebasket near the bed, then reach for a fresh, warm washcloth I’d left folded nearby.
I press the cloth to his skin—gentle, reverent. Not cleaning. Tending.
His breath hitches again when I glide it over the soft head of his cock, collecting what’s left of the slick. He twitches again, and I swear I see his lips part, his eyes flutter.
“You’re so fucking beautiful like this,” I whisper, leaning in to press a kiss just beneath his navel. Then lower.
Then—just once, soft and slow—I kiss the tip.
He shudders. A full-body tremor, not from arousal, but from something deeper. Something like being seen.
“You want me to suck you, babe?”
His eyes shine but then, I shake my head. “Not tonight. Maybe another day when you’re rested.” He hesitates, then looks me in the eye. “Monty,” he says as if he’s trying to make some words. “You . . . am I pushing too hard?”
Is he? I’m not sure what took over me when I agreed to do this. I just knew he needed it—me. Us.
I reach for his hand, tangle our fingers together.
“No,” I say softly. “You’re not pushing too hard.”
His throat works, like he doesn’t believe me yet.
“You’re just . . . finally reaching for something you used to pretend you didn’t want. And I guess I wanted to be the one who didn’t let you reach alone.”
I pause, give him time to breathe.
“I don’t regret a second of it. I just think maybe we give tonight the space it deserves.”
Vesper breathes slowly between us, wrapped in my shirt and his boxers, mouth parted, lashes resting against her cheeks. She makes a soft sound—nothing coherent, just a sleepy little hum that means she’s still here.
Ours.
Callaway’s eyes shine, and it pisses me off how fast it hits me. Because Cally doesn’t cry. He grins. He talks and makes everything lighter, as if he can keep it funny, it can’t cut him.
But this isn’t funny.
I lean in and press a soft kiss to his lips—just enough to ground him, to quiet whatever guilt he’s about to voice.
His mouth twitches like he wants to turn it into a joke. But it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
I toss the cloth into the bathroom bin and come back with a clean pair of boxers, tossing them onto the bed beside him before grabbing another for myself.
“No rush,” I say, then sit beside him, my hand landing at the back of his neck. My thumb presses into the tense muscle there—the one that’s been locked all damn day.
He leans into it like he can’t help himself. Like the touch is safer than words. “Monty,” he says quietly, like he’s not sure he’s allowed to be soft with me when she’s asleep between us.
“Yeah.”
His gaze flicks toward her. Then to me. Then away.
There’s fear.
“I don’t know what we’re doing,” he admits, voice low, eyes on the sheet between us.
I swallow hard. “We’re taking care of each other.”
His huff of laughter is small. Broken. “You know what I mean.”
Yeah. I do.
Because I’ve been avoiding this conversation the same way I’ve avoided mirrors most of my life—by staying in control, my eyes turned elsewhere. By keeping busy, keeping useful, keeping my hands full, so I never have to stop long enough to look at myself too closely.
Callaway rubs a hand over his face, jaw tight with something close to fear. “Tonight, you can just . . . be,” he murmurs. “This. In here. With her. With us—”
He doesn’t finish, but I know what he’s saying.
And before I can stop myself, I take his mouth.
It’s desperate—“please understand me” kind of desperate. I kiss him like it’s the only language I trust right now. If I try to speak, the words will fracture before they ever make it into the air.
He kisses me back. It’s not with heat or hunger. But with a trembling tenderness that undoes me. His hand comes up to my jaw, thumb brushing beneath my eye like he’s memorizing my whole face in the dark.
Like he’s trying to say, I missed you. I still want you. I never stopped.
And this . . . this can be enough for tonight. I hope.
It’s a truce and a promise. A breath held between two hearts that know the shape of each other, even after all this time.
Because Callaway Winthrop has always lived somewhere just beneath my skin.
The pulse I followed without ever admitting I was chasing it.
The heat I didn’t know how to carry without scorching myself.
The name I never said out loud, but built entire versions of myself around.
And now—with Vesper asleep next to us, her hand curled over his ribs, almost close enough to brush my hip—it feels like the world has stopped spinning long enough for me to feel what’s real.
They’re real.
I press my forehead to his, breath mingling, skin warm.
His fingers brush mine in the space between.
I’m scared too. Scared that I’ll step into this with both feet and find I’m still broken.
That I’ll want this with everything I have and still fail at it.
That I won’t be enough—not for her, not for him.
I keep my hand on his neck, grounding both of us. My thumb moves in slow circles at his nape, and I make myself say it anyway.
“I’m working on it,” I whisper. “One day, I want to mean it when I say I don’t care if I lose my spot on the team—”
My voice breaks, just a little.
But before I can recover, he speaks. Quiet. Clear.
“Losing you or her . . . I couldn’t live with that. Not again.”
I stare at my hands for a second, knuckles pale where I’ve been gripping the edge of the blanket like it can hold me together. My voice barely makes it out.
“I’m trying to believe this is possible,” I say. “Trying to accept myself . . . and my sexuality.”
The words hang there—too soft for how loud they feel inside me. But I don’t take them back. I can’t.
Callaway’s eyes finally meet mine. “You say that like you believe it’ll happen.”
I stare at him until he has no choice but to look back. Until he can’t hide in the silence anymore.
“I want to,” I say, voice barely steady. “Because I did fall for you—just like I did for her. I just . . . I was scared. Scared of what it would cost. Not just that people wouldn’t accept us—but that you wouldn’t. That you’d leave. That I wouldn’t matter enough to make you stay.”
His breath catches—sharp and quiet—like wanting me is somehow more terrifying than losing me.
“I . . .” He swallows. “You’d already lost so much. And maybe I—I wasn’t that serious back then. About anything. Especially not myself.”
“I’m not asking you to absolve me,” I whisper.
“It’s not an absolution.” His voice cracks a little. “It’s me trying to make peace with the version of me who didn’t know how to love properly. With that teenage you . . . he was lonely as hell, and I didn’t see it. Or maybe I did, but I didn’t know what to do with it.”
He shifts closer, reaching toward me like he needs to close the distance between then and now.
“I hope I’m old enough now to slow down. To talk. To make better choices. And not to let either of you go.”
I shift closer. Not yet getting in her space. Just enough that he feels I’m there. My shoulder brushes his. A quiet line drawn between us.
I give him the truth without soft edges. “I’ve spent my whole career learning how to be a man in a room full of men who measure you like they’re waiting for you to fail. You know what happens if you give them a different target.”
Callaway’s throat works.
“Monty . . .”
“I’m not proud of it,” I snap, quieter, because Vesper is right there and she deserves softness in her sleep. “But I’m not going to pretend I don’t have it in me. That ugly reflex. That voice that says, Don’t. Not you. Not here.”
Callaway’s eyes sting with understanding. “Internalized—”
“Don’t label it,” I cut in, because the word makes my skin crawl even though it’s true. “Just . . . let me say it how it feels.”
He nods immediately. Just listens. And somehow, that almost breaks me.
“I’m trying,” I say—and it’s the closest I get to pleading. “I’m trying to unlearn it. Trying to undo all the years of pretending. I want to be the man she thinks I am when she looks at me like I’m safe.”
My voice dips lower. Barely more than a breath.
“And the man you deserve too.”
Callaway glances at Vesper—curled beside us, fast asleep and trusting—then back to me. His eyes shine, his throat working.
“You are safe,” he says, voice cracking. “You’ll always be safe with me—with us.”
I almost laugh. Almost.
“Sometimes,” I admit. “Sometimes I’m a locked door, and I don’t even know what I’m keeping out anymore.”
Callaway’s hand leaves Vesper’s hair—just for a second—and lands on my forearm.
“You don’t have to do this alone,” he says.
I look at his hand like it’s something holy.
Then I cover it with mine.
“Neither do you,” I say.
He swallows. “What are we, then?”
The question lands like a hit to the ribs.
Because I can handle a fight. I can handle pain. I can handle the world calling me names.
I’m not sure I can handle wanting them and needing them and knowing there’s no clean way to do this in the life we live.
I stare at Vesper’s sleeping face. Her mouth is slightly open. She looks peaceful in my shirt like she was made to be cared for, like she belongs here even if her brain tells her she doesn’t.
Then I look at Callaway.
“We’re two men falling in love who chose her,” I say. “And chose each other. Even if we’re scared.”
Callaway’s eyes go glossy again, but he blinks it back. “And if the league—”
“If the league makes it a problem,” I say, lowering my voice, “here’s what I can promise you.”
Callaway’s attention locks.
I press my thumb once into his wrist, grounding him the way I know how.
“I’m not running. I’m not pretending you don’t matter.
And if I fuck up—if I get scared and I say the wrong thing or I shut down—” My throat works around the admission.
“I will come back. I will talk. I will not leave you alone in it.”
Callaway’s eyes soften like he’s been waiting to hear that exact sentence his entire life.
He nods once. Then, quieter—more fragile: “Okay.”
He shifts toward Vesper again, and I follow.
We slide under the blanket on either side of her, careful not to wake her. She stirs faintly, sighs, but doesn’t open her eyes. Just reaches for us without thinking.
She finds him first—her hand curling against his chest.
Then me—my fingers brushing hers, and staying.
Her body is still soft. Still small in ways that make the future feel impossibly close and impossibly far. There’s no curve to her belly yet. But we know. We feel it in the hush between breaths. In the way we both reach—at the same time—and let our hands rest over that quiet center of her.
Even though this little one isn’t ours—not really—we already love them.
Because they are hers.
And we love her.
This is going to be hard.
And I’m doing it anyway. For her, for him—for us.