Ronan
It’s Friday afternoon.
The sun is out.
The pavement is warm beneath my shoes. Rowan, Emerson, and I are on the court in the backyard, talking shit and playing a sloppy, aggressive game of three-man basketball like we’re seventeen again instead of men with more blood on our hands than we ever expected to carry.
The ball slams off the rim, rebounds hard, and Rowan curses loudly enough that the neighbor’s dog barks. Emerson snags the ball out of the air; jukes left and tries to spin around me like he still has the knees of a teenager.
He doesn’t.
But I let him pretend.
We’re laughing.
Sweating.
Trash-talking like none of us almost died. Like the world didn’t collapse and rebuild itself around one girl.
And Berk?
She’s on the sidelines in one of Rowan’s old shirts, short shorts, legs folded under her, sunglasses perched on her head, cheering for us like we’re playing for a championship ring instead of bragging rights.
Every time she claps or whistles, one of us gets stupider in an attempt to show off.
Rowan flexes after every shot, even the ones he misses.
Emerson keeps doing trick passes he absolutely cannot land.
And me? I keep stealing glances her way every few seconds, still stunned she’s here—breathing, healing, smiling. Ours.
It’s been four months since the warehouse.
Four months since we almost lost her.
She’s spent four months rebuilding her strength, watching the bruises fade, helping her relearn her body without wincing, coaxing her out of nightmares, and holding her when she falls asleep sitting up because lying flat still aches on certain days.
Four months of gratitude every damn time she laughs.
Like she does now—head thrown back, eyes bright, voice carrying across the yard.
“Come on, boys! At least one of you needs to land a shot!”
“We’re warming up!” Emerson yells.
“You’ve been warming up for twenty minutes!” she fires back.
Rowan grips the ball and shouts, “Watch this, baby!”
He proceeds to absolutely brick the shot off the backboard so violently that it bounces over the hedge and into the rose bushes.
Berk snorts.
A real, unfiltered snort.
Fuck, I love her.
I didn’t think I could love her more than I did when we were teenagers, sneaking touches and sharing glances that felt too big for our bodies back then. But those feelings were nothing compared to now. They were paper. This is steel.
Every time I look at her, my chest tightens until it aches.
Every time she smiles, a hard edge in me eases while another part locks into place.
Every time she says our names, touches us, or even breathes close, I swear my heart sinks roots and refuses to move.
We got her back.
We almost didn’t.
Sometimes, late at night when she’s asleep between us, Emerson whispers about the what-ifs. Rowan stares at the ceiling like he’s bargaining with ghosts. And I lie awake, listening to her breathe, knowing that if she hadn’t survived… none of us would have survived in any way that mattered.
Maybe Emerson would still be here physically for Kimber because he’d force himself.
But Rowan and me?
We would have followed her into the dark.
I shoot the ball, sinking a clean three-pointer, and do the dumbest celebratory dance I can conjure just to hear her laugh again.
She claps wildly. “You’re all ridiculous!”
“Ridiculously handsome,” I say, wiggling my eyebrows.
She grins, eyes sparkling. “Ridiculously something.”
I jog toward her, pretending to need water, but really, I just need to brush my fingers against her thigh, to feel the warmth of her skin, to hear the way her breath stutters when I get close.
She’s so much stronger now—healed enough to move faster, open enough to let us love her harder, alive in a way that goes beyond mere survival. And every single day, I fall deeper.
We wrap up the game in a mess of shit talk and sweat, all of us breathing hard, chests damp, adrenaline humming through our veins like we’re eighteen again.
Rowan is bent over with his hands on his knees, pretending he isn’t dying.
Emerson flops onto the grass like a fish out of water.
I am, of course, the picture of athletic grace.
At least that’s what I tell Berk as she laughs at us from her lawn chair.
“Game champions coming through,” I announce as we close in around her, a wall of sweaty tattooed idiots with one very specific target.
She squeals when Rowan scoops her off the chair, and then passes her between us, stealing kisses off her lips, her cheeks, her neck, telling her how much we love her, how gorgeous she is, how good she looks watching us play like we’re auditioning for her personal fantasy calendar.
She wraps her arms around my shoulders when I pull her into my chest, her fingers slipping through the damp hair at my nape. Her voice is soft in my ear, but it punches right through me.
“I love you,” she whispers.
Every damn time she says it, I feel it to my bones.
We’ve been able to sex her up, yeah, but not like she wants. Not like we want. The doctors were firm about recovery. Gentle. Slow. Controlled.
All things that none of us are good at.
And Berk? She wants it harder. Rougher. Messier. The way it used to be. The way we all crave but refuse to risk too soon. Tonight though… tonight is different. Her body’s healed. Strength back. Scars faded. Hunger, she’s not even pretending to hide.
We feel it radiating off her.
I nip her jaw and murmur, “You keep looking at us like that and you’re not making it to dinner.”
Her cheeks flush beautifully.
But we set her down because there’s a ticking clock in the form of Kimber’s excitement. The kid has been vibrating for a week straight about this sleepover. Her first real one since… ever. Since surviving. Since life went back to some version of normal.
Berk was the one who ran the backgrounds on all the parents.
Dug through their social media, tax records, any weird purchases or lawsuits.
She cleared them because they came back boringly safe, which made Kimber ecstatic.
And because she promised, very dramatically, that she would be “so good” if we didn’t embarrass her.
Which is why Emerson and Berk are taking her over instead of all of us. Apparently three heavily tattooed men with murder-eyes showing up to a seventh-grade sleepover drop-off is “scary” and “weird” and might “get the cops called.”
Whatever.
I personally think we’d charm the hell out of everyone there.
But Berk made a fair point that if Kimber is ever going to have a normal life, maybe we don’t show up like a cartel welcoming committee to meet her friend’s parents.
Emerson tosses a basketball underhand and catches it again. “We should probably go get cleaned up before Kimber starts pacing.”
Rowan snorts. “She’s already pacing. She’s just doing it in her room, so she doesn’t look desperate.”
Berk laughs softly, leaning against me. Her body fits into mine as if she was carved for this spot. “She deserves a good night. A safe night.”
I kiss the top of her head. “She’s getting that. And when Em drops her off…”
Rowan flashes a wicked grin as he hooks an arm around her waist. “We get you all to ourselves.”
Her breath stutters—soft enough that anyone else would miss it, but not me. I feel it ripple through her; feel the way her body reacts before she even knows she’s doing it. Want. Trust. That quiet edge of anticipation she can never hide from us.
Rowan bumps her hip with his, trying to play off the heat building in the air. She nudges him back, laughing under her breath. “You wish. I’m going with him.” She jerks her chin at Emerson, who raises his hands like he’s been chosen in some holy ritual.
I lean in, my mouth brushing the shell of her ear. “And we’ll be waiting when you get back.” My teeth graze her neck, just enough pressure to make her inhale sharply. “Count on it,” I murmur against her skin.
She tries to hide the shiver that rolls through her.
I growl, low in my throat.
She has no idea about the surprise we’ve got planned.
Em, Berk, and Kimber head out after all of us shower and pull ourselves together.
Watching Kimber bounce out the door with that oversized backpack and a smile too big for her face hits a tender spot inside me.
After everything she went through, seeing her so damn excited for a sleepover feels like witnessing a miracle in real time.
Pride swells in my chest. Relief too. She’s fighting her way forward with more strength than any adult I’ve ever met.
We made sure she had counseling lined up, someone neutral to talk to.
And we keep every line of communication open between all of us.
But the truth is that she leans on Berk the most. That girl-to-girl connection, especially at her age, is something Emerson, Rowan, and I could never replace.
Berk steps into that role like she’s done it her entire life, gentle and fierce all at once.
I swear Kimber looks at her like she hung the damn moon.
Before they left, Em rolled his eyes at Rowan and me and said, “Just have everything ready when we get back.”
I told him, “We got it. Go play chauffeur.”
And we did. Our entire room has been transformed.
We bought a massive bed because our girl loves to sprawl with the three of us when she sleeps.
Rose petals scattered across the duvet, arranged in the shape of a heart.
Candles set aside but not lit yet. All that soft, romantic shit I pretend not to know anything about…
even though I’ve read enough of Berk’s hidden romance stash to script an entire seduction scene start to finish.
Reverse harem books, too. Ironic as hell, but useful.
Rowan leans against the counter next to me, chopping herbs for the simple dinner we planned.
Comfort food, but easy. We want her full, happy, and relaxed before we pull out the surprise we’ve been sitting on for months.
Then we’ll handle dessert. And by dessert, I mean literal dessert in the oven…
and then the kind that requires no utensils.
The air is warm, quiet, humming with anticipation that prickles under your skin.
“Think she’ll like it?” Rowan asks without looking up.
I snort. “Berk? She’s going to lose her mind.”
Because tonight, we’re delivering the ridiculous request she made months ago, back when she was still fighting and delirious with vengeance. She told us she wanted us standing in the kitchen naked except for aprons. Now, specifically, the stupid octopus aprons she ordered as a joke.
Well… here we fucking are.
Rowan ties his apron first, smirking, cocky. I strip completely and knot mine around my waist. The cool air against my skin sends a shiver down my spine, but the thrill running through me drowns out everything else.
We look ridiculous. We also look exactly how she fantasized. And I cannot wait to see the way her eyes go wide, how her breath stutters when she realizes tonight is for her. All of it.
“They should be back any minute,” Rowan says, straightening his apron like it’s formal wear.
I grin, adjusting mine so it hides just enough but not too much. “Good. Em can get her inside, we can distract her with some romantic bullshit, and while she’s floating on cloud nine, he’ll strip and join us.”
I lean back against the counter, heartbeat steady but eager, imagining the way Berk will stand there—stunned, laughing, flushed—before she decides which one of us she wants to devour first.
“Ready?” Rowan asks.
“Always,” I say, my grin wicked. “Let the show begin.”