Silence
After two hours of story-making, with Xavier getting into it way more than I thought he would, sleep becomes too tempting. I stand, and I’m already yawning as I lean down and kiss Yale good night.
I freeze.
The kiss is casual, a quick peck before leaving the room, something I’ve done a thousand times with Zayden. Now I’m doing it with Yale, and my instinct was to go to Xavier next, then Zayden. A kiss for each of them, a reminder I’m going, but I’ll think of them.
It’s been twenty-four hours, and I’m already treating them as more. I’ve stepped into the role of girlfriend, when I can never be that.
Zayden watches me. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I … I’m just tired.” I hurry away, the memory of the kiss on my heels.
When I reach the bedroom, I pause, my breathing fast, my mind spinning.
This was supposed to be sex. A way to explore a side of ourselves safely. It isn’t a relationship. It can’t be.
Can it?
Is that what I want? A relationship with them?
I felt a shift when I was on my knees for Xavier. The intensity in his stare had me holding my breath, and I didn’t want it to end. I thought about him ever looking at someone else like that, and the jealousy that curled around my gut made me want to scream.
And Yale, too. Setting up that CCTV of Times Square for me. The way he stroked my hair as we watched it, making up silly backgrounds for people we’ll never meet.
What if he finds that with someone else?
What if he leaves me?
Fuck, I’m spiraling. Maybe this is the price you pay for incredible group sex—a sore vagina and a racing mind.
“Stop it,” I whisper to myself. “Go to bed. You’ll be fine in the morning.”
I brush my teeth, wash my face, and have just flicked off the en suite light when Xavier appears in the bedroom doorway. He’s leaning against the frame, hands in his pockets.
I rub my palms together, forcing a smile. “Lurking?”
“Something like that.” He pushes himself off the frame and walks toward me. I stand in place, my skin warming under his gaze. He stops in front of me, close enough to play with a lock of my hair. “I liked tonight.”
Something happens in my chest. A pleasant twist of some kind, like his touch reaches through my ribcage and settles around my heart.
He sounds so vulnerable, so unlike him, and it unearths questions that have plagued me since before we were all together.
One that I know will cause friction, but I know how to argue with Xavier. I don’t know how to be like this.
“You hated me,” I say, searching his face. “Argued with me. Teased me. Relentlessly. And now a switch has flipped. Why?”
He tilts his head. “Does it matter?”
“Yes. Is it because you’re sleeping with me?”
He tuts. “No.”
“Then what? Why did you suddenly change your mind about me?”
Annoyance tightens his jaw. “Why do you do this? Why do you have to always dig?” he bites back. “Why does it matter what I did or didn’t do if I’m doing the right thing now?”
“Because it hurts to think you might only give a shit because you’re fucking me.
” He shakes his head and turns away, heading for the door.
Pent-up rage and fear and anxiety spikes in my blood, and I need to let it out, to cast it on someone else before it sinks too deep.
“So that’s it, isn’t it? You like me because I’ll suck your dick.
” I’m being so fucking unfair, I know I am, but I can’t stop.
When he faces me again and I know I have this attention, I push harder.
“Is that really all it takes? You come in me a few times and you suddenly want to be best friends? I should’ve tossed you a pity fuck years ago. ”
I’m being cruel, and guilt burrows deep in my bones as he stares back at me. He’s trying. He doesn’t deserve to be pulled apart just because I’m a fucking child that’s too afraid to face my feelings.
But the argument has spiked my adrenaline, and I’m too proud to apologize, too foolish to back down.
“Don’t push me, Q.”
“Or what? You’ll fuck my throat? Pin me down? Make me come?” He searches my face, and I’ve honestly never seen him this angry. “Come on, tough guy. What will you do?”
“How about I dig inside that head of yours?” he hisses, walking toward me until I have no choice but to step back. “Find out why you think you’re so broken.”
I blanch. “Fuck you.”
“You can give it, but you can’t take it?
” He snatches my wrist, and I draw in breath as he turns my hand palm up.
“You think I don’t see these scars?” The glimmer of white on my palm, a painful reminder of who I was.
My back meets the wall, and I stare up at him.
“You want to cause me pain? I’m a fucking expert on it.
You can say all you want to me, but you’ll never hurt me as much as I’ve already hurt myself. ”
“Then stop arguing and tell me why you suddenly care!”
“I always cared!” he roars, and my mouth snaps shut.
“There hasn’t been a single day since I met you when I haven’t cared, Silence.
I’ve lived, breathed, and wanted you from the second I laid eyes on you.
I was pieces when we met, but my love for you ground me down into fucking dust. You want to know why I hated you? Because loving you was too damn hard.”
There are words on the tip of my tongue, but I don’t have the strength to say them. I simply stare, my lips parted, my heart thundering wild and free in my chest.
“I don’t … I don’t understand. You hate me, Xavier. The only time you’ve been remotely nice to me was the first night we met—”
“We didn’t meet that night.”
I frown. “What?”
He’s breathing fast and glances at the door as if he’s considering running. “Do you remember the night you met Zayden?”
Of course I do. I was working at the casino bar, taking out the trash, humming along to the music, and Zayden was in the alley on his phone. I stayed outside for a moment to cool down after running around all night, and he watched me.
“You getting a good look?”
As the noise of downtown Vegas spills into the alleyway, I toss an amused glance to the man staring at me.
Shadows cling to his face, but even their darkness can’t hide how handsome he is.
In a dark suit, top button unfastened, he’s what I call an FT—fuckable tourist. I learned quickly though that it’s best to avoid men like him.
They’re usually married or about to be, and I don’t plan on being anyone’s mistress.
He adjusts the cuff of his shirt, revealing an expensive watch. “Honestly, yes.”
“Sorry, buddy. I’m taken.”
An age-old lie that only sometimes works, but it’s my go-to.
“Then you’re about to get stolen.” He pauses. “Shit, that sounded like a kidnapping thing.”
“Yeah, it did.” I put my hands on my hips, and he grins widely, holding his hands up in mock surrender.
“I’m not going to kidnap you.”
“Good.”
“I might marry you, though.”
My brows fly up, and I laugh. “What about the two other guys who proposed to me earlier?”
“Third time’s a charm.”
In the dark, with a smile like that, he seems sweeter than the others. But he won’t be. They never are.
“What makes you so sure I’m marriage material?”
The stranger grins, and it’s a panty-dropping sight. “Call it a gut feeling.”
A world of shimmering lights is behind him, but they pale in comparison to how he’s looking at me. I thought I’d left behind the version of me that saw romance in red flags, but here I am, once again charmed by a stranger.
“You sure you’re not already married?” I ask, and he shows me his ring-free fingers. “Rings come off.”
He shakes his head. “I grew up with parents who loved each other and only each other. When I find that, I’m not fucking around.”
Now I’m intrigued. Silly me, probably. Still, I face him. “That was endearing.”
“I’m an endearing guy.”
“I’m sure.” I check my watch. I’ve been gone for too long, but I can give him a few more minutes. “I’ll have to politely decline your proposal.”
He hisses through his teeth. “Ouch. Can I ask why?”
“I don’t trust strange men in dark alleys.”
As the words leave my mouth, the lights of Freemont Street glow and flood the darkness. Fireworks burst above us, colors dancing across his handsome face, a rainbow of lights showering us.
He tips his head back and smiles at the spritz of colors across the night sky, and when he looks at me again, he says, “It’s not dark anymore.”
Fuck. Hearts can be so inconvenient sometimes.
“Tell you what, sailor,” I say and approach him.
“Sailor?”
“I’m trying something. Just go with it. If I see you again anywhere other than where I work, I’ll marry you. How’s that sound?”
The stranger narrows his eyes as if considering the offer, then pockets his phone and holds out his hand. “You’ve got yourself a deal, soldier.”
“Soldier?”
“I’m trying something. Just go with it.”
My smile widens despite my attempt to stop it, and we shake hands.
As it turns out, I did see him again. I’d agreed to cover a friend’s shift at a casino on the main strip, and there he was, watching me, a smile on his face.
When I finished my shift an hour later, he was gone.
I sank a few too many drinks with my friends, and as we moved to a dive bar, there he was again.
I was drunk out of my mind, sauntered over to him, and said, “So, are we getting married or not?” Then he introduced me to Xavier and Yale, and the rest is history.
I meet Xavier’s eye, about to tell him this, but his tortured expression stops me. Something familiar wraps around me as he moves close, green eyes filled with pain as he touches my cheek.
Maybe it’s how he’s looking at me, maybe it’s because that’s the first time I’ve really thought about that night in a long time, but he isn’t Xavier to me anymore.
He’s a man in an alleyway who proposed to me.
“It’s not dark anymore,” he whispers, and something inside my chest cracks.
No. This can’t be happening. It can’t have been him. It…
Tears burn my eyes, and I pull in a shuddering breath as our gazes lock. “That … that was you?”
He nods, searching my face. “Zayden went out before us, and by the time Yale and I caught up with him, he’d met you, and you’d clearly hit it off. I didn’t say anything because I couldn’t. You married him three hours later.”
Pressing my palm to my forehead, I turn away and closing my eyes.
I was so drunk that night that when Zayden looked confused at my proposal, I figured he was teasing me and wrote it off.
I told him the story, and he’d insist it wasn’t him, but I figured it was a running joke, refusing to admit that he proposed first.
Facing Xavier again, I swallow hard. “Does Zayden know?” He shakes his head. “Does Yale?”
“Yes, but only because I was drunk and—”
“And you kept it from me.”
“What would be the point in telling you? You were both happy. You are happy. I decided it was easier to keep you at a distance because I was scared … scared I’d fall for you more than I already had.”
My hand hovers at my mouth. “This isn’t fair. Zayden might never have agreed to this if he’d known.”
Another bitter laugh. “Silence, he knows I have feelings for you.”
“But you just said—”
“He’s my brother. He knows me.” He pauses. “And he knows Yale, too.”
My head is spinning. My heart thuds so strong it’s close to painful. This was easier when I had distance—Yale as my friend, Xavier as an annoying relative. Now everything is … twisted. Distorted.
“We can’t do this again.”
Xavier’s expression drops, and he strides toward me. “Why?”
“Because this was complicated before, but now … it’s a fucking mess! I can’t sleep with you knowing you care about me, Xavier. If I walked away, it could destroy everything.”
He shakes his head, determination in his eyes. “I can handle it.”
“Can you?”
He stares at me, breathing fast. “I’ve dealt with it for nine years, Q.
” This isn’t real. It can’t be. Xavier Silver isn’t saying these words to me.
But he is, isn’t he? And now he’s moving closer, and I don’t want to hide from him.
“I meant what I said in the panic room. Part of you calls out to part of me.”
I shake my head. “It doesn’t.”
“Why do you think Zayden allowed this, even though he knew how I felt? Why do you think despite knowing I’ve loved you for nearly ten years that he let me sleep with you?” I turn away from him, unable to face this. Unable to face him. “Because he knows you, too.”
“No.”
“And he knows this can work. All of us. He knows you care about me.”
“I don’t!”
“Bullshit.”
I whirl to face him. “I love your brother.”
“I know.” He closes the space between us and cups my face, and I can’t look away, can’t pull or fight or beg him to stop, because … because … “And I think you love me, too.”
His lips crash to mine, and all my doubts, my fears, my inhibitions—they’re snatched from me. I don’t hesitate, not even for a second, before kissing him back. I lace my arms around his neck, and he pulls my body flush with his.
His kiss ruins me.
Tears fall free, and I cling to him like I might fall apart if I don’t.
Fears and feelings rush to the surface, his words pulling free truths I’ve tried so hard to bury beneath my loyalty to Zayden.
Because I do love Xavier.
And Yale.
I love them all, and I shouldn’t.
Xavier breaks the kiss, and I sob, tears rolling down my cheeks. He kisses them away, nuzzling my nose. “This can work, Q.”
“It can’t,” I cry. “I’ve ruined all of you.”
“You didn’t ruin us, Q. You fucking made us.” He kisses me again. “We’ve waited our whole lives for you.”
My lip trembles. “I keep waiting for you to say ‘psyche.’”
He laughs and kisses my cheeks. “Not happening.”
This feels like a fever dream. It wouldn’t surprise me if I blinked and was back at home, the morning of my birthday. No Ryker. No safe house. None of this.
But the thought isn’t a comforting one, because the fear is worth it if I finally get them.
All of them.
“Yale really loves me?”
“Obsessed,” he whispers, still kissing me. “Not as much as me, but close.” I can’t help smiling and clinging to him. My phone starts ringing, and he groans. “Ignore it.”
I glance over at the bed, my phone screen lit up. “It could be about work. I called earlier to let them know I wouldn’t be back for a while. Steffi might be worried.” I pull from him and pick up the phone, answering it. “Hello?”
“Hey, Silence.” My smile vanishes. Ryker’s chuckle is low, and a chill skitters down my spine. “Sorry to interrupt yours and Xavier’s moment.”
I lock eyes with Xavier and mouth, “Ryker. He can see us.”
“No point warning him,” Ryker says. “I just called to say if you stay put, you might survive.”
I’m unsure what hits me first.
The sound, or the heat.
My feet are no longer on the ground.
My ears feel punctured, the pressure sending a wave of darkness across my vision and through my brain.
The last thing I feel is pain. The last thing I taste is blood.
And then everything goes black.