Chapter Forty-Three—Riley
Iwake up slowly, and I just lie there listening to them breathe.
No tension. No waiting for the next thing to break. Liam’s solid weight at my back, Andrew’s arm draped over my waist, Ethan’s steady breathing in front of me. The baby flutters, faint and familiar. I’m getting used to it.
I try to slip out and Liam’s arm locks around my waist before I’ve moved three inches.
“No,” he says, voice wrecked with sleep.
“I need to talk to Connor.”
“No,” he says, with more feeling this time.
“Liam.”
He presses his face into the back of my neck. “Five more minutes. I’m recovering. Very emotional twenty-four hours.”
“You ate seventeen appetizers and slept like a rock.”
“Emotionally draining appetizers.” A pause. “There’s a difference.”
Andrew shifts behind me, kisses my shoulder. “Let her go,” he says.
“I’m providing support,” Liam says.
“You’re providing a restraint situation.”
Ethan, already half-awake on the other side, reaches over and flicks Liam’s ear.
“Ow—”
“Let her go.”
Liam loosens his hold with enormous exaggerated suffering. He pauses before releasing me entirely, squeezes once. “You come back,” he says. “No matter what he says.”
“I’ll come back.”
He still doesn’t fully let go. “I need to hear the actual words.”
“Liam—”
“I know. I know. I’m being—just say it.”
I turn enough to look at him. His face is soft with sleep but his eyes aren’t. I touch his jaw. “I’ll come back,” I say. “I always come back.”
He lets me go.
I look at the three of them before I leave—Liam already burrowing back into the pillow, Andrew watching me with that steady look, Ethan sitting up and running a hand through his hair. My chest does something embarrassing.
This is my unit. I’m still getting used to that being true.
I text Connor on the way downstairs: Can we talk? Just us. Lobby café in twenty?
He replies faster than I expect: Okay.
He’s already there when I arrive. Two coffees. Both hands wrapped around his like he needs something to hold. He looks tired. Not angry-tired. Just tired.
I sit across from him. I don’t start by apologizing.
“I love them,” I say. “All three of them. I’m not asking you to understand it. I’m telling you it’s true.”
He studies me. “You looked at Andrew yesterday like he never wrecked you.”
“Not like he never did,” I say. “Like I decided it wasn’t bigger than what we have now.”
His jaw works. “I spent years watching you put yourself back together after that.”
“I know you did.”
“Riley—”
“And I’m not asking you to forget that. I’m asking you to see that I’m not twenty-one anymore. And he’s changed.” I wrap both hands around my cup. “What we have, all four of us—I chose it. I keep choosing it. That’s not the same as falling into something.”
He looks at the table. The window. Back at me. “You’re building a life on something that doesn’t fit any version of the world I know. And you expect me to just trust that it won’t blow up in your face.”
“I’m not asking you to trust it yet,” I say. “I’m asking you to stop trying to pull me out of it.”
He drags a hand over his face.
“You’re really doing this.”
“I really am.”
He looks out the window. On the sidewalk outside, a couple is walking with a kid between them, one hand each, swinging her on the count of three. Connor watches them.
“I still think it’s insane,” he says.
“Yeah,” I say.
“Sarah’s been on my case about meeting them properly.” He says it like this pains him.
“She’s usually right,” I say.
“Yeah.” He picks up his coffee. Sets it down. “I’m not promising anything.”
“I’m not asking for promises.”
A pause. “I’m not fighting you anymore,” he says. His voice is rough around the edges. “I don’t know if I can get all the way there from here. But I’m done fighting.”
I reach across the table and put my hand over his.
He looks at it. Turns his hand over and squeezes once. Lets go.
We sit there a while longer, not needing to say much. The café noise fills in around us. When I finally stand to leave, he doesn’t stop me. He just looks up.
“Tell Liam to stop texting me memes,” he says.
I laugh—watery, imperfect, real. “He’s not going to stop.”
“I know. Tell him anyway.”
It isn’t fixed. Not even close. But when I step back out into the hall and feel the warmth of the lobby hit my face, it doesn’t feel impossible anymore.
I can work with that.