All of them.
Just the three of us left.
The silence is deafening.
The motes drift lazily around us. The water laps gently at our skin. Bob has turned his back at the pool’s edge, posture rigidwith forced nonchalance — though I suspect he’s monitoring through some shadow-sense I don’t fully understand.
Kaia looks at me. At Finn. At their hands still intertwined beneath the water. At my legs still tangled with theirs.
“Oh,” she breathes. “Oh.”
Finn’s laugh is shaky. “So.”
“So,” I agree.
“They, uh.” He swallows. “They weren’t subtle about leaving.”
“No.”
“Like, really not subtle.”
“No.”
Kaia’s blush has spread down her neck, across her shoulders. Her shadows are curling in slow, lazy spirals around the three of us — possessive and approving and completely uninterested in giving us space.
“I didn’t—” She stops. Starts again. “I wasn’t sure if—”
“Kaia.” I keep my voice steady. Certain. “We’re sure.”
Finn nods rapidly beside her. “So sure. Very sure. The surest.”
“That’s not a word.”
“It is now. I’m making it a word. For this moment. Because I’m—” He exhales shakily. “I’m really fucking sure, Trouble.”
She looks between us. The man she’s already chosen. The man who’s been waiting.
And the one who wants them both.
“Well,” she says, her voice steadier than I expected. “I guess we should stop pretending we came here to talk.”
Finn makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a prayer.
And I finally let myself reach for what I’ve wanted.
Forbothof what I’ve wanted.
Chapter 28
Finn
Malrik moves first.
Not fast. Not urgent. Just… certain. The way he does everything.
His hand finds my jaw, tilting my face toward his, and for a second I forget how to breathe. We’ve kissed before. Stolen moments in dark corridors. Heat and tension and always,alwayspulling back before it went further.
This isn’t pulling back.
