“Hi.” My voice is sand and smoke. My head protests.
He rises on an elbow, looks me over like he’s checking for damage, then slides off the cot without making it squeal. He moves with quiet care that surprises me, fills a plastic cup at the sink, finds two pills, brings them back. “Here.”
I take the water and the pills. The first swallow washes dust from my throat, the second tastes like a small promise. He brushes a damp strand from my temple. The simple touch makes my chest ache.
Levi wakes like a switch. One instant he’s sunk in sleep, the next his eyes are open, scanning, jaw set. He tracks the cup, the pills, the flush in my face, the way I wince when I shift. A dozen questions gather. He asks one.
“You good?”
“I am.”
JC blinks awake at Levi’s voice. He stretches, winces, drops his arm, and his focus clicks to me. He sits up, slower than Levi, careful with space, then comes to the cot and crouches at my side. His hand hovers a breath above my knee, waiting.
“May I?”
I nod. His palm lands, warm and grounding. Calm moves up my leg and across my chest where panic usually lives. It doesn’t flare. It loosens.
I look at them one by one. Levi with a storm he tries to keep ordered. Nico with heat and mischief layered over a tenderness he pretends is a secret. JC with all that watchfulness, all that care he gives in silence. Last night they were a force. This morning they’re men I grew up around and men I don’t know in these ways. Both truths sit together and my heart struggles to make room.
Guilt knocks out of habit. I open the door, ask it to sit, and let it wait. I didn’t lie last night. I didn’t try to be someone else. I asked for what I wanted and they met me there. That’s not a thing to apologize for, even if the world outside this small room is ready to punish me for it.
“Do you need anything?” JC asks.
I want to joke that I need coffee and a time machine. What I need is smaller and bigger. I need to be held without being trapped. I need to be believed and challenged in the same breath. I need to know last night isn’t a dream we pretend away because the sun came up.
“I need to know you don’t regret it,” I say. The words scrape on the way out. “Any of it.”
Three looks, three answers.
Nico smiles quick, then sobers. “Only regret is not doing it sooner.”
Levi reaches for my hand. Nico takes the other. JC bends first and kisses my forehead, careful, then my mouth, not careful at all. Warmth moves through me, the ache shrinking under it.
I close my eyes and let myself have it, the ache, the comfort, the promise. When I open them again, all three are watching me, naked and unguarded, and I’m not hiding.
The kiss leaves my mouth warm and then the guilt hits. It’s quick and mean, the kind that sits behind the eyes and makes the room tilt. I pull my hands from theirs, swing my legs over the side of the cot, and stand before any of them can say my name.
I quickly slip into my clothes. My underwear is torn, my bra’s hooks are all but out. I do what I can with what I have, the guys remain silent, their gazes averted to give me privacy. I yank the door open and slip outside barefoot.
Morning is a wet hush. The sky is a pale bruise, light gathering at the edges. Damp boards cool my soles, then the packed dirt, then a puddle that bites up my calves. The air smells like rain and old wood.
I wrap my arms around myself and breathe until the pounding in my head steps back. The ache between my legs is a second pulse, lower and slow. It tightens my throat with want and with shame in the same breath. I tip my face to the sky and the air cools the sweat at my hairline. Last night unfurls inside me again. Hands. Mouths. Heat. My own voice. It rushes in, sweet and rich, and then the other truth walks in behind it.
They’re Jinn’s friends. His brothers in every way that has ever mattered to him. They wore his colors, learned his tells, bled for him. They may hate what he did. They may never forgivehim. That doesn’t erase the years. It doesn’t erase what he called me when he slipped his jacket on my shoulders and told me to smile.
I can want them and still not belong to anyone. I can take what they offer and still refuse a collar. I can love and still say no. I can be held and not be handled.
Flashes of memory hit like sun through broken clouds. Levi on his knees, tongue firm and patient, fingers curling until my thighs shake. JC pinning me to the wall, his voice in my ear telling me to look at him, so I do, and the world narrows to the heat where he fills me. Nico at the edge of the cot, grin gone, eyes gone dark, lifting my legs over his forearms and sinking deep. My own sounds, raw and honest, spilling out like I’m made for this and finally allowed to prove it.
Heat climbs fast, dizzying. Then the other feeling cuts in, cold and mean. Jinn’s jacket on my shoulders. His hand at the back of my neck in a crowded room while everyone watches and pretends not to see. My thoughts are overwhelming.
I can’t stay here. Not with them sprawled naked and spent in that little room, not with the sun crawling up over the yard, not with the ghosts I carry still whispering Jinn’s name in my ear.
I glance back. The door to the outbuilding is shut, the windows fogged with sleep and secrets. I move quiet, careful. My shoes are soft on the dirt, my breath tight and shallow. I keep to the edge, duck behind the barrels by the fence, skip the muddy spots that would leave tracks. The bikes sit under their tarps, silent sentinels, and I move past them without a sound.
At the corner of the yard, I crouch low, heart pounding in my chest. I can hear movement inside now—a board creaks, someone mutters, but no one calls my name. They won’t find me, not if I keep moving.
Every step away, the flashes hit harder. Levi’s tongue. JC’s teeth. Nico’s growl. My body aches for more, but shame keepspace beside me. These are Jinn’s brothers, his chosen family, the ones who wore his colors, bled and laughed and built something wild together. I can’t fall for them. I can’t let myself belong here. Not with his shadow still stretching over all of us.
