Talon lets out a strangled laugh, burying his face in his hands. His ears go bright red.
Silas stretches out his long legs and adds, perfectly dry, “Fucking a cougar will do that to a guy.”
Penelope gasps, hand pressed dramatically to her chest. “Excuse you? Cougar?”
Talon peeks over his fingers, mortified and delighted. “Technically… you are older than me.”
“By two years,” she snaps.
“Still counts,” he says, shrugging, the little shit.
“Oh, really?” She turns to me and Silas, pointing accusingly. “The real age gap is between these two. Gideon is thirty-seven, Silas is thirty-five. I am practically a child compared to them.”
“I’m thirty-six,” I correct. “Don’t age me prematurely.”
“Thirty-six is practically forty,” she fires back.
Talon grins at her, recovering fast. “Honestly? I could get behind this reverse age-gap thing.”
She whirls to glare at him. “Reverse age gap? Talon?—”
“Nope,” Silas says, pushing away from the table. “I’m not getting dragged into whatever bit this is turning into.”
“You started it!” she shoots at him.
“And I’m ending it,” he replies.
Talon laughs under his breath, rubbing the back of his neck.
I watch them, all three. And despite the tension, the maps, the looming risk of tomorrow, this—this moment of stupid banter and raw humanity, is exactly what we need.
It’s proof they’re still capable of laughing through fear. Leaning toward each other instead of away. Finding something soft in the middle of a war zone.
Penelope sinks deeper into her chair, muttering, “You’re all impossible.”
“And you love it,” I remind her.
Penelope rolls her eyes, but the pink in her cheeks softens into something more vulnerable than flustered. She glances between the three of us—the two men she’s known from Velvet and the one she just let into her bed.
“Okay,” she says slowly, “but… we probably need to talk at some point.”
Silas arches a brow. “About what?”
She gives him thedon’t-play-dumblook. “About all of this. Me. You. Him.” She gestures at Talon, who nearly chokes on hisown spit. “And you,” she adds, pointing at me. “We never talked about… I don’t know. What this is supposed to look like. Or what you all know about each other in that way.”
I sit back. “You’re not wrong.”
Silas exhales through his nose, a low sound of acceptance. “We did skip a few steps.”
Penelope fiddles with the hem of her shirt. “Like… emotional steps. Communication steps. Boundaries. Expectations.” She gestures vaguely between all of us. “I just don’t want this blowing up later because we assumed things.”
Talon finally looks up, cheeks still flushed. “I—yeah. I mean. That would be good. Talking. Before anyone gets their feelings squished.”
Silas shifts in his chair, stretching his legs out, expression unreadable but attentive. “Then let’s talk about it. Not everything, not tonight—but enough so no one’s blindsided later.”
Penelope stiffens, then nods. “Okay. Yeah. That’s fair.”
I drum my fingers once on the table. “Start simple. Preferences. Patterns. Things you should know before you walk into something blind.”
