“Talk first,” Silas says. “Firmly. With both of us. No threats. No violence. Yet.”
Theyethits something primal in me too, but I keep my face neutral.
“I don’t want you to scare him off campus,” she says. “Or cause trouble with Abi. She’s already going to be a nightmare when she finds out about us.”
I snort. “Abi can survive a bruise to her pride. She’s survived worse.”
Silas’ eyes flicker.
“We meant what we said,” I continue. “We let you lead with Talon. If you want distance, we will support that. If you want a confrontation, we will back you up. If you want to pretend the closet never happened and keep it professional, we keep an eye on him and step in if he forgets his place.”
She exhales slowly. “Okay.”
Silas studies her. “You don’t have to decide today.”
“I know,” she says. “I’ll probably change my mind ten times.”
“That’s allowed,” I tell her.
She goes back to staring at the laminate, eyes fixed on the tiny chip near the edge like it holds all the answers. I know that look. I have my own version of it.
“There’s another thing,” she says eventually.
“Of course there is,” I mutter into my mug.
She sets hers down because her hands have started shaking.
“You two are Abi’s brother and former brother-in-law,” she says. “You’re Talon’s uncles. You’re going to be my… family by marriage. You know how that sounds, right? I’m thestepdaughter who’s already slept with the uncle and the other uncle and kissed the stepbrother. There isn’t enough therapy in the state for that sentence.”
Silas and I both go still.
“So,” she continues, voice scraping a little, “we should probably stop. It’s the smart move. The clean one. We had some fun. We keep it in the vault, and I go back to being the TA who doesn’t sleep with anyone related to her stepmother. You go back to finding women who aren’t tied into this mess. We cut our losses.”
The words hit hard, even though I knew they were coming. They make sense. They’re logical. They’re also completely unacceptable.
“Is that what you want?” I ask.
Her eyes shine, but she keeps her chin up. “Yes,” she says, then shakes her head. “No. I don’t know. I know it’s what I should want.”
“That’s not the same thing,” Silas says quietly.
“You being Abi’s family makes this uglier than it already was,” she goes on. “She’ll weaponize it if she finds out. She’ll hurt my dad with it. And I’m so tired of dealing with her bullshit.”
“We won’t hand her ammunition,” I say.
“You exist,” she says. “That is the ammunition.”
Silas steps closer, bracing his hand on the counter next to hers, not quite touching but anchoring the space. “Penelope,” he says. “Look at me.”
She does.
“You’re not the one who made this messy,” he says. “Abi did that a long time ago. She made this family a minefield long before you walked into it. You being with us doesn’t break anything. It just shows the cracks that were already there.”
I nod. “If anyone should back out to make it simpler, it should be us, not you.”
Her voice is small when she asks, “Are you going to?”
“No,” we both say.
