Yesterday, Malik, Dax, and I spent hours clearing the driveway. Branches everywhere, debris scattered like someone had picked up half the neighborhood and shaken it like a snow globe. We’d worked in companionable silence mostly, the kind that comes from years of knowing each other well enough that words aren’t always necessary.
When we finally made it back inside all muddy, exhausted, and ready to collapse, we found Jalen and Sierra in the nest.
Locked together on his knot, both of them fast asleep.
Sierra had been curled against Jalen’s chest, one hand wrapped around his neck, looking more peaceful than I’d seen her since this whole thing started. And Jalen? Jalen had this expression on his face. Even in sleep, he looked like someone had handed him the world and told him he could keep it.
Dax had taken one look and immediately started backing out of the room.
“Leave them,” he’d whispered. “They earned this.”
“Agreed,” Malik had murmured.
And I couldn’t argue. Because if anyone deserved that moment of pure contentment, it was Jalen.
He thinks he hid it from us—his thing for Sierra. The way he’d light up whenever she was mentioned at industry events. How he’d linger near her at conferences, always finding excuses to be in her orbit. The careful way he studied her work, learning her style, understanding her preferences.
He thought he was being subtle.
He wasn’t.
We all knew. Have known for months, probably longer. And watching him yesterday, finally getting what he’d wanted for so long, finally allowed to show Sierra how he felt without hiding it...
Yeah. That was worth clearing a driveway for.
Now it’s morning, and the world outside the windows is almost absurdly beautiful. The storm has completely cleared, leaving behind brilliant sunshine and an ocean so calm it looks like glass. The kind of perfect beach day that people pay thousands of dollars to experience.
The kind of day we actually booked this place for in the first place.
Before everything got complicated.
I’m pouring my second cup of coffee when I hear footsteps down the hall. Jalen appears first, and I have to bite back a grin.
He looks thoroughly rumpled. His low-cut coils are flattened on one side from sleep, and he’s wearing the same sweatpants from yesterday, no shirt. There are faint scratches on his shoulders that must have come from Sierra’s nails, definitely, and a hickey blooming on his collarbone like a black bruise against his dark skin.
But it’s his expression that really gives him away. He looks...satisfied. Content. Like the cat that got into the cream and has zero regrets about it.
“Morning,” I say, keeping my voice carefully neutral even though I’m smirking.
“Morning,” he replies, and I’m pretty sure there’s a flush creeping up his neck that’s absolutely adorable.
“Sleep well?” I can’t help asking.
“Very well, thank you.” His tone is almost dignified.
Sierra appears behind him, and oh, she’s just as bad.
Her hair is an absolute disaster. There’s a piece sticking straight up that makes her look like she stuck her finger in an electrical socket. And her face is flushed pink, her lips slightly swollen, a hickey of her own blooming on her neck.
She looks like she’s been thoroughly, completely ravaged.
Good for Jalen.
“Coffee?” I offer, holding up the pot.
“God, yes,” Sierra says, moving toward me.
I pour her a mug, and she wraps both hands around it like it’s the Holy Grail, taking a long sip and making this sound that’s borderline pornographic.
