I glance at him. His eyes are already on mine, steady and unflinching.
“He won’t tell you,” Tyler says, voice quiet but steady. “He won’t say it, but… he’s never let anyone in like this before. Not even me. Not really. Whatever you two have, it’s different for him. Big. And if this is something temporary, or something you’re not sure about…”
He pauses, then looks down at Lucas. “It’ll break him, not a little. All the way.”
“It’s not a game,” I say, and my voice is low, but certain. “Whatever this is between us… I’m in it.”
Tyler stares at me for a second, eyes narrowing like he’s trying to decide if he believes me. Then, finally, a slow smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.
“Yeah,” he says with a quiet laugh. “I figured. I mean, who makes a damn trust fund of over half a million for someone they’re just messing around with? I’m also glad he signed the trust.”
I let out a breath, half a laugh, but my eyes go back to Lucas.
His fingers twitch under the blanket again. His shoulders rise in a strange, shallow breath. My brows knit together. I’venever seen him look this… unsettled in his sleep before. Not like this.
“He finally talked to me today,” Tyler says, voice soft, almost dazed.
I drag my eyes away from Lucas and glance at him.
Tyler’s gaze is still locked on Lucas, but there’s a shift in his expression, something tender, something cracked.
“I was a little jealous,” he admits with a strained smile. “That he could use his voice with you. He hasn’t really spoken to me in five years. Just a few words here and there—mostly to wish me a happy birthday. But today…” He swallows. “Today, he actually talked to me. Like, really talked. It filled me with so much joy I thought my chest might split open.”
His voice breaks at the end. And when I look at him again, his eyes are glassy, holding back something too heavy to carry, but too sacred to spill.
And just like that, it hits me again.
Something happened to Lucas.
Not just a hard childhood or a distant mother.
Something awful.
Something deeper and darker than I ever let myself imagine.
“I want to know what happened to him,” I say, and my voice feels like it’s scraped raw. “I want to ask. I want to dig. I want to do my own goddamn findings if I have to—” I pause, clenching my jaw. “But something in me keeps saying I shouldn’t do that, I should wait. That if I really care about him, I’ll let him tell me when he’s ready.”
Tyler doesn’t respond right away. His posture shifts slightly, just enough to make me notice. His eyes flick away from mine. That small movement… it sets off something in me.
My chest tightens.
“It’s something bad, isn’t it?” I ask, voice low. Hard. “How bad, Tyler?”
He shakes his head quickly, looking away like I just stepped on a landmine.
“It’s not my place to tell you,” he says, barely above a whisper.
I swallow down the frustration that rises, sharp and helpless, but before I can respond, a broken sound—Half cry, half choke cuts through the room.
We both whip our heads toward Lucas.
His body jolts under the blanket, a violent twitch that doesn’t look like normal sleep. His brows are drawn tight, his mouth parted like he’s gasping for air he can’t find. Then comes another sound—
A raw, strangled cry.
Not like the soft, broken one from before.
This one is guttural. Desperate. As if something inside him is being torn out.
