For one dizzy second, I just stand there in the doorway, looking at him. At the breadth of his shoulders, the muscles roping around his forearms. At the powerful strength and heartbreaking beauty of him.
I don’t know whether to kiss him or wave. Everything’s so uncertain in this world where I love them both.
All of them.
The prospect of Wyatt arriving gives me a little kick beneath my ribs. I won’t feel properly settled until I see his face.
Ryder glances up at us, eyes flicking to mine, softening with warmth. Then he picks up a knife and halves an onion with one sure movement.
“Shower,” he says. “Then come help.”
Damian jerks his chin toward the bathroom. “You go first.”
I wash the sawdust off my skin, still buzzing with that staticky discomfort I can’t seem to outrun, but the heat of the water helps. It soothes the ache in my chest. When I get out, I dress in another one of the Walmart outfits, exactly the same as what I was wearing earlier.
The sun is setting and the cabin is dim. The lights are off but there are lit tea lights everywhere, five or six on the coffee table, even more on the dining room table, on the windowsills and the mantlepiece. The kitchen is glowing with the low light of candle flame too. The whole place looks soft and sacred. I walk into the kitchen and see Damian stirring the pot. Ryder chopping cilantro. It’s so homey it’s like we’re acting out a fantasy—my life with both of them.
We eat vegetarian chili from paper bowls at the dining room table, faces lit by candlelight. Ryder’s whole energy feels gentle, soft in a way that tugs at something low in my belly. Every time our arms brush I feel the warm ache of what we shared on the beach. The way his knee bumps mine under the table makes my heart skip.
Across from me, Damian’s presence gives me the same ache. I love them both. The truth of it sits warm and heavy in my heart as we eat.
Then, finally, light sweeps across the window, two headlights moving slowly through the trees. The crunch of tires over wet gravel is audible from here, even with the rain. My heart swells with an excitement so large it makes me feel jittery all over again.
Ryder and Damian move with me toward the porch. The rain is lashing sideways, catching the beams from the headlights and scattering them. The cab light flares as the doors open and two silhouettes climb out, one slowly.
They move as a unit toward the porch, Jake supporting Wyatt, who moves stiffly but grins when he sees us.
When he seesme.
“That’s a hell of a drive,” is the first thing he says.
“Let’s get you inside, soldier,” says Ryder.
And for the first time in a long time, the five of us are whole.
CHAPTER THREE
JAKE AND WYATT look like hell, and Damian tells them as much as they walk into the cabin. Jake’s brown hair is sticking up in a thousand directions, the bags under his eyes as dark as bruises. And Wyatt looks worse—skin ash white, moving like every step hurts. They look terrible, but to me they’ve never looked better. My heart soars at the sight of them.
I hug Jake first because he’s closer. Jake, who was my very first safe place among these men. I squeeze until I can feel the resistance of his torso through his hoodie. He’s lean, but broader than I remember, solid like he’s carved from stone.
“Hey,” he says quietly, and kisses my hair.
“Hi,” I whisper into his shoulder.
When I let go, he passes me off with a hand on my back, and then I’m in front of Wyatt. The whole world narrows to his face. Rough growth covers his usually clean jaw, his eyes are rimmed red. I reach up to cup his jaw in my hands lightly, like I might break him, and his mouth quirks into a pained smile.
“I’m okay,” he promises. “Tougher than I look.”
I give him a skeptical look. “No one’s that tough.”
He huffs a laugh that hurts him, I see it, and then he pulls me in anyway. The relief of his feel and his smell hits me so hard my knees almost buckle. Leather and rain, the salt of his neck. I let him hold me, afraid to squeeze back, and breathe him in for along, long time. Four months of hell, and it’s hard to believe it’s over. That we’re here together on the other side. We made it.
When he lets go, Wyatt looks past me to Ryder, and they trade a look. Respect and relief, the smallest nod in a language older than words.
“Welcome home,” Ryder says.
“Almost thought I’d never hear that again,” Wyatt answers.
