Equally.
Steadily.
Intentionally.
I used to lie awake wondering if I was imagining it. If I were seeing things I wanted instead of what was real. If her fingers grazing mine meant something different from when they grazed Ronan’s or Emerson’s.
Turns out I wasn’t delusional.
Just unwilling to see what was right there.
Because she looked at each of us like that. And impossibly, it never felt wrong. It felt like things were finally aligning.
One night—months back—we got drunk. Stupid drunk. Courtesy of Ronan’s infamous “margarita mix,” which tasted like tequila, lime juice, and a lifetime of poor decisions.
We were crowded around the backyard fire pit—a night where the world felt stripped down and honest.
Emerson leaned back in his chair, eyes half-lidded, words slurred but clear enough to hit their mark. “So... what are we gonna do about her?”
Ronan let out a dramatic groan and rolled into the grass like the question itself wounded him. “We’re all in love with her, aren’t we?”
None of us spoke at first. We didn’t have to. The silence filled in the blanks.
Then I said it—the thought that had been circling my mind for months like a predator biding its time. “She shouldn’t have to choose. I don’t want to fight over her.”
Emerson nodded, slow and deliberate, weighing the truth in the air. “I don’t want that either. We’ve survived too much already. Losing each other over this? Not happening.”
Then Ronan pushed himself upright, his expression open and earnest in that way only he could pull off. “We’ve always shared everything. Why would this be any different?”
It should have felt strange. It should have been uncomfortable.
But it wasn’t.
It made a surprising, almost undeniable kind of sense.
We already loved each other like brothers—because that’s exactly what we are in every way that matters. We’ve pulled one another out of darkness, patched up wounds both physical and emotional, held each other together when everything else fell apart.
We’ve watched one another break and still rise again.
So maybe it isn’t so impossible that we fell for the same girl.
And Berk?
Berk is everything. Fierce and bright. Soft at the right moments, sharp when she needs to be. She’s sunshine wrapped in thorns, laughter wrapped in armor, and somehow, she’s never once made any of us feel like we were in competition.
She’s the piece we didn’t know we were missing.
And now we’re ready—finally ready—to offer ourselves to her. However she wants us.
“So,” Ronan says, flinging a patio furniture pillow at my head with no warning, “what’s the plan, General? Lead us into glory.”
I catch it midair and level him with a flat stare. “Step one: don’t scare her off with your over-the-top personality. Subtlety. Try it sometime.”
Emerson laughs from his seat by the fire, arms folded, one eyebrow arched. “She did run like we proposed, in front of a live audience. Mid-sunset. With matching rings and a full dance number.”
“Too soon?” Ronan asks, feigning innocence while wiggling his eyebrows.
“Way too soon,” I shoot back, though a laugh presses hard against my throat.
