“That’s called testing boundaries,” he corrects. “And he was twenty. You were eighteen. Fresh out of high school. He looked at you like—” He stops himself, jaw clenching.
“Like what?”
“Like he wanted things he had no right to want,” Silas finishes. “So we gave him other options to consider.”
“You controlled my life,” I say, and my voice shakes. Not with anger—or not just anger. With something bigger. “You made decisions about who I could talk to, who could ask me out, who got to stay in my orbit. Without asking me. Without even telling me.”
“Yes,” Cal says simply. No apology. No justification. Just acknowledgment.
“That’s—” I struggle for words. “That’s exactly what I ran from. That’s why I left.”
“We know,” Jace says beside me. His hand finds mine again, but this time I pull away.
“Do you? Because sitting here, finding out you literally relocated someone’s entire family because he touched my arm two times?—”
“Three times,” Silas corrects.
“—THREE times, apparently, which is insane—it doesn’t feel like you know. It feels like you think you were right.”
The SUV goes quiet. Even the engine seems to hold its breath.
“We were young,” Cal says finally. “And stupid. And convinced that protecting you meant controlling every variable in your environment.”
“We were wrong,” Jace adds. “About the methods. About not giving you agency. About thinking we knew what was best.”
“But not about Ryan Matthews,” Silas says, and there’s steel in his voice. “Not about any of them. They wanted you, Parker. And we?—”
“You wanted me too,” I finish. “Except you never said it. You just removed competition and watched me from a distance and acted like overprotective brothers when you were actually?—”
“In love with you,” Cal says. “Yes.”
The words land like a bomb in the enclosed space.
“We were in love with you,” he continues, glancing at me in the rearview mirror. “All of us. For years. And we didn’t know howto handle it, so we handled it badly. We were possessive and controlling, but I wouldn’t change how I went about any of it because it got you to confront how you felt about us six years ago.”
“And today you let yourselves into my house,” I shake my head with a breath. “If we’re going to work—I mean not like—you know we can’t just jump back—” Jesus. this all sounds like a slippery—dammit, even slippery feels problematic “—I want to work on this. I don’t plan on leaving, and I want Liam and Noah to have their family. However, it may look in the end, I want them to have their family in their lives, but if that includes you three, we have got to set up boundaries, and you three need to respect mine. In return, I’ll respect yours.”
The silence that follows is heavy. Loaded. I can feel all three of them processing my words, weighing them against whatever they thought this conversation would be.
“Boundaries,” Cal repeats finally, and something in his voice makes my skin prickle. “Like what?”
“Like not letting yourselves into my house without permission,” I start. “Like asking before you make decisions about my sons?—”
“Our sons,” Silas interrupts quietly.
The words hang there.Our sons.Not a question. Not a guess. A claim.
My throat goes tight. “I don’t—we haven’t established?—”
“Parker.” Jace’s voice is careful. Controlled. “We’re not idiots. We can do math. January to October. Nine months. Two boys who look exactly like—” He stops himself. “We know.”
“You don’t know anything,” I say, but it comes out desperate. Defensive.
“Then tell us we’re wrong,” Cal says, meeting my eyes in the rearview mirror. “Tell us those boys aren’t ours, and we’ll drop it. Right now. We’ll respect that boundary.”
I open my mouth. Close it. Because I can’t. I can’t lie to them, not about this, not when they’re looking at me like their entire world is hanging on my answer.
“I thought so,” Cal says softly.
