"I don't appreciate your tone," Ben says stiffly, his jaw clenching so hard I can see the muscle working under his skin.
"I don't care," Cassian replies. His hand slides up my back, between my shoulder blades, and the touch sends heat through me even in the midst of this chaos.
I'm standing here in Cassian's living room, wearing a sweater that keeps trying to fall off my shoulder, with my ex screaming at me about a wedding that nobody wants to attend, and his fiancée standing in the doorway wearing an matching eye patch tattoo like they're some kind of deranged set.
"I'm bored," I announce, surprising even myself with the words.
Everyone stops. Ben's mouth freezes mid-sentence. Penelope's eyes narrow. Cassian's hand stills on my back, but I feel him smile against the top of my head.
"You're bored?" Ben repeats, like he doesn't understand the English words coming out of my mouth.
"Yes," I confirm. I straighten my sweater and smooth down my hair with shaking hands, trying to inject some confidence into my voice. "By all of this. By the wedding. By your matching tattoos, which are absolutely terrible, by the way. By the fact that you're here screaming about something that has nothing to do with you. I'm bored."
Penelope's expression hardens like stone. She takes a step into the room, her heels clicking against the hardwood floor. "Are you quitting?"
"No," I say, because I'm terrified and I still need my job, but also because I'm done being the only adult in this situation. "But I'm done letting this be my problem. You're not coming to your own wedding, nobody else is either, and I'm just here to coordinate logistics. So, congratulations on the matching face art. It really completes the whole 'villain couple' aesthetic you've got going on."
Cassian's shoulders shake slightly, and I know he's holding back laughter.
Ben's face goes from red to purple, and for a moment I think he's actually going to have a stroke. His hands clench into fists at his sides, and he takes a step forward. Cassian moves too, shifting his weight, angling his body so that Ben would have to go through him to get to me.
"I think you should leave," Cassian says. His voice is calm, which somehow makes it more threatening than if he was yelling.
For a moment, I think Ben's going to push it. I can see the anger vibrating through him, the desire to say something cutting, something that will make all of this hurt. Then he glances at Penelope, and something unspoken passes between them. A negotiation. A calculation. Ben's shoulders drop slightly, and he turns toward the door.
"Come on," Penelope says to him, not as a suggestion but as a command. She's already walking back toward the hallway, her expensive heels echoing.
Ben follows, and neither of them looks back.
The door closes behind them with a soft click, and suddenly the room feels smaller. Quieter. Like the air has been holding its breath and is finally exhaling.
I'm shaking. I realize it all at once—my hands, my legs, my whole body is vibrating with adrenaline and relief and something like exhilaration. Cassian turns to face me, and his hands find my face, cupping my cheeks so gently it makes my chest tight.
"Did you just—" he starts.
"Insult your brother and his fiancée in front of their faces?" I finish, my voice coming out higher than I'd like. "Yes. Yes, I absolutely did. I'm going to regret that tomorrow when I'm looking for a new job."
"You're not going to regret it because they're going to be upset?" Cassian asks. He's smiling, his gray eyes warm in the soft light of the living room. His thumbs trace gentle circles on my cheekbones.
"I'm going to regret it because I'm terrible at my job, and I just told my clients that their matching eye patch tattoos are a disaster," I say. But even as the words come out, I realize I'm not sure I do regret it. There's something liberating about it, something honest. "But also, I'm not actually going to regret it because they deserve it."
"You're not terrible at your job," Cassian says. He leans forward and kisses my forehead, and it's so tender that it makes my eyes sting. "They're terrible clients. There's a difference."
He pulls back just enough to look at me, and then he's kissing me again, and it's different from before. Not frantic. Not desperate. Deeper. More certain. Like he's making a choice and committing to it with everything he has.
I kiss him back, my hands finding their way to his chest, feeling his heartbeat under my palms. It's fast, racing, which somehow makes me feel less alone in my own panic. He tastes like beer and something warm, and I'm thinking about how insane this is, how I'm kissing my ex's brother on his couch, howthis is going to complicate everything in ways that I can't even begin to fathom.
But I don't stop. I don't want to stop.
He pulls back first, resting his forehead against mine. His hands slide down to my shoulders, and he's breathing hard like he's just run a marathon.
"I need to figure something out," he says, his voice rough.
"What?" I ask, my voice still shaky, my fingers still gripping his shirt.
"Why nobody's coming to this wedding," he says. "And why Ben and Penelope are in an open relationship but still getting married. The whole thing doesn't make sense."
I pull back enough to look at him. "They're in an open relationship?"
