The sound snaps straight down my spine.
I stand up too fast, wiping my palms on my leggings, and move to the front window. My heart’s hammering hard enough I can feel it in my throat.
Perfect. Exactly what I needed, my hot-headed brother and the man he’s furious with in the same room.
Griff’s truck pulls up crooked in the drive like he owns the place. The rumble gets louder, steady enough to rattle something low in my spine. He doesn’t even bother easing up the driveway like a normal human being; tires skidding a little before his truck jerks to a stop.
I close my eyes and inhale once. “Perfect timing,” I mutter, which is hilarious, because this is the opposite of that. I needed five more minutes. Maybe ten. Time to breathe before the storm walked through the door and turned everything into shrapnel.
The passenger door swings open before he’s even turned the engine off fully.
Knox steps out.
Taller than I remember, baseball cap low, shoulders filling out his jacket in ways that should not matter right now. Tall, broad, steady—like the kind of man built for winter storms and bad days. Black T-shirt stretched across shoulders that look carved, jeans hanging low on strong legs, hair pushed back like he ran a hand through it on the way here. His gaze sweeps the house, slow, assessing. Not nosy, just protective.
He stretches, looks at the house, then at Griff, and says something I can’t hear.
My brother slams his door, shakes his head, and gestures with his chin like he’s ready to storm a battlefield instead of a two-story colonial.
“Not yet,” I whisper, fingers tightening on the curtain.
Just five more minutes. Five minutes where it’s just me and Jace and the quiet acceptance of everything we couldn’t fix before Griff barrels in and starts assigning blame like it’s his job.
The floor behind me creaks as Jace steps closer. I feel him at my shoulder, the way he used to stand behind me when we were still trying — close, steady, impossible to ignore.
“I assume you asked them to help?” he asks.
His voice is tight now. Controlled in that way that means he’s barely holding something back.
My throat goes thick. I nod once, keeping my eyes on the driveway. “Yeah. I, um… they didn’t want me to move everything alone.”
What I don’t say is that I didn’t want to collapse alone, either.
Outside, Griff’s already heading up the walk, Knox a step behind him. Griff’s jaw is set. Knox’s hands are shoved in his pockets, eyes searching the front of the house like he’s trying to see inside it.
Inside us.
Shit. This is it.
The line between what used to be ours and what isn’t anymore.
The knock hits the door, hard enough to rattle the frame.
I suck in a breath that doesn’t quite make it all the way down, square my shoulders, and turn around.
And when he sees me standing in the doorway?
His entire expression softens. Just for me.
“Hey, Sierra.” Low. Warm. Knox’s voice takes up space without trying.
I swallow harder than I should, because there’s a part of me that wants to lean into that voice, that steadiness, thatsafety,and another part that wants to scream at myself for the timing.
Jace shifts behind me, and I feel it, that quiet tension rolling off him in waves. He sees who just arrived. He knows exactly what this means.
Griff looks around the house and doesn’t even pretend to hide his scowl. “You couldn’t have waited?” he snaps, climbing the steps two at a time.
“I was trying to,” I say softly. “You just… beat the clock.”
