The blush detonates across my face.
"Sorry." The word arrives carrying the specific, mortified energy of a woman who has just realized she consumed half a meal intended for four people while three of those people watched in fascinated silence. "Uh. I really like food. Especially whatever this is."
The twins beam.
In unison. Their faces splitting into matching grins that carry the identical, radiant satisfaction of men whose cooking has been validated through the most sincere form of compliment available: someone eating it like the plate was about to be confiscated.
Archie sighs beside me, the sound carrying the affectionate resignation of a man who has accepted that feeding Sage Holloway is a logistical challenge that requires supply-chain-level planning.
"Why don't we eat first and then do formal introductions?"
The twins nod, reaching for their own trays with the synchronized coordination that governs their every shared motion.
"Sounds like a plan."
CHAPTER 26
The Pack Problem
~ROWAN~
"Rowan Archer."
I extend my hand from the carpet where Ronan and I have settled, cross-legged, because the couch is occupied by a pair of people whose proximity tells me more than either of them has verbalized. My palm is open, the offer directed at the Omega sitting on the cushion above me, her green eyes carrying the specific, evaluative sharpness of a woman who assesses strangers the way goalies assess shooters: thoroughly, skeptically, and with a mental file ready for cross-referencing.
"Center. Occasional winger when the formation requires it. Bad at waking up before noon and very good at cooking things that require fire."
Ronan follows without missing a beat, his delivery carrying the smoother, cooler cadence that has always distinguished his verbal style from mine.
"Ronan Archer. Winger. Occasional defenseman when Rowan decides to do his own thing and someone needs to clean up the mess." He shakes her hand with the measured gripthat conveys friendly without crossing into territorial. "Better at desserts than main courses. Better at listening than talking. Better at everything than my brother, but we'll let him keep believing otherwise for the sake of his fragile ego."
"My ego is reinforced steel, and you're full of shit," I inform him without looking away from Sage, who has watched this exchange with the attentive focus of a woman cataloguing a new dynamic in real time.
She shakes both our hands. Her grip is firm. Calloused along the ridges where hockey tape builds its layers, the specific hand texture of a player who has been holding a stick since childhood. Not the grip of a casual athlete. The grip of someone whose body carries the evidence of serious, sustained, year-round training in her palms.
"Sage Holloway." She tilts her head, the navy-and-emerald strands falling across one eye. "Defense. Occasional wrecking ball when provoked. Terrible at cooking. Excellent at eating other people's cooking, as you both just witnessed."
"We enjoyed the show," Ronan offers, and the sincerity in his voice is genuine because watching someone consume our food with that level of enthusiasm is the highest form of compliment our culinary efforts have ever received.
From the carpet, I have an unobstructed vantage point to observe what is arguably the most surprising sight I have encountered since arriving at Valenridge three hours ago.
Archie is sitting next to her.
Not across the room. Not at a calculated distance that maintains the buffer zone his anxiety has required in every shared space since I have known him. He is on the couch beside the Omega, their shoulders separated by inches rather than feet, his body oriented toward hers in the slight, unconscious lean that people produce when proximity is desired rather than tolerated.
Archie Hale Rosedale is functioning within the personal orbit of another human being.
Not just functioning. Comfortable. The tension that normally occupies his posture like a permanent resident has been reduced to a trace, his shoulders lowered, his jaw unclenched, his green eyes carrying a warmth behind the wire-rimmed frames that I have only seen directed at two people in six years of friendship.
Ronan and me.
And now, apparently, her.
I exchange a glance with my brother. The shared look lasts approximately one-point-five seconds and contains an entire conversation that would require fifteen minutes of verbal processing to replicate. His amber eyes communicate the same observation mine have registered:he is different with her. Whatever happened here in the weeks before we arrived has altered the chemical composition of our best friend's emotional landscape in ways we need to understand before we can navigate them.
Archie watches us conduct our silent negotiation with the resigned awareness of a man who has been friends with twins long enough to recognize when parallel processing is occurring at his expense.
"I'm surprised you two actually accepted the invite to attend," he says, redirecting the room's attention from whatever conclusions Ronan and I are silently drawing. "I figured the move from home to a campus environment would be a harder sell, given that neither of you has lived outside your parents' house for more than a tournament weekend."
