"It is—"
"Is it?" He steps closer. "Max stopped you mid-kiss to tell you about me. Not to confess. Not out of guilt. Because he was hoping it wouldn't change anything. He was hoping knowing about me wouldn't end what you and he were starting." Bane's eyes bore into mine. "He wasn't asking you to choose, Atlas. He was asking you not to."
The words land like a slap. Because Max said almost exactly that.I was hoping it could be the first step toward something that doesn't require anyone to give me up. And I opened the door anyway.
"He wants all of us." Bane says it plain. "He hasn't said it out loud yet, but we all know it. We smell it every time the four of us are in the same room and the air goes thick. He's not choosingbetween us because he can't. Whatever he feels isn't divisible. And we've been so busy fighting over who gets the biggest piece that we haven't considered maybe the whole thing works better whole."
Silence. I look at the bourbon in my hand. My reflection warped in the glass.
Sharing.
The word sits in my chest like something hot. The four of us in a configuration with no name, no precedent, no manual.
Every instinct rejects it.Mine, not ours. The biology is older than language and louder than reason.
But I think about the hotel. The four of us in that suite. Three brothers orbiting one person, each finding their own way to be close, and the air in that room felt more right than anything in this house has felt since.
"The biology alone—" I start.
"I let you put Max to bed that night." Zero. From the window. "At the hotel. We were about to kiss, but I let you take him and put him to bed. I stood in the hallway. Heard every word between you two." His jaw works. "And I walked away. Didn't break down the door. Didn't drag you or him out of there. I stood in that hallway and let you have that moment with him because—" He stops. Swallows. "Because he needed you. Not me. You. And Max deserves better than someone who makes the moment about anything but him."
Bane and I both stare at him.
"That's sharing," Zero says. Flat. Like he's stating a fact. "I've already been doing it. I just didn't know that's what it was."
"The hotel," Bane says slowly. Something clicking behind his eyes. "When you made him eggs. When Atlas put him to bed. When I—" He looks down at his hands. "When I let go of his hand because I didn't want you to see."
"I saw," I say.
"I know." Bane's mouth twitches. Not a smile. The ghost of one. "And you held him anyway. You didn't tell me to back off. You didn't stake a claim. You just... hugged him. And I stood there watching and it didn't—" He pauses. Searching for the right word. "It didn't break anything. Watching you with him. It should have. But it didn't."
The room goes quiet with the weight of what we're admitting. Not a theoretical willingness to share. Evidence that we already have. In fragments. In stolen moments. Without the language to name what we were doing.
"Pack," Zero says.
One word. But it lands different thansharing. It sounds like something that already exists. Something that's been forming without any of us noticing.
Pack.
The word settles. Nobody argues with it. Nobody qualifies it.
"No more deciding for him," Zero says. "No more strategies. No more stepping back or stepping forward or any of it. He comes to us or he doesn't. On his terms."
"And we don't push," I say. "Don't engineer moments. Don't manufacture opportunities. We just—" The word is harder than it should be. "Wait."
"I'm shit at waiting," Bane says.
"Yeah." Zero almost smiles. Almost. "So am I."
I down the rest of my bourbon. Bane takes another swig and makes a face. Zero abstains.
Somewhere upstairs, the person we've been fighting over is lying in the dark. And for the first time since he walked into this house, the three men who want him have agreed on the only thing that matters.
His move. Not ours.
Chapter 17
Margot cups my face on her way out the door.
