Beside me, Bane's jaw tightens. There and gone. But I catch it—he's clocked Zero's stare. Read the weight of it. His hand shifts on the table, moving a fraction closer to mine, a territorial counter-move so subtle it could be reaching for his napkin.
He knows.
"Max." Richard sets down his wine glass. "How are classes this semester? Anything interesting? What was it that you’re taking again, uh– Creative Writing?"
I clear my throat and search for a quick lie. "Creative writing's been good. Working on a longer piece."
"A novel?"
"Maybe. I'm not sure yet."
"Stick with it. The discipline of finishing something is worth more than the thing itself." He reaches for another slice. "And the trouble from the other night? Margot said there was trouble with some drunks? Any follow-up?"
"No. It was a wrong place, wrong time kind of thing."
"These things usually are. Still—" He glances at Atlas. "Might be worth having someone keep an eye on the campus area for a few weeks. Discreetly."
Atlas nods. "Already handled."
Of course he has.
"On a happier note," Margot says, reaching for Richard's hand across the table. Her eyes are bright. "We booked the trip."
The table shifts. Subtle—a collective intake of breath, a recalibration.
"The family vacation," she clarifies, as if anyone forgot. As if the dinner from Hell—Zero's sneer about playing happyfamily, the tension thick enough to chew, Margot's forced brightness—wasn't seared into everyone's memory. "We found a house on the coast. Two weeks. It's gorgeous—right on the water, enough bedrooms for everyone."
She looks around the table. Expectant. Hopeful.
"I know you boys have work obligations," Richard says, cutting in with the pragmatism Margot doesn't want to deliver herself. "You can't all be there the full two weeks. But a weekend. A few days. Whenever works." He lifts his glass. "Family is worth the effort."
The brothers exchange glances. A triangle of loaded eye contact that lasts maybe two seconds but carries a full conversation.
"Sounds great, Margot," Bane says. Warm. Easy. "I'll make it work."
"Looking forward to it," Atlas adds. Smooth. Genuine enough to pass.
Zero says nothing. Picks up his glass. Drinks.
I focus very hard on my plate.
Two weeks. A beach house. Three alphas and an omega under one roof without the buffer of Richard's study and Margot's kitchen and separate floors and locked doors. The irony is so thick I could choke on it. The family bonding trip Margot proposed when I was just the uncomfortable stepbrother now landing in a room where three of those brothers have touched me in ways stepbrothers definitively shouldnot.
Zero's eyes haven't left me. His gaze drops to my mouth again—deliberate, unhurried—and his lips twitch around his wine glass. The restraint is its own kind of aggression. He's not touching me.
He's making sure I know he's still choosing not to.
Bane sees the twitch. His hand drops below the table. A second later, his foot hooks around my ankle. Light. Deliberate. Staking a claim he'd deny if anyone asked.
I clear my throat again and reach for my own glass of wine–taking a big swallow and forcing it down.
This is my life now.
"Tell us about the house," Atlas says to Margot, and his hand reaches for the pepperoni box at the same moment mine does. Our fingers collide on the cardboard edge. Not a brush—a full collision, his hand closing over mine for a fraction of a second, warm and firm, before he pulls back and slides the box toward me with a perfectly composed "go ahead."
Margot describes the house. Five bedrooms. A wraparound porch. Steps down to the beach. I nod and smile and contribute the appropriate sounds of enthusiasm while my nervous system processes Bane's ankle against mine, the phantom heat of Atlas's hand still alive on my knuckles, and Zero's gaze boring into me from across the table like a physical weight.
And then I see it.
