You're lucky there's glass between us.
A beat later. Is that a threat, husband?
The word still does that. Even now. Even when we've said love out loud and lived it in the small domestic ways, her hair on my pillow, her laughter in my kitchen. That word turns my blood into a burn I can't outrun.
I text one-handed. It's a promise. Stop teasing me.
Sloane is looking straight at me, phone up, eyes bright and wicked. She lifts her chin, knowing exactly what she's doing to my self-control.
I tuck the phone away before I do something stupid, dragging her inside and locking the door.
East follows my gaze. "She's going to ruin you."
"She already has," I say, too honest to bother hiding it.
Malachi's cue pauses mid-air. He looks at me in quiet acknowledgment. He takes his shot and sinks another ball, letting me have that truth without making it a joke.
Kyle shifts, watching Malachi's stance, trying to mirror it. Malachi notices and tilts his head. "Move your back foot. You're too square. You'll overcorrect."
Kyle blinks. "Oh. Okay." He adjusts, careful, as if the floor might crack if he does it wrong.
Rider watches. Nash throws another dart as though softness is something he can pin to the wall and walk away from. It's all there anyway.
Outside, the sound carries in again. The goat bolts, rope trailing, and Ruby shrieks as though she's chasing a toddler with horns. Maggie catches the rope one-handed. Candace covers a smile. Darla claps, delighted.
Sloane jogs after the goat, braid bouncing, cheeks flushed, and she looks alive in a way that belongs in sunlight.
I line up my shot, simple angle, easy sink, and my mind flickers to Savannah. The auctions. To men who think women are property. To Sloane's father breathing somewhere as though he deserves it.
The ball drops into the corner pocket. Clean. My hand stays on the cue. Steady.
East drops his voice. "Okay, strategist. What's the move? If our pranks didn't land, how do we hit back?"
Sloane scoops the goat's stubborn face between her hands and presses her forehead to his as though she's negotiating. The goat bleats, defiant. She shakes her head, charmed by the audacity of something that refuses to be controlled.
"You don't out-chaos them," I say.
Nash grunts. "What, then?"
I meet their eyes in sequence, Malachi, East, Nash, James, Kyle, Rider, and the room narrows. Not into danger. Into focus. Brotherhood. The clean line of who we are when the noise fades.
"You let them think they're winning. You hit them with something they won't see coming."
East's grin turns feral. "What kind of something?"
I don't answer.
Because outside, Sloane looks up, straight at me, and lifts two fingers to her mouth, flicks them outward in a kiss she knows will go straight under my skin. Smiling as though she's daring me to survive it.
I smile back. Small. Dangerous.
East catches it. "You're done for."
"Been done." I line up my next shot and sink it. "That's not news."
Chapter 37
Sloane
