"I want to. Let me."
I stroke him under the water. Slow. My thumb tracing each barbell the way I've learned to trace them, each one a point of contact, each one pulling a sound from him that he fights to contain. Cole reaches past me, joining me on Dante. Both of us stroking together, our grips overlapping. Behind me, Cole is hard against my back, and I press into him deliberately, the slow grind of my body against his while our hands work Dante. Cole's breath breaks against my neck. Three bodies connected through touch and water, everyone held at once.
Dante's head drops back against the porcelain. His throat exposed. His jaw clenched. His hips roll into our hands and the water surges.
"Look at me," I say. Giving his words back to him.
He looks at me. Eyes open. Unguarded. The composure stripped away by the water and the touch and the two people holding him.
He comes. His body tightening, his hand gripping the edge of the tub, the sound pulled from deep in his chest. I feel the pulse through my palm. Cole tightens his grip. We hold him through it, the same patience, the same care.
After, he sinks deeper into the water. His forehead drops forward until it rests against mine. Our breathing mixing in the steam.
I reach behind me. Find Cole. He inhales sharply when my hand wraps around him. He's been on the edge since the grinding, since his hand was on Dante with mine.
"Maya—"
"Shh. Let me."
I stroke him. Dante's forehead still against mine, Dante's hand on Cole's knee under the water, keeping the contact. The water moves. Cole's breathing fractures against my neck. His arms tighten. When he comes, his teeth sink into my shoulder, gentle, controlled, the bite that is Cole's language when words aren't enough. The sound he makes is bitten off, pressed into my skin, felt in my bones.
All three of us in a bathtub. The water is cooling. My hair is clean. The tile floor is wet where the water spilled. The shampoo bottle has fallen into the tub at some point and is floating between our legs.
"The shampoo is floating," Cole says.
"Leave it."
"It's bumping against my knee."
"Consider it involved."
Dante's mouth twitches against my forehead.
"This bathtub is definitely too small," he says.
"Next place," I say. "We get one with a bigger tub."
The sentence leaves my mouth before I think about it.Next place. We.The assumption that the three of us will still be standing in the same rooms when the rooms change. My chest tightens around the words. Wednesday hasn't happened yet. The hearing, the courtroom, Ashford. The trust broken twice and rebuilding slowly.
Dante pulls back enough to look at me. He heard it. He heard all of it, the word and the flinch after the word.
"Next place," he repeats. Quiet.
"If you want."
"I want."
"Cole?"
"A bathtub I can fit in. A kitchen where the table doesn't move every time things get interesting. A bedroom where I don't bang my elbow on three walls." He shifts behind me, his chin on my shoulder. "You two. Obviously. That's the whole point of the rooms."
The water is almost cold now. The steam is gone. The mirror is clearing, our reflections becoming visible in the glass. Three faces emerging from the fog. Wet hair. Flushed skin. I've never seen us like this. Side by side and facing the same direction. Dante's jaw, Cole's shoulder against mine, my face between them.
"I'm getting out," I say. "My fingers are pruned."
"Your fingers are pruned because you've been in here for an hour."
"I've been in here for an hour because two men got in my bathtub and made it difficult to leave."
