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Lucy smiles faintly into the pillow. “Okay.”

Then, more softly, she murmurs, “You laugh more now, Aunt Laurel. It’s nice.”

I sit there for another minute after she falls asleep, a terrifying warmth spreading through my ribs.

Then I head downstairs… and immediately know something’s wrong.

The men are all in the living room exactly where I left them, but the atmosphere has shifted completely while I was upstairs.

Briggs sits on the couch leaning forward with his forearms braced against his knees. Ashby stands near the kitchen doorway holding an unopened beer. Torin is by the fireplace, one hand hooked loosely through the belt loop of his jeans and the expression of a man about to willingly walk into traffic.

I stop halfway down the stairs. “Oh no.”

Three heads lift toward me.

“Is this some sort of intervention?” I demand, stomach starting to churn.

“It’s not an intervention,” Briggs says.

I reach the bottom of the stairs and stop. “That’s just made whatever this is even worse.”

Ashby rubs a hand briefly across the back of his neck. “Laurel.”

“Nope. Don’t like the starting tone either.”

Torin lets out a breath before looking directly at me. “We need to talk.”

There it is.

The sentence responsible for approximately eighty percent of human suffering.

I glance toward the front door automatically.

Briggs notices. “You want to escape?”

“I’m evaluating options.”

“Sit down first.”

Against all available instinct, I do as he says. Mostly because they all look weirdly nervous, which, frankly, feels unfair, considering I’m the one currently outnumbered.

Then Torin says, “We’ve been idiots.”

Not where I expected this conversation to begin.

Briggs mutters, “That’s putting it gently.”

I look between them, caught between dread and suspicion. “Did one of you accidentally join a cult?”

“No,” Ashby replies. “Nothing like that.”

Torin drags one hand across his jaw before finally speaking again. "Laurel, we know about each other."

My stomach drops. "What does that mean?"

"It means we know you've been with all three of us," Briggs supplies, his dark eyes on me.

Heat rushes straight into my face.