Page 54 of To The Final End
That’s new. Or not new—newer. I’ve watched them circle each other for the past year, Stellan’s elegance meeting Jace’s chaos and finding something unexpected there. They haven’t done anything about it. Or maybe they have and I missed it. Either way, the comfort between them has weight now.
Theo is in the armchair by the window with a book, except his eyes aren’t on the pages. They’re tracking the room the way they always do—Wes’s body language, the tension in Rhett’s shoulders, the angle of Jace’s smile. He’s not reading. He’s holding. Grounding the space just by being in it.
Thane, Seth, and Rhett are at the bar in the corner, and that’s the thing that makes me smile.
Thane and Seth couldn’t be in the same room without circling each other like threats once. Now Seth is leaning against the counter, drink in hand, while Rhett explains something with increasingly emphatic gestures. Thane’s expression is caught between genuine confusion and aristocratic disdain. Seth laughs at something, and Thane looks almost offended, then reluctantly amused.
No one has noticed me yet.
I could announce myself. Could walk in and let the energy shift around me the way it used to, everyone recalibrating to my presence like I’m the axis everything turns on.
Instead, I just… join.
Seth sees me first.
Not because he was watching the door—because he feels me. The bond, or just years of learning my rhythms. His eyes findmine across the room and his face does something soft and warm before he’s already moving.
He meets me halfway, drink abandoned on the bar, and his hands find my waist like they belong there.
“Kids down?”
“Both lights green.” I lean into him, let his warmth sink in. “Aiden tried to convince me there was a monster in his closet that required immediate investigation.”
“Was there?”
“It was his shoes. He threw them in there this morning and forgot.”
Seth’s laugh rumbles through his chest. “Terrifying.”
“He was very brave about it.”
His mouth brushes my temple, then my cheekbone, then the corner of my lips. Not a kiss yet—a hello.
“Come on,” he says, tugging me toward the couch. “Rhett’s trying to explain fantasy football to Thane and it’s the funniest thing I’ve seen all week.”
The couch is a sprawl.
Gray hasn’t moved Wes from his lap, just shifted to make room, and Wes’s head is pillowed on his thigh now while Gray’s fingers card through his hair. Rhett is mid-sentence, something about point spreads.
“—so you’re telling me,” Thane says slowly, “that you spend actual currency to pretend you own athletes who then perform for imaginary points.”
“It’s not pretend ownership, it’s—”
“It’s absolutely pretend ownership,” Jace calls from the floor. “That’s the whole point.”
“You’re not helping,” Rhett says.
“I’m never helping. You should know this by now.”
Seth pulls me down onto the couch, and I end up half in his lap, legs draped over Wes’s calves. Wes makes a sleepy soundof acknowledgment, reaches down to pat my ankle without opening his eyes.
“Hi, Bree.”
“Hi, Wes.”
“Gray’s being mean to me.”
“I’m petting your hair,” Gray says mildly.
