Page 64 of Top Shelf

My eyebrows jump as I snap my gaze to him.

“It was you who left me that coffee.”

He simply stares back at me.

Brows furrowed, I stare at the pastry and coffee until Ronan’s voice interrupts my thoughts.

“We haven’t done anything to them.”

Lucian makes a noise that’s half-surprise, half-amusement. Reaching over, he takes a gulp from the coffee before helping himself to a bite of the pastry.

“See?” he mumbles around a mouthful of food. “Not poisoned.”

They don’t push further though. They go back to talking to one another or getting on with their work. I watch them for a while, and only when the coffee is borderline cold and Lucianhasn’t passed out or fallen off his seat do I chance a sip. It still tastes good.

I move on to the pastry, and as I rip a mouthful out of it, I catch Silas smiling to himself.

Covertly, I continue to watch him as I eat my pastry and pretend to work. It clicks then. Silas didn’t answer me verbally just now. Nor when we were outside the bar. I’ve never seen him speak when we’re at the sports center.

He doesn’t talk.

At all.

Not because he’s shy or because he’s quiet, but because hecan’t. Or he won’t.

I glance at him again, curiosity rising like a tide as I recall every time he communicated through looks and gestures…and now notes.

My gaze drops to the notebook lying open in front of him. As if sensing the direction of my thoughts, he scribbles something quickly, tearing the page out before sliding it toward me across the table.

We all survive something. We just do it differently.

I re-read the sentence, each word landing with a hard blow to my chest. It’s deafening to see Silas’s damage written out before me.

When I look up, he’s already focused back on his coursework.

The note trembles slightly in my hand before I carefully fold it, tucking it into my pocket.

Maybe that’s it. Maybe it’s not purely coincidence. Maybethat’swhy I’m drawn to them: Lucian, Ronan, and Silas. Because my pain mirrors theirs.

The next hour passes in quiet harmony. As we progress through our project, Lucian and I occasionally discuss ideas for what comes next, and he makes the odd asinine comment that earns a side-eye from Silas or a roll of the eyes from Ronan. Otherwise, there’s just the tapping of keys. The scritch of pen across paper. The turning of a page in a textbook. The shuffling of chairs and occasional cough or whisper from nearby tables. It all feels…almost normal, and I’m surprised to find myself feeling as relaxed as I do in their presence.

And maybe that’s the real shift.

Because I’m trying. Trying not to look at them and see that night.

They’ve all told me, in their own way, that they weren’t involved. Until now, I couldn’t even entertain the idea that they were telling the truth. I think my brain has been trying to tell me for days now, but I didn’t want—Icouldn’t—acknowledge it. However, Lucian’s confession in the stacks has cracked something open in me.Not because he told me I could trust him, but because he let me see why.

He didn’t offer me comfort. He offered metruth.

The raw, unvarnished truth.

He showed me the wreckage he’s still crawling his way out of, and somehow, it made me feel like maybe I wasn’t the only one still buried. The only one clawing their way to the surface. To freedom.

Looking around at the three of them, at the strong bond of friendship that unites them—on and off the ice—I wonder if maybe what they each have been through individually hasn’t twisted them. It’s tethered them.

And maybe…

Just maybe…