Page 238 of What We Bury

I lie there, boneless, wrecked in the best possible way, and feel them settle around me—warmth on every side, hands that are quieter now, touching without agenda. Just presence. Justhere.

“Still alive?” Milo asks from somewhere near my left shoulder.

“Barely,” I manage.

“Perfect.” I can hear the grin in it.

I close my eyes. The room is dark and warm and smells like all five of them, and underneath that, like something I don’t have a word for yet. Safety, maybe. Or the thing that comes after the worst kind of waiting—the exhale when everyone makes it home.

I press my face into Knox’s chest and feel his heartbeat, slow and steady, already finding its way back to its natural pace. Someone’s hand is in my hair. Someone’s leg is thrown over mine. The bed is absolutely not big enough for six people and none of us are moving.

“Sage.” Eli’s voice, low and close.

“Mm.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” I mumble. “I love you guys.”

SIXTY-FIVE

HOLDEN

Ilove you guys.

Four words, mumbled half into Knox’s chest, and she’s already asleep before any of us can figure out what to do with them.

I stare at the ceiling.

Around me, the others are quiet in the way men get when something lands that they weren’t braced for. Not a bad landing. Just the kind that knocks the air out of you and leaves you taking inventory—checking whether anything moved, whether the ground is still where you left it.

It is. It’s just different ground than it was this morning.

I love you guys.

I’ve had women say that to me before. After sex, mostly, riding the hormone crash, meaning something in the moment that evaporated by morning. I’ve said it back when I shouldn’t have, twice, and learned from both. I know the difference between something said and something meant.

Sage meant it.

I breathe through it. File it somewhere that isn’t the part of me that makes reckless decisions.

Then I look at her in the center of a five-man pile.

She’s a mess. A beautiful, obliterated mess. Hair stuck to her face, skin flushed, breathing in the shallow, exhausted way of someone who has absolutely nothing left. She’s going to be sore in the morning. She’s going to need water and something for the ache and probably twelve hours of sleep. I know she’s tired now, but we can’t leave her to sleep in the middle of what we all just did. That’s not love.

I sit up.

“All right.” I keep my voice low. “Everybody off.”

Milo lifts his head and groans. “We just got comfortable.”

“She needs a shower. It’s our job to take care of her. Now, off.”

Nobody argues. They peel back one by one, and I reach for Sage before the cold air can wake her fully, sliding an arm under her knees and one behind her back. She makes a small sound and tips her face toward my chest.

“Holden?”

“Still me. I’ve got you.”