Page 121 of Knot in the Wedding Cards

August exhales, a long, tired rush of breath through the speaker. "I'm a jealous motherfucker," he says, plainly, the heat gone right out of it. "I'll own that much. But I've got reason to be, and I also know none of us has earned the right to judge a damn thing — or to hold one single opinion on who Amber chooses to share her space with. For the night."

Sawyer's chest shakes with a quiet laugh under my ear. "Well," he says, "in the strict interest of honesty — we did rather more than share space. But—" the laugh again, warmer, wickeder "—maybe I ought to shut my mouth now. Purely for my own personal safety."

Sawyer.I bite down on his pec to communicate my precise feelings on the matter. He does not so much as flinch. If anything the smirk gets worse; I can feel it press into my hair.

August is silent for a long, dangerous moment. "Yeah," he says at last, flat as a slammed drawer. "Shut up."

Sawyer chuckles, entirely unrepentant, a man who knows exactly what flavor of menace he is and made his peace with it years ago. Then his voice shifts. Still easy, but the teasing sanded off it now, something steadier standing underneath.

"Listen. I'm not trying to be a dick here. I'm not looking to come strolling into your territory and rub your noses in what jerks you've been — kind of." A breath. "But we've got to find some middle ground, the four of us. And that conversation? It belongs to Amber. Not to me. So you boys can hash it out with her once these agreements are signed — today, tomorrow, whenever she's got the stomach for it. With me in the room, or without me. Depends entirely on what makes her comfortable."A pause. "Since, near as I can tell, you three occasionally need a referee in the ring."

A long pause on the line. Then August, quieter, conceding the way he always concedes — first, and all the way. "Fine. We'll cooperate." A breath. "And you're right. It's all down to what Amber wants, at the end of the day. It always should have been."

It always should have been.Something complicated happens in my chest at that. Five years too late, delivered over a speakerphone at dawn while I lie tangled in another man's arms — and still, some stubborn, half-starved part of me leans toward the words the way a plant leans at a window.I hate that part of me. I'm working on it.

The line rustles. "Now — are you two on your way? We've got an hour. Barely."

"Yeah," Sawyer says, and his palm settles warm and flat between my shoulder blades. "Giving her a few more minutes first. She's worn clean out." The smirk climbs straight back into his voice. "And I wouldn't go straining yourself wondering why, flower. You already know the exact answer that jealous head of yours is busy cooking up."

"Fuck you," August says, with feeling.

"Apricot, anyone would love to fuck me," Sawyer replies, breezy as a Sunday morning. "I happen to be very, very good at it. Ask around."

I have, in the last twelve hours, gathered fairly comprehensive data on that particular claim, and I regret to report the man is not exaggerating.I keep this scientific finding to myself.

August makes a sound low in his throat — a real growl, frustration and something warmer than frustration all tangled up in it, something I don't think he means to broadcast over an open line. Sawyer just hums, delighted down to his bones.

"You know," he says, thoughtful, "you remind me an awful lot of one of my old pack mates."

"Did you fuck your pack mate?" August fires back, quick as a struck reflex.

There's a beat of stunned quiet — I think August startled his own self — and then Sawyerwhistles,long and scandalized and thoroughly delighted all at once. "Why. That is some deeply confidential information, sir." A wicked, dangling pause. "But do tell me. Do inquiring minds want to know?"

August says nothing. The silence stretches out, loaded, and I feel Sawyer's grin bloom against the top of my head like a sunrise nobody asked for. "Mm. That's what I figured," he murmurs. "Tell you what — I'll take that one up with Amber, then. She's a wonderful listener."

Are they — is this — flirting?I go very still, suddenly and completely awake, because the charge crackling down this open phone line has taken a hard and fascinating left turn that nobody involved seems willing to acknowledge.August is jealous. Fine. Established. But August is also, unless I have entirely lost my mind under this quilt, the tiniest bit curious.I tuck that away in a drawer I fully intend to reopen later, with a glass of something red.

August huffs, hard, a man yanking the wheel back toward the road before the whole conversation drives clean off a cliff. "We need your pack's approval," he says. "The registration. That's not optional, it's not a joke, and we are running low on morning."

"I'll handle it." Sawyer says it easy. Certain. "Don't you worry that pretty head."

"I don't trust that for a second."

"No?" Something in Sawyer's voice goes quiet and edged, just for a breath. "See, here's the whole difference between you and me, flower. I actually pull through for the people I love. Everysingle time. But I'm more than happy to keep reminding you of that — slow, as many times as it takes for it to sink in."

That one lands right where it's aimed. August goes quiet. Then, faint and further off from the phone, gravel-deep and flat with pure suspicion, a third voice I know down in my bones — Beckett, who has clearly been looming over this entire call the whole time like a thundercloud with its arms crossed.

"I don't like him," Beckett says. "Not one bit."

Sawyer laughs, bright and delighted, like Beckett just handed him a bouquet. "Well, get used to it, boys. In about an hour I'm going to be your brand-new temporary pack brother, signed and sworn and notarized. So savor the quiet while it lasts. Real peace before the chaos, this." He's already pulling the phone from his ear. "I'm hanging up now."

He does not wait for a single one of them to answer. The line goes dead with a soft, final click, and he tosses the phone onto my nightstand like the entire exchange cost him nothing at all.

"You," I inform the ceiling, my voice a wrecked morning rasp, "are a menace to polite society."

"I much preferdiplomat."

"You told my ex-fiancé we did 'more than share space.'"