“Why didn’t you just say that in the kitchen?” Eli asks, looking at Knox like he’s lost his mind.
“Can we talk about this after work like we agreed?” Knox says. “This restaurant is a place of work and we don’t need to talk about this until we get home.”
“Talk about what? What’s going on?” I ask.
“Nothing,” Knox and Eli say in unison.
Oh fuck. “I’m being fired, aren’t I?”
“That’s not it,” Fallon says.
I look between the three of them—Knox standing stiffly by the desk, Eli hovering in the doorway, Fallon leaning against the frame. They’re all looking at me with varying degrees of concern.
“Then… why have you been acting so weird all day?” I ask, my voice rising. “You won’t talk to me. You won’t even look at me. I feel like I did something terrible. If I’m not being fired, and I’m not being replaced, what is going on?”
“Should we tell her?” Fallon asks, looking at Knox. “Because this is getting ridiculous.”
“Tell me what?”
Knox looks at Eli, then at Fallon. He lets out a long breath, his shoulders slumping. “Can we do this some other time?”
“Do what?” I ask.
“What Knox is trying to say,” Fallon replies, “is that our dynamic seems to be shifting.”
“What dynamic?” I ask, genuinely confused. “The work dynamic?”
“No,” Eli says, stepping further into the room. He looks at Knox, who gives him a curt nod. “Us. You.”
“Me?”
“Amber,” Eli says gently. “You don’t have to worry about this. We’re figuring it out.”
“Eli, what’s going on?”
“Guys, I think we should all just tell her,” Fallon says.
I want to drag my nails through my scalp. A new fear begins to creep in.
Do they know about my past?Did Luke find out about Eli and maybe ruin the only other good thing in my life other than my daughter?
Shit.
Shit.
I can’t start over again. I don’t have it in me to start over. I force a deep breath into my lungs. “What’s going on?” I choke out.
“We’re attracted to you. All of us. I just found that out and we’re kind of going through the motions,” Eli says.
I stare at him. “What?”
“All three of us,” Fallon says, pushing off the doorframe. “It’s becoming… complicated. We’re trying to figure out how to handle it. How to keep the pack stable while dealing with… feelings.”
My brain short-circuits. “You… you all like me? Like,like-like me?”
“Yes,” Knox says, his voice tight. “And it’s clouding our judgment. It’s affecting the workflow. That was why we were shouting this morning. We were arguing about boundaries.”
I look at Knox. I remember the dream. I remember the way he touched my face in the office yesterday, the gentleness he tried to hide.
