Page 88 of Top Shelf

“If they are as good as they smell, then that’s perfect.”

They’re even better, Silas writes.

“Did you get hash browns too?” Lucian asks, already rummaging through the bag.

“Like I’d forget the hash browns and have you put peppermint syrup in my coffee again.” Ronan rolls his eyes, flashing me a wry grin as he passes out the coffees, and the other two grab their own food and get situated at the table. I don’t even need to smell my coffee to know it’s my usual order. They all seem to know what that is by now.

Lucian tears open the paper around his sandwich and takes a bite, moaning as he chews. “Messy, but far superior to my attempt at breakfast.”

“Yeah, whatever your charcoal discs were supposed to be, we’d all have cracked a tooth on them,” Ronan corrects without looking up.

“They were pancakes,” Lucian grouses.

“Were they, though?” I murmur, and Silas snorts silently, shoulders shaking as he lifts his sandwich to his mouth, eating much morecordially than Lucian, who looks like a starved savage with grease running down his chin.

Lucian glares at us both, but there’s no heat to it. “Okay, traitors. This is how it’s gonna be, huh? I slaved over that stove all morning, and for what? This heinous mocking?”

Let’s be honest. You mixed some premade batter, dumped it into the pan, and proceeded to doom scroll until smoke was billowing.

“Well.” Lucian drags out the word. “It’s the thought that counts.”

“If you could never attempt that again, I think we’d all be appreciative,” Ronan retorts with a smirk, earning a flick of hash brown to the face from Lucian.

A soft laugh bubbles out of me before I can stop it, and three sets of eyes snap to mine immediately. Something flickers behind Ronan’s eyes, a warmth that lingers as he watches me. Lucian leans his elbow on the table, chin in his hand, grin lazy and satisfied. Silas doesn’t smile, not exactly, but he nudges his plate subtly toward me—half of his sandwich untouched—and offers me the other half without a word.

My chest tightens, but not in a bad way. It’s that uncomfortable feeling that comes with being seen. With beingcared for. With being…included.

“I’m good,” I tell him gently, wiping the grease from my fingers with my paper napkin. That sandwich wassooogood, but damn, it was filling.

He nodsonce, unbothered as he pulls the plate back toward himself and digs into the second half.

I tuck one leg beneath me, turning slightly in my chair to watch them all—really watch them—as they banter back and forth while polishing off the last of their food. None of them feels like the boys I feared when I stepped onto Valehurst’s campus.

They feel like aunit. Like a team.

Like I’ve somehow been absorbed into the rhythm of something unspoken. Like Ibelonghere, in this house that smells like burned batter and fresh coffee.

I’m still raw. Still sore. Still grieving the girl I was before that night. But this? This moment? This safety?

It doesn’t feel fragile.

It feels like the start of something I’ve never had before.

Ronan clears his throat, breaking the quiet that settles. “Did you sleep okay?”

I glance up from my coffee, cupped between my hands. A beat passes before I nod. “I did, actually. I don’t remember passing out, but I slept like the dead. Better than I have in years.”

I swear Ronan’s chest expands at that, almost as if he’s proud of the fact that I had my best sleep ever on his sofa.

How do you feel after everything last night?

Silas writes, pushing the notebook into the middle of the table for the others to read.

“Better.”

I look between them—three sets of eyes watching me.

“Lighter,” I add after a moment of self-reflection. “Exhausted, but lighter. Like I’ve been carrying this thing for years, and I didn’t realize how much it was crushing me until I let part of it go.”