Page 42 of Dichotomy

“Did you ever think the Archers would become this large organization working throughout the city?” I asked hesitantly.

Had she always wanted to do this? Did she want to keep doing it in the future?

She snorted. “No, I didn’t.”

We were interrupted by the arrival of our food, and I reluctantly let go of her hand as our server put the plates down between us. We had decided to share several appetizers, and the food smelled delicious. She waited until he was gone before answering.

“It started as a way to deal with my trauma. Just Danny and me walking around the campus when I couldn’t sleep, keeping an eye out for anything…off. We walked a few people home and helped a girl get her really drunk friend back to her dorm, and word kind of spread a bit. Danny posted his phone number on a campus forum, and it really caught wind from there. And soon it wasn’t just campus. There were more and more people who needed our help, and I couldn’t just abandon them. Not like…”

Not like she had been. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I couldn’t abandon them. So we kept helping. The onlytime I ever thought about doing anything else was when I came to work for SDS.”

My eyebrows raised. “Really?”

She smiled. “Really. I love solving puzzles, and my work with the Archers and SDS is like solving one big puzzle. There was a structure in place at the SDS that I had never thought about and actually implemented with the Archers. Ways you all trained your teams.”

“And your security systems,” I broke in. “I think Sebastian became even more obsessed with you when he realized you hadn’t just been taking notes all those years but really listening to him.”

She shrugged. “He’s brilliant. You all are. I learned so much from you, yet…”

“Yet what?” I questioned when she paused.

“Yet I also felt guilty too,” she said, looking down at her fries before lifting her gaze to meet mine. “I know I’ve said it before, but I wanted to apologize again. I’m sorry I lied to you. About who I was and why I worked there. At first, it was just a job, but the more I got to know you all…” She trailed off, but I stayed patient in the silence. “It ate at me to lie to you. But at that point, I had been lying to you all for so long, and I was terrified you wouldn’t hear me out. Yes, losing the information would have been a blow to the Archers, but losing you all? I wasn’t ready for that, but I wasn’t sure how to get out of it until Citadel forced my hand.”

I breathed out slowly. “I get it.” She shot me a look, and I chuckled. “I get itnow, although it took me some time to get there. I think one of the reasons I understand it so much more now is your relationships with Danny, Grace, Maya, Izzy, and Liam. You’re a family, maybe not by blood, but a family, nonetheless. You protect them, and the information you gathered from SDS protected them as well as the people whocome to you. If there’s anything I understand, it’s protecting my family.”

“That’s why I was never too mad at you,” she confessed. “I mean, you definitely needed to pull your head out of your ass sometimes, but I knew it came from a place of protectiveness, and I understood that.”

She wasn’t wrong. There were definitely things I handled poorly, but I was glad we had discussed this.

“To overprotectiveness.” I lifted my glass, waiting until she clinked hers against mine. “And to the families we love.”

We drank, and I moved us onto lighter topics. We finished our food, and then she went to say something, then hesitated.

“What is it?” I asked.

“There was one other thing I wanted to ask you. For some time now,” she admitted. “But I didn’t know how.”

“Just ask it,” I said. “I won’t be mad. Promise.”

She hesitated, the uncertainty on her face stabbing me in the gut. “Are you really okay with being one of my four…boyfriends?” she blurted, stumbling over the last word.

I laughed before I could stop it, reassuring her quickly when she frowned. “I’m not laughing at you. Never at you. Just how you stumbled on the last word.”

She rolled her eyes but smiled. “Look, I’m out of my depth here,” she confessed. “Boyfriends? Partners? I don’t know the terminology. I just know I like all of you, and all of you seem to like me?—”

“Do like you. Notseemto like you,” I corrected.

I could confidently speak for my brothers on this one. She opened her mouth, then closed it and shrugged, looking like she was at a loss for words.

“I’ll admit that when Sebastian first brought up the idea when we were in college, I thought he was crazy. Then we all went our separate ways afterwards, and while the men in myunit became like brothers to me, I missed my own brothers. Just like I missed Adrian after I left the military. When we were all together again, it was better, but we were still too disjointed, too separate in our lives. And then you walked into SDS. Now I’m not saying it’s your job to fix us or anything like that. But we’ve worked more in harmony with each other since you’ve been around than we ever have before. Even then I thought it was crazy when Sebastian brought up dating you not two weeks into your employment.”

Her eyes widened, and I laughed.

“Alexander had to sit on him several times and explain that you were our employee and there were lines we couldn’t cross. Yet we all couldn’t seem to take our eyes off of you.”

She blushed. God, she was beautiful, and I was dying to know how far down that blush went.

“Do I think it’s crazy?” I continued, leaning forward and covering her hand with my own. “Maybe still a little bit. But I’ll tell you what I know with certainty. I want a future with you.Wewant a future with you. We would never ask you to abandon the Archers, and we’ll help you however we can, but we want you. Wherever you are and wherever you go, we want to be right next to you through all the triumphs and all the challenges.”