Page 80 of Wild Thorns

I didn't have words for what I was feeling. So I just held him there on the stairs in the moonlight while the night sang around us. A hum settled in my chest, warm and steady like a promise.

* * *

I came down for coffee at six in the morning, wearing Jasper's sweatshirt.

I'd made a decision.

That's what I told myself as I descended the stairs, the worn cotton soft against my skin, still carrying his scent. Last night had been… well… Last night had been a choice. Jasper. I was choosing Jasper. Because I couldn't keep doing this, couldn't keep letting myself want all of them. That wasn't fair to anyone, least of all me.

The sweatshirt felt like a declaration. A line drawn.

It also felt like a betrayal.

My stomach knotted as I reached the bottom of the stairs. Eli would be down there. Eli, who had kissed me in the archive like I was something precious. Eli, who had looked at me with those dark, careful eyes and said it was real for him too.

I was about to walk into a room wearing his brother's clothes, and there was no way to pretend that didn't mean something.

You're a coward, the voice in my head whispered. You should have talked to him first. Explained.

But explained what? That I'd developed feelings for two brothers and had to pick one? That I was sorry for leading him on? God, I hadn't even been leading him on; I'd meant every kiss, every touch, every breathless moment in that basement.

I just couldn't have both. That wasn't how life worked.

Rowena was in the kitchen.

She looked at the sweatshirt. She looked at Jasper, who was making eggs at the stove with an expression of studied innocence. Her lips twitched.

She said absolutely nothing.

"Good morning, Serena," she said. "Coffee's fresh. I made a casserole yesterday. If you want breakfast."

"Thank you," I said, because what else was there to say?

I poured my coffee and tried very hard not to make eye contact with anyone. My hands were trembling slightly. I gripped the mug tighter to hide it.

Callum was at the table, reading the paper. He didn't look up when I came in, but something in his posture shifted, a tension that hadn't been there before. His jaw was tight, his shoulders rigid.

He knows, I thought. Of course, he knew. They all knew. I was wearing the evidence.

And then there was Eli.

He was annotating something in a notebook. I braced myself, for hurt, for coldness, for that careful withdrawal I'd learned to recognize in men who felt rejected.

He glanced at me once, briefly.

And smiled.

Not a forced smile, not a polite mask. A genuine flicker of warmth behind his glasses, soft and unbothered, as if nothing had changed. As if I wasn't standing in his kitchen wearing proof that I'd spent the night with his brother.

"Morning," he said, and went back to his notes.

I stared at him.

That was it? Just... morning?

I'd prepared myself for awkwardness, for tension, for having to navigate the minefield of a rejected man's wounded pride. I'd expected him to be hurt. I'd wanted him to be hurt, in some small, awful way, because at least that would have made sense. At least that would have meant what happened between us had mattered to him.

But he looked at me the same way he always did. Warm. Attentive. Present.