Page 205 of Play Dirty

Because no matter what happened out there—

— no matter what we were walking into…

We weren’t losing anything that was ours.

EPILOGUE

HAVEN

The hot house hummed softly around us. I was used to it now. Especially in the hours after midnight, which was when we liked to come.

Heat wrapped close, settling into my skin, sinking deeper with every breath. The wood beneath me was warm, the air thick and still, broken only by the low shift of movement here and there.

No music.

No shouting.

No pressure.

Just… us.

I sat with my back to the wall, towel loosely wrapped around me, knees pulled in just enough to feel grounded.

Across from me, Sebastian leaned forward, elbows on his thighs, hands clasped loosely together. He wasn’t talking for once.

Which… said a lot.

Ares sat to my right, stretched out like he owned the place — which, honestly, he kind of did. One arm rested along the bench behind me, not quite touching.

Not yet.

Grayson stood for a moment longer than the others had, watching. He finally sat down on the other side of me, our legs touching.

For a while, no one said anything. Not because we didn’t have anything to say, because we did. Too much of it maybe.

But for once, no one rushed to fill the silence.

“I should probably say something,” I murmured eventually.

My voice sounded different in here. Softer, thicker. Like it belonged.

“You, talk?” Sebastian laughed quietly. “That’d be new.”

“I’ve been trying to figure out what this is,” I said, ignoring him.

No one interrupted, now. No one joked.

“Since the beginning,” I went on, “Since the house. The job. All of it.”

A breath.

“I kept thinking it would… settle.”

I shook my head slowly.

“Sort itself out.”

“It has,” Ares said.