Page 206 of Play Dirty

I looked at him.

“Has it?”

His jaw went a little bit tighter.

“Yeah,” he said. “It has.”

Sebastian shifted forward. The muscles in his shoulders flexed, momentarily distracting me.

“That doesn’t sound convincing.”

“It’s not supposed to,” Ares shot back.

Grayson took a moment before responding. When he did, I could feel the shift.

“It’s not simple,” he said finally.

I let out a breath that felt like I’d been holding it for weeks.

“No,” I agreed. “It’s not.”

Quiet settled again. The heat in the room, rising slowly in the midnight silence.

I had to say it. Before I lost my nerve.

“I don’t want to choose.”

It came out before I could soften it. Before I could shape it into something easier.

Something less… final.

No one moved.

“I thought I would,” I admitted. “I thought eventually it would just… click. That I’d figure out who it was supposed to be.”

I laughed quietly, shaking my head.

“That one of you would just… make more sense.”

Sebastian looked down, while Ares refused to look away.

Grayson held my gaze, however. Steady. Unshaken.

“But that’s not what happened,” I said.

A beat.

“I didn’t fall for one of you.”

My voice dropped, just slightly.

“I fell for all of you.”

The words hung in the cedar-infused silence. Real. Solid.

Impossible to take back.

Ares mopped his face with one corner of his towel. Sebastian dragged his hand through his tangle of hair.