Page 95 of What We Become

I turn it over. There are four stubby legs on one side and what might be a tail emerging from its head. “It looks like a potato that got left in the dark too long.”

“That’s because you’re judging it before it has discovered itself.” He snatches it back, offended. “Also, this is a practice piece. My real project is significantly more sophisticated, and nobody is allowed to see it until it’s ready.”

“Is the real project why you’ve used half the first-aid kit?” Holden asks.

Milo tucks both hands against his chest. His fingers have been wrapped so often over the past week that Micah has started leaving fresh dressings beside his breakfast plate. “Blood is the price of creative genius.”

“Blood is what happens when you carve toward your hand after being told six times not to.”

“Rules like that are how we ended up with mass-produced furniture and no sense of wonder.”

Holden reaches past me, takes the small knife from the table, and closes it before Milo can protest. “You’re done for today.”

“You can’t suppress art.”

“I can suppress you.”

“Promise?”

Holden’s expression barely changes, but the back of Milo’s neck turns pink.

It’s small enough that I might have missed it before the cabin, when everything moved too quickly and danger had a way of drowning out anything that wasn’t screaming. Now I see the way Holden’s hand lingers after he confiscates the knife, his thumb brushing Milo’s wrist, and the way Milo lets him do it without turning the moment into anything louder. I love this for them.

And I love it for me because I like to watch too, and my mind is conjuring up a pretty detailed fantasy involving the two of them and the St. Andrew’s cross in the sex room.

Then Milo looks at me and ruins it.

“Stop watching us like we’re emotionally constipated zoo animals. I have deadlines.”

“For the secret project?”

His eyes brighten. “For the future of sexual craftsmanship.”

“No,” Holden says.

Milo gathers the wood shavings into his shirt, presses the lumpy fox into my hands, and darts through the kitchen before Holden can catch him.

“That’s not suspicious,” I say.

“Everything he does is suspicious.” Holden watches the door swing shut. “The problem is working out which version of suspicious is going to cost us our sanity.”

By dinner, Milo has reappeared in fresh bandages and a clean shirt, which means he’s raided the first-aid kit again. Micah’s gaze drops to his hands the moment he sits down, and Milo immediately tucks them beneath the table.

He takes his seat between Eli and the bread basket like a man with secrets, and I take mine between Knox and Holden like a woman with absolutely none.

Micah’s made short ribs—the kind that surrender if you look at them too long—over polenta I’m going to think about on my deathbed. Eli pours wine. Knox puts a roll on my plate, and it shouldn’t be so hot, but everything these men do with their hands is hot. I’ve made my peace with it.

Nobody has said the word Thanksgiving out loud. It’s Thursday, it’s the end of November, and Micah has spent four hours cooking for six people who can’t go home. I’m not going to be the one to point it out. Say it, and it stops being a dinner we’re having and starts being a holiday we’re missing.

“So,” I say, because I’ve never once left a pot unstirred. “Are we going to talk about the sex room?”

“No,” Holden says, through bread.

“I’m not asking to be hung from the ceiling,” I say. “I’m asking for the basics. A little light spanking. Some group play. The St. Andrew’s cross is⁠—”

“Baby girl.” I’m shocked that it’s Micah who cuts me off. “Six to eight weeks is the estimate for a healthy rib to knit. Not to be strong. To knit. You had a cracked rib and bruising across half your torso. The bruising’s faded. The bone hasn’t finished.” His voice stays soft, but there’s steel under it, and I must be ovulating because I’m finding his stern voice hot too.

“A spanking isn’t just your ass,” Eli adds. “It’s your core bracing. It’s your back arching. It’s every impact traveling up through your spine while your ribs take the vibration. One wrong angle and you’re back at week one.”