Page 46
“… Semi-important.”
“Then I’m semi-awake. Hit me.”
Still, Zayden falters. I close my laptop, placing it beside me, because this is clearly something big. Zayden has always been the one to deliver news, and he does it with confidence.
His uncertainty throws me back to the day Dad died. We were seventeen. Broken, and suddenly, totally alone. Our mom didn’t cope well, locking herself away in her room until one day we knocked and no one answered. All that was left was a note with an apology, and documents that signed the Silver empire over to us—as if we’d ever want it in those circumstances.
As it turned out, the businesses were in so much debt, we had nothing left. At one point we were the richest family in our county, but a series of poor business decisions left us with nothing.
It was a stark, painful reminder that our parents were human, not these all-knowing, pillars of strength that guided us and never judged when we fucked up.
And we fucked up a lot.
Of course, it was easier for Xavier and me, because it was instinct to look to Zayden. We didn’t know what to do, but he always did. He was the one who stepped up, selling items around the house to pay the bills that needed to be paid, and he made sure we finished school. He was the one who kept our mother’s vanishing act quiet from the authorities until we were old enough to legally take care of ourselves. And when the money officially ran out and we were on the verge of being kicked out of the only home we’d ever known, he was the one who found the Agency. Although back then, I don’t think we were prepared for how much it’d change our lives.
It’s why he needed Silence. She was his reward for being our stand-in parent, the brother we’d die without. He was our anchor—now she’s his.
“The dream we discussed,” Zayden begins.
My heart stalls. Xavier grumbles from underneath the bedding, “What dream?”
“Silence had a sex dream about us.”
Xavier snatches the covers off his head. “And no one gave me a play-by-play?”
“I need you to not joke right now, X,” Zayden says. Our brother sits up so we’re shoulder to shoulder. Z clears his throat. “For a while, Silence and I have discussed expanding … our lives.”
Xavier frowns and leans close to me. “Is he asking us to get her pregnant?”
“Xavier,” I snap. “Shut up and let him finish.”
He mimes zipping his mouth closed.
“I mean our sex lives,” Zayden adds. Xavier tenses, and I know why, but I say nothing. “We want to bring in someone else. Or … in this case … multiple people.”
My throat goes dry. “You want—”
“I want to know if you’d be open to having sex with Silence,” he says, and gestures at us. “Both of you.”
The silence that follows is heavy and close to comical. There are words in my mind, in my throat, hell, on the tip of my damn tongue, but they don’t materialize. We all sit in the quiet, but of course, the first person to speak is Xavier.
“Is this a trick question?”
“No,” Zayden says. “It’s fine if you don’t want to, but if you do, we’d have ground rules, obviously. Firstly, we’d have to explore whether it’s a good fit. Silence would need to know if she’s comfortable crossing that line with either of you. Which is why I’m talking to you now. If you don’t want this, we shut it down. We either all agree or it doesn’t happen.”
That’s fair. And understandable. Still, I’m struggling to speak. “I have a small issue with this.”
Xavier looks at me. “Don’t you fucking ruin this for me, Y.”
“How does Silence feel?” I ask, ignoring him. “About us individually?”
“Silence feels that the progression from brother-in-law to more with Xavier will be relatively easy. She’s more concerned about her friendship with you,” Zayden says gently. “She doesn’t want to lose that.”
My heart warms, because the thought of losing Silence in any capacity would break me in two. She’s been too important to me for too long to let sex fuck that all up.
“So she wants to take it slow?” I ask, and he nods. “How?”
Zayden shrugs gently. “Honestly, we haven’t gotten that far. I wanted to check if you were even on board first.”
