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“Payton.”
My heart rate spikes at hearing a woman’s name.
“Fucking hell,” Roo remarks, astonished. “Didn’t she understand that you weren’t interested three months ago?”
“Who’s Payton?” I ask. “Last girlfriend?” Wasn’t she the toxic one? The one Luca’s complaints were probably focused on in Vail?
Brecken scoffs, gesturing me to another machine as Reuben moves to the free weights. I know he’s listening in despite creating distance. “Yeah. She didn’t last long so I wouldn’t label her as a girlfriend, to be honest.”
“Why’s that? What happened?” I ask, still endlessly curious about their past lovers.
“I’d told her that I used to be quite possessive when I was younger, you know, dating at high school and after college.”
Right, becauseatcollege they shared women. Before and after, they tried it the conventional way.
“She had a thing for possessive guys,” he continues, fixing the weight pin. “She’d toy with me, purposefully making shit up to get me all jealous, hoping I’d rage at my brothers. Luca especially.”
“Sounds cruel. And pointless,” I add, especially if she wanted all three of them and not just Brecken. But maybe that wasn’t the case.
“I didn’t care about her. About any of them in that way. I get that I can be over-protective. And with you, at times it feels stratospheric. But I’m making adjustments. I want to be less intense. I know you need that from me.”
I finish my reps, my thighs feeling the burn. “I know I said that back in Vail, and it’s kind of still true. But as I’ve also said I accept everything about you. And if I need you to calm down, I’ll warn you.”
“And I’ll listen,” he assures me.
I throw a look at Reuben. He cocks a brow, looking impressed at how I’ve handled this. Or maybe he’s impressed at Brecken’s answer, it’s hard to say.
I kiss Brecken on the cheek, knowing I could suffer an awful lot.
After trying a leg extension machine, and the rowing machine, I head into the sauna. I strip down, covering myself with a towel under my arms, and throw some water on the igneous rocks. Muscle-weary, I plop onto the pine bench and lean back into the wooden structure.
My skin heats quickly, my throat feeling dry. When Roo enters with a water bottle for me, I’m eternally grateful.
“You godsend. I was just thinking I needed a drink.” I swallow half the bottle as Brecken joins us.
They strip out of their gym shorts and tank tops, throwing a towel around their waists. When they’re done, I close my eyes and sink into the heat, slipping away into a comforting existence of easy conversation, shared dreams, and a feeling that life couldn’t be better.
“You first,”Reuben tells me, patting me on the ass. He opens a newly installed door to the tower, one that neighbors their office door. Behind it, I climb the stone steps, following the path that leads to the century-old door, thick, oversized, and metal-hinged.
It’s been stained a dark color, and a thick iron key sits in the lock.
“Don’t worry. We won’t lock you in there often,” Luca jokes. “Go on,” he encourages.
The cold that leached from the stone steps has been replaced by warmth, I note, as I twist the dense key in the lock and step through. Having imagined a dark, gloomy turret, the amount of light assaults me. And it’s not only natural light filtering in through the thin arrowslit windows, but spotlights in the ceiling, and embedded low on the walls or on the steps.
Ahead, a spiral staircase greets me. I walk down the narrow stairs first, taking each of the fourteen steps carefully. I enter a beautifully tiled bathroom, with a large open shower, and a tub to one side.
“Couldn’t get a bigger one than that in here,” Reuben explains as he and his brothers follow me inside.
“It’ll be a cozy fit,” Brecken says, smirking.
The tiles are a dark silver-gray, the porcelain white. And there’s a tiny slit of a window barely the width of a man’s forearm. But it’s long and thin to make up for it.
“It’s beautiful,” I say, admiring the details. “Truly.”
Happy, Reuben flings an arm around my shoulders and pushes me ahead of him through the door.
I head up the stairs and continue up another flight, finding a bedroom. The proportions are the same as the bathroom, about forty foot square, except the walls are round. Decorated in cream, gold, and silver, it looks like a dream.
