There is an intense flutter between my legs that I’ve never really experienced before. It’s like a second heartbeat. It’s instinct. My body is quite aware that they would give me something that it would never forget, but my brain is very adamant that pursuing this…arrangement is a bad idea. This, these men, is something I wouldn’t be allowed to do halfway. My intuition is telling me they would require all of me. Every little bit.

I don’t even know what all of me looks like.

I haven’t given my all to anything in a really long time.

“Just a brief rundown. You’ve come here to ask for a foursome.” I look each of them in the eye. “In broad daylight. Stone cold sober.”

They trade glances and nod.

“Why me? Is it just because I’m…I seemed willing—”

“Why you?” Gabe growls, his brows pinching together. “Why you?”

Tobias nudges Banks with his elbow. “She’s asking, why her.”

There’s a tic in Banks’s right eye. “First of all, you are fucking beautiful, Elise, just in case you haven’t been told so a thousand times in your life. Second…” He stops to shake his head, his wingtips carrying him a step in my direction, making me very aware that I’m against the door. “The second reason is not very easy to put into words. Except to say, as soon as you stepped onto the tram, you had all of us by the throat. And overnight that hold only got stronger.”

“It’s like it was supposed to happen,” Gabe adds, almost to himself. “The four of us being on the same car. The electrical shortage.” His eyes lift to mine, then travel down over the curve of my neck, his chest beginning to rise and fall at a quickened pace. “All of it.”

“We realize that sounds quite insane,” Tobias says, serious for once. “I half expected them not to show up today. I thought perhaps my imagination was making everything that happened sharper. Stronger. But now that you’re standing back in front of me, I know I was wrong. I didn’t imagine any of it. We didn’t.”

I’m still waiting for the punch line.

Or my alarm clock to go off.

Beneath my apron, I pinch my thigh just to be sure I’m truly awake. Even though I already know the answer. I’m bright eyed and bushy tailed—and I could never dream these three men up in such specific detail. Could never imagine three presences so…tremendous.

There is no way I’m considering this. Obviously. Because it’s straight up kooky. Just like everyone and everything in my life, they will expect more from me than I know how to give.

“Do you guys need me to walk you out? Or can you find the exit yourselves?”

A lip twitch from Banks.

Gabe seems powerless to do anything but gravitate closer to me.

“You’re not even going to consider it?” Tobias asks, with his signature smile that doesn’t show in his eyes. “That’s all?”