My hand with the tiny heart-shaped cut on my finger.

I made a fist and snatched it back, but it was too late. He scoffed, leaning his head back as he looked at me.

“Those boys are everything to me,” he said. “They’re the closest damn thing to family I’ve got. But if I ever thought one of them had hurt you, I’d fucking beat their ass myself.” His expression left me no room not to believe him. He’d meant it, viciously. “But I know what you’re doing. You want to take as much as you can and give nothing back. You wanted us. You still do.”

He’d already proven it too. I didn’t have a leg to stand on, only anger and my battered pride.

“So what, Lucas?” I snapped. “What exactly was I supposed to do? Start hooking up with all of you? Date one of you? Am I supposed to put on a collar and submit?”

In the deepest, darkest recesses of my mind, I’d imagined what it would be like. No more games, no more one-night stands. What would my life be like if I embraced what felt so right and never looked back?

I’d let Manson fuck me with the knife he’d threatened my ex with. I’d let them cuff my hands and fuck my face, one after the other. I’d crawled, cried, endured, and come out on the other side feeling awakened. It was like nothing else I’d ever experienced. It had fulfilled a need I hadn’t known was there.

How could they even expect something like that to work? Why would they want it to work? My family would never understand, most of my friends would literally abandon me.

“That’s what you want,” Lucas said. “You wish you could, but you’re so hung up on what everyone else will think that you keep pretending to be someone you’re not. Is that really how you want to live?”

I shook my head. “You don’t get it. It’s not that simple. I don’t know why you think it’s simple.”

“Oh, but it is real simple, Jess.” His drawl got thicker the more irritated he became. “You want us and you don’t think you should. That’s why you act like this. That’s why you’re sitting across from me right now. You spent all of high school harassing us so you could be near us, so you’d have an excuse to flirt with what you knew you shouldn’t have.” He was still firmly in my space, crowding me but not touching me. “This isn’t high school. This isn’t one of your frat parties. We’re not kids anymore. Do you get that? It’s all in or nothing. Those boys are my brothers. They’re my family. They come before everything. You don’t get to manipulate us for attention.”

We sat there for a moment, silent, our eyes locked.

He was right. Guilt bubbled up in me despite my pride trying to beat it down. The games, the teasing, the constant back and forth — this couldn’t go on forever. Something had to give.