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Nobody laughs. Nobody looks surprised, not really, not after everything we’ve already worked through this weekend. The lack of reaction seems to ease the slight tension in his shoulders.

“I want to bottom,” he says plainly. “I want to be taken by a man.”

Dante leans back in his chair, processing. I already know where this is going and it’s gonna be something else.

“Who do you want to do this with?” Dante asks carefully, and I can tell he’s assuming the answer’s gonna be him, given last night and the trust they’ve already built.

Eli’s answer surprises all of us.

“Brady.”

The table goes quiet in a different key than before. Brady’s coffee mug freezes halfway to his mouth.

Eli doesn’t flinch from explaining himself. “I watched you last night. Watched you dominate Cruz with that ferocity, that mouth on you. It fascinated me. It made me want to know what it feels like to surrender to that kind of raw need.” His voice doesn’t waver, even though this has to be terrifying to say out loud. “I want to feel that directed at me.”

Brady’s face is doing about fifteen things at once. Shock. Fear. Something hungry under both.

“But I need something else too.” Eli’s gaze shifts to Dakota. “I need you there. Not on the side, watching. I need you present,intimate. I need you as a bridge, the same way you were during the train.”

I remember that. Eli caught between two things he wanted, Dakota there to ground him so he didn’t spiral.

“I’m not ready to just be taken by a man without that connection to a woman too. I need to feel held between you both.”

Dakota reaches across the table, takes his hand. “We’ll figure it out. Whatever you need.”

Brady finally finds his voice. “Are you sure? Really sure?” His hands have started shaking slightly around his mug. “Because I don’t know if I can be gentle with this. You saw what happened with Cruz. That mouth, the roughness—I don’t know if I can control that.”

Eli looks him dead in the eye.

“That’s exactly what I want. I don’t want gentle.” He says it like a confession, like something he’s been carrying since last night and has finally needed to set down. “I want your full intensity. I trust you to take me rough while keeping me safe. That’s why I’m asking you specifically.”

The weight of responsibility lands on Brady, and it brings a visible shift in his demeanor, like Eli reached across the table and put something heavy directly into his hands. Brady’s jaw works for a second before he manages a nod.

“Okay,” he says. “I’ll do it. I won’t let you down.”

The conversation shifts into logistics then. Dakota suggests the configuration: Eli inside her missionary, Brady taking Eli from behind. That way Eli’s connected to her, can see her face, kiss her, stay grounded while Brady works him from behind.

“Yes,” Eli says immediately. “Giving to her while receiving from him. That’s it exactly.”

“Dante and I will be there,” I add. “We’ll watch.”

The decision settles over the table, solid as fact. After breakfast, after everyone’s ready, we’re popping Eli’s cherry.

The mood lightens after that. The complicated part has been spoken and didn’t break anything. Brady plates up more eggs from the pan. Dakota complains about being sore in a very specific place, which gets a laugh out of Dante that turns into a wheeze when Dakota pokes him in the ribs.

I find myself just watching them. This strange, cobbled-together family I somehow ended up part of. The domesticity of it—planning something this intense over breakfast dishes—makes me think about my own road here.

I start talking without really deciding to.

“You know I wasn’t always like this,” I say. “Together. Whatever this is.”

Dakota tilts her head, waiting.

“My twenties were rough. Nashville. I was bouncing at clubs, getting into fights that had nothing to do with a cage or rules or any of that. Drinking too much. My temper wasn’t something I controlled; it was just a weapon that went off whenever it wanted.”

I tell them about the arrest. Twenty-six years old, some drunk grabbing a woman who didn’t want to be grabbed, me stepping in, the guy swinging first. I finished it. Badly. Broken jaw, cracked ribs, a concussion that put him in the hospital for two days.

“Didn’t matter that he started it. I nearly killed a man over a bar fight.”