Page 133 of Filled

“We’re all each other’s,” he repeats, quietly.

“Coach has a way with words.” I hook a finger in the waistband of his shorts and tug. “You heard the man. Phone down.”

The phone hits the bag with a thump. Then he’s back on the mat with me, and the desperate edge from before has mellowed into a slow burn, because now there’s no clock, no guilt, the doors to the front are locked and we have nothing but time.

We make out like teenagers. There’s no other word for it. Long, deep kisses on the mat, his hand sliding into my hair and gripping tight the way I’m learning he loves to do, my palms mapping the terrain of him—the ridge of his ribs, the cut of his hip, the ink on his neck that I trace with my mouth until he shivers. I learn that a bite below his ear makes his whole body jerk. He learns that dragging his nails down my chest gets him a sound I’ll deny making later.

“Off,” he mutters against my mouth, pulling at my shorts, and I lift my hips and shove everything down, and he does the same, and then it’s just skin.

We don’t go further than this. Neither of us says it out loud, but there’s an understanding—some things we save. Instead he settles on top of me, and when our cocks slide together, bare and slick with sweat, we both groan loud. The sound echoes off the gym walls, and when he grinds down just right, I see stars.

“That thing,” I breathe, “is a lethal weapon.”

“You should file a complaint.”

“I’m filing something.” He laughs into my neck before rolling his hips. Neither of us are laughing anymore.

I get a hand around us both—his fingers tangle with mine a moment later—and we find a rhythm the way we found one grappling, instinct and friction and his forehead pressed to mine, breath mixing, eyes open. That’s the part that undoes me. He keeps his eyes open the whole time, watching me like I’m worth watching.

“Cruz.” My name breaks apart in his mouth. “I’m close.”

“Good. Come on me.”

He comes with a shudder that rolls through his entire frame, spilling hot between us, and the sight of it—Brady Williams, unguarded, undone,mine—drags me over the edge right behind him. My back arches off the mat, and he swallows the sound.

For a while, neither of us move. The fluorescents hum. Our heartbeats slow in stages.

“We’re disgusting,” he says eventually, muffled against my shoulder.

“Occupational hazard.” I grab his discarded shirt and clean us up with it, ignoring his protest. “You brought a spare. I’ve seen your bag. You pack like a mom.”

“Preparedness is a virtue.”

“So is honesty.” I fold my arm behind my head and look at him, sprawled beside me, flushed and loose-limbed. “Tell me the truth. How long?”

He doesn’t pretend not to understand. He stares at the ceiling for a while.

“The bar. Months ago, when Dante joked about including me in—all that. I said it wasn’t my thing.” His Adam’s apple bobs. “I went home that night and couldn’t stop thinking about you. Both of you. And I hated myself for it, and I told myself it was the beer, and then I saw you at training the next morning and it wasn’t the beer.”

“Brady.”

“I know how to want Dakota. That part was terrifying, but easier. Wanting you meant everything my dad said about me was true.” He turns his head. “Except it doesn’t feel like what he said. It doesn’t feel wrong. It feels right.”

I have to take a breath before I can answer that.

“You want to know what I think is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever watched?” I say. “You. These past weeks. Watching you figure out you were allowed to exist. Every wall that comes down, there’s more of you behind it, and every single time, the real Brady is better than the performance. Every wall you overcome, it feels like a gift. And I know I’m not the only one who feels that way.”

“Now who’s being mushy,” he deflects.

“I contain multitudes.”

He snorts, but his hand finds mine on the mat, fingers threading through. We lie there under the humming lights, and the conversation wanders the way it never can when all five of us are together and someone’s mouth is always occupied.

“Can I ask you something?” he says. “Your triad. The one that ended. Did you guys have, like, a hierarchy? Primaries and secondaries and all that?”

“We tried. Made it worse. Ranking people you love is a fast way to make somebody feel like a consolation prize.” I shrug against the mat. “What we’ve got is different. Dakota’s the center of it in a lot of ways—she’s the one who cracked us all open. But this, tonight? This isn’t about her. This is its own thing. You and I are a real thing that exists whether or not anyone else is in the room.”

“A constellation,” Brady says. “That’s how I’ve been thinking about it. She’s the brightest star but there’s lines between all of us.”