Page 157 of Filled

We’re in public. Together. All five of us at one table with no cover story we actually need, no gym bag props, no staggered arrival times that matter. Dakota’s hand rests on the tablecloth,and Brady’s hand rests two inches away, and then his fingers slide over hers and stay there.

“Okay,” Cruz says finally. “Somebody pour the wine before I get emotional and ruin my shirt.”

Dinner unspools slowly. Burrata and prosciutto, bread, pasta that no macro tracker on earth would forgive. Fighters treat food like fuel, weigh it, log it, apologize to it. Tonight we eat like humans. Dakota moans over the gnocchi in a way that makes Brady choke on his wine, and Cruz launches into the ongoing saga of his war with the gym vending machine.

“Three quarters. Three. It took my money and gave me half a granola bar hanging on the coil like it’s taunting me.”

“You punched it,” Brady says.

“I tapped it,” he defends.

“You tapped it so hard Victor made you sign an incident report.”

Cruz shrugs. “That machine started it.”

Dakota laughs, throwing her head back. Eli watches her laugh with an expression so unguarded it makes me look away, like I’ve walked in on something deeply private. Six months ago this man didn’t smile at anything. Now he refills her glass without being asked and steals bites off Cruz’s plate and lets Brady lean into his shoulder while telling a story.

We’re on the second bottle when I decide it’s time. “I want to ask you all a question.” I set my fork down. “And I don’t want the funny answer, Cruz. Not first, anyway.”

Cruz raises a brow. “Rude but fair.”

“What do you want? Long-term. Not next week, not next fight camp. Years out. Where does this go?”

Dakota’s hand disappears under the tablecloth.

Eli’s jaw clenches.

Cruz sets his wine glass down, and for once, doesn’t reach for a joke.

Brady answers first, which surprises me. “I never let myself think about it.” His thumb traces the stem of his glass. “Long-term meant a future, and any future I could picture, my family wasn’t in it. Or I wasn’t in it. Not the real me.” He glances up, blue eyes catching candlelight. “But lately I keep... I’ll be driving, or cooling down after a run, and I catch myself imagining stuff. A house. Big one. Enough rooms for everybody. Holidays where nobody’s checking their phone at the door to make sure the story’s straight. Getting old with four people instead of alone.” His voice drops. “Then I feel stupid for imagining it.”

“It’s not stupid,” Dakota says. She looks down at her plate. When she speaks, her voice is steady in the way I’ve learned means she’s working hard to keep it that way. “I learned young that people leave. My dad left. My mom left without ever going anywhere, just checked out into a bottle and stayed gone for twenty-five years. I learned that love is a thing with conditions, and wanting it to be permanent is how you get your heart handed back to you in pieces.” She lifts her eyes, glancing around the table at each of us. “And I want it anyway. I want you. All of you. I want to stop waking up at four in the morning convinced that today’s the day you’ll all figure out I’m too broken and cut your losses.”

“Baby.” It comes out of me before I decide to say it.

“I know. I know you’re not going anywhere. Knowing it and my heart believing it are different muscles, and mine’s underdeveloped.” She wipes under her eyes with her knuckles. “But I’m training it. That’s my answer. I want the long haul and I’m training for it.”

Cruz reaches over and covers her hand with his, engulfing it. “My turn?” He waits for her nod. “I spent my twenties like a man running out the clock. Bar fights, bad decisions, waking up places I didn’t remember getting to. Never planned past Friday because honestly, sweetheart, I didn’t figure I’d have much pastFriday. Guys like me ended up dead or in prison, and I’d made my peace with both.” He turns his glass slowly. “Victor gave me a future I didn’t ask for. And now I’m greedy with it. I want forty years of annoying every single one of you. I want to watch Brady’s career go where it’s going. I want to keep learning Eli’s moods. I want to make Dakota laugh until she snorts, which she does, by the way, when it’s a real laugh.”

“I do not,” Dakota retorts.

“You do and it’s my favorite sound on earth.” He looks at me last. “And I want Dante’s steadiness. That thing you do where everything goes sideways and you don’t. I want that in my life until they put me in the ground.”

The table goes quiet. Eli hasn’t spoken. He’s staring at the candle flame, jaw working, and we all wait because rushing Eli Morgan is like rushing a tide.

“I’m forty years old,” he finally says. “And I had given up. I decided I wasn’t built for love, and I constructed a life to match. Schedule. Discipline. The walls were so high I forgot there was a man behind them.” His eyes are wet with tears as he glances up. “Then the four of you walked through those walls like they were smoke. And now I sit in my apartment on the nights we’re apart and the silence I used to call peace makes me feel empty.” He exhales. “I can’t imagine my life without you in it. I don’t want to imagine it. That’s my answer.”

Dakota gets up out of her chair, walks around the table, and kisses him. He holds the back of her head with one careful hand and closes his eyes.

“Dante,” Brady says quietly. “You asked. You answer too.”

Fair.

“I want a life built together. Whatever that ends up being. I don’t need it to look like anything anyone else recognizes. No marriage certificate is ever gonna have five names on it. Fine. I don’t need the state’s permission or my family’s approval or asingle soul’s understanding. I need the five of us to choose this. Every day. On the good days when it’s easy and on the days when it’s work, because it will be work. I need us choosing each other intentionally, out loud, over and over.” I look around the table.

“So we’re doing this,” Cruz says. “For real. Exclusive?”

“Yes.” Dakota, instantly.