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“Come on, Dante.” He pats the cushion beside him. “Get in here.”

“Be right there,” I reply, making my way to the bathroom to get a warm wet cloth to clean up Dakota’s face for her. Stepping back into the room, I can’t help but smile at them all wrapped up in each other as I clean her face and neck, then lay the cloth aside.

I settle in against Cruz’s other side, and Dakota stretches a leg across all of our laps, and the four of us breathe together in the lamplight.

Eli’s hand finds mine eventually, his fingers threading through. He squeezes once.

I squeeze back. We all know this is the start of something complicated, and yet it feels so goddamn right; there’s just one missing piece of the puzzle.

16

DAKOTA

The Monday morning light through Oath’s high windows hits differently. Maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s the way my body still hums from Saturday night, every muscle reminding me of hands and mouths and weight. I rolled out of bed at six with a bruise on my hip in the shape of Eli’s fingers and a smile I couldn’t shake loose.

I push through the doors and the first thing I notice is Eli.

His shoulders sit lower. The crease that usually carves between his brows is gone. He’s leaning on the corner of the mat with a coffee in his hand, watching Cruz wrap his hands at the bench, and there’s a softness on his face I’ve never seen before.

Cruz catches me looking and grins. “Morning, sweetheart.”

“Morning.”

He stands and stretches, then walks past Eli toward the water cooler. His shoulder clips Eli’s on the way. Light. Deliberate.

Eli’s mouth twitches. “Watch it, Bennett.”

“Sorry, Coach. Big body. Hard to steer.”

Dante laughs from where he’s stretching against the wall, one leg up on a folding chair. He catches my eye and tips his chin.

I cross the mat to drop my bag, and my chest feels full enough that it almost hurts. Three days ago Eli wouldn’t lookany of us in the eye for longer than a heartbeat. Now Cruz is brushing past him like it’s nothing and Eli’s letting him.

Then I see Brady.

He’s on the far side of the gym by the heavy bags, wrapping his hands. His head is down. He’s not warming up so much as going through motions, hands moving on autopilot. He glances up at Cruz and Eli, then away fast.

My stomach drops.

I’ve seen that face before. In bathroom mirrors. On bus windows. The look of someone trying very hard to take up no space at all.

“Dakota.” Eli’s voice. “Grappling rounds. Pair up.”

Cruz already has Dante by the elbow. “Dibs.”

“You always have dibs,” Dante breathes.

“Brady.” I walk over to the heavy bag. He looks up and his blue eyes are doing that thing where they try to land anywhere but on me. “Roll with me.”

His throat bobs. “Cruz usually?—”

“Cruz has Dante. Come on.”

He hesitates a second too long. Then he nods and follows me to an open square of mat near the back wall.

We bow in. Slap and bump. The second my hand touches his, I feel it—he’s wound tight.

“You okay?”