Page 260 of The Lies We Play

Liv under him.

My hand in both of theirs.

Then the world returns by degrees.

The sound of Liv breathing. Halston’s body is still trembling between us. My forehead pressed to the back of his shoulder, my mouth open against his skin.

No one moves.

No one can.

Liv’s hand reaches up, slow and shaking, and touches my cheek.

Then Halston’s.

That is the part that stays with me.

The way Liv touches both our faces afterward, like she is counting us.

Like she is making sure all three of us made it back from the same place.

Her thumb moves over Halston’s cheek, then mine, slow and trembling. No one jokes. No one reaches for clothes. No one tries to make the room smaller than what just happened.

For once, we are not three people negotiating the edges of a difficult love.

We are simply here.

Liv beneath us. Halston between us. Me holding on to both of them with a hand that will not quite stop shaking.

The feeling is too large to name cleanly. It is not just pleasure. It is not just relief. It is the terrible, beautiful intimacy of being known in motion, of trusting the next breath to two people who could ruin you and choose, over and over, not to.

Liv’s eyes move between us.

“You’re both here,” she whispers, like she needs to hear herself say it.

Halston kisses her palm.

I press my mouth to her wrist.

“Yeah,” I say, voice rough. “We’re here, Liv. We’re still right here—always for you. For us.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

Livia

Then . . .

The next morning, I’m awake before either of them.

Probably jet lag.

Probably the fact that my body has no idea what country it’s in anymore.

Probably the sex.

Definitely the sex.

Being loved by two men all night should, by every reasonable measure, leave a woman unconscious until noon. I should be folded into the mattress, boneless and useless and smug. Instead, my eyes open an hour before morning belongs to anyone. The room is dark, the city muted behind the curtains, and my body is pleasantly sore in places I am too dignified to list. My brain, unfortunately, is fully awake like an obnoxious intern holding a notebook ready to figure out the day—fucking overachiever.