Page 51 of Cold Ignition

He let Keanu feel it.

Every step.

Every inch.

Until they were standing close enough that there was no mistaking what this was.

No room for misinterpretation.

Alexios held his gaze.

“You think this is about figuring it out?” he asked, voice low, even.

Keanu didn’t flinch. “I think it’s about not walking away this time.”

Something in Alexios’s chest tightened—approval, sharp and immediate.

“Good answer,” he said.

Rangi huffed a quiet laugh from behind them. “Told you he’d get there.”

Alexios didn’t look away from Keanu. “You did.”

Keanu’s jaw shifted slightly. “You’re both very sure of this.”

Alexios tipped his head, studying him more openly now. “We’ve had six years and two days to be sure,” he said. “You think we spent that time wondering?”

Rangi’s voice slid in, warm and certain. “We spent it waiting.”

“For me,” Keanu said.

“For you,” Rangi confirmed without hesitation. “Not to catch up. To choose.”

Alexios’s expression darkened, something more dangerous threading through the calm. “And to see if you’d choose us back.”

A beat.

Keanu’s breath shifted. “And if I didn’t?”

Rangi’s hand came up, not touching yet, hovering near Keanu’s side like a promise. “Then we would’ve let you walk,” he said softly. “We have never taken a third, never wanted to, we were what we were, and we were happy. Then we met you, and it was like-.”

“It was like we realized that something, someone was missing, that we weren’t whole,” Alexios added, quiet and absolute.

He stepped closer.

Close enough now that Keanu had to tilt his head slightly to maintain eye contact. Close enough that the heat between them wasn’t imagined anymore—it was real, tangible, unavoidable.

“You keep trying to place yourself outside of us,” Alexios continued, voice quiet but precise. “Like you’re something separate.”

Keanu’s brow furrowed slightly. “And I’m not?”

Alexios shook his head once. “No.”

The word landed between them with weight.

Final.

Rangi moved then, stepping into the space behind Keanu, close enough that his presence pressed in without quite touching. The shift was subtle—but intentional.