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The table’s already set. Plates. Drinks. Napkins. Like this is a real meal and not the opening scene to a psychotic breakdown.

Dean’s got his chair kicked back on two legs, fork in his mouth, hair a mess, sleeves rolled up like he’s been building a new world one screw at a time. Wade’s next to him, calm and golden, arms folded, smiling like he’s known me for years. Evan’s across the table. Straight-backed. Quiet. Watching.

Maple slips between Wade and Dean like it’s choreographed. Dean immediately throws an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. Wade presses a hand to her thigh under the table, like it’s reflex. Neither look at each other, but both touch her like it’s just part of how they breathe now.

I sit at the open spot across from her.

They don’t say anything at first. Just look, assessing me.

Dean grins. “So this is the grizzly.”

Wade chuckles. “More like a wolf. Wild. Might snap if you reach too fast.”

Evan sips his water and says, completely deadpan, “Please don’t eat anyone. The rest of us are adjusting fine.”

Maple beams like someone just handed her a baby goat. “See? They’re so welcoming.”

Dean leans in and forks a piece of roasted carrot into Maple’s mouth. She takes it like that’s normal, lips closing slow, tongue flashing just enough to make me stare longer than I should.

Wade immediately cuts a bite of meat, lifts it to her lips, and raises a brow like ‘beat that, asshole.’

She takes that bite too.

Evan sighs. “Is this dinner or a fertility ritual?”

“Depends on who finishes their plate first,” Dean says.

Wade smirks. “She likes a man with an appetite.”

“I swear to god,” Evan mutters, but he’s hiding a smile behind his glass.

I keep my face blank. But I’m watching.

Dean’s all swagger and heat. Talks like his mouth runs on caffeine and sin.

Wade’s quiet fire. Easy, slow-moving, but you can tell, poke too hard, and he’ll break something in half.

Evan’s the danger you miss until it’s too late. That stillness, that patience. That’s not calm. That’s calculation.

And Maple? She’s eating it all up. Literally.

She catches me watching and raises her glass in a mock toast. “To new beginnings.”

I raise mine back.

Not because I’m sold, but because this is not what I expected.

And maybe, just maybe, I don’t hate it.

Chapter Twenty

Maple

By the time the last plate’s scraped clean and someone moans the words ‘no more potatoes,’ Dean already has the cards out like he’s been waiting his whole life for this exact moment.

He doesn’t even ask, just slaps the deck on the table and grins around the room like yes, obviously we’re doing this.

“Strip poker,” he says, like it’s a sacred rite.