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BigMeatEnergy: you cried.

Waffles4LIFE: YOU weren’t there. it was emotional.

I hear him snort across the room. He’s trying not to laugh, but I catch the shake of his shoulders. He types again, slower this time. That always means he’s plotting something.

BigMeatEnergy: luna saw your cereal shrine. she’s reconsidering the bond.

I physically lunge across the room.

“You take that back!” I yell, pointing at him, phone still clutched in my hand like a weapon of honor.

Elias raises an eyebrow, biting back a grin. “Just saying, man. You name your waffles.”

“That’s different!” I spin on my heel, sending another message while yelling out loud. “That’s love. That’sdevotion.”

Waffles4LIFE: say what you want, but your meat has never been big, energy or otherwise.

Elias slaps the couch arm like he’s just witnessed a public execution. “Low blow.”

“You started it,” I mutter, settling back on the beanbag like I didn’t just threaten domestic war.

“She’s definitely going to pick me in the next apocalyptic showdown,” I say casually, tossing a popcorn kernel in the air and catching it with my mouth.

Elias doesn’t even blink. “She already picked me. You’re just comic relief.”

He fires off another message.

BigMeatEnergy: i’d let you win. like a charity case.

Waffles4LIFE: you’re my charity case. i feed you. i clothe you. iletyou live.

And then I send a meme. Averyspecific, deeply unholy meme involving waffles, meat, and one incredibly unfortunate caption. He groans like I’ve injured him.

“That’s going in the vault,” he mutters.

I smirk, victorious—for now.

I set my phone down on the armrest, cracking my knuckles like some evil genius mid-plot. Elias had poked the bear. It was time for retribution. I already had a meme half-formed in my mind—something so stupid, so grotesquely beautiful, itwould spiritually maim him. Maybe a fusion of waffle erotica and questionable meat metaphors. The thought alone made me snort.

And that’s when she walks past.

Luna.

Basket of laundry tucked against her hip, hair half-tied, mouth full of a hum. Just existing in that unholy way she does—like she has no idea the entire universe tilts a little when she’s near.

She throws me a smile in passing, soft and real, the kind that makes my brain short-circuit. But then her eyes flick down—land on my phone screen—and the smile falters.

Stops.

Crashes.

Her steps do too.

I glance at my phone, slow, like I can somehow reverse what’s already happening, and there it is.Fuck.

Not just any photo. The photo. One ofthosephotos.

The one where her mouth is slightly open and her fingers are buried in my hair while I’m between her thighs, and the angle?Artistic—thank you very much. But that doesn’t matter. Because Luna’s looking at me like she’s about to shift into a higher evolutionary form of murder.