Page 19 of Avalanche (Endless Winter #3)

Lily

I don’t know if I can do this.

I thought I was bringing these guys together. I thought we could do this, the six of us.

But I’m just tearing them all apart.

I press one hand to my chest, to where my heart hammers beneath my sweat-damp tank top. There’s an ache there, an emptiness that almost feels like loneliness. Like the note of a song unfinished, or a poem stopped on the upswing with the last stanza unspoken.

I’m not just tearing them apart. I think I might be ripping myself apart, too. Shredding myself into little scraps in an attempt to make them all happy. To not let any of them down. Trying to break myself into six slices of Lily.

But if I do that, what will be left for me?

A sob bursts out of me, an earthquake cracking a fissure through the silent darkness before I can stop it. I clasp a sweaty palm to my mouth, turn into my pillow, but it’s too late.

“Lily?”

Seth’s sleepy murmur has me squeezing my eyes shut, holding my breath, like maybe that can stop my crying.

“Lily, honey, what’s wrong?”

He’s sitting up in bed, the covers pulling off us as he presses one hand to my shaking shoulders.

“Shh,” he rumbles when I don’t answer. “Shh. I’ve got you.”

He runs his palm along the flat of my back, soothing me like he would an upset child.

Probably like he used to calm his little brother and sister, I realize, remembering the call with his mom.

How she talked about how good Seth was with kids.

What a good dad he would make one day, if he found the right person. She’d given me a sharp look then.

Even through the phone, I’d known that look was aimed at me.

“It’s going to be okay,” he whispers.

He settles down beside me, pulling the blankets back around us, pressing a kiss to my shoulder, wrapping one thick arm around my waist. The feel of him next to me, his warmth and gentle strength, the safety of him, it only makes me cry harder.

“Matty and Eddie came back,” he tells me, pulling me against him.

Like maybe he can take some of my feelings for himself, hold me up.

“I heard them last night, after you went to sleep. They were laughing—or at least, I’m pretty sure I heard Eddie laugh—and Matty didn’t sound upset.

I think they just went to sleep in their room. ”

That has some of my sobs subsiding, petering off as I take in this new information, consider what it means.

Last night, after Matty and Eddie ran out, we all thought they’d be back in time for dinner, that they’d just be out for a couple minutes, maybe an hour, and then come back home.

When they didn’t come back, Antoine and I both tried calling them, only to discover Matty’s phone buzzing on the nightstand beside my bed, and Eddie’s left on the kitchen counter.

“They probably didn’t want to wake you up,” he adds, as if he knows the panicked questions rambling through my head.

Why didn’t they come in here? They’ve both spent nearly every night in bed with me these past few weeks—why not tonight? Especially Matty. Especially after yesterday, what we shared, what we did. What I said.

My cheeks burn at the memory of it, embarrassment twisting low in my stomach. It had been so wonderful making love to the three of them, being filled and stretched and completely overwhelmed. And then I’d ruined it. With three stupid words.

I love you.

What had I been thinking? Who says something like that to three people at once in a situation like that? Since when is an orgy the appropriate time to make declarations of love? And after just a few weeks together.

Of course they wouldn’t all say it back.

“I’ve ruined everything.” My voice is raw and strained, the sound muffled against my pillow. “Everything.”

Seth makes a choked sound of disbelief. “What? No. Don’t be ridiculous. Of course you haven’t.”

“I have,” I tell him mournfully, twisting in his arms until I’m facing him.

Until I’m staring at the shadowed shape of him in the darkness and his lips are only inches from my own.

“Earlier today…” I pause, swallowing back the embarrassment of my admission, grateful for the darkness hiding my swollen eyes and tear-stained face.

“When we were at home together and we… after we… you know…”

Had sex, Lily. Just say it. We had sex. But for some reason the words stumble, tangle on my tongue.

“You guys fooled around?” Seth asks, with only the barest hint of envious interest tinging the words.

“Yeah.”

I squeeze my eyes shut at the memory of it.

At how raw and open I felt. Powerful too, even though I could barely move.

I had felt like a goddess being worshiped, like some primal being bestowing a blessing on my followers, with Antoine’s come coating my tongue and Liam and Matty thrusting into me, chasing their pleasure.

I had felt adored and cherished and loved.

“I told them that I loved them.”

The admission is barely more than a croaking rasp. I press my face into the pillow, wishing I could take it back.

“Oh.” There’s so much pity and understanding in that one word, it has the pain behind my ribs expanding, opening up like a gaping cavern. “Oh, sweetie.”

My lower lip trembles, throat tight.

“I’m an idiot,” I lament, and suddenly the words are tumbling out of me, half sobs as they spill onto my tear-stained sheets.

“An idiot. Of course they weren’t going to say it back.

I didn’t really expect them to. Well, Matty did.

But then last night… and he just took off.

Didn’t even say anything. And the way he’d looked at Antoine before he’d left, the way he’d looked at me…

it was like he wasn’t even there. Was like he was someone else.

I think… I almost thought he was going to punch Antoine or something. ”

I shake my head, frowning at the thought, hating the way the words sound out loud. I can’t imagine Matty doing something like that, not the Matty I know and love. But he hadn’t looked like Matty then.

“He might have,” Seth agrees solemnly. I wonder if he knows I can feel the way his body tenses beside my own, his muscles rippling at the remembrance of threatened violence.

I press closer to him, wanting more of the softness, wanting to soothe away those rough edges.

“I think maybe he would have, if Eddie hadn’t stepped in. ”

Eddie .

Eddie, who had glared jealously at my unmade bed and the packets of condoms discarded on the floor.

Who had tried—and failed—to hide that jealousy behind a joke and a smile made of glass.

Eddie, who didn’t hesitate to step forward and try to fix the mess that I had made, even when Matty looked like he was set to explode.

My stomach clenches, and a pained whimper catches in my throat.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Seth tells me. “People say things in the heat of the moment. It’s okay...”

“Yes. Except I meant it. It wasn’t just the heat of the moment for me,” I tell him miserably. “I love them. I-I love you. I love Eddie. I—I’m in love with all of you guys.”

For some reason, saying this to Seth doesn’t feel as terrifying. Maybe it’s the darkness draped over us like a blanket, or the way the late hour of the night makes this all feel like a dream. Or maybe it’s because this is Seth.

“I’m so in love with you guys it hurts,” I tell him. “Is this what it feels like to fall in love, normally? For normal people? You’ve been in love before, right? Was it like that for you? Are we even made to love this many people all at once?”

“I don’t know what love feels like normally,” Seth chuckles, but it’s a hollow sounding thing. He presses a kiss to the bridge of my nose, his breath warm against my face. “I don’t even know if what I felt before was love. But I can tell you what love feels like right now.”

My heart stutters at his words, a gentle fluttering rising up like some broken-winged bird.

“It feels like everything is spinning out of control,” he whispers, and there’s no hint of mirth in his voice now.

“It’s pain and absolute bliss wrapped into one.

It’s the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning, and it fills my dreams when I’m sleeping.

It’s… it’s terrifying too…” he pauses, then shuffles closer to me, as if there really is some danger outside the safety of these blankets, threatening to consume us both.

“I’m so afraid of losing you,” he admits, his voice rough. “Of losing all of you.”

I pull him tight against me, my fingers twisting in the hem of his shirt, and squeeze my eyes shut. The truth of his words skates across my skin, diving like winter chill into my bones, settling hard in the pit of my stomach.

I think about the day of the avalanche, watching in horror as the entire face of the mountain slipped off, consumed those five skiers.

I’d been sure then that I’d lost them. I’d felt my entire world ripping out from under me with that sheet of snow, heard my own heart cracking open in the boom of ice and rock and snapped trees.

“I’m scared of losing you guys too,” I croak.

Only now, it’s not the avalanche that’s threatening to destroy them. It’s me.

“Do you think Matty is okay?” I ask.

I remember the way he looked at Antoine, those blue eyes cold as ice, his expression twisted with anger and heartbreak.

So different from the way he’d looked at him only hours earlier, when I’d kissed him with Antoine’s come still on my lips, when he’d moved from my lips to Antoine’s, crashing against him in a trembling, desperate kiss.

“He will be.” There’s a hardness in Seth’s voice that I don’t miss. A defensiveness. A warning.

I shiver despite myself and tuck my face into the crook of his neck.