Page 20 of The Last Call Home (The Timberbridge Brothers #5)

Chapter Seventeen

Malerick

I don’t need this bullshit right now.

Seriously, he can take his half-truths and I’m old enough to want to settle down and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine. Preferably sideways. With enthusiasm.

If he had stopped at I want both of you, I might’ve handled it. I would’ve smirked. Rolled my eyes. Thrown out a biting one-liner just to cut the tension before it swallowed us whole.

But no. That would’ve been too merciful. So not on brand for Cassian Harlan.

He kept going. Blew right past the line I’ve drawn in blood between then and now. Past every defense I’ve constructed, just to function in this town without falling apart at every corner.

“I want to stop pretending I never loved this man . . . who never let me love him.”

There’s this second—maybe two—where the world flatlines.

The sounds fade, as if someone had vacuumed the air out of the room. There’s no clatter, no breath, just this awful absence where everything used to be.

I don’t look at him.

I don’t look at her.

Instead, I grip the edge of the kitchen counter like it’s the only thing tethering me to this moment. The wood creaks under my hand. My fingers burn. I don’t let go.

Delilah’s quiet—too quiet.

Cassian stands there like an idiot with a death wish, daring the storm to strike him first.

And me?

I’m breaking. Silently. Efficiently.

Just like always.

He used to tell me—back in the early days, when we were still partners, and he hadn’t seen me naked yet—that I handled emotions like a bomb technician. Steady hands. Controlled breath. One wrong move and the whole room goes up in flames.

He wasn’t wrong.

But what he didn’t understand—what no one ever fucking understood—is that the bomb already went off.

I’ve been picking up the debris since I was a kid.

Growing up in a house where rage was louder than love and silence meant danger taught me one thing: feel too much, and someone gets hurt. Usually you.

So, yeah, I can do touch. I can do sex. You’re mad, you throw a punch.

You feel something deeper? You fuck. There’re probably more emotions, healthier ones, but I didn’t grow up with a guidebook.

I got fire and bruises. And eventually, I got Cassian along with all the people we encountered who wanted to share our bed.

And then there was Rachel.

And then nothing.

The moment he left, the moment he chose the job, the mission, whatever excuse he fed himself—I crumbled. Rachel and I were history. I didn’t even know how we started, much less how to keep us going without him.

Now, here he is. Still talking.

Still fucking with my head and maybe my heart.

“And I want to stop pretending I didn’t walk into that coffee shop and fall for you the second you told me to pay for my own fucking coffee.”

My head jerks back like I’ve been slapped.

He fell for her?

That fast?

I mean, sure. It’s Delilah fucking Mora.

People either flee from her orbit or fall hopelessly into it.

There’s no middle ground. She walks like she owns her space and talks like she dares you to match her stride.

She could cut you with a glance and heal you with a smile—and the worst part? She doesn’t even know she’s doing it.

“I want both of you,” he adds. “Not because I’m selfish. Not because I need a fix. But because I think . . . I think we could be something real, if we weren’t too scared to try.”

I turn away. Because if I keep looking at him, I’ll start remembering things I’ve spent years trying to forget.

Like how it felt waking up tangled in his limbs, the soft drag of his mouth on my neck while Rachel laughed in the kitchen.

Like the nights I stayed up watching them sleep, wondering what the fuck we were doing, pretending it didn’t matter.

My eyes land on the stove.

The burner’s still on.

Of course it is.

I move quickly, too grateful for the distraction, and turn the knob until the flame disappears. The pot hisses as it settles. It’s mundane and stupid and exactly what I need—something to do.

But when I turn back around, she’s watching me.

Delilah.

Elbows on her knees, spine tight. Like she hasn’t decided whether to run or stand her ground.

And then her eyes meet mine.

Fuck.

It’s not pity.

It’s not even empathy.

It’s worse.

It’s understanding.

And I don’t want to be understood. I don’t want anyone peeling back the layers and finding the hollow beneath.

“Don’t do that,” I say. My voice is low, gravel over water. “Don’t look at me like you’ve figured something out.”

“I haven’t,” she answers, quiet but clear. “But I’m trying to. It makes sense now . . . why you’ve pulled away every time things got close. Why you didn’t want sex . . . even when I nearly showed up at your door wearing nothing but nerves and tequila.”

A broken laugh escapes me. It’s bitter, empty. “Don’t.”

“Why?”

“Because once you start to understand me, you’ll see there’s nothing worth staying for.”

Cassian swears under his breath. Something guttural and hot that cuts through the tension like a blade he didn’t mean to unsheathe.

I don’t look at him.

Can’t.

Because if I do, I’ll see everything I lost.

And worse—everything I might still want.

Delilah? She just watches me like I’m a puzzle she’s already halfway through solving.

“I don’t scare that easily,” she says, not blinking.

“You should.”

I turn away. Step back toward the stove like I need to check something. I don’t. The burner’s off. Everything is already cold.

Just like this part of me.

Just like it always is.

“You want to know why I didn’t say anything back then?” I ask, not facing them. “Why I let Rachel become the excuse, the wedge?”

Neither of them says yes.

So I keep going.

“Because it was easier to lose him than admit what I felt. Because I knew if I said it—if I let those words out—I’d never survive him walking away.”

The cabin stays still. Even the wind outside quiets, like the whole world is listening now.

“I didn’t grow up with the kind of love that stays. Not from my parents. Not from anyone. So when Cassian looked at me like he could love me, I panicked.”

I face them. Both of them.

And it’s like peeling off skin.

“You told her you loved her,” Cassian says, the bitterness in his voice quiet but brutal. “But not me.”

“She wanted me to say it, and so I did,” I clarify. “It’s survival. I became who people needed me to be—said what they wanted to hear—because if I didn’t, they’d leave. I thought that if I did, she’d understand that I wanted you both. Instead you fucking left.”

Delilah’s mouth parts like she might speak, but I hold up a hand.

“I need to finish this,” I say. “Because once I do, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to again. When he left,” I say, eyes flicking to Cassian, “I told myself it was a relief. That it was clean. Final. Easier.”

My jaw locks.

“But it wasn’t. His memory became a ghost. He was in every damn thing I did. Every mission. Every bed. Every goddamn morning. And when I saw him again, here, in this town . . .”

I look at Delilah now.

“When I saw you talking to him, laughing with him . . .” I pause, the words raw on my tongue. “It felt like watching my past flirt with my future—if I were ever brave enough to want one.”

She blinks.

Doesn’t speak. Doesn’t flinch.

So I keep going—because stopping now would be worse.

“And I hated it. Not because I didn’t want it to collapse into one—the three of us, all in—but because I did. I fucking wanted it, and that scared the shit out of me.”

Cassian takes a slow step toward me. Measured. Careful.

Like he knows I’m the last thread in a room full of unraveling.

I shake my head once. Just once.

“No. Don’t.”

His boot scuffs the hardwood, and that tiny sound is louder than the thrum in my ears.

“Malerick—”

“I mean it.” My voice cracks like something breaking loose from the inside. “You got your confession. Let me have mine. But don’t fucking touch me unless you’re staying.”

Silence.

And then, gently—his hand brushes my arm. Just fingertips. Just a graze.

“I’m not leaving again.”

I want to believe him.

Fuck, I do.

But belief is luxury, and I’ve never been rich in anything but survival.

I hate that I’m breaking, and I hate that I’m being honest. I hate that I’m standing here asking for something without even saying the words out loud, because I never learned how.

Because they’re too much to complete, and I’ve never been enough to deserve anything more than to serve others.

That part of me—the one trained to expect love like it’s a bait-and-switch, always waiting for the other shoe to drop—starts spinning disaster scenarios like it’s prepping for war.

And Delilah is here witnessing my brokenness. Instead of running away, she asks, “So what happens now?”

The million-dollar question. The one that doesn’t come with a manual or a rulebook or even a fucking suggestion box.

“I don’t know,” I answer, and it’s the most honest thing I’ve said all night.

“I want both of you,” she says, her voice soft but unshakable. “But not as some extra in this”—she points between Cassian and me—“not as a guest in a relationship that already existed. I want a voice. I want to be important. I want to matter, not just orbit around what you two had.”

Cassian gawks like she just kicked him in the chest. “Why would you say that?”

“Because your relationship was fucked from the start. No communication. The moment someone—Rachel—asked for what she wanted, you both bolted.”

“We were three,” Cassian states, as if he can’t understand why she insists.

“She had no idea,” Delilah says calmly. “She thought it was casual. Until it wasn’t. Until she wanted more and didn’t know how to ask—because she didn’t know you two loved each other as much as you might’ve loved her.”

I rub the bridge of my nose. “So it was our fault?”

“Not necessarily,” she says. “But you get what you ask for. And if I’m part of this, I want a relationship with you.” She points at me. Then, at Cass. “And with you. But I also want a relationship that includes the three of us. I’m not here to be a plus-one to your unresolved history.”

Cassian looks like he’s about to say something but bites it back.

And me?

I want to laugh. Not because it’s funny. Because the simplicity of it cuts deeper than anything else tonight.

So, I speak with nothing but the truth, “You say it like it’s possible, Delilah.”

She just stares us both down like we’re the complicated ones here. “I want both of you. But not if this is going to be a battlefield.”

“It already is,” I mutter.

“But it doesn’t have to be,” Cassian says, his voice lower now, more plea than protest.

Delilah leans back onto the couch as if the cushions are the only thing holding her upright.

“We figure it out,” she says. “Together. Or not at all.”

I cross my arms. Mostly to keep from reaching for either of them.

“You really think we can do this?”

She shrugs. “I think we’ve all survived worse.”

Cassian smiles, a little crooked and worn out. “Speak for yourself. I nearly died last night when your mother made me try to learn salsa dancing.”

That earns a laugh. Honest and quick, bubbling out of Delilah like a glitch in her composure. I catch myself smiling, too—just barely.

“What the hell are you talking about?” she asks. “Why were you with my mom?”

“The knitting club came to the bar,” Cassian says, deadpan. “The old ladies rolled in at seven p.m. with their needles and gin. Then your mom shows up and demands I salsa with her. I thought I was gonna have to be airlifted out.”

Delilah snorts. “You salsa danced with my mother?”

“There was foot stomping. There was yelling in Spanish I only half understood. I think one of the grandmas propositioned me with a ball of yarn and a wink.”

She laughs again, louder this time. “You survived. Barely.”

“Barely,” he confirms. “I have emotional scars.”

And just like that, the room shifts.

Not healed. But open—just enough for light to get through.

Delilah’s smile softens. Her expression folds into something more serious, more vulnerable.

“You really want this?” she asks, voice low again. “Because if we do this . . . it has to stay between us. At least for now. There’s the Syndicate to worry about. My mom. The gossip mill in this town could put TMZ to shame. I want this to be safe. Private. Ours.”

I nod.

Cassian nods, too.

No big declarations.

No grand vows.

Just three broken people sitting in a quiet room, hoping that maybe—just maybe—this doesn’t fall apart before it even begins.