Page 77 of Vengeful Melodies

“I don’t want to be asked what we are.” Her eyes move from one of us to the next. “I want to be asked to be yours. Like, yours-yours. Shown off. Posted. Touched like I’m not a secret. Talked about like I’m not something to be hidden.”

Her voice catches. Just a little.

“The last three weeks have been the best of my life. And I’ve never felt safer. Never felt seen.” She takes a shaky breath. “I don’t care what people say. I want this. All of you. But I want you to want it too.” There’s a pause. A long one.

Then Bash clears his throat, standing up and walking over to her with a crooked grin. “Alright then.” He drops to one knee with dramatic flair. “Dreya Lorena, will you do me the ridiculous honor of being my badass, beautiful, chaos-making girlfriend?”

She laughs, hand over her mouth.

Kai crawls on his knees over beside her, resting his chin on her thigh. “Please say yes before Bash makes this a musical number.”

Takoa stands, walking around the couch to join them, his voice low and deliberate. “This isn’t a phase for us. It’s a choice. I want you. Publicly. Permanently.”

And me?

I wait until the others have spoken before walking to her slowly. I take her hand, lift it to my lips, and press a kiss to her knuckles.

“Be mine,” I whisper. “All of ours. But still mine in the way that matters. The heart kind. The forever kind.”

She’s laughing and crying at the same time as she nods. “You guys really suck at asking people out.”

“But we’re excellent at follow-through,” Bash says, smirking as he pulls her into a spin.

The vinyl keeps playing. Dreya ends up slow-dancing with each of us, one after the other—soft, unhurried, pressed to our chests as the track fades and the next one begins.

By the time it reaches ‘Falling In Love’, she’s in my arms again. My hand cradles the back of her neck, and I press my forehead to hers, lips brushing her mouth as we sway.

“We wrote something for you,” I murmur, so quiet no one else can hear. “We weren’t ready to show you before. But now?”

Her breath catches.

“Play it for me?” she asks.

“Tomorrow,” I say. “It’s yours. Just like we are.”

The record keeps spinning long after the music fades. We don’t rush to change it. Don’t rush anything.

She’s curled on the couch now, legs tucked under her, still wearing my hoodie like it was made for her alone. Her hair’s a little wild, curls damp at the ends from dancing and maybe a few tears she wiped away without saying a word.

Takoa disappears into the kitchen. I hear the low hiss of the kettle, the shuffle of mugs on the counter. Bash plops beside Dreya and immediately steals the throw blanket like a brat, pulling it across both of them until she squeaks and smacks his chest. He just grins and tightens the cocoon, their laughter muffled by fleece and familiarity.

Kai flops down onto the floor in front of them, head tipped back against her knees. Her fingers absentmindedly thread through his hair.

It’s slow. Easy. The kind of quiet that comes after a storm you didn’t realize you were in until it passed.

Takoa brings over mugs—tea for her, black coffee for him—and sets them down with a level of care that doesn’t surprise me anymore. He brushes a kiss to her temple as he hands her the cup, and she leans into him like gravity’s not real. Like we are what holds her down.

I sit beside her other side, not even trying to hide the way I watch her. Every detail. Every shift in expression. The way she glances at each of us like she can’t believe we’re still here.

She doesn’t know we’d burn the whole damn world to keep her safe in it.

"Why are you all staring at me like that?" she says, voice warm and a little shy.

"Like what?" Bash asks innocently, taking a bite of her cookie without asking.

"Like I'm the last girl on earth."

"You're not the last," Kai mumbles, eyes still closed. "You're just the only one that matters."