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Rilee

I’m in the middle of fixing my earring when the first question comes.

“Where are you going?” Grayson, from the bed, where he’s still half-wrapped in the blanket he stole from me an hour ago.

“Out,” I say, dabbing on a little gloss. “With Lexi.”

“How long will you be gone?” Caleb’s voice floats in from the hallway, followed by the unmistakable sound of a bag of chips being torn open.

“I don’t know,” I call back. “Late, probably.”

Hunter’s voice is next, dry and unimpressed. “You going to text us when you get there? Let us know who’s at the bar? License plate of the Uber driver?”

I roll my eyes in the mirror. “I’ve literally survived this long without a chaperone, thanks.”

Grayson sits up, tousled and shirtless, clearly debating whether to argue. But before he can open his mouth again, Caleb beats him to it.

“Guys. Chill. Let her live. Rilee deserves a night out with her best friend without all of us up her ass.”

Hunter grumbles something under his breath. Probably not wrong .

I turn to face them, slipping into my boots. “I will, in fact, be alive when I get back. Maybe even slightly buzzed. Try not to fall apart while I’m gone.”

Grayson smirks. “You’re assuming we won’t be at the door like sad dogs watching the window.”

I chuckle. “Honestly. That’s kind of the energy I expect from this house.”

I grab my jacket and head out.

Lexi is already waiting for me at Woody’s, tucked into a booth with a fruity drink and a too-good-to-be-legal red lip. She lights up when she sees me.

“Damn, Ri. Hot girl winter is thriving.”

“Blame the cohabitation glow,” I say, sliding in across from her.

Her brows lift immediately. “Oh? So you’re still in that…whatever that is?”

“You mean my healthy, consensual, mutually adoring throuple-plus-one?” I sip my drink, keeping it light.

She snorts. “It’s fun, sure. But come on. You don’t actually think this is serious, do you?”

I pause.

Because yeah, the sex is fun. But I get the sense she thinks this is some joke.

“They’re… amazing,” I say, slower now. “Like, actually amazing.”

“Okay…” Lexi draws out the word, watching me with curiosity.

“And it’s not just fun,” I say, a little more serious now. “It’s… grounding. Comforting. Insanely supportive. They listen to me, Lex. They see me. Not just the tired nursing student or the walking stress ball—but me .”

Lexi lifts a brow. “So what, you rotate nights or something?”

“It’s not about a schedule. It’s about what I need. What we need. Sometimes I’m with just one of them. Sometimes all three. Sometimes we just study or cook or pass out watching bad TV. It’s not chaos—it’s actually the opposite.”

I swirl the straw in my drink, thinking back to Grayson rubbing my feet while I studied, Hunter carrying me upstairs when I fell asleep on the couch, and Caleb running me a bath just because he could.

“They’re patient. And kind. And annoying as hell sometimes—but they make me feel safe. Wanted . Like I’m the center of something that isn’t going to collapse the second I stop holding it up.”

Lexi blinks, caught off guard by the sincerity.

“That sounds… borderline magical,” she admits.

“It is,” I say. “Which is why I’m not ready to treat it like it’s just fun . Because it’s not. It matters.”

That’s when her face shifts—her skepticism returning—and she says, “But come on. You don’t actually think this is serious, do you?”

And just like that, the warmth in my chest begins to cool.

When I don’t reply, Lexi leans back, her look skeptical. “Three boyfriends, Ri?”

I bite my lip, trying to keep the smile from slipping. “Yeah.”

“And what happens after graduation? You’re moving to San Diego. You think Hunter’s gonna drop his NHL dreams? Or Grayson’s gonna follow you across the country? What about Caleb’s future?”

Something in my stomach twists.

“I don’t know,” I say quietly. “I haven’t thought it through.”

“No kidding you haven’t,” she says, not unkind but unrelenting. “Because if you had, you’d know I’m right. Play it out, Ri. This ends messy.”

I shake my head. “You don’t get it.”

“Maybe not. But I do know you. And I know you think this feels real because you’re in the middle of it. But sometimes the heat of the moment can feel a lot like more , when it’s really just… heat.”

I try to change the subject, ask about her ex, or her classes, anything to steer away from the tightening in my chest. But her words cling to me, sticky and heavy.

Back in their arms, it does feel real.

But Lexi’s voice is louder in my head than I want it to be.

Hot sex will do that to you, the sarcastic part of my brain offers.

And for the first time in weeks, doubt slips in like a draft through the door I thought was sealed.

* * *

Two days later, finals start, and I feel like I’m on the edge of a cliff with the ground crumbling under me.

It’s everything I’ve worked for over the last four years—every sleepless night, every exam I thought I failed but somehow passed, every shift where I held someone’s hand while they cried or coded or bled. And now it’s here. The end. Or close to it.

And I’m cracking.

My body aches with exhaustion I can’t sleep off. My notes blur. I second-guess everything and forget things I know I know. It doesn’t help that Lexi’s words echo in the back of my brain like a cruel soundtrack.

You can’t actually think this is serious, do you?

Hunter notices first. He always does.

“You’re not eating,” he says one night, crouched in front of me with that tight line in his brow.

“I’m studying,” I mumble, eyes glued to the laptop screen.

He takes the laptop from my lap.

“Hey!”

“You need ten minutes to be a human,” he says, voice low but firm. “Just ten.”

I’m too tired to argue. Or to do anything but let him pull me off the couch.

Grayson brings me a protein bar without saying a word and kisses the top of my head. Caleb wraps a blanket around me like I might shatter and says, “You’re allowed to be tired. We’ve got you.”

I don’t deserve them.

But I let myself lean.

Because in this moment, when the weight of graduation and Lexi’s doubts and my own fear of the future are all trying to crush me— they are the only thing keeping me from falling apart.

And maybe that’s what love looks like.

Even if I haven’t said the words yet.