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20

Oliver

It felt like bees were buzzing around underneath my ribs. For a minute, I even considered if the past few months had all been a weird fever dream, because none of this felt real.

Maybe I was in a coma or something?

I wasn’t sure why Lane’s proposal was what finally made me snap out of this weirdly happy trance I’d been in. It was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.

I smiled like I meant it. He had looked so sure, so lit up from the inside, so in love. I hadn’t once seen him like that throughout our entire friendship. And that kind of happiness—raw, unfiltered—was so damn beautiful. He deserved that. But he’d also just confronted and killed his abuser. Greyson and him had kissed and acted like everything was perfectly normal and wonderful—with Lane literally still sitting on the cooling body.

Like… what the fuck?

And beneath my shock and confusion, there was another pressing concern. Fear.

Greyson was terrifying, and to add to that, it was clear that he hated me. He’d point-blank told me that if I wasn’t Lane’s best friend, he would’ve killed me. He was the catalyst of the most frightening and traumatic night of my life. He gave me to his brothers like I was a piece of meat he was throwing to the wolves.

My hands shook as I tried to push the memories from that night back into the depths of my mind. I was going to throw up.

But then Lane looked at me.

He looked at me with that stunning happiness just oozing out of his skin and eyes full of hope for the future. He always reminded me of a fox when he smiled. His eyes would go all squinty, and his face would scrunch inward a bit. Something about it had always called to me. It felt both strikingly innocent and mischievous.

I was learning that Lane himself was a kaleidoscope. The Lane in front of me was someone I’d never met before, but it was still distinctly him. The Lane who had written that manic goodbye letter to Greyson was new to me, too. Hell, I hadn’t known the extent of the abuse he’d gone through until recently.

Still, when he hobbled over to me and squealed, literally throwing himself on me, I couldn’t not be excited for him. And a part of me was. In some fucked up way, this was a happily ever after in his story. His prince had rescued him, the villain had been slain, and now it was time for the happy couple to pull away in a carriage, riding off into the distance with bells ringing.

All Lane had ever wanted was to be loved.

Adored.

Worshiped.

I was unsure if what I was feeling was protectiveness, jealousy, or just the ominously quiet dread of seeing someone you love sprint toward something you can’t quite believe in.

I kept thinking back on all the nights we’d stayed up drinking, talking about what we wouldn’t settle for—what we thought love should feel like. Maybe he had found that in Greyson.

He looked at me with eyes that had seen too much and still managed to shine. There was something unbreakable in him, even if it came in a fragile, glittering form. And maybe that’s why I said nothing. Maybe that’s why I just hugged him back and let his excitement wash over me like it was mine, too. Because if anyone deserved a little magic, it was Lane. He’d clawed his way through so much darkness—he deserved his damn fairytale, even if the script felt off to me. Even if there was a dead body or two involved, and psychopathic brothers who had been holding your best friend captive.

I wanted to believe in it for him. I tried . But the truth was, I didn’t trust the plot—the way Greyson looked at him like a prized possession.

Still, I didn’t say anything negative. Because that’s what you do when someone you love finds what they believe is happiness. You don’t drag them back from it, even when it terrifies you. You smile. You listen to him throw out honestly insane wedding venue ideas.

And maybe—just maybe—you wait. Not to say I told you so, but to be there if it all comes undone. Because some part of you hopes it won’t. But another part—some quiet, shameful corner—hopes it will.

Realistically, though, I knew someone like Greyson wouldn’t just let a relationship fizzle out. I wasn’t positive that he wouldn’t kill Lane only to ensure that no one else got to ever have him. That wasn’t healthy.

It wasn’t.

No matter what.

It was scary. It was scary that even my own mind kept trying to gaslight me into thinking that it was okay. It was scary that I’d started to develop feelings for Hayes and Hudson. It was scary that I was in such a similar situation to Lane—just without my captors loving me.

It was scary that, for some ungodly reason, my chest hurt when I thought about that. Why did I want them to love me? I didn’t love them. I didn’t. I couldn’t.

I wouldn’t.

Falling in love with a psychopath meant condemning yourself to a life never hearing those words back. Falling in love with two? Loving two people and never being loved back? It was suicidal.

And yet… sometimes, when one of them looked at me for just a second too long—when Hudson’s gaze softened while he was trying to soothe me, or when Hayes was so incredibly gentle with me—I felt the traitorous ache of wanting more.

Wanting them to love me.

Wishing that our story was different—that they weren’t psychopathic, but just two men who could love me.

It was too easy to let myself get drunk on the attention, the obsession. I’d never been wanted like this before. Well, I’d never been wanted at all. I wasn’t someone who people looked at. I was just a side character, never being enough to take attention away from the main characters. I wasn’t deserving enough of my own happy ending.

I kept telling myself I didn’t actually like them.

I repeated it like a mantra in my head as they frowned down at me. I told myself that it wasn’t real—just trauma, or loneliness, or some form of Stockholm Syndrome slowly blooming inside my chest like mold.

But if that was true, why did the idea of them not loving me feel like I had been the one who’d gotten a knife to the heart?

It was humiliating, liking someone who you knew would never be able to fall for you. Worse still— two someones. Two soulless monsters wrapped in beautiful skin and cruel grins.

How would you ever forgive yourself for wanting the wolves to want you back?

“Are you okay?” Hudson asked me, squatting down next to me and holding the back of his hand to my forehead like he was checking for a fever.

“Yeah,” I croaked. He gave me a strange look, making it clear he didn’t believe me, but dropped it until Lane and Greyson had left.

Once it was only the three of us again, Tate’s body taken care of, I found myself under their scrutiny.

“What’s going on? You started looking sick earlier,” Hayes queried.

“I-I’m fine. Maybe I just need a snack?”

Hudson quirked a brow at my response. “A snack, huh? Doesn’t have something to do with your friend getting engaged?”

I flushed. “No, I’m just feeling a bit faint. That’s all.”

“Oliver,” Hayes leveled, giving me a stern look. “You know we don’t like lying. Are you asking for a punishment?”

“What? No!” I promised, my stomach dropping when they didn’t respond. Instead, they both stared blankly at me as if they were waiting for me to go on. I held my ground at first, but I became increasingly frightened the longer they stared silently. “I just…” I scrambled to find something at least half-truthful that didn’t have me admitting my feelings. I wasn’t sure what they would do with that information. “I’m worried about Lane.”

Hayes hummed, “Hmm. Why would you be worried about him?”

“I don’t—I don’t think he should marry Greyson.” There; that was more truth than lie.

“And why is that?” Hudson asked.

“I-I just don’t think it’s a healthy relationship,” I mumbled.

“Why?” They both looked at me like they couldn’t understand.

“Uh, well… He was supposed to be his therapy patient, and then ended up being stalked and kidnapped by him?”

Hayes huffed in amusement. “Healthy is so relative. Greyson never did anything Lane didn’t want.”

I spluttered, “He didn’t consent to those things!”

“And?” Hudson questioned.

“ And? And? ” I took a deep breath to try and calm myself down a little before continuing. “Consent is necessary for a healthy relationship.”

They shared a weighted look with each other. Hayes asked me, “Is a textbook healthy relationship really that important? Would you cut Lane out of your life?”

I frowned, confused. “Why would I do that? No.”

Hayes nodded shortly, then continued, “Well, you don’t exactly have a ‘healthy’ friendship with him, do you?” I went to defend it immediately, then faltered. “That’s right. But do you think you’d be better off without him? No, right? You love him despite it all. Despite the fact that he left you here, never checking in? Despite the fact that you said some bad things in the heat of the moment that some would say were inexcusable? And even after all of that, how did it feel to have him hug you? For him to be so excited to see you?”

“Like things were r-right again.”

“Humans aren’t perfect creatures, Oliver. You know that. So maybe their relationship doesn’t seem healthy to you, but who are you to make that decision? You’re not in it. You’re not them . Every person has a different version of healthy. Besides, can you expect two people who would be considered unhealthy, sick even, to have what society has deemed to be a healthy relationship?” Hayes stroked my back gently as he spoke. “If Lane loves Greyson and gets what he needs from the relationship, shouldn’t that be fine? Why should he have to settle for someone who doesn’t suit his needs when Grey is the one he loves?”

I sighed, “I just… don’t know.”

I despised how I was starting to waver. I didn’t want them to know that I felt like that, though. But, when I thought about the comparison to Lane and me, and our friendship, I couldn’t help but agree.

Hearing someone actually say out loud that our friendship wasn’t healthy was like being seen and flayed open in the same breath.

It burned.

Lane had hurt me—and I him—but I still missed him so much that it was torturous not hearing him, not texting him, not being with him. And when he’d hugged me, it did feel like things were right again, even if they never had been in the first place.

So what did that say about me?

Maybe I was just that desperate to be wanted. Or maybe I didn’t know how to stop clinging to the people who broke me, as long as they broke me gently with honeyed voices and soft caresses. I had hurt Lane, too, though. So did he also feel like this, but choose to love me anyway?

I peeked at Hayes, at the way he was watching me—too closely, too carefully, like he was cataloging every reaction. I hated him in that moment. Hated how calm he looked. Hated how understood he made me feel. Because he wasn’t wrong, and that terrified me more than anything.

I hated how I felt a gravitational pull towards him and Hudson, and how that pull was making it harder and harder to keep my distance. I wanted so badly to be cuddled up, the weight of their arms calming me like a dang weighted blanket.

It felt like nothing made sense anymore.

If Lane could hurt me and still be home, then what did that make them ?

Because somewhere along the way, without meaning to, they’d started to feel familiar too.

And I didn’t know what to do about that.

Hayes was eerily quiet as he just watched me, his head tilted, like he could see every fracture running through me. Every fault, every crack.

“You’re so used to surviving, pet,” he said ever so gently. “So used to chasing the crumbs people toss you and convincing yourself it’s a feast.”

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. It felt like he’d just shot me. My mouth continued to gape as the carefully crafted lies I was so used to telling myself rushed to the forefront of my mind.

You like being alone.

You don’t need friends.

You’re doing so well with the business.

You don’t need help.

You don’t miss having a family.

You don’t want a relationship that badly.

You like eating ramen for most meals.

You love your little apartment.

You didn’t want to go to college.

You’re okay.

“You love Lane,” Hudson said from behind me, his voice quieter than I’d ever heard it. “Even though he forgets about you. Even though he leaves you behind. How is it hard to believe we could care about you, too?”

I flinched, taken aback.

Care. They care about me?

It was the first time either of them had said something like that out loud. It didn’t sound right in Hudson’s mouth—it sounded foreign, like a borrowed word from a language he didn’t speak. But part of me still wanted to believe it.

I wanted it so goddamn badly.

“You think we’re incapable,” Hayes said, his mouth close enough for me to feel the heat of his breath on my cheek. “You keep telling yourself that because it makes it easier to write us off. Easier to hate us. Easier to tell yourself that this isn’t exactly what you’ve always wanted. We’re here. We’ve stayed. We see you.”

“I didn’t ask you to!” I snapped, tears threatening to fall.

“No,” Hudson said, “but you needed someone to. You need us, Oliver.”

And God help me, something cracked inside my chest at that. I didn’t know if it was rage or grief or longing. I just knew it hurt.

“You kept waiting for someone to want you, but eventually you gave up hope, convinced yourself that it was fine,” Hayes whispered. “You think we don’t notice how you look at us like you’re trying to determine whether or not to listen to us when we praise you? The way you look when we tell you that you’re ours? That hopeful, desperate, terrified look?”

My throat tightened as my vision blurred from the tears that couldn’t be held back any longer. I let out a wounded sob.

“We don’t need you to be perfect, we just need you,” Hudson proclaimed.

I hated them so much.

I hated them for knowing exactly what to say.

I hated them for meaning it, maybe.

I hated myself more for wanting to believe it.

I hated… I hated that I loved them.

Fuck.

* * *

“I didn’t want this! I didn’t ask for you to need me! If that’s even the truth,” I shouted, the words breaking out of me like a dam bursting. “I didn’t want you to fucking kidnap me! I didn’t want any of this!” My voice echoed in the room, loud and messy. My hands were tightly clenched fists at my sides, fingernails digging into my palms, trying to ground myself in the small bite of pain.

Hayes and Hudson didn’t move. They just stood there, watching me unravel, like they’d been waiting for this outburst.

I laughed, sharp and bitter. I sobbed, “You think you know me? You think just because you’ve stared at me long enough, touched me enough, fucked me enough, that you can read me? You can’t! You don’t know what it’s like to always be invisible. To be tolerated instead of loved. Lane—” My voice broke. “Lane made me feel like I mattered… Until he didn’t. And I—” I looked up at them with what I’m sure was a pitiful expression, my face hot where my tears had tracked down my cheeks, my chest so tight it felt like I couldn’t take a full breath. “And you—you’re no better. Y-you treat me like I’m some toy you’re waiting to break. Like you’re just bored, and I’m the most interesting distraction in the room. And I hate —I hate that I want you to mean it when you look at me like that. Like I’m special.”

My voice cracked into something smaller. “I don’t want to love you.” Silence fell. And then, softer, more broken, I whispered, “But I do.”

I knew as soon as the words had slipped through my lips that I wasn’t going to hear them back, but it still hurt like hell.

I shut my eyes as tight as I could, knowing that if I looked at them and saw anything akin to pity or disgust or amusement, I wouldn’t be able to handle it.

I felt fingers hovering just near my cheek. “You think we’re bored?” Hayes asked quietly. “Do we look bored, sweetheart?”

Hudson stepped in behind me, his voice low. “You think we’d waste this much time on a toy?”

There was no mockery in their voices—no laughter. That should’ve made it better, but it didn’t. It made it feel like I was drowning.

“We don’t want you because you’re easy, or we would’ve gotten tired of you after you rejected us the first time,” Hayes said. “You may be our pet, but that doesn’t mean this is some game, some scene at a club that doesn’t mean anything. No one has ever made us feel the way you make us feel. We’ve never fucking cared about anyone other than ourselves and maybe Grey. Why can’t you get that through your head, precious? This is real.”

“You tore yourself open just now, baby. Let us make it better. Let’s get you back in your pup gear. That’s probably why you’re feeling so unstable. We’ll get your favorite plug in you, watch one of those animal movies you like. You can curl up on us, have a nice thick cock on your tongue. That’s what you need,” Hudson coaxed.

My bottom lip trembled. That did sound nice. I loved how warm and fuzzy my head felt when I warmed their cocks. If I just did that and said yes, then I wouldn’t have to feel this pain. They’d take care of me.

Hayes’s voice dipped as he stroked his hand lightly against my face. “Oh, Ollie. You’ve so beautifully shattered for us, haven’t you? You’re absolute perfection.”

My stomach turned suddenly.

I took a step back. And then another.

Hayes let his hand drop, but he didn’t move away. “Don’t run. Not when you finally gave us your heart.”

And that was the moment I knew I had to run.

Every nerve in my body screamed it. Every part of me that still belonged to me jolted awake.

I turned and bolted.

I ran to the guest room upstairs, almost crashing out on the steps. I slammed the door shut behind me and thanked every higher power out there that there was a lock on it. However, I wasn’t sure if they would have the key. I frantically looked around, wondering what I could push in front of the door with the little strength I had.

I had to use my entire body weight and probably pulled a muscle or two, but I was able to move the empty dresser to the door.

I needed time to think. I needed to do something before they got under my skin any deeper than they already had.