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23

Oliver

A few weeks later, Hayes and Hudson accompanied me to Greyson and Lane’s apartment. They refused to just drop me off, citing the two times Greyson had “lost” Lane. Personally, I didn’t think either had anything to do with Greyson. The first incident had basically been my fault—arguing with Lane and unknowingly triggering him into running away from the home he’d never wanted to leave. The second incident—the one when Lane’s severely abusive cousin had kidnapped him from a zoo—wasn’t Greyson’s fault in the slightest. Maybe the fact that Greyson had accidentally killed the cousin’s friend, thinking it was the cousin, therefore allowing Lane to let his guard down?

I still couldn’t get behind blaming him for what happened. I also had him to thank for Lane being alive today. He wouldn’t have been found soon enough in order to save his life unless it was for the GPS tracker Greyson had apparently implanted in him without his knowledge.

At least once we made it inside their place, my men took up residence on the couch with their brother, giving Lane and me a chance to finally be alone. We went to his room and sat on his bed, the cat purring contentedly between us.

“Lane, I’m so sorry for what I said that day,” I began, my voice shaky. “I was stupid and scared for you. I didn’t mean any of it—the awful stuff about your cousin. The second the words came out, I wanted to take them back, but it was like I couldn’t stop. I just kept making it worse. I hurt you so badly, and I put you in danger by making you feel like running away was your only choice.”

Lane swallowed hard, his brow furrowed. “I understand why you said it. I haven’t really talked much about my BPD or what triggers me. And I never told you the full story about Tate. There was no way you could’ve known how much your words would affect me. How deep they would cut.” He paused, his voice softening. “We both could’ve handled it differently. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. I… I know this will hurt to hear, but I need you to understand—change overwhelms me. Everything was happening at once, and I—I forgot you. You’re my best friend, and I didn’t step up. I didn’t ask Grey to get his brothers to let you go. I didn’t even try to see you. That must’ve been terrifying, and I’m so sorry. Do you think you’ll ever be able to forgive me?”

I keened softly, reaching for his hand. “Lane, I already have. I love you so much. You know that, right?”

He gave me a small, genuine smile and nodded.

“Could you—maybe—forgive me too?” I asked. “I don’t want to ever lose your friendship.”

“I forgive you, Ollie. We both messed up, so let’s leave it in the past. Deal?”

“Deal, Laney,” I whispered, eyes misty. I caught Chloe’s gaze and laughed, “Deal, Chloe?”

She gave me a slow, deliberate blink.

“Oh my god, Ollie! She loves you!”

“Huh?”

“The slow blink! Do it back! Now, Ollie, Jesus!” Lane said excitedly.

Holding back a giggle, I stared back at Chloe and returned the gesture. Lane beamed and flopped backward onto the mattress. I followed, soaking in the calm and comfort his presence always brought.

Then he gasped. “The twins! Have they been good to you? I’ll make Grey get you out of there if you need it. Are they feeding you? Are they mean? Tell me everything. Please.”

I turned onto my side, propping my head up with one hand as I looked into his kind eyes. “It was rocky at first,” I admitted. “Really rocky. Hudson and Hayes… they’re intense. I didn’t know how to talk to them, and they didn’t know how to talk to me. The first week, I cried like, every night. It was scary. I lost my virginity, they dressed me up like a dog without really explaining why. They shot a guy in the face right in front of me. They gave me like ten orgasms a day.”

Lane snorted, then covered his mouth with his hand. “That sounds horrifying.”

“It kind of really was,” I said, awkwardly laughing with him. “But then… I don’t know. Things changed. They’re still terrible at expressing things out loud, but they show it in other ways. They make sure I eat. They fret over every scratch or bruise I get, even though they’re the ones who usually come from. They watched a lot of animal documentaries with me. They paid my debt from my top surgery. In general, they make me feel safe. Needed. Like I’m an essential part of their little family.”

I looked over at him, and Lane was watching me with that soft, open expression that always made me feel seen. “I love them,” I said, quieter now. “Both of them. I didn’t expect it, and it definitely wasn’t easy, and honestly, I tried to resist it for longer than I’ll ever admit to them, but they take care of me, Lane. Really, really well. We talked about love and how their love is different from mine. Different than most people’s. But they love me. They love me, Laney.”

Lane grinned, eyes shining. “Grey and I had that exact same talk.” Lane’s smile faltered just a little, his gaze drifting to the ceiling as he stroked Chloe’s grey fur. “I’m glad they take care of you,” he said quietly. “You deserve that after everything… after what I let them do to you. I’m just so glad that it ended up okay, you know? After I saw you that day, when the Tate stuff happened, I felt all this guilt weighing on my shoulders. I should’ve fucking checked on you. Something.”

I turned my head to look at him. “Lane… you were—”

He shook his head, jaw tightening. “I don’t want you to tell me it wasn’t my fault. I know it wasn’t all on me, but I still carry it. I could’ve helped you. I still hear you crying when I wasn’t there. I still remember the way you looked so scared to see me that day. You looked like a different person, Ollie, and it felt like a punch to the gut. You had a damn collar around your neck and was sitting at Hayes’s feet. His feet.”

I didn’t speak for a moment. There wasn’t anything easy to say. “Who knew I was into being ordered around and shit?”

“Uh, everyone?”

I burst out in laughter. “Shut up.” I sighed happily. “It was a definite mindfuck, not gonna lie. I’m probably brainwashed, but I’m okay with it. Which is definitely what a brainwashed person would say, but—What I mean to say is that I never hated when they touched me, even at the beginning. The gun was terrifying, so maybe that wasn’t—”

“I’m sorry, the gun ?” Lane exclaimed. I felt Lane’s fingers curl protectively around mine.

“That first night… I know I’m trying to laugh it off, but… it wasn’t okay. The twins kidnapped me at gunpoint, fingered me like a minute after, and then Greyson scared me so badly I peed myself.”

Lane blinked. “He what?”

“He was mad at me for our argument, but I think above that, he was terrified of losing you. He blamed me for you running away. I know he was just trying to keep you safe, but I thought he was going to kill me. The beginning… I wish I could erase the whole start of my relationship with the twins. I love them now, I do. I just like thinking about the good times rather than focus on the fucked up shit they put me through. I don’t like how psychopaths ‘flirt’.”

The door creaked open, and Greyson leaned against the frame, one brow raised in casual amusement. “Is this a private trauma bonding session, or can I intrude?”

Lane rolled his eyes but smiled as he sat up. “We’re just talking.”

“Talking and holding hands,” Greyson duly noted, stepping inside. He moved with that calm, deliberate precision I’d come to associate with people who always had five backup plans and one concealed weapon. “I won’t interrupt long. Just wanted to check in.”

I gave him a small, nervous smile. “Hey, Grey.”

He nodded in return, then let his gaze linger on me for a beat too long, like he was reading a page I hadn’t realized I was holding open. “You look better than when I last saw you,” he said. “More grounded. Softer around the edges. That’s good.”

“Thanks?” I said, unsure if that was a compliment or a weird form of diagnosis.

Greyson smirked faintly, then looked at Lane. “You two talking about Hudson and Hayes?”

Lane glanced at me before nodding. “Yeah. Ollie was saying how they’ve really started to help him. They take care of him.”

Greyson hummed thoughtfully and came to sit at the edge of the bed, folding his hands in his lap like this was suddenly a session. “My brothers are… interesting. Highly functional, but not what you’d call neurotypical. Both of them meet the diagnostic criteria for antisocial personality disorder, commonly referred to as psychopathy. Hudson more in the classic interpersonal realm—superficial charm, manipulativeness. Hayes trends more toward the affective side—low emotional responsiveness, shallow affect, and the occasional lack of guilt.”

“Occasional?” I asked, failing to hold back an amused smirk.

He shrugged. “They feel guilt. Just… selectively . The line between right and wrong doesn’t mean much to them unless it’s personal. But here’s the thing most people get wrong about psychopathy: it doesn’t make someone evil. It just means they don’t process emotion or empathy the same way. But they can still care. They can still love. It just looks different. Less like softness, more like loyalty through violence.”

Lane shifted closer to me, and I leaned into his side instinctively. “They said they love me,” I told Greyson quietly, like it was a secret for just the three of us.

Greyson nodded. “Of that, I have no doubt. They just won’t necessarily show it in words or even gestures. They’ll show it in the people they scare off, the pain they spare you from, the quiet way they memorize the things that make you feel safe.”

He glanced between the two of us. “Don’t expect them to heal you. That’s not what they’re built for. But if you let them, they’ll hold the ground steady while you do most of the healing yourself.”

I swallowed.

That hit harder than I’d expected.

Greyson stood and ruffled Lane’s hair affectionately, which earned him an adoring beam. I could practically see the hearts in Lane’s eyes as he looked at his fiancé. “I’ll give you two more minutes of sappy best friend time, and then I’m stealing Lane back before he forgets who he belongs to.”

As he walked out, Lane giggled and looked over at me. “He always sounds like he’s giving a TED Talk. It makes me so turned on.”

“Yeah,” I said, my voice softer now, still contemplating Greyson’s words. Then I registered the last thing Lane had said. “Turns you on? God, I can’t judge. You have a Therapy Daddy, or I guess Dr. Daddy, and I have twin psychopathic Masters. Hm… It would depend on whether he still despises me or not, but would it be weird if I got therapy from Grey? Not because of the kink stuff! Pinky promise. The twins would—I don’t even know.”

We both shook with laughter, which slowly faded away until the room settled into a comfortable silence—the kind you don’t need to fill. Lane leaned back beside me again, and I stared up at his bed canopy, my thoughts drifting.

There were days I still felt the weight of the past pressing into my ribs, as if grief had found a home somewhere behind my sternum. I didn’t talk much about the night I was kicked out. How it was like a switch flipped and I was unmade. How Mr. and Mrs. Lucchetti suddenly didn’t have a child anymore.

And then there was Grammy.

She’d been the one who really raised me. When she died, it was like the last thread keeping me tethered to family. I was suddenly completely alone.

I had never told Lane the whole story, not really. But he showed up anyway. This reckless, bright-souled boy who let me exist without having to perform. His laugh filled rooms. His kindness cracked through the numbness like sunlight through frost. He didn’t fix everything—but he reminded me there were still things worth sticking around for.

And then came Hayes and Hudson.

God, they were certifiably insane.

Violent, possessive, dead-eyed at times—but underneath all that, they had this unwavering intensity. Like I’d become the center of some strange gravitational pull. They didn’t tiptoe around me. They didn’t treat me like something broken or fragile. They noticed things. The way I flinched when someone raised their voice. How I tapped my fingers when I was on the verge of dissociation. How I needed space and closeness in the same breath.

They didn’t ask me to be okay. They just made sure I wasn’t alone when I wasn’t.

Since they crashed into my life, everything felt sharper, more alive, like someone turned the saturation up on the world. I felt like I was finally living , not just surviving, not just trudging aimlessly through life.

I didn’t always recognize the person I’d become. There were whole stretches of time that felt like gaps in a film reel—moments lost to survival, to silence, to holding myself together with metaphorical duct tape and denial. I used to wonder if the world would ever feel soft again, if I’d ever laugh without guilt, or sleep without fear.

But now… now it was different.

The pain was still there. The past didn’t disappear just because love found its way to me. But it became something I could carry instead of drowning beneath. Some nights, I even felt proud of myself for letting myself reach toward people, even when I was afraid they’d let go.

Lane shifted beside me, his breathing steady, his hand still loosely wrapped around mine. He was the first person who reminded me that friendship could be fierce and healing. That someone could choose you, even when they didn’t have to. Even when you weren’t easy to love.

A quiet knock on the door pulled me from my thoughts.

It opened slowly, and there they were—Hayes leaning in the doorway with that smile that was always just for me, while Hudson stood beside him, already reaching out a hand toward me.

“Time to go home,” Hudson said, voice low, steady. “You good?”

Hayes tilted his head slightly, watching me in that intense way he always did—like I was a puzzle he didn’t mind solving over and over, so long as he got to keep all the pieces.

I nodded, smiling as I sat up. “Yeah. I’m good.”

Lane gave my hand a final squeeze before letting go. “Text me when you get back?”

“I will.”

Hudson’s hand found the small of my back as I walked past, comforting me without a word.

It was time to go home. I’d never get tired of hearing that word.