Page 147 of Serpentine

“I love you, too.”

He pulls back. “Hard not to. Just look at me.”

He’s joking to make me feel better. We both know it.

Despite myself, I laugh and shake my head, handing him the lube and wipes.

Before we get back on our bikes, we look at one another and let a beat of silence pass.

“What are we going to do next about this shit with Walter and Mom?” he asks me as his brother and his president.

“We’re going to put this shit behind us. We know where Mom is now; we know we have to keep a fucking eye on Aella’s dad and the shit he’s involved in keeping our city safe, but we’re going to move on. As a group. Threesome? Throuple? Shit, what the fuck are we?”

Brax laughs. “In love? Who cares? I don’t need a label, and neither should you.”

The confidence he has in the three of us in the future, and the unadulterated love he has for the two of us, is all I need to move on and close the chapter of shit that lies behind us.

As we both crank our bikes, engines revving, we ride off into the next part of our lives where we’re free of the past and together for the future.

FORTY-SIX

AELLA

Weeks have passed since the fateful day we confronted our parents. Two more meetings took place afterward, ones where I begged my father to stop smuggling drugs for the Jackals. He vehemently denied that he was involved, but it was evident in his eyes that my requests swayed him.

The Cobras struck a deal with the Jackals to stay out of one another’s way as long as neither stepped foot in the other’s territory, and things between the three of us settled into something normal for us as a group.

I sent Miles after Braxton after he went missing the day he saw his mother, and they’d come back with red cheeks and looks in both their eyes that told me life would be different from now on.

Miles and Braxton told the Cobras about their feelings for one another, and not one man bristled, which had me releasing the breath I held during the entire meeting.

Never in a million years did I think I would be at this point—living with two men, both of whom I love fiercely, starting fresh in my life again.

Though my father and I still disagree, I’m trying to develop a relationship with him. Neither of the guys has contacted their mother yet because Braxton needs time to untangle his feelings on the matter, and Miles is willing to wait for him.

I’m still moving between two bedrooms, and both men have been sharing me equally until now.

Miles stands at the end of the steps, his pillow and blanket in hand, and looks between us.

Braxton had been updating the security system that runs the length of the property, and I was reading before we heard him rushing down the stairs from the kitchen.

“What are you doing?” Brax asks, and I fight a smirk.

“Well, I know this is your space or whatever, but I thought…” Miles starts.

Brax has a rueful glint in his eye, and I know he’s about to give Miles a heap of shit for being down here. All in good fun, though.

“You thought since Aella is allowed down here that you’d just take it upon yourself to move in?” Brax finishes for him when he trails off.

“No, that’s not what I was going to say before you so rudely cut me off,” Miles retorts, throwing his blanket and pillow at the end of the bed.

Brax stands, stepping into Miles’s space.

Miles’s lip pulls up a bit, a snarl brewing.

I close my book and lay it on the nightstand. This is far more entertaining than anything written on its pages. I sit up.

“What are you doing down here, Miles?”