Chapter 6

When my shift came, Cole had been moved to a private room.

He saw me in the doorway and his whole face changed.

"Nora." Drawn out, slightly theatrical. He was already grinning.

I honestly wasn't sure how to act around him anymore. Technically, he was family. In practice — we'd crossed lines that didn't uncross easily.

I sat down. Silence stretched between us.

Cole exhaled softly. "You know... growing up, every time I got sick, Preston would tell me to stop making a fuss. If Preston said it, my parents agreed. So I stopped saying anything. Stopped telling anyone." He looked at his hands. "It was just easier to pretend I wasn't hurting."

His voice was light. Almost matter-of-fact.

"Until that night. I couldn't pretend anymore. I dragged myself outside and collapsed right in front of you." A pause. "Do you know what that felt like?"

I didn't answer.

"Like someone drowning," he said, "finally getting one breath."

He looked up at me. His eyes were red at the edges.

"And then I found you. I thought I finally had something — and then you were already in my brother's arms."

My chest tightened.

"Cole—"

"I'm not blaming you," he said quietly. "I never blamed you. Even when you said you were deleting my contact — even if that was a lie to get me through the ICU — I understood."

He tilted his head back.

"I just... missed you. The whole time. Every time it hurt, you were the reason I kept going."

He met my eyes.

"And then I had to watch you with him."

I reached out and covered his eyes with my hand.

Then I kissed him.

Soft, deliberate, impossible to misread.

I pulled back. "Right now," I said, "you are Cole. Just Cole."

His eyes flew open.

"Nora—"

Then the world tilted.

He caught me — barely — and returned it with everything he had. Needy and aching and so much younger than he pretended to be. His lips moved against mine, and his breath came out rough in my ear.

"Can we—?"

I didn't answer.

He pressed closer. Voice barely a sound. "Can we?"

"No," I said.

He went still. The brightness faded.

I looked at him. "You just got out of the ICU. Your body can't take it."

The brightness came back — all at once, like a switch.

"I'm fine," he said, already certain. "I promise I'm fine."

And he was — careful, for once in his life, careful — keeping me pressed against the door but holding most of his weight himself. He murmured things into my hair, broken and honest and entirely too sweet.

"I'm so happy," he said softly.

"Mm," I said.

We stayed like that.

And then came three knocks at the door.

"Nora. Open up."

Preston.

Every muscle in my body locked.

Cole had already pulled his clothes back on. He stepped in front of me and opened the door — just wide enough.

Preston walked in and his gaze went straight to my face.

In the next second, he grabbed Cole by the collar.

"Preston—!" Cole yelped.

Preston's grip was iron. He stared at his brother for a long, taut moment. Then, very evenly: "Not in a hospital room. In public. What if someone had walked in and taken a photo?"

Cole blinked.

"I... got a little carried away," he admitted.

I was too stunned to speak.

Cole glanced back at me. "He knew," he said. "He saw your jacket on the balcony and figured it out. Back at the ICU, he told me himself — if I could get you to choose this willingly, he'd stop fighting it." Cole paused. "Condition: he gets to stay in the picture too."

The room tilted.

"What?" I said.

Preston had let go of Cole's collar. He walked over and — almost mechanically — reached into his pocket for a pack of tissues and handed them to me.

"I thought about it for a long time," he said quietly.

"Thought about what?"

"About you. About us. About what comes next."

"And you landed on—" I gestured between the three of us. "This?"

"I couldn't find another answer that didn't involve losing you."

I looked at Cole.

Cole looked back at me, eyes bright, completely unashamed. "I already said yes. Whatever keeps you in our lives — I'm in."

I stood there looking at both of them.

One of them composed and careful, carrying wounds he'd never let anyone see. The other younger, messier, still learning how to ask for what he needed.

And then, against everything sensible in my head, I started laughing.

Of course, I thought. I really am a mess.

I moved back in.

Someone who knew the situation asked me once: "How does it actually work? The three of you?"

I didn't have a clean answer.

What I could tell them was this:

Preston still cooked. But now there was someone to share kitchen duty with — someone who had, objectively, excellent knife skills, but who tended to disappear mid-prep to come find me and ask if I wanted a taste.

Preston never stopped him. He just quietly moved the plate a little further toward his brother whenever he thought I'd had enough.

My face blindness hadn't improved.

But I'd stopped needing to see their faces.

The one on my left — he always tested the temperature before handing me anything. Every single time, without fail.

The one on my right — when he called my name, the last syllable always curled upward, soft and hopeful.

That was enough.

A friend asked me if I could tell them apart now.

"No," I said honestly.

"So how do you manage?"

I thought about it.

The warmth in this apartment. The noise. The arguments that turned into wrestling matches, and the way they'd both stop in the middle of a fight to make sure I was okay. The way one of them left a glass of water on my nightstand every morning without being asked, and the other left notes on the fridge that said things like I trained extra hard today. Come watch me play sometime.

I couldn't put any of that into a clean sentence.

So I just said: "I manage fine."

The house was loud and chaotic and thoroughly, stubbornly alive.

A home I'd never expected. And wouldn't trade for anything.