Chapter 87: Reid
The room hums. Laughter, clinking glass, the scrape of wood against wood—too much movement, too much noise.
But all of it fades when I look at her.
Madeline.
Madeline sits cross-legged on the floor in front of me, the hem of her skirt brushing the tops of her thighs, socks pulled high but not high enough to stop the strip of bare skin between. She leans forward to say something to Charlie, and the movement drags a low ache through my chest.
If I let myself, I could reach out. Hook a hand at her waist. Pull her back until she’s settled across my lap, soft and small and exactly where every instinct in me wants her.
Make every man in this room understand exactly what she is to me.
Not want. Need.
I need her.
The thought of anyone else touching her crawls under my skin like something alive.
But that’s not why I came here.
I came to watch. To find out if Sloane had a reason for the hostility that’s been bleeding through every shift.
So far, nothing.
Sloane sits rigid, mouth tight, eyes cutting toward Madeline whenever she speaks.
But Madeline? She doesn’t give her anything to hate. She’s careful. Polite. Laughs when someone draws her in, stays quiet when they don’t.
If anything, she diffuses the room—softens it.
That alone should make her harmless.
And yet Sloane looks ready to snap.
It makes no sense.
Jake catches my eye from his place next to me on the couch, that silent exchange that’s older than words.
He’s seeing the same thing I am. The same question sitting in the air between us.
If it isn’t her fault, then what the hell is it?
Then there’s the rest of it.
Them.
Liam—how he had his arm around her when we came in, hand resting low on her back like he forgot whose house he was in.
Finn—how he hasn’t stopped leaning close, throwing her those easy smiles like he’s testing a boundary he doesn’t believe exists.
Jake’s pretending not to care, but I know him. His jaw ticks when Finn laughs. His fingers drum once against his thigh when Liam leans too far.
We came here to observe. To understand what’s happening under this roof.
And now I know.
Jake looks at me again. The kind of look that means he’s already decided to be the voice of reason later—when he can get me alone.
He's worried for her.
And he’s right to have it.
This house feels wrong for her.
Two men here would slip into her room at night if she let her guard drop for even a second, and one woman would probably do it too, just to slit her throat.
Madeline sits there, small and quiet in all this noise, like she’s built from something softer than the rest of us. The kind of soft that shouldn’t survive in places like this.
Charlie’s the only exception—Madeline lights up around her, laughs like she actually belongs somewhere, and Charlie soaks it up like sunlight. That bond’s real. Pure. Everything else in this place feels predatory.
And Madeline doesn’t see it.
But it’s not innocence, not really. I’ve seen innocence. It cracks fast.
She doesn’t crack. She bends. Moves around the edges of everyone without even trying.
It’s unsettling, how easily she does it.
Sloane’s glare bounces off her. Finn’s teasing hits and slides away. Liam’s constant hovering doesn’t touch her. She absorbs it all and stays untouched, like she’s living in some other current entirely.
And maybe that’s what gets to me.
She doesn’t fight this world—she doesn’t even seem to see it.
And I can’t decide if that’s grace or blindness.
She takes another sip of her drink, eyes half-lidded with that calm that never wavers, and I wonder—
Does she have any idea what she does to people?
Does she have any idea what kind of thoughts are in men’s heads just with her existing the way she does?
Maybe I’m the problem.
Maybe I’ve been around blood and broken things too long, and that’s why this feels dangerous.
Charlie’s voice slices through the room.
“Hey! You two—Andersons—snap out of your twin conversation.”
The laughter fades just enough for heads to turn.
Jake straightens beside me, but I don’t move.
Madeline tilts her head back from where she’s kneeling on the floor between the two of us, eyes catching mine.
And Christ.
From this angle, she shouldn’t—
I shouldn’t even—
She’s looking up at me, lips parted, the light from the lamp catching the curve of her mouth, the fine strands of her hair where they’ve come loose around her face.
It’s the kind of image that lands low and heavy.
Too vivid. Too suggestive.
My pulse slams hard enough that I swear she must feel it, because her gaze breaks—too fast—and she turns toward Charlie like she’s been burned.
So I drag my eyes to Charlie too.
She’s standing there with a grin that says she’s caught us both. “Do you two even know what we’re doing, or do I have to repeat the rules all over again?”
Jake recovers first. “We're good, Charlie.”
“Uh—uh,” I echo, because it’s easier than speaking.
Charlie claps her hands. “Perfect. That means I get first pick.”
She points straight at me. “I call Reid.”
Jake doesn’t miss a beat. “If you call Reid, then I call Madeline.”
My jaw tightens before I can stop it.
Madeline glances back over her shoulder, startled, eyes wide again.
Jake gives her that calm, half-smile—friendly on the surface, something else underneath.
Finn and Liam immediately start in, half-drunk, half-jealous.
“Hey, no fair!” Finn says.
“Yeah, she’s our lucky charm,” Liam adds.
Jake raises his hands, smiling faintly. “I can’t win with you two idiots.” Then he nods toward Sloane. “You’re better at handling them than I am.”
It’s a peace offering, one Sloane actually takes—snorting and moving to sit by Finn. “Unfortunately true.”
Charlie grins. “Good. Teams are set.”
She waves a hand from her spot across the room.
“Come on, Captain,” she says.
I push up from the couch, and as I stand, my knees brush the small of Madeline’s back.
Just a whisper of contact—nothing more than fabric against fabric—but it’s enough to make her stiffen, breath catching for half a second before she masks it with a small, nervous laugh at something Finn says.
I move past her, careful, slow.
Careful because if I let myself feel any more than that, I won’t stop.
Jake’s watching from the other side of the couch, quiet, unreadable.
I know why he called her.
It wasn’t for himself.
It was so she wouldn’t end up between Finn, Liam, or Sloane.
So she’d be safe.
And maybe that’s supposed to make me feel better.
But it doesn’t.
Because now she’s sitting near his feet, looking up at him when he speaks.
And I’m not sure what to do with the heat that climbs through me when I see it.
I’ve never shared a woman with Jake.
Never even considered the possibility.
But lately, it’s started to feel less like a choice and more like something closing in around us—inevitable and somehow already written.
I take my seat beside Charlie, the floor creaking under my weight.
She’s talking, explaining the rules, her voice a blur of energy and mischief.
I nod along, pretending to listen.
But all I can see is Madeline’s back, the line of her shoulders, the soft fall of her braid down her spine.
And the quiet, unshakable thought that there’s no world in which Jake and I both walk away from this untouched.