The next two days were a fucking blur.

The only way Summers could get them to stop talking for even a minute was to start talking himself. It was the one thing that made all three of them collectively shut up and listen.

It fucking sucked.

Summers had to expose every buried, festering part of himself just to stop his boys from turning into needy, dysregulated fucking submissives.

He told them about his first heartbreak.

About leaving the military to get married, only for his once-loving family to implode beneath betrayal.

About ending up half homeless, finally exploring his bisexuality by cruising back-alley gay bars and drinking himself into oblivion.

About his former stepfather and fiancée repeatedly trying to contact him afterward, to invite him to their wedding, then their baby shower, and how every message had driven him deeper into self-destruction.

But his mother’s abandonment had been the wound that cut deepest.

Years later, Summers had learned through a third party that she had died of cancer.

Alone.

She had never reached out. Had not even acknowledged him in her will.

It still fucking hurt.

Then there was the night he had ended up in hospital after drunkenly defending a twink from a gang of homophobes who had decided the kid looked like an easy target.

Summers had been left bloody, broken and bruised, with barely any memory of what had happened. The hospital had forced him through withdrawals so agonising that he had begged them to let him die.

The twink he had defended visited him afterward.

He looked at Summers with such overwhelming pity that Summers hated him for it.

Then the kid handed him a card for an Alcoholics Anonymous group run by his boyfriend.

And Summers thought, Fuck it.

He would not let the world win that round.

So he attended the meeting.

Got his first tattoo.

Started therapy.

It was a fucking trap.

That was where he met him.

A man in a suit. Repressed. Divorced.

Summers had fallen hard.

They moved in together and lived that way for an entire year. Behind closed doors, it was everything Summers had ever wanted.

But because of the man’s profession, they had to hide in plain sight.

Summers endured it.

He could handle secrecy.

Then the man promised to build an entire life with him. Promised to come out and be with Summers openly, fully and honestly.

He ghosted Summers immediately after a night of intense sex.

Summers spent an entire month fearing the absolute worst.

Then he went online and found a photograph.

The man was renewing his vows with his wife.

The photograph was dated three days after the last time they had fucked.

It shattered him.

Summers went straight to a bottle shop and bought several bottles of spirits, planning to end things where they should have ended the first time.

But on the way home, he passed a piercing studio.

And he thought, Fuck it.

If he was going to suffer, he would rather choose the suffering.

So he gave the bottles away.

Walked into the studio.

And pierced his dick.

Then he signed up for mercenary work.

And became far too fucking good at it.

Every successful mission earned him another tattoo.

Every time he wanted to buy another bottle of spirits, he put another piercing in his cock instead.

Eventually, he had a full Jacob’s ladder, a body covered in tattoos and a reputation so formidable that two governments had tried to assassinate him while another three had tried to hire him.

And somehow, he still was not fucking dead.

How?

He had no fucking idea.

But now he was here.

With three equally self-destructive boys wrapped around every word he spoke as though he held their entire universe together.

And it was everything.

Literally everything.

Summers hated it so fucking much.

Because of how desperately he wanted it.

🥜🥜🥜

The wormwood finally wore off, and Summers was so fucking grateful.

They settled back into a routine.

Well, a new routine, anyway.

The boys were closer than ever. Somehow, against all reason, they really had become an imperfect fucking polycule of domestic bliss.

They returned to work, and Summers was fairly certain nobody had even noticed their absence.

Seriously, he was beginning to suspect they did not need to do their jobs at all. The positions had probably been created as compensation for everything they had endured.

Honestly, he was grateful.

The work gave them structure. Something useful to do with their time, even if the boys mostly used their surveillance shifts to gossip.

Summers, Hart and Ben also found a way to stop Kyle from working himself into the ground: they divided the household tasks between them.

Hart took charge of the laundry. Summers handled the dishes. Ben managed maintenance and repairs.

Kyle was still allowed to cook, but only because any attempt to stop him would probably result in homicide.

Summers also discovered that the house had become completely dry.

Even the cooking wine had disappeared.

Gods, it made his heart ache with anticipatory heartbreak.

Nobody had announced it. Nobody had made a performance of the decision. The alcohol had simply vanished because Summers did not drink, and apparently that meant their home did not need it.

Now the boys had structure.

Morning shift and afternoon shift.

Summers and Hart worked mornings. Kyle and Ben took afternoons.

Summers began each day by waking before dawn in the middle of a dog pile. He would carefully extract himself, collect the gym bag Kyle had packed the night before, along with a protein shake and pre-workout snack, and walk to the gym.

On the way home, he stopped at the convenience store for Hart’s chocolate-covered peanuts.

Then he returned to a freshly cooked breakfast with his boys.

He showered with Ben.

They exchanged blowjobs.

Then Summers went to work with Hart tucked securely beneath one arm.

Kyle and Ben arrived at midday carrying a homemade lunch for the shift change.

Summers and Hart went home.

He pampered his princess and read with Hart curled against him until their boys returned.

Then they ate dinner together, watched stupid television, went to bed and repeated the entire thing the next day.

It was so fucking perfect that it hurt.

So fucking much.

Tuesdays were book-club nights with Tallus, though the sessions inevitably devolved into gossip about the Grand Marshal, the Dawnbreakers and whichever spectacularly inappropriate exploits had recently become public knowledge.

Through it all, Summers brooded.

He was always waiting for his perfect, idyllic life to implode.

Meanwhile, the boys proved, again and again, how much they cared for him.

They reassured him.

Needed him.

Included him.

Chose him.

Still, Summers could not let go of the fear.

In all likelihood, he probably never would.

That was all right.

He had them now.

And he treasured every chaotic fucking moment of it.

Even when they drove him completely up the fucking wall.

🥜🥜🥜

Summers started the morning as usual.

He woke and immediately counted each of his boys.

Asleep.

Safe

Breathing.

He pushed away the reflexive, fatalistic thoughts of losing them by touching each in turn, kissing Hart’s head, patting Ben’s hair, tracing one of the fading marks on Kyle’s skin.

Then he got ready, dressed and collected the gym bag Kyle had packed the night before.

With his music turned low and half his attention fixed on his surroundings, Summers walked through the predawn darkness while reading the previous night’s group chat.

Every single stupid message the boys had sent.

He was not even sure he had ever replied to any of them.

It did not matter. They knew he read everything anyway.

As though he could hide anything from them.

That was the problem.

It was so fucking exposing, how clearly they knew him.

Accepted him.

Needed him.

Fuck, he was so tired of feeling as though everything was waiting to implode.

His mind immediately supplied possible endings for when they eventually left.

Jump from a plane?

Take on an entire cartel alone, guns blazing?

No matter how painful the death, it would not hurt as badly as their absence.

The heartache.

Fuck, he hated how much he wanted them. Needed them. Hated how much they needed him in return.

He just wanted to fucking surrender to something.

Distracted by the thought, he walked directly into a body.

The world shifted.

His arm was wrenched behind him at a painful angle, his balance disappeared, and suddenly he was flat on his ass.

His earbuds, bag and phone went sprawling across the pavement.

Summers looked up, instantly alert, every instinct preparing him to identify and eliminate the threat.

Then he saw the culprit.

And his mind fucking blanked.

A girl.

No.

A tiny woman.

Imperial-green eyes stared down at him with severe, glacial coldness.

Then, slowly, that coldness dissolved into something dangerously close to hunger.

His traitorous dick noticed.

Their gazes locked.

A flush began spreading across her cheeks, and suddenly she looked almost embarrassed.

Summers stared up at her.

“I—shit. Sorry. I didn’t see you.”

Then his brain caught up with what had just happened.

He frowned.

“How the fuck did you do that? You’re tiny.”

She released his arm immediately, her embarrassed flush deepening.

“Sorry. You startled me.”

Then she fled.

Summers pushed himself upright and stared after her.

Gone.

What the fuck had just happened?

Had she noticed his dick reacting?

Fuck, that was humiliating.

He was a trained mercenary, for fuck’s sake, and some tiny woman had put him flat on his ass before he had even realised he was under attack.

His dick responded cheerfully to the memory.

He ignored it.

Summers brushed himself off, gathered his scattered belongings and gave the empty street one final, suspicious look before continuing towards the gym.

Then he stopped outside a darkened shop window.

A pair of polished black high-heeled boots sat on display.

The sight dragged up another memory, another pair of boots, worn by a terrifying woman who had done what Summers could not and torn his former employer out from behind a steel door.

The memory of wanting to kneel and kiss those fucking boots surfaced with humiliating clarity.

Fuck.

He ignored his dick and continued walking, determined to burn every deranged fantasy out of himself before it completely derailed his morning routine.

At the gym, he increased the weight on every exercise, trying to purge every thought of green eyes, impossible strength and polished black boots from his mind.

It almost worked.

Then, halfway through a lift, he caught sight of something in the mirror and nearly dropped the fucking weight.

A pair of imperial-green eyes watched him through the reflection in the gym window.

Summers frowned.

He turned sharply.

A small figure vanished around the corner.

His body shivered with something dangerously close to reckless excitement.

Fuck.

He was so fucked.