Riley's eyes opened in the gray pre-dawn, and for a long moment he didn't move. Didn't breathe. Just lay there, feeling the weight of Inde's head on his chest, the dark spill of her hair across his collarbone, and the warm, heavy drag of Jessica's arm thrown across his waist like she'd claimed him in her sleep.

The room was quiet in that way only early morning could be—soft and muffled, the world not yet awake. The blinds filtered the first pale light into thin stripes across the ceiling, and the air still carried the faint, waxy scent of the candle that had burned down to nothing hours ago. He could see the stubs on the nightstand, two small circles of melted wax, one with the wick curled into a black comma.

He should have been counting.

The thought arrived without warning, and Riley felt his chest hitch beneath Inde's cheek. Ten. He always counted to ten. Every morning, every time he opened his eyes, bracing for the moment it all disappeared—the bed empty, the room cold, the women gone like they'd never been there at all.

But he hadn't counted. He'd just... woken up. And they were still here.

Inde's head rose and fell with his breath, slow and steady, her hand curled loosely against his ribs. Jessica's fingers were splayed across his stomach, her face pressed into the curve of his shoulder, and he could feel the soft puff of her breathing against his skin. The sheets were rumpled around them, kicked and tangled, and somewhere in the night his leg had hooked over Inde's, anchoring them together.

He lay perfectly still, afraid that any movement would shatter it. The peace felt fragile, like glass he'd been handed without being told how to hold it.

And that was the thing. That was what scared him.

He'd spent so long waiting for the other shoe to drop that he'd built his whole life around the fall. Count to ten. Brace. Expect nothing. Hold on to nothing. And now, for the first time in as long as he could remember, he'd opened his eyes and reached for them instead of the count.

The absence of the habit scared him more than the habit ever had.

Because what did it mean if he stopped bracing? What did it mean if he let himself believe, fully, that this was his? That he got to keep them?

His throat tightened. The old urge crept up his spine, familiar as breathing—the itch to start counting, to find the number that would make the fear manageable. One. Two. Three—

Inde stirred against him, a small, sleepy sound escaping her lips, and her hand found his in the dark. Her fingers threaded through his, squeezing once, and her voice came out rough and low, barely a whisper.

"You're thinking too loud."

Riley's breath caught. He looked down at her, at the dark eyes barely open, still heavy with sleep, and something in his chest loosened. "Sorry," he whispered. "Didn't mean to wake you."

"You didn't." She shifted, pressing her cheek harder against his chest, her fingers still tangled with his. "Your heartbeat did. It's going like a rabbit."

He opened his mouth to say nothing's wrong. The words were right there, ready to be deployed, the same lie he'd told a hundred times to a hundred people. But what came out instead was, "We pick up the keys today."

The words hung in the gray light, heavier than he'd expected. Inde went still against him, and he felt her process it, felt the shift in her breathing.

"Yeah," she said quietly. "We do."

Jessica shifted on his other side, her arm tightening across his waist as she surfaced from sleep. Her voice came out rough, scraped with the remnants of dreams. "And then we move. Together."

Riley turned his head to look at her. Her dark eyes were barely open, her chin-length bob mussed and sticking up in odd directions, and she looked so unguarded in that moment—so unlike the actress who commanded every room she entered—that it made his chest ache.

"Together," he repeated, testing the word on his tongue.

The three of them lay in the silence, the promise of the house pressing against the warmth of the bed. He could feel it in the room, a presence almost as tangible as the women beside him—the weight of what they were about to do, the shift they were about to make. Boxes stacked in the corner of the bedroom, waiting. The lease on the apartment, its days numbered. A house on Maple Street with three bedrooms and a fenced yard and a bay window that Jasmine had already claimed for her plants.

His home. Their home.

The word settled in his chest, warm and terrifying in equal measure.

Inde's thumb traced a slow circle on the back of his hand. "What time do we need to be there?"

"Keys are ready at ten." He paused, swallowing. "I thought we could grab breakfast first. Somewhere close, so we're not rushing."

Jessica hummed, a sound of sleepy approval, and pressed her face deeper into his shoulder. "There's that diner on the corner. The one with the pancakes."

"You always want pancakes," Inde said, but there was no bite in it, just warmth.

"Pancakes are reliable." Jessica's voice was muffled against his skin. "You know what you're getting. No surprises."

"Unlike moving into a house with five other people," Riley said dryly, and felt both of them laugh against him—small, quiet sounds that vibrated through his chest.

The silence settled again, but it was different now. Lighter. The gray light had shifted, growing a shade brighter, and he could see the room more clearly—the candle stubs, the rumpled sheets, the way Jessica's arm had somehow found its way across his body in the night, the way Inde's leg was still hooked around his. The peace was still there, fragile and precious, but the unease had crept closer, coiling in his stomach.

He could feel it building, that old familiar pull. The urge to count. To brace. To prepare himself for the moment when this all came apart, because that was what happened, wasn't it? That was what always happened. You got comfortable, you let your guard down, and then the floor opened up beneath you.

He'd learned that lesson a long time ago. Learned it so well that it had become a part of him, woven into the way he moved through the world, the way he hunched his shoulders and made himself smaller, the way he never quite let himself believe he was allowed to have good things.

But he'd stopped counting. This morning, he'd opened his eyes and reached for them instead.

And now he didn't know if he could stop it—the creeping urge, the old habit, the voice in his head that whispered this was all too good to last.

Inde's fingers tightened around his, pulling him back to the present. She'd propped herself up on her elbow, looking down at him with those dark eyes that missed nothing, and there was something in her face—a quiet understanding that made his throat tight.

"You're doing it again," she said softly. "The thing where you go somewhere else in your head."

He tried to smile. "I'm right here."

"You're not." She reached up, her callused fingers brushing his jaw, turning his face toward her. "You're thinking about all the ways this could go wrong. I can see it."

Riley's breath caught. He wanted to deny it, to tell her she was wrong, but the words wouldn't come. Because she wasn't wrong. She was never wrong about things like this—she saw him too clearly, read him too easily.

"It's a big day," he said finally, the words coming out quieter than he'd intended. "A lot of moving parts. I just..." He trailed off, unsure how to finish the sentence.

Jessica stirred, lifting her head from his shoulder. Her dark eyes were more awake now, sharp with concern. "Riley."

"I'm fine." The lie came easily, automatically, and he hated himself for it.

"You're not fine," Jessica said, and there was no judgment in her voice, just a simple statement of fact. "You're scared. And that's okay."

He opened his mouth to argue, then closed it. Because she was right. He was scared. Not of the house, not of the move, not even of the logistics of six people sharing three bedrooms. He was scared of what it meant. Scared of letting himself believe that this was real, that he could have it, that it wouldn't all be ripped away the moment he stopped guarding it.

Inde's hand found his again, her fingers warm and callused, and she squeezed. "We're not going anywhere."

"I know."

"Do you?" She tilted her head, studying him. "Because you keep looking at us like we're going to disappear."

The words hit him harder than they should have, and he felt something crack in his chest. "I don't—" He stopped, swallowed, tried again. "I've just never had this before. Something that..." He trailed off, unable to find the words.

"Something that's yours?" Jessica offered softly.

He nodded, not trusting his voice.

The three of them lay in the silence, the gray light growing steadily brighter around them. Riley could feel the weight of the moment pressing against him, the promise of the house and the move and the future all tangled up with the warmth of the bodies beside him, and he didn't know how to hold all of it. Didn't know if he could.

Inde leaned in, pressing her forehead to his. "We're not going anywhere," she repeated, her voice low and steady. "We're moving into that house together, and we're going to build something, and you're going to be part of it. All of it. You're not going to lose us."

He closed his eyes, letting her words wash over him. The urge to count was still there, coiling in his chest like a snake, but it was quieter now. Muffled by the warmth of her forehead against his, the weight of Jessica's hand on his stomach, the steady rhythm of their breathing filling the room.

"I don't know how to stop," he admitted, the words barely a whisper. "The counting. The waiting for something bad to happen. I've been doing it so long I don't know who I am without it."

Jessica's hand moved, sliding up his chest to rest over his heart. "You don't have to stop all at once. You just have to keep waking up." She paused, her voice softening. "And we'll be here when you do."

Riley opened his eyes, looking at both of them—Inde with her dark eyes and callused hands, Jessica with her messy hair and steady gaze—and felt something shift inside him. Something small, but real. A crack in the wall he'd built around himself.

"Okay," he said, and the word felt different this time. Lighter. Like he was finally starting to believe it.

Inde smiled, a small, genuine thing that softened her whole face, and pressed a kiss to his forehead. "Okay."

The gray light was turning gold now, spilling through the blinds in warm stripes across the bed. Somewhere in the apartment, a pipe groaned, and outside, a bird started its morning song. The world was waking up, moving forward, pulling them with it.

Riley lay there, sandwiched between the two women he loved, and felt the old urge tighten in his chest—the familiar pull toward counting, toward bracing, toward preparing for the fall.

He didn't know if he could let it go. Didn't know if the move would make it better or worse, if the new house would feel like a beginning or just a bigger space to be afraid in.

But he knew one thing. He knew they were here. He knew they weren't going anywhere.

And for now, that was enough.