Page 160 of Illusory

A laugh bubbled up inside my chest as I elbowed him playfully in the ribs.

“Quit pestering her, will you?” chided Dominic as he walked over to join us with two drinks in his hands. “It’s quite unbecoming of you, especially when you are so painfully mistaken. She clearly preferred my date,” he said as he handed me my drink and then sat down on my free side, licking his lips like an invitation. “Isn’t that right, angel?”

For a second, I had thought he was going to be the voice ofreason, but he was clearly playing dirty.

“You two are impossible,” I said, shaking my head in amusement and then taking a sip of the drink Dominic handed me, relishing the burn of the whiskey sliding down my throat.

“Fine. I’ll be the bigger person and let him tell himself whatever he needs to,” said Trace as he smiled at me, flashing his dimples, knowing full well what they did to me. “But we all know the truth here.”

“Oh? Pray tell, what truth is that?” Dominic asked, arching his brow at him in challenge.

“That I’m her favorite.”

I nearly snorted my drink out my nose.

“What you are, my friend, is delusional,” informed Dominic.

“Am I though?” Trace winked at me conspiratorially.

“Oh, god. Don’t look at me. I don’t want any part of this.”

Trace leaned in and whispered, “I think it’s a little late for that.”

My cheeks heated. “Right, but I think we’ve already established I can’t choose between the two of you,” I said, batting my lashes innocently. “So why don’t we just leave it at a perfect tie?”

“That’s very diplomatic of you.” Dominic raised his glass to me as Trace appeared to be thinking about it.

His blue eyes danced over my features before he finally nodded. “I guess I can live with that,” he said and then kissed my temple.

Wedged between the two of them, their lighthearted banter filling the air, I felt a deep sense of contentment settle into my soul—a kind of rightness I had never experienced before. I glanced between them, marveling at the effortless way they shared their time with me, without a hint of jealousyor competition.

It was as if they had reached some sort of weird unspoken agreement, a mutual understanding that they both held an irreplaceable piece of my heart.

In that moment, two things became perfectly clear to me. First: that this was exactly where I always wanted to be—nestled between the two halves of my heart. And second: that I was utterly and irreparably ruined, knowing with absolute certainty that no man would ever measure up to them or come close to the love I felt for them.

They had placed me on a pedestal of the highest order, and I wasn’t sure I’d survive the fall when this dream inevitably came to an end.

As all good dreams eventually do.

This entire day had been one perfect, magic-filled dream and I couldn’t have imagined a better way to end it than being smushed between the two men I loved more than life itself. And to have them not ripping each other’s throats out was just a pile of cherries on my already mountainous sundae.

It was almost…too perfect.

I had no idea how this had happened, or what exactly had brought them to this point, but it only made me more terrified of the moment they would inevitably snap out of this madness and realize this wasn’t what either of them wanted.

My errant thoughts were quickly tossed into a dark corner as the sound of the front door slamming shut drew me out of my head. Two sets of noisy footsteps echoed through the hallway, but it was the second unrecognizable sound that had my eyebrows furrowing. It almost sounded like some kind of squeegee squeaking against a window.

Before I could mock the outlandish thought, Tessa appeared in the hallway with Gabriel right behind her.

“Don’t mind me,” she said, without bothering to pauseand greet us. “Just returning our mother,” she added as she continued on out of view, dragging an unconscious, leather-clad woman behind her.

What the—

“Is everything okay in here?” verified Gabriel, his eyes darting between the three of us with an unmistakable look of disapproval on his face, as though he thought we'd been up to some mischief in his absence.

“Everything’s fine.” I blinked a few times as the previous scene finally registered in my brain. “Was that my sister dragging ourmotheracross the floor just now?”

Gabriel scrubbed a hand down his face. “It’s a long story,” he muttered, but I was already halfway out of the living room, bolting after them.

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