Page 54 of The Triple Play

I snorted. “Girl Scout cookies and desecrating my pancake integrity are vastly different things.”

“You’re desecrating mypeace.”

“Can you two please not bicker before I’ve had coffee?” Xavi muttered, sliding a cup of something black across the breakfast bar to Colton before passing me a cappuccino with a little heart on top of it. He picked up his own mug, a smaller and stronger milky thing that I could never remember the name of, and leaned onto the counter beside me. “You said you wanted to talk about last night. The floor is yours.”

I let the pancake sizzle a second longer before picking it up with my spatula and depositing it onto a waiting plate beside it. I ladled in another scoop of batter and cringed at the burning chocolate. “How’s everyone feeling about it?”

“Fuckin’ fantastic,” Colton yawned.

“Surprisingly positive,” Xavi shrugged.

“She’s just…” Colton wrapped his fingers around the mug of coffee and peeled himself up off the counter like his limbs weighed twice as much as normal. “I don’t know. Words are hard when I’m tired.”

“So the three of us are on the same page, at least.” I glanced at the pancake again, watching, waiting for the bubbles. “I was genuinely worried I’d be a little jealous after walking in on Jenny, but… nothing.”

Xavi gave me a small, genuine smile that looked like it took everything in him to give at this hour, and Colton watched me warily from his spot at the breakfast bar, his eyelids still heavy from sleep.

“That’s probably an improvement on your part,” Xavi chuckled lightly. “Last time we shared, I’m pretty sure it wasyouwho got cagey about sharing.”

I flipped the pancake over and nudged him with my shoulder. “Yeah, well, guess I passed on the torch.”

Xav swirled his coffee around in his tiny cup, the movement so precise that not a single drop slipped over the rim. “Felt like a goddamn lunatic last night,” he said. “I didn’t want to let go of her, even when you were pushing me to.”

Colton snorted. “Yeah, it was obvious.”

“You’re not exactly subtle, Xav,” I added.

Xavi glanced between us over the rim of his mug as he took a sip, but he didn’t argue it. “She just makes me… possessive, I guess. It’s not just about the sex, either. I keep thinking about someone else getting close to her, keep thinking aboutElliot, and I just want to punch something.”

I let out a low chuckle and removed the pancake before ladling another one in. “Yeah, it’s not just you.”

“Wow. The old man wants to punch something? You’re never like that off the ice,” Colton said, raising his mug to his lips to block out his view just as I turned to glare at him.

“Look, I just… I don’t want to freak anyone out, but you guys know I’ve not really been open to any kind of relationship since… But I’m open to it with her. With you guys,” I explained, the words feeling a little foreign on my tongue. “I think a good way to balance it is some alone time, with each of us. Not always all three of us at once. As long as she’s still happy to do this. I just want time with her where I can feel like she’s mine. Toknowit.”

Xavi hummed thoughtfully, his eyes locked on his coffee. “Yeah. But she’s mine too.”

Colton chuckled as he set his mug back down. “All of ours,” he corrected. “But I get what you mean. I think you’re right.”

The silence that followed wasn’t awkward or heavy—just steady, grounded, all of us feeling varying degrees of the same thing.

“We can do this, I think,” I said finally, flipping the pancake. “As long as we each get our own time with her now and then. I don’t mind all of us together, too, but we can try to work it out so no one has her more often than anyone else since we’re all halfway obsessed already.”

Xavi shook his head slightly, his gaze locked somewhere in the middle distance. “Is it bad that it’s not halfway for me?”

“Nah,” I answered. “You lock on quick.”

“I say we just jump headfirst,” Colton said, pushing his hands back through his untied hair. “Fuck just bringing her to LA, let’s just bring her to the whole stretch.”

“The whole Pacific Division?” I asked, raising a brow at him. “That’s, like, two weeks.”

He nodded. “Two weeks of knowing she’s safe, two weeks of time with her where we can squeeze it in. If she wants to be with us, she might as well see what that entails upfront. Otherwise,wewon’t see her for two weeks. We might as well offer it.”

Xavi trained his eyes on him. “You sure you want to do that?” he asked. “It’s not that I don’t, it’s just a lot of time, and a fuckton of logistics if we’re going to try to keep her on the down-low. A lot of flights we’ll need to buy for her, a lot of potential questions if the guys notice she’s at every game.”

“And a lot of us for her to handle,” I added. “It’ll be harder to convince her to come for two weeks than it was for two days.”

Colton’s voice was gruffer than before, his hand scrubbing over his face like he didn’t want to admit it out loud. “Fuck if I care. I’m crazy about her.”

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