Page 127 of Baby Surprise for my Brother's Best Friend

He groans, a sound pulled from deep inside, and buries himself as deep as he can go.

His thrusts stutter, lose rhythm, and then he’s coming too, spilling inside me with a shudder and a whispered curse.

His body shakes over mine, his mouth at my neck, breathing me in like this moment is oxygen.

When it’s over, he doesn't pull away.

He stays buried inside me, arms wrapped tight, his weight grounding me.

We lie like that, tangled, trembling, and silent.

His grip says everything we can’t.

That we don’t want this to end.

But it already has.

It doesn’t feel like a new beginning for the three of us.

It feels like the last page of something beautiful.

***

Morning creeps in, pale and heavy.

I sit up slowly, blinking against the gray light leaking through the curtains.

The bed beside me is empty.

I wrap the sheet around myself and slip out into the hallway.

At the end of it, I find him.

Alessio.

Standing in the living room, stuffing clothes into a duffel bag, methodical and brutal, like every zip and fold is some kind of self-inflicted punishment.

I lean against the doorframe, arms wrapped around my stomach.

Watching.

Hurting.

"You’re running. You’re still pushing me away."

He doesn’t look at me right away. Just clenches a shirt in his hands until his knuckles go white.

"I'm scared. Fucking terrified. And I'm terrified because this time, it matters.Youmatter."

He lifts his eyes to mine, raw and shattered.

"And maybe I am running. Maybe it’s the only thing I know how to do when I’m terrified of losing everything. And it’s killing me. Because the last place I want to be is away from you." The words sound almost torn from him.

He steps closer, slow, hesitant, as if he’s afraid I’ll vanish if he moves too fast.

"I should've told you before," he says, voice shaking. “Remember that night after your brother was promoted to senior partner at Prestige?"

"How could I forget."

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