Page 80 of Ruthless Beasts

He had a point. We were always all-or-nothing type men.

“Let’s go pick some pink shit then.” I stepped through the room, turning once to view the space that was about to become the center of our family. “And look for a big enough bed to fit three grown ass men and a wisp of a woman.”

Ready or not, this was happening. This was us. This was ours.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

ACE

My stomach was in knots. That couldn’t be a normal reaction when it came to waiting for your best friend’s wife to come down the stairs, right? She was ready, at least from what I heard, but she refused to let us look at her as she held up in the library, insisting she needed to make a grand entrance down the staircase. Was that a thing?

Apparently so.

And we all stood around and waited, letting her do whatever the hell she wanted because we were soft, soft as fuck for her. Only her. How did that happen? How did I get myself so tied up with a woman like this? One that fell into our group effortlessly, like she was always meant to be here.

That room, the primary suite that Adam made, was too much, and yet everything I could ask for. I hadn’t expected him to go this far, to go all in. Though I shouldn’t be shocked. He’d always been an all-in type of guy. I just never thought it would apply to having a four-way relationship with his wife as the center.

And kids? He wanted more. Ours. His. Theirs. Mine.

Why did I feel like I was living in an alternate universe, and at any moment, the veil would split open, and the world would return to normal? To the sad, pitiful, soulless normal that we had all become too accustomed to. Because my dreams, this reality, were blending and meshing, and I was having a hard time distinguishing between the two.

I’d always wanted a family. Maybe it was the need to make up for the childhood I lost out on. Maybe it was because something in me, deep down, really just wanted to feel the same love I was desperate to give. The love I’d never had an outlet for. The love that completely died with my sister, causing my heart to fail to feel a damn thing.

Until Bellamy.

What was she doing to us?

To me?

For a moment I looked at my best friend, and I wondered if Elizabeth would hate this. Would she despise him for what we were doing? Hate us for finding the only way we could cope with love? The only way we could feel secure enough to love and ensure the safety of the one we picked? She always judged more than I liked. How would she judge us now?

“The garden is looking nice.” Adam broke into my thoughts as he stood a few feet away, his black-on-black suit making the yellow silk pocket square pop. “Elizabeth would have loved that it was brought back to life.”

How the hell did he know I was thinking of her?

Because he was too, clearly.

“You think so?” I looked at the shiny tile under my polished shoe, finding the matching shine amusing.

“I do. She loved it there. She would have hated to see how I let it go,” he admitted.

“We,” I corrected because this wasn’t all on him. I could have kept it up. Mercer could have. We all could have, but we opted not to.

“We,” he agreed and, after a long pause, spoke again. “I think, I hope, she’d be okay with this. Just so you know. I haven’t forgotten she existed just because I’ve moved on to something new. If anything, because I’ve chosen to move on, sometimes I think Elizabeth is all I can think about. But it also needs to stop. It’s not fair to Belle. And I can have thoughts about Elizabeth, and I should, but they needn’t be worrying if I’m doing something wrong. This isn’t wrong, Ace. Not when it feels right, feels perfect.”

I licked my lips while I thought about what to say to my friend. I didn’t want him to have the tortured soul that loving and failing someone gifts you. He deserved better, and I was glad that he had chosen a path that finally would gift him happiness. But I was still afraid deep down that maybe I didn’t have a place mixed in with him and Mercer. Maybe our girl wasn’t ours at all, but theirs.

“I think?—“

The door shutting upstairs tore my gaze upward and cut off my words. Mercer instantly stood from where he lounged a room over and stepped up next to us, waiting for Bellamy to emerge. We didn’t wait long. Moments later, she appeared like a goddess at the top of the stairs, a book in her hand and silk hugging against her curves so perfectly I was literally drooling.

When no one spoke, probably as speechless as I was, she finally twisted some of the silk into her fingertips and asked, “Well, do I look okay?”

“Do you look okay?” I huffed out, barely able to speak.

“Little one, you look good enough to eat.” Mercer picked up where I left off. He jogged up the stairs toward her. “In fact, I might need a taste just to survive tonight.”

When he met her at the top of the stairs, she looked down at her dress. “Are you sure this is fine?”

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