Now I’d driven to an arcade on a Saturday just to make them smile. Now I was standing in a closet that cost more than most houses, holding a girl who ran a multinational corporation, and all I wanted was to make sure she was okay, that she got enough sleep and remembered to eat lunch and didn’t carry the weight of the world on seventeen-year-old shoulders that were strong but not superhuman.

I was so completely screwed it wasn’t even funny.

"Maybe," I admitted, the word coming out more honest than I’d intended.

Vivienne pulled back, looked up at me with those impossible purple eyes that saw too much and forgave too little.

"Maybe is good enough." She reached up with careful fingers, fixed my collar where it had gotten twisted during our makeout session, her touch gentle and somehow intimate despite its practical purpose. "For now."

"What happens when maybe isn’t good enough anymore?"

"Then we figure it out." She stepped out of my arms reluctantly, the loss immediate and cold like stepping from sunlight into shadow. "Together. If you’ll have us."

"Us?"

"My sisters and I." Vivienne’s smile was small, uncertain, nothing like the confident expressions she wore for cameras and board meetings. "The arrangement we discussed in the car. Sabrina researched the legal implications. Harlow believes in the emotional possibilities. Cassidy is—well, Cassidy is Cassidy, but she’s not opposed to the idea. We want to try."

"Your mother will murder me. Creatively. Probably with something expensive and sharp."

"Probably."

"I’ll lose my job and possibly my ability to find employment anywhere in the continental United States."

"We’ll find you a new job. Better opportunities. References that open doors instead of slamming them shut."

"This is completely insane."

"Completely." She moved back toward me, close enough to touch but not touching, the space between us charged with possibility and disaster in equal measure. "But insane might be better than what we’ve been doing. Pretending we don’t care. Pretending this isn’t happening. Pretending we can ignore chemistry because it’s inconvenient."

My phone buzzed against my leg. I ignored it with practiced ease.

"I need time," I said finally. "To think. To talk to Iris. To figure out if I’m brave enough or stupid enough or both to actually consider this."

"Take all the time you need." Vivienne reached out, straightened my vest where she’d unbuttoned it, her fingers lingering longer than strictly necessary. "We’ll be here."

"What if I say no? What if I decide the risk is too high and the complications too numerous?"

"Then we’ll respect that decision." Her fingers lingered on my chest, right over my heart, like she was trying to feel the rhythm underneath fabric and skin. "But I don’t think you will."

"Why not?"

"Because you want this as badly as we do. You’re just too scared to admit it to yourself."

She wasn’t wrong. The worst part was knowing she could read me that clearly.

Vivienne walked toward the door. She paused with her hand on the gold door handle that probably cost more than my monthly rent.

"Isaiah?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you." Her voice was quieter now, stripped of the sharp confidence she’d wielded like a blade moments earlier. "For coming to find me. When I was... when everything was falling apart."

She glanced back over her shoulder. The corporate mask was gone. What replaced it was something softer, raw in a way that made my chest tighten. Her eyes held gratitude and vulnerability and a dozen other things she’d never let anyone else see.

"No one else would have bothered," she added, almost as an afterthought, but there was weight in those words. History. Years of being perfect and alone and convinced that perfection was all anyone would care about.

I wanted to tell her she was wrong. That her sisters would’ve come if they’d known. That she wasn’t as alone as she believed herself to be.

But the words caught in my throat because part of me understood. I knew what it was like to believe that caring was a weakness, that letting people in was just handing them ammunition to use against you later.

So instead I just said, "You’re welcome."

It wasn’t poetry. It wasn’t profound. But from the way her expression shifted—something guarded easing behind her eyes—maybe it was enough.

Then she was gone, leaving me alone in the Archive with racks of expensive clothes and the growing certainty that I’d just made my life infinitely more complicated than it had any right to be.

My phone buzzed again, more insistently this time.

Cassidy: Did you find her?

Me: Yeah.

Cassidy: Is she okay?

Me: Getting there.

Cassidy: Good. Because if you made her cry more I was going to break your kneecaps with a tennis racket.

I found myself smiling despite the situation.

Me: Noted.

Another message appeared almost immediately. Harlow this time, her texts radiating enthusiasm even through digital medium.

Harlow: Vivi texted!!! she said you found her and she’s okay!!!! 💕💕💕

Harlow: thank you assistant-kun

Harlow: i knew you’d go after her

Me: How?

Harlow: because you care about us dummy

Harlow: even when you pretend you don’t

Sabrina’s message was characteristically minimalist.

Sabrina: 🌹

Just the rose emoji. Nothing else. No explanation or elaboration.

But somehow it said more than paragraphs of text could have managed.

I stood slowly, stretching muscles that had stiffened from sitting on marble floors designed for aesthetic impact rather than human comfort. My spine cracked in several places. The vest was still unbuttoned where Vivienne had gotten to it, my hair probably looked like I’d been through a wind tunnel, and I had four different shades of burgundy lipstick smeared across my mouth like evidence of crimes against professional conduct.

I needed to get back to my room. Shower off the scent of expensive perfume and poor decisions. Sleep for however many hours remained before morning arrived with fresh complications. Wake up tomorrow and pretend the last twenty-four hours hadn’t happened, hadn’t changed everything in ways I was still trying to process.

Instead, I pulled out my phone and opened the group chat that included all four sisters.

Me: I need more time to think about this. But I’m not saying no.

The responses were immediate, simultaneous, like they’d been waiting by their phones for exactly this message.

Harlow: REALLY?!?!?! 🎉🎉🎉 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

Cassidy: fucking FINALLY

Vivienne: Understood. Take all the time you require.

Sabrina: Good. This will be interesting.