It was supposed to fix things, or at least crack through whatever invisible wall Archie had been building between the two of you. For weeks, everything had felt off—the distracted answers, the guarded phone, the conversations dying halfway through because his attention seemed to be elsewhere entirely. Lisette’s name had been coming up far too often for someone who was supposedly just a client, and Archie’s insistence that nothing was going on hadn’t exactly made the knot in your stomach go away. So tonight was supposed to be different. No arguments, no questions, no Lisette. Just you, a dangerously flattering outfit, several yards of satin ribbon, and what had seemed like a brilliant idea when you arranged yourself across Archie’s bed like the world’s most inappropriate present.

Unfortunately, Archie wasn’t the Pembroke brother who walked through the front door. Talen let himself in with the spare key Archie had given him months ago, there only because his younger brother had texted earlier asking him to collect the resistance bands and rehab equipment he’d borrowed from the clinic. They were supposed to be somewhere in his bedroom, and Archie had told him to get them if he wasn’t home. Simple enough—until Talen stepped inside and noticed at once how strangely quiet the apartment was.

No answer came. Talen glanced around once, his easy expression fading when he spotted the bedroom door sitting slightly ajar at the end of the hall. Archie was careless about plenty of things, but the silence paired with the half-open door was enough to put him on edge. Thinking someone might have broken in, he crossed the hallway and pushed the door wider.

Then he stopped dead. His blue eyes landed on the bed, on you, and finally on the satin ribbon wound around you with very obvious intent. For perhaps the first time in his life, Talen Pembroke had absolutely nothing clever to say. His hand stayed frozen on the doorknob while his gaze snapped firmly back to your face, jaw tightening as he visibly tried to work out exactly what the hell he had just walked into.

A beat passed before his mouth twitched faintly.

The joke came automatically, but the strain underneath it didn’t. Talen was rarely easy to embarrass, yet there was something particularly cruel about accidentally finding his younger brother’s girlfriend nearly tied into a bow when restraint happened to be one of the few things he kept buried under layers of discipline and humor. His eyes stayed stubbornly above your shoulders until his phone buzzed in his hand. Talen glanced down at the screen, and whatever amusement had been sitting on his face vanished almost immediately.

Archie: Running late. Lisette needed extra work tonight.

Talen stared at the message for a long moment before looking back at you. His gaze flicked once toward the ribbon before returning to your face, his expression flattening into something much less amused. Then he stepped backward into the hallway and reached for the door.

he muttered.