Three Doors Away

18. Nickname

“Hahahah anything would be fine, Flynie…”

Flynn froze for a fraction of a second at the long-forgotten childhood nickname, a dark, heavy warmth flashing through his eyes before a slow, undeniable smirk broke across his stern face. He pulled his phone from his pocket without breaking eye contact, his thumb already flying across the screen.

"Flynie," Flynn muttered, tasting the syllable like it was something he hadn't realized he was starving for until just this second. "Keep testing me, singer. See how many trucks of Italian dessert I have delivered to this floor by midnight."

Rodyn let out a rich, delighted laugh, his arm dropping from the back of the couch to drape casually around her shoulders, pulling her half against his side where the silk of her dress brushed warm against him.

"Oh, let him do it, little bird," Rodyn murmured, his hazel eyes crinkling at the corners as he leaned his head close to hers, drinking in the sudden, unguarded softness of her smile. "We have nine years of missed birthdays, lost afternoons, and empty chairs at dinner tables to catch up on. A mountain of panna cotta is the bare minimum penalty for your little disappearing act."

Ezren shifted slightly on her other side, his shoulder a solid, comforting press against hers as he watched Flynn place the order. The crisp, clinical detachment that usually defined his entire existence was entirely gone, replaced by the quiet, absolute satisfaction of a man whose world had finally snapped back into its proper orbit.

"Consider it an investment in your caloric intake," Ezren added smoothly, a faint, proprietary smirk playing on his lips as he reached out to tuck a loose strand of dark hair behind her ear. "Though next time, if you feel the urge to vanish across the city, I expect an itinerary submitted at least forty-eight hours in advance. My administrative tolerance for losing track of you has officially expired."

The heavy, suffocating tension that had filled the hallway just minutes before had completely dissolved, leaving behind a warm, closed-loop sanctuary where the rest of the city didn't exist. Surrounded by the three walls she had spent years trying to scale—only to find herself right back in their center—Madeleine let out one final, ragged breath of pure, unadulterated relief.

The ghost of the high school corridors, the bruises hidden under heavy jackets, the lonely teahouse shifts—they all felt a million miles away now. Here, wrapped in the quiet, overwhelming gravity of their devotion, she was finally safe.

“How was y’all life? Like…job and stuff? Anything hard?”

Ezren was the first to answer, leaning back against the plush cushions of the sofa with a faint, dry exhale as he crossed one leg over the other.

"Predictable, demanding, and utterly devoid of any genuine intellectual challenge," Ezren murmured, his dark eyes fixing on her with a steady intensity. "Corporate law and macroeconomic restructuring. The boardrooms are filled with incompetent sycophants who require hand-holding through basic contractual logic, which means I spent the last several years working sixty-hour weeks just to clean up their administrative messes. But the real difficulty wasn't the caseload, Maddie. It was the logistics. Managing an international portfolio while simultaneously monitoring property values across every district in this city to ensure I secured a residence fifty feet from your front door required a level of mathematical synchronization that tested even my patience."

Rodyn let out a soft, melodic laugh, shifting slightly so he could trace the lazy curve of her collarbone with his gaze, his hazel eyes darkening with a quiet, lingering shadow.

"Ezren makes it sound like a spreadsheet, but corporate finance isn't quite as sterile when you're dealing with hostile takeovers and board members who think they can outmaneuver you," Rodyn said smoothly, his thumb absently stroking the back of her hand where it rested between them. "The work itself? Trivial. The hard part was every single Tuesday and Thursday evening when I'd finish a brutal round of negotiations, look at an empty seat across from me at dinner, and realize you were still playing hide-and-seek across the city. Nine years of walking into a quiet apartment, little bird. That was the hard part."

Across the coffee table, Flynn leaned forward, resting his heavy forearms on his knees as his dark, brooding gaze locked onto her with absolute, unwavering focus. He didn't bother sugarcoating his answer with corporate jargon or polished phrasing.

"Construction and structural engineering," Flynn rumbled, his deep voice carrying a raw, gravelly edge. "Managing multi-million-dollar builds, coordinating heavy machinery, dealing with contractors who try to cut corners. It's loud, dirty, and exhausting work. But none of it mattered compared to the rest of my day."

He paused, a muscle tightening sharply along his jawline as his dark eyes burned into hers.

"The hardest part of my entire life for the last nine years, Maddie, was waking up every single morning knowing you were out there walking through hallways I couldn't patrol, living a life I couldn't shield you from," Flynn said quietly, the raw, possessive devotion in his tone vibrating straight through the room.

"The job is easy. Keeping my hands off you while you were pretending you didn't belong to us? That was the only thing I couldn't figure out."