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Theo secures the canoe with careful hands while I keep one arm around Ezra’s waist. His body is solid against mine, but his weight keeps changing. One breath, he leans heavy enough that I have to brace my boots against the wet boards. The next, my hand slips too far through the damp fabric of his shirt before warmth and muscle gather back beneath my palm.

The channel laps against the posts below us, dark and ordinary, as if it didn’t just lead us to a spring where the world stopped behaving according to all reason.

“House,” Theo says.

His voice is calm because he’s forcing it to be. His bourbon-and-leather scent has gone sharp around the edges, carrying rain, swamp mud, and alpha fear.

Theo looks at us both, and the restraint on his face almost hurts to see. He wants to carry Ezra. He wants to carry me. He wants to pick up the whole house and move it somewhere with locked gates and no water that whispers.

Instead, he holds out one hand to Ezra and one to me.

The walk up from the dock feels longer than it should. Wet grass brushes my calves. My socks squish inside my boots. Dragonflies skim low over the flooded edge of the yard, flashing blue over brown water. Behind us, the channel keeps moving with a hush that sounds too much like breath.

Inside, the mudroom smells like lemon cleaner and the basil Theo relocated to the windowsill. Theo shuts the door, locks it, and stands there with his hand on the knob for a beat too long.

Then he turns to us. “Boots off.”

I sit on the bench because my legs accept authority faster than my mouth does. Theo crouches in front of me and unlaces my boots.

“I can do that,” I say softly.

“I need to.”

That answer opens a well of tenderness in my heart.

His hands are steady on the laces. Every movement is controlled. He peels off one boot, then the other, checks my ankles through the socks, and runs his thumb over a smear of mud near my shin as though he’s confirming I came back with all my pieces.

I touch his hair. “I’m here.”

His eyes close. He turns his face into my palm and kisses the inside of my wrist, slow enough that my body answers with a tired little pulse of warmth.

Ezra makes a sound beside me. Theo looks up. Ezra stands by the wall with one hand braced against the plaster. His face is pale, his hair damp over his forehead, his mouth slack. I rise, cross the narrow mudroom, and wrap both arms around his middle.

He exhales against my hair. “I can still hear it.”

“The water?”

“Maybe the water. Probably my own brain being theatrical.”

Theo comes up behind me and sets one hand at the back of Ezra’s neck. The other settles over my hip. His touch is warm and careful.

“No jokes if they cost too much,” Theo says.

Ezra swallows. “That’s unfair. They’re my main export.”

I laugh, and it comes out shaky. Ezra’s arms tighten around me.

Theo bends and presses his mouth to Ezra’s temple, then to mine. He lingers with me, breathing along my hairline. The scent mark is soft, more comfort than claim, and I lean into it because my body needs his solidness.

“I was scared,” I say.

Neither man answers too quickly.

“I was scared enough that my hands are still shaking. I wanted to drag both of you away from that spring and pretend none of it happened.” I look up at Ezra. “And I’m not sorry we found it.”

Ezra’s expression changes, fear and relief moving through him together. “Same. Which is annoying.”

Theo’s thumb moves once against my hip. “We’re done with field studies today.”