I Wanted One Stepbrother, So All Three Claimed Me novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Three

Leif ran the bath first.

He did it in the attic's small slanted bathroom with the door open, testing the water with his wrist.

Kenji sat wrapped in a towel on the closed lid of the toilet, with pool water still drying in his hair.

Nobody had spoken in the truck.

Nobody had spoken on the stairs.

Erik and Soren had followed them up the three flights and stopped at the attic door.

Leif had looked at them once and said, "Wait."

They waited.

"Arms up," Leif said now.

Kenji lifted them. Leif pulled the towel away and helped him down into the water, and the heat made him groan.

He knelt beside the tub in his shirtsleeves and washed Kenji's back with a cloth, in long slow strokes.

He rinsed the chlorine off Kenji's shoulders and around the dark crescent of Soren's bite.

His hands were very careful there.

"Right there."

"It's nice."

"I mean it." Leif dipped the cloth. "I wasn't going to be the one who hurt you. I've spent three months making sure nobody in this house could."

"I know."

"I'm still going to say I'm sorry. For the mistake, for the stairs, for Morning, Ken." His voice cracked on the last word. "That was a coward's thing to say."

"It was."

"I know."

Kenji turned in the water, wet and warm, and took his face in both hands.

"Take me to bed," he said. "And let them in."

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