Noah said yes before Jamie finished the question.

Mason laughed in disbelief, then covered his mouth. Lucas merely leaned back, as if Jamie had confirmed a theory. Caleb asked for clarification. Ethan walked out.

Jamie found him in the library.

Ethan stood at the window with both hands braced against the sill.

“You knew this was possible,” Jamie said.

“Knowing is not the same as being prepared.”

“You want me to choose you.”

“Yes.” Ethan turned. “I want mornings, arguments, holidays, your photographs on every wall. I want the right to be the first person you call.”

“And the others want versions of that too.”

“Exactly.”

Jamie approached until only a breath separated them. “I won’t promise this can work. I’m asking whether you are willing to find out.”

Ethan’s gaze moved across Jamie’s face. “What happens when Noah touches you and I hate it?”

“You tell me. You don’t punish me.”

“When Lucas shuts us out?”

“We make him speak.”

“When Mason gives everything until he resents us?”

“We notice.”

“When Caleb turns feelings into procedures?”

“We make fun of him.”

Ethan almost smiled.

“And when you decide this was curiosity?” he asked.

“Then I tell the truth.”

Ethan lowered his forehead to Jamie’s. “I don’t know how to share you.”

“Start by understanding I don’t belong to you.”

Ethan closed his eyes. “I know.”

“Come back to the table.”

Caleb drafted the agreement on a legal pad because everyone rejected Ethan’s offer to produce a contract.

They established private dates, shared time, sleeping arrangements, sexual-health testing, public privacy, and conflict rules. No person could use money, housing, medical knowledge, physical strength, or access to information to pressure another.

“We need a universal stop word,” Caleb said.

“Stop,” Jamie replied.

Noah grinned. “Radical.”

“If anyone says it, everything stops. No debate.”

They added a rule against entering bedrooms without permission. Lucas reluctantly removed two internal security sensors. Ethan surrendered control of the household finances to a shared system. Mason agreed to say when caretaking exhausted him. Noah agreed that jokes could not replace answers.

Then came the most difficult rule.

“Nobody competes for physical milestones,” Jamie said. “I decide what I want, with whom, and when.”

Five men agreed.

Jamie looked at Ethan first. “May I kiss you?”

Ethan’s answer was barely audible. “Yes.”

Jamie kissed him slowly, in full view of the others. Jealousy sharpened the air, but nobody interrupted.

He went to Noah next.

Noah’s hands remained at his sides until Jamie placed them at his waist. The kiss began playful and became hungry before Jamie drew back.

“Still straight?” Noah murmured.

“Ask again and lose your next date.”

Mason received a soft kiss that ended with Jamie’s fingers tangled in his hair. Caleb’s kiss was careful until Jamie tugged him closer by the collar. Lucas waited last, eyes dark and patient.

“Your turn,” Jamie said.

“Do you want it, or are you being fair?” Lucas asked.

The question stopped everyone.

Jamie considered honestly.

Then he climbed onto the arm of Lucas’s chair, held his face, and kissed him because desire—not arithmetic—pulled him there.

Lucas’s hand settled at Jamie’s back.

When they separated, Ethan looked jealous enough to crack glass. He did not lash out.

Instead, he said, “I need reassurance.”

Jamie crossed back to him and took his hand.

That small success felt more intimate than the kisses.

For three days, the house transformed.

Jamie woke to Mason’s breakfast and Noah’s body stretching shirtless in the kitchen. Caleb checked his recovering palm. Lucas worked with Jamie’s feet in his lap. Ethan came home late and loosened his tie while Jamie watched openly.

Touch became frequent but never assumed.

Noah asked before pulling Jamie onto his lap.

Mason asked before washing flour from Jamie’s cheek.

Caleb asked before examining the fading mark at his neck.

Lucas asked before closing a hand around Jamie’s wrist.

Ethan asked before backing Jamie against the study door and kissing him breathless.

The arrangement was messy, jealous, and exhilarating.

Then Jamie’s phone received a photograph.

It showed him unconscious in the hotel room, shirtless beneath a sheet. Ethan’s arm was visible at one edge. Noah’s hand rested on the mattress. Caleb’s medical equipment appeared beside the bed.

Without context, it looked damning.

Adrian’s message followed.

COME ALONE TOMORROW, OR EVERYONE WILL SEE THIS.

Another file arrived.

It contained photographs of three other young men in hotel rooms.

Jamie understood the threat was larger than him.

Adrian had done this before.

The first victim was a graduate student from Boston. The second was a bartender who had vanished from social media after accusing Adrian of assault. The third photograph showed a man named Daniel Reyes, currently suing the hotel under a sealed filing Ethan recognized.

“He collects leverage,” Lucas said. “Then he makes victims doubt what happened.”

Jamie sat at the kitchen island while the five men formed an instinctive perimeter. This time he noticed it and raised one eyebrow.

They all stepped back.

“Better,” he said.

They contacted Detective Priya Shah, who arranged separate interviews. Jamie insisted on speaking first. His roommates waited in the hall rather than crowd the room, though Noah sent increasingly ridiculous animal photographs to Jamie’s phone until Priya threatened to confiscate it.

Afterward, Daniel agreed to a protected video call.

“Adrian wants you isolated,” Daniel said. “He’ll imply one of your friends helped him. He did that to me. By the time I understood, I had accused the only person who tried to save me.”

Jamie’s chest tightened. “Why target me?”

“Because you rejected him publicly. Because five men looked at you like you mattered. He punishes people who prove he isn’t irresistible.”

When the call ended, Jamie found his roommates waiting in five separate chairs, giving him a clear path to the exit.

He crossed the space and sat on the floor in the center.

“You can come closer,” he said.

They did, slowly.

Mason’s shoulder met his. Noah’s knee touched his ankle. Caleb offered a hand. Lucas watched the hallway. Ethan sat opposite, close enough to reach but not assuming he should.

Jamie reached first.

The group closed around him—not a cage, but a shelter he had requested.

His phone chimed inside the circle.

The new message contained the photographs and a time stamp for midnight.

Adrian was preparing to release everything.

The deadline forced a decision. Ethan could seek an emergency injunction, but filing would place Jamie’s name into another record. Lucas could disable Adrian’s server, but doing so might destroy evidence and expose Lucas to prosecution.

“Neither,” Jamie said. “We let Detective Shah control the evidence operation.”

Waiting felt unbearable. They filled the hours by contacting the other victims through counsel and documenting consent for every shared file. Daniel agreed to provide his original messages. The bartender sent an archived voicemail. Patterns emerged: the same hotel chain, the same threat, the same attempt to isolate victims from witnesses.

At eleven fifty-eight, Adrian’s upload page went live.

At eleven fifty-nine, police seized the server under warrant.

The countdown froze at seven seconds.

Noah released a breath that sounded almost like a sob. Jamie took his hand. On Jamie’s other side, Caleb asked before touching his shoulder.

They had stopped the release, but Detective Shah warned them Adrian had fled his apartment.

The threat had lost its platform.

It had not lost its body.