The apartment pulsed with heat and smoke, heavy with the scent of beer, dust, and something harder to name. Tara moved with calm confidence. The others—Mike, Sam, Jake—shared space with her the way they always had, their bodies loud with ease, their rhythm practiced, familiar. There was no shame between them, no questions.
Ezra watched from the edge. He saw the way they moved, the way the energy passed from one to the next like a silent agreement. It wasn’t performance—it was presence. It was the kind of male belonging he had spent a lifetime watching from the outside.
And now the moment had come.
Jake looked at him—not pushing, just steady. Tara’s eyes met his, inviting but unpressured. Sam didn’t flinch. He just nodded, the smallest gesture that said, You’re allowed to be here.
Ezra stepped forward.
He didn’t know what he was doing—not really. But his body moved like it had remembered something he hadn’t known was lost. He joined them, not for conquest, but for proximity. For permission. For wholeness.
What happened next wasn’t about the act itself—not for him.
It was about being witnessed.
It was about moving through shame without being pushed out. About being held in a space he never thought would welcome him. A space that, for one moment, didn’t ask him to be anything but present.
When it was over, there was no applause. No jokes. Just breathing.
Ezra sank onto the edge of the couch, heart thudding, skin warm. Across from him, Jake met his gaze. No smirk. No distance. Just a look that said, You stayed.
And beside him, Sam nodded once—like he saw the deeper thing that had just happened and had no need to name it.
Ezra stayed in the quiet, part of the circle now.
Not erased. Not exposed.
Just seen.
(Edited version of a chapter from The Grove. Contact me if you’d like to read the full version or story.)
CovenantRoad 
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