Page 151 of Cohesion

They would get through it together, with a little bit of help.

Shit.Bread rolls. “I didn’t. Did you?”

“Nope,” Peyton said. He frowned at a fork, and then shifted it for a knife, studying his display.

Will bit his lip and half shrugged. “No, I forgot. Sorry?”

“Do you want me to go get some?” Jericho asked as he poured the dressing over his potato salad. His and Will’s. Peyton had made a pasta salad with fusilli corkscrew-like pasta and a store-bought dressing. It tasted pretty good. They’d promised not to tell his mum he hadn’t made the dressing himself.

“No. It will be too late by the time you get back. It doesn’t matter; this is more than enough. We could see if Sebastian could message Eli or Charlotte and ask them to bring some out if they aren’t already on their way?”

“Is he still making the bed?” Peyton asked. He finished the table, admired his work, and then turned to face them. “Someone should probably check on him.”

“Make sure the sheets haven’t eaten him,” Will said, nodding.

Sebastian had surprised them all when a delivery had shown up with a custom-made bed big enough for the five of them. Putting it together had required patience and tested their new relationship bonds. Peyton had looked two seconds away from strangling Sebastian after one too many of his “helpful” suggestions.

The instructions had been useless, of course. Eventually they’d managed to do it without spilling any blood. Sebastian’s offer to make it with the sheets and new blankets he’d bought to go with it had been met with them readily agreeing and making a run for it. Even Persephone had followed them out of the room.

“He can’t still be making it?” Jericho said, brows drawing in. “It’s been like forty minutes? Did he need a set of instructions for that too?”

Quinn sighed as he washed and dried his hands. “He better not be working,” he muttered, heading toward the bedroom. If he’d snuck away to answer emails—like he’d promisednotto do—Quinn would be giving him a lecture that would rival his own mother’s.

The creative swearing coming from the bedroom as Quinn got closer didn’t answer his question. Making a bed and working could both elicit that kind of language. Quinn was familiar with both.

He paused in the doorway. Sebastian was on all fours on the giant bed, ass in the air as he positioned himself awkwardly in his attempt to get a fitted sheet on. The sight was both tantalising and highly amusing. “Losing a battle to a sheet?”

Sebastian groaned and flopped face down. “It didn’t accept my terms of surrender.”

“I can see that.”

Sebastian turned to look at Quinn, lost his grip on the sheet, and then got trapped in its snare when it flung back toward him. “Fucking Christ. Q, help me!” he demanded as he tried to get himself out of the death grip the sheet had on him. “Tried” being the operative word. Even Ethel would have washed his mouth out with soap for some of the choice words he had. And she was the Queen of bad language.

Quinn was tempted to simply watch and see how long it took, but the pleading in Sebastian’s blue eyes was too much for him, so he ventured further into the room to help. He lifted it up so that Sebastian could slide off the bed and away from its tenacious jaws of death. “You’re making this way more complicated than it needs to be.”

“Tell that to the sheet!”

Quinn held one end secure while Sebastian went around the other side, and together, they managed to get the sheet on properly. “It would have been easier to put it on if you weren’t sitting on the sheet at the same time,” he couldn’t help but point out. Why had Sebastian beenonit while trying to stretch it out?

“It works just fine when I do it on a normal-sized bed.”

“New tactic needed for this one.”

“Multiple people needed for this one,” Sebastian corrected.

Quinn couldn’t argue with that. It was a very big bed. Next time, all five of them needed to do it together.

The second sheet was easier to sort out as it wasn’t fitted and didn’t try to swallow either of them. “See, that wasn’t so hard.”

“Fuck off.” Sebastian turned his back to Quinn and gathered up the doona and pillows, throwing them haphazardly over the bed.

Quinn tugged him closer and snuggled into his back. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“The bed.”

“You already thanked me.”

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