Page 115 of Unforgettable

For a moment, I thought Josh was going to vomit, but then he said, “Yeah, then I’d bet his left nut, too.”

“You’re not supposed to—” Reed tried to argue, but I cut him off.

“Seriously? Stop bickering. CJ does notwantme. He’s a nice guy, and he’s always looked out for me since I moved here. So, don’t go all caveman on him.”

Reed stepped forward and cupped my face in both his hands. His hair was mussed from sleep, the dark-brown strands pointing in several directions and flopping over his forehead—a sign that he’d slept hard. Actually, we’d all slept hard the night before. Lots of sex would do that to a person.

“He’s playing the long game—weaseling his way into your life with the intention of sticking around,” he said, his thumb brushing over my cheek. “And we just got you, babe. We finally have you, so you’re going to have to put up with some caveman behavior.”

There was a moment when I thought my heart stopped beating altogether, but it quickly recovered and instead began pounding in my chest.

I knew Reed wasn’t kidding—it was written all over his face how serious he was—but it all felt surreal. In the years I fought the pull to both of them, I never imagined it would end up that way. His collective “we” was purposeful.

Over Reed’s shoulder, I glanced at Josh, who’d taken a step closer to us. The same conviction I saw on Reed’s face was also in Josh’s expression, except one side of his lips was tugging up in a smile. It was a small smug little grin like he knew I would never say no to them.

All at once, relief and concern washed over me. Relief that we’d finally gotten there. That there was no longer a decision to be made, no longer two men vying for a hold of my heart. There was no longer the possibility of making the wrong decision or refusing to make a decision at all. The weight of it all had dissipated.

But with that sweet relief came all new challenges.

“We should probably talk about all of this,” I said softly with a small smile. Reed reluctantly dropped his hands and I headed into the kitchen. “Since you’ve both just proclaimed that you are my boyfriends before I’ve even had my…” I trailed off, stopping in the middle of the kitchen and staring at my coffee maker. “Ugh! Are you kidding me?”

Like a child throwing a tantrum, I stomped my feet and fisted my hands. “I can’t even make coffee, can I? This is the worst.”

“Look in the fridge,” Josh said with a smug grin. I eyed him warily but looked anyway. And just when I thought all hope was lost, I spotted a container of cold brew coffee on the top shelf.

I contained my squeal and grabbed the drink along with a glass from the cabinet.

“Anybody else want some?”

They both shook their heads but began moving around the kitchen, grabbing things from the pantry.

“What’s really unfortunate,” Reed said, opening a box of healthy granola cereal and pushing the other toward Josh. “Is that you have an electric stove, so we won’t be cooking anything while the power’s out.”

“I looked it up a second ago, and it looks like the energy company is expecting it to be out for at least another couple hours. But it could be up to twenty-four hours without power.”

Slowly I sipped my iced coffee, which wasn’t doing anything to help how cold I was and peered out the window. The snow was still steadily falling, but you could at least see the parking lot beyond, unlike the night before. Anything that wasn’t covered in snow was covered in ice—the plants, the cars, the street. Never in my life had I seen so much ice in southern Texas.

Without the infrastructure to prepare for the weather, we were stuck. They didn’t salt the roads or have snowplows. The best we could do was hunker down and try not to fucking freeze.

“This is going to be miserable,” I murmured more to myself than anyone else, but Reed heard me.

“I think we can find a few ways to pass the time and keep each other warm,” he said with a wink.

He slid a bowl of cereal in front of me—the sugary kind Josh was also eating, not his healthy shit—and said something about drinking the milk before it went bad in the fridge.

Silently we ate our breakfast and watched the snow fall outside the window. At the island, I sat at the barstool between them and appreciated that neither of them broached the topic ofusuntil after my bowl was empty and at least half of my coffee was gone.

I stood and took all three of our bowls to the sink, placing them there to worry about later.

Leaning against the counter, I crossed my arms in front of me and peered over at them. They were both still seated at the island. Josh had his elbows braced on the counter, his fingers interlaced and propping up his head, while Reed was reclined back on his barstool with his arms crossed over his chest.

They both stared at me expectantly.

“Why are you both looking at me like that?”

“Like what?” Reed asked.

“Like you’re expecting me to start.”

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