Page 82 of Lucy and Her Wicked Three

"I don't speak Spanish, as you know, but that sounded a bit sarcastic, mister."

"Whatever you say, my heart." He smirks, and this playful side of Mateo takes my breath away.

Wrapping an arm around my waist, he follows my lead as we all make our way out of the restaurant.

"Bye Mateo," Cara waves, her tight blonde curls bouncing as she turns away.

"Bye Cara!" I call out, since she only said goodbye to Mateo. She doesn't turn back, making Portia snort. We part ways and I curl into Mateo's embrace as we walk back down the sidewalk.

"So, what's the special occasion?"

"No special occasion. I just wanted to spend time with you."

I stop abruptly. "Mateo? Honey, are you okay?" I put the back of my palm against his forehead. Unamused, he grips my wrist, pulling both behind my back. Doesn't matter that we're on the sidewalk and in public. My pussy clenches at the way he so aggressively restrains my limbs.

"Very funny. Now, are you going to be a brat or just accept the nice gesture?"

I narrow my eyes. "Let me think about it."

He chuckles, releasing me and we keep walking.

"Seriously though."

"Seriously… I just realized you might go back to work in a week and we were both so busy before… I let things pile up between us. I don't want that to happen again. I refuse to lose you again."

"That won't happen. We were different then."

"It was two months ago."

"You don't think I've changed? Or that you have? I feel like all three of you have changed since we've been together."

He seems to think about it before acquiescing. "Alright, that's fair. Maybe we've changed. But I don't want to go backward."

"We won't."

He stops in the middle of the sidewalk. It's sunny and bright. People move all around us. We get clipped by shopping bags and business types and little kids clutching their parents hands. We stand there in the middle of it all, but it might as well be just us two, the way everything around us falls away. Mateo's hands clasp my face, and he leans down, forehead pressing to mine.

"Promise me,mi corazón. Promise me we'll never go back to that, that you'll never leave me. Promise me we'll always be together."

"I promise. From the bottom of my heart, I swear it. We'll never go back. Only forward."

He kisses the tip of my nose. "Only forward."

Chapter 28

Noah

Lucy and I work around each other like a perfect symphony. Mateo's at work and Silas had to go to repair one of his laptops, since it wasn't loading well. His graphics programs on his computer eat up a lot of space, and need way more computing power than mine, so his gear ends up needing repairs and to be replaced twice as fast.

I feel guilty because I know he's annoyed he's back at the computer store for the second time this month, but it's nice to have Lucy all to myself. We've said all we can say about her work, talked through every scenario and possibility, and at this point, she just needs to decide for herself what's best for her. We'll support her either way.

It would be nice, however, if she told us which way she's leaning. But she stopped talking about it after brunch with her friends yesterday, and I don't want to keep pushing.

So, instead of talking about work, I took the afternoon off, and together, we're learning how to make bread. We'd taken up cooking together early into the relationship. We all share dinner responsibilities, but Lucy and I play around with elaborate recipes together and it gives us time to spend with each other that I don't get when it's the four of us.

Plus, we work well together. I surprised her with this hundred-year-old sourdough starter, and if I didn't alreadyknow she's the girl of my dreams, she squealed in excitement and immediately ran out to a bookstore to buy three books on bread making, and I knew she was just… it. Infectious joy over tiny little things, over-the-top sweet and full of life. I love her.

We've been kneading for the last ten minutes, our fingers finally less sticky with dough. For some reason the feeling of the sticky dough between my fingers makes me shudder. It's a sensory thing, but it was too late by the time I realized it, I was already knuckle deep in starter. Lucy graciously promised to do this part in the future, but as much as I didn't like kneading, it was nice to do something monotonous. Writing lines of code, spending hours on the computer, in front of screens, makes my eyes burn and my brain overload, so the break is necessary.

---