Page 34 of The Coffee Shop

Both of them can.

When our lips part, I find Luke waiting for me. I kiss him again, long and slow as Sebastian’s kisses my neck, their strong arms holding me tighter against them.

After several long, wonderful minutes, I find myself falling onto the mattress between them. Arms and legs and breaths intertwine.

I stare at the ceiling, wonderinghow will I ever be able to let them go?

Chapter Sixteen

SEBASTIAN

The room was fucking hot as hell, so after cleaning up, the three of us are on the porch swing on the back deck.

Leena is curled up between Luke and I wrapped in a blanket, having already fallen asleep. Her legs are draped across my lap with my hand on her calf, her head resting in Luke’s. He gently runs his fingers through her long hair and I find myself watching the casual motion, wondering when in the fuck we let this go so far.

The night air is cool against my bare chest and I feel myself actuallyrelaxing.I don’t know what it is, but being here, with Luke and Leena, has given me a sort of… I don’t know,peaceI guess is what you would call it. It’s fucking strange as shit and I don’t like it.

But I can’t stop thinking about how unsettled I was when I was away from them. How much I needed to be back here.

How it felt to finally have Leena’s lips on mine.

“I take it they didn’t find anything?” Luke says quietly enough so he won’t wake her.

“Nope. Three more days and we’ll check in again,” I say, trying not to sound happy about that. We’re quietfor several minutes, listening to the sound of cicadas humming through the trees.

“Have you been thinking about what Leena said?” He asks.

“About what?”

“That comment about…us,” he says.

“Oh.That,”I furrow my eyebrows because fuck yes I’ve been thinking about it. We’ve gotten those comments in the past and it’s never bothered me before, so why does it this time?

“Can you picture us…” he says slowly, not even looking at me, which is fine, I’m not looking at him either.

“No,” I say firmly, because that much I do know.

“Me either,” he says and he almost sounds… regretful. Like that would fix all our problems. “But can you picture…” he takes a deep breath, “can you picture being in a relationship without me?”

I think about that for a moment. When our eyes meet, we study each other. I know everything about this man, every line of his face, every emotion that he wears on it. I know what he’s about to do before he does is, can sense when he’s upset with a single glance. And yet, I feel like this is the first time I’ve ever seen him.

I take a deep breath before answering, my eyes never leaving his. When I do, my voice is gruff, barely a whisper.

“No, Lu. I can’t.”

—

I crack another egg straight into the pan, then stab it with my spatula. I woke up early, having barely slept anyway, and knew that there was no going back to sleep with everything on my mind.

So I’m making breakfast.

I don’t know how to make breakfast.

This is the type of shit Luke always does. Because as much as I have argued the point,hedoesn’t consider cereal as breakfast.

I should have just woken them up, let one of them do this, but they both looked so comfortable all wrapped up in each other.

So here I am, standing in the kitchen and wearing a goddamn apron with a picture of a fucking rooster on it.

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