Page 8 of Yours to Break

“I’m having lunch at a coffee shop nearby if you’d like to join,” he said over his shoulder. He strutted down the hallway towards the reception area. As he walked past the front counter, he smiled kindly at his receptionist, letting her know he was leaving for lunch.

As we left through the front door, he looked back at us in question. Hudson and I looked at each other briefly.

“We’ll come. Are we walking there or driving?” I questioned, looking towards the moderately busy road.

* * *

I looked up to read the large sign above the cafe’s entrance: Wild Roast. I already didn’t like the name, but I could use some caffeine.

Greyson stopped with his hand firmly on the entrance door’s handle; he turned his body slightly back towards up, a serious look darkening his face. “You will not talk to or touch the boy with red hair,” he hissed under his breath.

“Okay,” Hudson and I agreed in unison. It looked like we were about to meet our brother’s current obsession. Greyson frequently became hyper-fixated on different things: scientific theories, animals, learning a new skill, etc. He’d never been obsessed with a person.

I felt it was interesting that he brought us to his precious toy, as he was obviously concerned about us taking it from him. Maybe the need to show off his new possession overrode that fear.

We strode to the counter to order, but my focus wasn’t on coffee. It was hard to ignore the beacon of red hair across the room. From where we were standing, only the back of the redheaded boy was visible; he wore a loose pastel sweater that hung off one slim, freckled shoulder. I glanced at Greyson; his eyes held more desire than I had ever known he was capable of possessing.

Greyson said, never moving his gaze from his target, “Get me a cappuccino to go.”

When I looked again towards the table, I was more than interested to see that the redhead had twisted around in his chair; the same burning desire reflected back towards my brother.

Hudson nudged my arm lightly with his shoulder. “Look at the other one.” I’d been too focused on discovering who could possibly have Greyson so transfixed.

Across the small table from the redhead was another guy; he resembled a tiny field mouse. Greyson’s boy was already quite small, but actually looked normal-sized compared to the mouse. His messy brown hair obscured most of his forehead, curling around his ears. Large chocolate eyes sat behind delicate wire-framed glasses. Unlike his freckled counterpart, his ivory skin was a blank canvas.

I leaned into Hudson to whisper, “He seems very breakable.”

A glint appeared in my twin’s eye.

“Want to find out?”

“Yeah. I think I do.”

5

Oliver

Lane sighed, “Well… I haven’t reported it. And can you just zip it with the judgment? I know it’s probably a colossally stupid choice in the event that the person ends up hurting me, but I just don’t want to deal with the police on top of everything else.”

Behind him, the cafe door opened, bringing in three beautiful men. My eyes skittered around to see if there were cameras that I’d missed; the men looked as if they could be actors. Hm, no cameras.

“I get it, Lane, but yeah, I think it’s a stupid decision.” I sucked in a breath. I couldn’t help but be distracted by the newcomers. “Sorry, butJesus. Try to be casual, but look at the total hotties that just walked in–Damn.”

“Great attention span, Oliver,” Lane teased, a laugh bubbling out of him. He twisted in his chair, not being sneaky at all like I’d hoped. He must have made eye contact with them as the shorter of the men, although he was still much taller than both of us, began walking towards us with purpose in his step.

“Lane! Lane! Why is he coming over here? Oh my god, he’s going to hate-crime us because we were checking him out. I’m too young to die, Lane!” I sputtered. Maybe I was being dramatic, but you couldn’t trust anyone these days.

I was more than used to bigotry.

Lane seemingly ignored my panicked babbling, so I reached across our table to shake his shoulder as the man drew nearer.

Even with a friendly and welcoming smile on his face, the man immediately made me uncomfortable. I swallowed my fear, making sure to breathe as he stopped and towered over us.

“Mr. Bennett! Such a coincidence seeing you here! My brothers and I just stopped in for a quick breakfast.” The large, imposing man gestured to the tall blondes still standing near the counter, who now seemed honed in on our table. I shivered as I made eye contact with one of them.

Something in my gut told me that all three of them were dangerous. I was about to get up and leave, but I caught the look on Lane’s face. His eyes gleamed as he looked up adoringly at the man. When the man’s eyes were on Lane, they were soft, but his gaze hardened when he turned to look at me. He roughly asked, “And this is?”

My chest felt like it was closing in.

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