Page 22 of My Three Hometown Firefighters (Aspen Springs #2)

CHAPTER TWENTY

Sienna

NOVEMBER

Hadley’s sheepish face appears in my office doorway. I can only guess at why she looks that way, but I play my part.

“Hey. Do you need something?”

“Can we chat for a minute?” she asks. She genuinely looks nervous, which is something I have rarely seen from her.

I move my hands off my keyboard. “Sure. Have a seat.”

I breathe a sigh of relief when she sits on the opposite chair from the one Warren fucked me on a handful of weeks ago.

Maybe I need to get new chairs in here.

“So, I’m just going to say it,” she starts. “I need to quit.”

I give her a small smile. “I figured.”

Her expression turns to surprise. “What do you mean?”

“When your three men came to me about adopting Cash, I had some questions. I wasn’t about to let them have him if you weren’t in their long-term picture.”

Her eyes soften.

“I may know bits and pieces of everything, but I want to hear your version of the story,” I tell her.

It takes her half an hour and a mix of laughter and tears for her to tell me everything. She explains how the guys turned a small house in town into a studio for her to start her own photography business out of.

How they reworked their house so she would feel comfortable living there. How they got her a brand-new, massive bed where they could all sleep together.

My mind wanders to the night I spent with all three of m y guys. A bigger bed would have been nice.

There I go calling them mine again.

She really starts to cry when she talks about the future she wants to build with all her men and Evelyn. The love she has for all of them is more than apparent.

She wipes her tears away from her face. “I still want to come in and volunteer when I can, but I need to focus on starting my business,” she says.

I stand from my seat and round the desk. She’s already on her feet, so it’s easy to wrap my arms around her.

I find myself getting teary-eyed when I say, “I’m so happy for you, Hads.” I pull back so I can look her in the eye. “I’m going to miss you around here, though, so you’d better make some time in that future of yours for me. “

She laughs through more tears as she pulls me back in for another hug.

“Of course there will be time for you. You’re probably going to get annoyed with me being around all the time. I’m sure I’ll have a lot to vent about. Living with three men is bound to get to me at some point.”

I’m hit with the biggest urge to tell her about the three men in my life right now. Not only might that be strange because one of them is her brother, but I also don’t quite know what we are.

I know we all agreed to a friends-with-benefits situation, but after the few days when they nursed me back to health, something shifted.

That night, a few weeks ago, when we all had sex and slept in the same bed, I felt more connected to them than I ever have with anyone else.

What Hadley has with her men is vastly different than what I have with “mine.” She has a future with them, and I truly believe they will be together forever.

Her guys were a family before she came into the picture, and she fit in as the missing puzzle piece.

Tucker, Grayson, and Warren are three different puzzle pieces to three different puzzles. They will never come together to make the same picture.

The realization hurts a lot more than I thought it would. My feelings for these men have developed far more than they should have.

I need to focus on the fun side of things with them and not the way my heart is rapidly filling with emotion whenever they cross my mind.

Hadley shakes my shoulders. “Are you okay?”

I guess I zoned out for longer than I thought.

“Yeah, my stomach just doesn’t feel great,” I tell her, which isn’t a lie.

I haven’t felt great all morning, and the thought of food just makes it worse. I probably should go get something, though.

“Are you getting sick again?” Hadley asks, holding her hand to my forehead.

“No, I just need to eat. I didn’t eat breakfast.”

“Want to go grab some lunch?”

I nod and move to grab my purse. I don’t know if I’ll be able to eat much, but I’ll try.