Page 33

SEBASTIAN

“ O kay,” Olivia says, eyeing the bags of groceries I had delivered like they might bite her. “So what did you actually buy?”

“Don’t look so suspicious.”

“I said ‘whatever’s easy,’ not the entire produce section,” she chuckles, pulling out handfuls of tomatoes like she’s fishing for contraband.

“Pasta felt safe. Googled it, ordered whatever didn’t look like it’d kill us.”

She snorts, tugging an onion from the bag like it personally offends her. “You ordered shallots?”

“Seemed fancy. Thought I’d get bonus points.”

She shoots me a look over her shoulder, hair falling loose near her cheek. Her mouth twitches like she’s trying not to smile. I catch myself staring—at the curve of her jaw, the way her sleeves are shoved to her elbows, how she moves like she belongs in this space already.

She pulls something else from the bag and holds it up like evidence.“Do you even know what this is?"

It’s green. Spiky. Swirled like some kind of cursed broccoli-pinecone hybrid.

“No fucking clue,” I mutter. “Probably clicked it by accident while trying not to think about how much I want to kiss you.”

Her laugh catches me off guard.

Hits low. Sharp. Like my body remembers a kind of joy my head still doesn’t trust.

“Is it even edible?”

I scroll through my order. “Romanesco,” I mutter. “Which is either a vegetable or a villain from a Bond movie.”

She laughs again—quieter this time—and I let myself watch her. Just for a second. The slope of her neck. The freckles along her collarbone. The way she lifts one brow like she knows she’s got me a little off-balance and she’s not even sorry.

“Must’ve clicked it by mistake.”

She sets the alien vegetable on the counter with dramatic caution. “Do we cook it? Sacrifice something to it? Or just set it on the counter and hope it doesn’t hatch?”

I curl an arm around her waist and tug her in—slow, deliberate. She doesn’t resist. Just tips her chin up like she’s been waiting for this all night.

She smirks up at me, but there’s color in her cheeks now. “Next time, just buy jarred sauce.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

I brush my lips against hers.Nothing rushed. Just the kind that says I’d rather be here than anywhere else.

When I pull back, I don’t let go.

“I like having you here.”

And it’s the damn truth.

Which is a problem. Because nothing this good ever stays.

For a second, we just stand there. Her pressed against me, my hand at the small of her back, her breath warming the space between us. It’s easy. Too easy. And I’m not used to easy.

She pulls back just slightly, eyes still soft, mouth twitching like she’s fighting a smile.

“I should’ve just brought over frozen pizza".

“Too late. We’re committed. I’m already emotionally attached to these shallots,” I say, grabbing the onions.

She lets out a sigh of resignation, but there’s no real weight behind it.

I hand her a cutting board and a chef’s knife—still in the packaging, which earns me another amused glance.

We get halfway into the recipe, if you can call it that, before things start to unravel.

The garlic burns. She drops a spoon in the boiling water, yells “Shit!” and I fish it out like an idiot, nearly burning my hand.She gets sauce on her shirt. I get onion juice in my eye. She tells me I’m banned from seasoning anything ever again.

But we’re laughing.

Real, chest-deep laughter that makes me forget how fucked up I usually feel in my own space.

She makes this place feel different. Less like a bunker. More like… something close to a home.

Her. Here. It feels right.

“This is really terrible,” she says, pulling the spoon from her mouth with a grimace. “Like, impressively bad.”

“Can’t be that bad.”

She holds the spoon out, challenge in her eyes. “Taste it.”

I do. Immediately regret it.

It’s somehow both bitter and too sweet.I cough once. Swallow. Try to play it cool.

She watches me, arms crossed, smug as hell. “Well?”

I force a swallow. “Bold flavor profile.”

“You mean boldly disgusting. Do you concede?”

I lean in, crowding her just a little, grinning like I’m not the least bit ashamed. “To what?”

“That you are not a chef.”

My hand finds the counter behind her, bracketing her in without really meaning to.

“I never said I was,” I murmur. “I said I could follow instructions. Turns out that’s debatable.”

She bites her lip, trying not to laugh, but I can see it, feel it, in the way her shoulders shake just slightly. Her eyes flick up to mine.

“Next time? Frozen pizza,” she says, grinning up at me.

I don’t grin back.

Can’t—not when it feels like something’s cracking wide open in my chest. Like I’ve been holding this breath for too long, and she’s the only one who ever made me forget I was suffocating.

I lift a hand. Brush her hair back slow. Thumb grazing her jaw, then her cheekbone. I don’t mean to be gentle—but fuck, I am.

Like my body knows what it’s holding. What it could lose.

She stills.

My fingers trail lower, curl around the side of her neck. And then—God help me—I drag my thumb across her bottom lip.

She exhales. Soft. Shaky. Like the air just turned thin.

And that sound—barely there, but wrecking—goes straight to the part of me that doesn’t let anyone in. The part that’s been locked up so long I forgot how to open it.

But she’s already inside.

And I don’t want to run from it.

“You mess me up,” I murmur, voice low, rough. Not planned. Just scraped out of me like truth.

Her lashes flick up. Her mouth parts, like she might say something.

But she doesn’t.

Just stands there, eyes on mine, like this— us —might matter more than either of us is ready for.

And maybe I don’t get to keep things like this.

But hell if I’m not going to fight like I do.