Page 48 of Seven Lost Summers (Broken Oasis #3)

Quinn

T

he

steam

curls

off

the rim of my mug as I take another slow sip, the bitter taste settling on my tongue, grounding me in the half-light of the morning.

The sky is still black, edges of gray bleeding into the horizon, a faint promise of dawn that hasn’t broken yet.

Around me, the world rests in that rare quiet that only exists at five a.m., when no one else is awake and the air still feels untouched.

The back patio is cool as I pull my legs underneath me, laptop balanced on my thighs. The faint click of the trackpad breaks the quiet as I scroll through yesterday’s work, each frame flickering across the screen.

Xander appears first.

His face fills the shot in a way that demands attention, every sharp line of his jaw cutting clean through the frame.

Always photogenic. He doesn’t have to work for it.

His smile isn’t soft; it’s carved, a weapon he’s mastered.

Even in the unguarded moments, with his head thrown back mid-laugh, lips part mid-lyric, there’s something magnetic. His presence bleeds through the lens.

The next photo is Ace.

He’s caught in motion, arms curved around his guitar, fingers pressing down like the strings are an extension of him.

His head is tilted slightly, jaw tight, eyes shadowed under the fall of his hair.

There’s a challenge in his expression, that quiet, fuck off confidence that says he doesn’t care what you see.

There’s this rawness under all that restraint. A hint of something untamed.

Then I get to them.

Theo.

My stomach twists before the image even appears.

His bass hangs low at his hips, his head bent enough that the light catches in his hair.

That face, quiet, soft in a way most people never notice.

Most see only Nate, all fire and chaos. But I see him.

I always have. There’s a gentleness in his eyes when he’s lost in the music, something so fucking pure it hurts to stare at for too long.

As if the camera has caught something it shouldn’t have.

And now Nate.

Sweat slicks his temples, strands of hair clinging to his forehead.

His mouth is open mid-curse or mid-laugh, impossible to tell because with him it’s always both at once.

He’s wild in the frame, pure kinetic energy captured in a single shot.

His hands blur over the drums, muscles in his forearms tight, veins standing out under the skin.

There’s fire in him, caught mid-motion, and he looks alive. He looks… free.

Free in a way I haven’t known for years.

I swallow hard and swipe to the next photo.

Another one follows, and my chest tightens with every frame, a sharp ache blooming under my ribs until it’s hard to drag in air.

Because staring at them now isn’t only looking at photos.

It’s falling back into that moment—Theo’s hands on my body, the way his touch burned through my skin.

Nate’s breath at my neck, every exhale branding me.

Every shot on the screen drags me deeper into it.

The weight of them against me. The filthy words that slipped past their lips, curling into my bones. They tore me apart without hesitation, stripping me down until I wasn’t Quinn anymore. Until I was nothing but sound and sensation. Until I was theirs.

And those wings.

I close my eyes, but it doesn’t save me.

The memory hits anyway, pulling me under.

My hand on Theo’s chest, fingers brushing over the ink, tracing the sharp curve of feathers etched into his skin.

The way his breath hitched under my touch, that tiny shudder breaking through the wall he always carries.

For a second, he wasn’t Theo the smartass; he was himself.

Raw. Open. After that, the weight of it crushed me.

Those wings. They aren’t only ink. They are everything he can’t bring himself to say out loud.

Every piece of his heart carved into his skin for a girl he will love for the rest of his life.

A love that runs so deep it bleeds through every line of that tattoo, every feather etched over his chest. It’s devotion turned permanent, a promise he can never break, not even if he wanted to.

When my fingers lingered there, when he leaned into that touch for a single heartbeat, the guilt burned so deep it closed my throat and stole the air from my lungs. I knew every stroke of my fingers was trespassing on something sacred.

The mug rattles against the table when I set it down, coffee licking the edge, threatening to spill.

My fingers won’t stay steady. My chest feels caged, every breath caught halfway like my lungs forgot how to work.

I don’t know if it’s the chill of the morning or the weight of what’s sitting in my gut, pressing hard.

If Bianca were here, they wouldn’t just be off limits. They’d be untouchable. A line burned into the ground that no one with a soul would ever cross.

I go to the next photo, and Nate fills the frame. Sweat still at his temple, mouth caught mid-grin, wild and alive and every fucking thing I shouldn’t be staring at.

The photos burn, each one a blade twisting deeper. And I hear it in my head before the words even leave my lips.

“What the fuck am I doing?”

The door creaks behind me. I don’t have to turn around to know who it is.

Cedar. Memories flood back, rushing in all at once. That earthy scent, clinging to his skin, soaked into those damn leather bracelets that never left his wrists.

Back in high school, it was the first thing I noticed about him.

I remember how I used to inhale it when he walked by, or when he stopped to give me those shitty lines.

He never knew he had a way of making my heart do that stupid flutter it never stopped doing.

I used to tell myself it was nothing, a scent in the air.

But shit, I’ve always liked it. And even now, all these years later, it drags me right back to those days.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Nate’s voice is rough with sleep, low enough that it scrapes over my skin and settles somewhere deep.

I shake my head, eyes still on the screen. “Too early to call it sleep when I never closed my eyes.”

He steps into my periphery. Bare chest, Bianca tattoo right over his heart, sweatpants hanging low on his hips, hair sticking up in every direction. My pulse kicks up in my throat, remembering the press of his body against mine, his cock hard and hot, his voice whispering in my ear.

Theo follows a second later.

His presence hits me in the chest the way it always does. That soft gravity he carries without meaning to. Those angel wings out on display. His gaze drops to the laptop, and I slam it shut too fast.

“Morning,” he says.

I force a smile, reaching for the mug even though my hand is trembling. “Morning.”

They settle around me, one on each side, as they sit.

The guilt twists tight in my gut as my skin remembers every fucking thing from last night. Their hands. Their mouths. The way they broke me open and put me back together in the span of a perfect hour.

I sip the coffee to give my hands something to do. The bitter heat hits my tongue, but it doesn’t drown out the ache slowly crawling under my ribs.

Theo leans forward, his arm brushing mine, and the warmth of him floods my skin.

“You okay?” he murmurs.

I nod too fast. “Yeah. Just tired.”

Nate chuckles. “Tired’s one word for it.”

The memory flashes hard.

His voice low in my ear, the weight of him behind me, Theo’s hands holding me open. I stare at the smudges of purple blooming against his skin, proof of where my mouth had been, where I lost myself.

I should look away, but I don’t.

The air turns heavy with so many unspoken things, and I wonder if he’s thinking about how tracing that tattoo gave me a meltdown.

After a beat, he stands.

“You want a coffee?” he asks Nate, his voice too casual, as if he’s trying to mask whatever this thing is between us.

“Yeah,” Nate replies beside me.

“Quinn, you want a refill?” Theo asks, turning to me.

I shake my head quickly, holding the mug in my palms like it’s keeping me grounded. “Nah, I’m good.”

Theo heads inside. The door clicks shut, and the second it does, the air changes. Heaviness settles between Nate and me.

He doesn’t say anything at first, only watches. After a moment, he leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

“You don’t seem yourself,” he says. “Did you… fuck, did you regret what we did?”

“No,” I say too quickly. After that, softer, shaking my head. “Fuck no.”

Nate’s eyes soften. “So what is it?” he asks.

The words scrape up but die before they reach air.

How the fuck do I tell him that running my fingers over Theo’s tattoo last night was betrayal bleeding under my skin?

That back in those days, I wanted something with him for as long as I can remember, only Bianca got there first. That every time I shoved him back, every time I cut him down with a grin, it was me begging for more.

I know what last night was for them. Nothing more than a good time. The kind of thing two rockstars can get whenever they want.

Nate lifts his hand, brushing his knuckles softly against my jaw. That one gentle touch fucks me more than anything from last night.

“Theo told me you walked out of the room after we fucked.”

I open my mouth, ready to shove the words past the knot in my throat, but the sharp creak of the door swinging open kills it instantly.

Theo returns with two steaming mugs in hand, and I see he is now wearing a shirt. He sets a mug in front of Nate and sits back down.

I grip my mug tighter, hiding in the motion of taking a sip, praying they can’t see the storm still raging under my skin.

Theo nods toward my laptop on the table. “Have you been working on those photos?”

“Yeah,” I answer, clearing my throat. “Kit messaged. She wants to see some of them today.”

“You should be fine,” Nate says after a beat. His chin tips toward the closed laptop. “From what you showed me yesterday, they’re pretty good, Q.”