Page 63 of Seven Lost Summers (Broken Oasis #3)

Theo

T

he

house

is

too

fucking quiet for how loud everything inside me is.

Every tick of the clock slams like a hammer to the skull. Even the distant hum from the fridge cuts too sharp, too clean, in a world that’s supposed to stay messy.

Sunlight filters through the slats of the blinds, breaking into long, gold bars across the floor.

It’s warm, delicate, beautiful in a way that almost makes me want to tear the blinds down. Because nothing about me is delicate right now. Nothing is fucking beautiful.

There’s a faint trace of her perfume that’s somehow still here, three days later. Or perhaps that’s just in my head. I don’t even trust my senses anymore.

My heart’s a fucking wrecking ball, smashing against my ribs like it’s trying to tear its way out.

Every beat is a reminder that I can’t stay in this house another second without losing it.

Quinn’s everywhere in here. The air tastes like her, the walls hum with her voice, and I can’t breathe without feeling her fingerprints on my skin.

I need out.

I need to move before I drown in it. I have to find someone to talk to. Or sink into the couch with Alex and let an animal documentary pull me under until the noise in my head thins to nothing.

The front door shuts behind me with a click.

The sky is too goddamn blue for the way I feel. It digs at me, makes me want to spit at it for daring to look perfect when everything in me is a fucking storm.

I head to Xander’s.

Not because he’ll fix it. Fuck no. He’s the only one who’ll let me fall apart without trying to clean it up. The only one who won’t flinch when I tell him the noise in my head is louder than anything else. That’s always been his way.

Nate isn’t an option. Not for this. Not with Quinn between us like a fucking shadow neither of us can shake. He’s bleeding out the same as me, but he’s gone quiet, pulled so far in that the air between us has turned cold. If we keep drifting this way, I’ll lose him.

I can’t even name what we are anymore. It’s not simple.

He’s been there my whole damn life. My anchor.

My constant. The one person I never had to doubt.

Now everything’s shifted. It lives in the way his eyes find mine and hold there, in the silence that stretches too far, in the way my chest aches when I think about the lines we’ve already crossed.

And if losing him is the price for whatever the hell this is now…

I won’t survive.

I move up Xander’s driveway too fast, chest tight, breath ragged as though I’ve been running for miles. I take the porch steps two at a time, and shove the door open and step inside, a man on a mission.

Alex’s squeal cuts through from the back patio.

I head for the window. Xander’s out there floating on the water, stretched out like some retired rock god on a spa day, head tilted back, sunglasses catching the light.

I watch Alex, as the kid launches himself off the ledge, backflips and splashes, pure dolphin-on-crack energy. Every jump sends another wave crashing toward Xander, who doesn’t even flinch, until the next one soaks him completely.

That’s when he’s up, grinning, and in two strokes he’s catching Alex mid-laugh.

He dunks him under, the kid’s muffled yells bubbling through the water.

When they both resurface, they laugh. Alex says something, and Xander answers with a lazy grin, sending a playful splash his way.

Alex fires back, the water exploding between them until they’re both laughing harder, their voices carrying out across the pool.

They’re loud.

They’re happy.

The air outside is all sunlight and unbroken days. I’m glad he has this — that broken guy I met all those years ago, finally content with life.

I scan for Poppy.

I expect her curled in a deck chair with a book or whatever the fuck that glorified Etch A Sketch thing she reads on is called. Or sitting in the water on the pool steps, smiling, watching the way she always does when Xander and Alex are in their own little world.

But she’s not there.

I move further into the house, and that’s when I see her.

Poppy.

Sprawled on the couch like a pregnant queen who’s been ruling the kingdom of cushions since sunrise.

Legs kicked out, one hand on her belly like she’s guarding a treasure, the other dangling off the armrest like she fell asleep mid-thought.

Her long blonde hair’s a glorious, knotted mess that says she either just woke up or fought off an intruder with her bare hands.

“You asleep,” I ask, “or marinating in your own ass air and calling it aromatherapy?”

One eye cracks open. “I was asleep, asshole.”

“Could’ve fooled me. It kinda had that angry goose in a wind tunnel vibe.”

“I don’t snore.”

I lean against the doorway, grinning. “Tell that to the fucking moose you scared off.”

“Fuck off. This coming from a man who sounds like a cat coughing up a hairball when he laughs.”

I grin. There she is. That smart-mouthed girl who never let Xander get away with shit, and who sure as hell isn’t letting me.

I drop onto the end of the couch and haul her legs into my lap like she’s some entitled queen who’s summoned her footman. She lets out a long, guttural groan when my thumbs dig into her arches.

Her head falls back like she’s about to ascend into the afterlife, all that blonde hair spilling over the cushions. “Oh my god. Marry me.”

I huff out a laugh, rolling my eyes as I dig a little deeper. “You only say that because I’m touching your plantar kink.”

Her foot twitches, but she doesn’t pull away. “Gross,” she mutters. “Don’t say plantar kink like it turns you on.”

I smirk. “Bit late for that. You moaned like I just proposed with a ring and a foot rub.”

She kicks at me half-heartedly. “Shut up and keep going. I’ll sign the prenup later.”

I slow it down, thumbs pressing deeper into her pressure points, working them in lazy, deliberate circles. “Pretty sure lover boy might have a problem with you coming onto me, Spitfire.”

One eye cracks open. “Please. You think he’s scared of a guy who once pulled a hamstring sneezing?”

I glare. “That was one time.”

She opens both eyes and smirks. “And yet somehow, it still lives in my head rent-free.”

The look lingers for a beat, and then her smile fades. “What’s going on, Theo?”

That’s the thing about Spitfire; she’s always been able to slice straight through my bullshit, slip past the grin, and land right in the crack beneath it all.

“Nothing.” I work my thumbs into her heel with deliberate focus, hoping the pressure there might be enough to steer her away from the truth.

“Theo.” Her tone softens, carrying that edge that’s always made it impossible for me to hide from her. “Is this about Quinn? I know you love her. I can see it.”

She sees everything. Which is why the words come out before I can stop them, words I have never let out for anyone else.

“I do love her, Spitfire,” I whisper.

Her eyes stay on mine.

“I love her, and I hate it,” I tell her, my voice fraying until it sounds foreign in my own ears. “Because the last time I felt something this big… this real… we buried her.”

Her gaze does not falter. She waits, peeling me apart without touching me.

“I keep thinking that if I give myself over to this, the universe will notice. It will take her the way it took Bianca. I walked through years where every heartbeat was a punishment. I can’t do that again.”

“The universe isn’t some sick fuck playing Russian roulette with your heart,” she says.

“Says who?”

“Me. The all-knowing, hormone-fueled goddess currently growing a human and putting up with your shit.” Her mouth curves with that smug little dare-me-to-disagree smile.

I let the quiet sit between us.

“Can I ask how Bianca died?” Poppy’s voice is softer now.

I swallow, the words etched into my brain from reading them so many times on the same fucking Google page, trying to understand how she could be here one minute and gone the next.

“Brain aneurysm rupture. Massive internal brain haemorrhage. She was unresponsive by the time Quinn called for help, and the paramedics couldn’t save her.”

She doesn’t speak.

I keep my focus on rubbing her feet so she won’t see the tears threatening to spill.

“That’s why it seems like… if I go there, something could happen to Quinn.”

“Loving Quinn doesn’t curse her, Theo. And not loving her sure as shit won’t protect her. That’s not how life works. It’s messy and brutal and unfair, but it isn’t some cosmic punishment with your name written on it.”

I swallow, the words scraping on the way out. “Yeah, but if something happened to her—”

She cuts in before I can finish. “Then it happens. And it’ll wreck you. But I’ll be here. Nate will be with you. Xander, Alex, Ace, Scarlet… every single person who gives a shit about you will help carry the pieces. You don’t get to pre-grieve someone who’s still here.”

I open my mouth to argue, but she gives me that look, the one that could shut up a stadium.

“I haven’t lived what you’ve lived, Theo.

I can’t pretend to know how that loss carved you out.

But I know this… if someone told me tomorrow that I only had a year with Xander, I’d still choose him.

Every time. No hesitation. I’d take that year, burn it bright, and hold on until the last second, because nothing could stop me from loving him or being with him.

Those five years without him were hell. I’ll never live like that again.

Love is worth it, Theo, even if the clock’s already ticking.

Because the alternative… A life too scared to love at all. That’s not living. That’s hiding.”

And fuck, she’s right. She always is. I watch her, this Spitfire who can lace a truth bomb with sass so sharp it leaves shrapnel.

“You’re a pain in the ass when you’re right,” I mutter.

Her mouth curves, eyes warm in that way that slips past every defense. “And you’re my favorite idiot, so quit sulking.”

Her words drag a smile out of me.

Xander and Alex’s voices carry down the hall.