Page 48 of The Call of Azure (Unexpected Love #3)

I really, really, really wish I had installed a button that would allow Cupcake to answer the door.

Would she let in murderers and burglars in addition to the pizza guy and whoever won’t stop their incessant knocking right now?

Definitely. But they’d lose some fingers along the way, so I’m sure it would be all right in the end.

“We know you’re in there, and we have keys!”

Of course, it’s Blue and Ethan. My stupid heart can’t decide whether it’s appreciative or upset because it knows they’re absolutely going to come in and make me “talk about my feelings.”

“Go away! I’m not home,” I yell before burying my face in the couch pillow.

“We have ice cream.”

Flubbers. Of course they have ice cream. They know they don’t even need to bother having keys to get in when they have ice cream.

“Fine. FINE. You can come in, but I’m not getting up,” I growl into the pillow.

It doesn’t matter if they understand me.

Or if they hear me. They’ll come in no matter what, and even though I’m hurting too much to deal with their sass, I’m grateful they’re here. I’m grateful that they haven’t left me.

The door opens less than three seconds later, meaning they already had the key in the lock; they were just pretending to give me a choice.

Which I knew, of course, but it’s still nice of them.

I don’t bother to lift my head as the sound of footsteps and Cupcake’s happy barks moves closer.

Nor do I bother fighting when strong hands grab one of my arms, pulling me up and dragging me until I’m in the middle of the couch, squished in between warm bodies that smell like fall spice and crisp apple and smoke, and a gallon of cookie-dough ice cream is settled on my lap.

I huff a weak laugh. “It’s the perfect size. How did you know?”

Ethan snickers as Blue wraps his arm around my shoulders. “Perfect size.”

“You’ve been living with Blue too long, babe.” I snort. A year ago, Ethan would have blushed and wanted to run away when I cracked size jokes like that. Now he’s the one offering them, and honestly, watching him climb out of his shell since they got together has been amazing.

He just chuckles some more and holds a spoon up in front of my face. I snatch it quickly, instantly shoveling the sugary substitution for love into my face.

Blue squishes my shoulder with a sigh. “I know this was one of your favorite performances yet, so I expected you to drop pretty hard after, but I have to ask…and please don’t hurt my nipples…

is this…” He waves his hand around in front of us, gesturing to the pizza boxes and coffee mugs and tissues and dirty laundry that litter my coffee table.

“Just because this show is over, or is it because you broke up with Liam at the same time?”

Stupid Blue. Of course I want to pinch him for that. But I can’t when he expressly asks me not to. That’s sort of the deal. Sneak attacks are on the table at all times, but direct requests have to be honored.

“We didn't break up. We were never together. We were friends. Are friends. We’re still friends. I'm just dropping because the show was amazing, and now it's over, and that’s it.”

Ethan curls up tighter against my side, wrapping his arm around my chest. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.” I scoff. “Clearly, I would know if I was dating someone. We’re friends, and that’s not changing, so there’s nothing to be upset about other than the end of a fabulous show. Which is perfectly normal. I always get like this.”

“You always get…something for sure. But this feels pretty heavy, Gabe.”

“Not Gabe,” I growl at Blue around my ice cream. He knows I hate Gabe.

“Friends or not. You like him.” Blue kisses my temple, and even though I strongly dislike this conversation, the way the two of them so automatically know that what I need is ice cream and physical affection, and offer both without question or hesitation, melts my sad little heart to the point that I’m willing to tolerate their conversational nonsense and emotional torture just to keep them close.

“Of course I like him, but we weren't together, and there was no breakup.” I pause, trying to find the strength not to cave and spill my soul under the weight of their gazes. “Fine. Okay. In the spirit of full disclosure, we did ropes twice, but we can still do that. You know I have a few regular ropes partners. There’s no reason Liam can’t slip into the rotation with them.

Nothing out of the ordinary.” I shove multiple spoonfuls of ice cream into my mouth at once and mumble around them.

“And okay, so we maybe kind of also had sex twice, but once was just a quicky like a year ago, and I made sure he knew it was only a one-time thing before the second.”

“You what?!” Their voices both screech in my ears as if they choreographed and practiced their timing.

“Ugh…see?” I groan. “This is why I didn’t tell you. I knew you’d make a big deal out of it.”

Blue shifts to kneel on the floor in front of me.

“Let me get this straight. You’ve known him for a year?”

“No.” I roll my eyes. “Well, technically, I suppose. But remember when I went out to that jazz club I told you about after I decided not to date anymore?”

“Holy fuck. Liam was the hot hand-job guy? I mean, you told us that it was hot a couple weeks later when you proudly announced the successful end of your…” Blue rolls his eyes and makes finger quotes with his next few words.

“Gabriel looks for true love period. But you never mentioned that Liam was that guy once you guys started working on the performance together. Did you keep in touch this whole time or something? Oh my god, do you have an entire second life that you’ve never told us about?

” While his tone is teasing, there is genuine hurt in his eyes at the thought that I might have hidden so much from him after all we’ve been through together.

“No. Of course not. We hooked up that night, and then I didn’t see him again until I’d come up with the idea for the show.

” That’s vague enough. Not actually a lie, just a tiny bit of omission.

They don’t need to know that Liam saved Cupcake without losing any fingers a couple of weeks before we met at the aquatic center.

Blue is already going to start talking about fate without that little tidbit, I just know it.

“We were both professionals when we decided to do the show together, and the rope just sort of happened after…well, after he shared some personal stuff that isn’t mine to share, and then we talked about some other things the night before the final show and agreed to sleep together as a one-time thing. That’s all.”

Blue nods, relief that I’ve only hidden a little bit from him clearly written on his face.

“Okay, well, at least you don’t have three spouses and eight kids we don’t know about. I still don’t understand why you didn’t think you could tell me though.”

“I didn’t want you to make a big deal out of it. Just because I had mind-blowing sex with the guy a year ago and then ran into him again doesn’t mean we’re magically meant to be or anything. You know I don’t believe in that anymore.”

Blue sighs and rests both of his hands on my knees, and Ethan’s hand starts slowly rubbing up and down my back.

This cannot be good. They both know how much I like to be touched, but it’s not their default.

The fact that they’re both petting me like I’m a lonely, abandoned alley cat is such a bad sign.

“So, I just want to make sure I have all this right. You like this guy as a friend. You’ve slept with him twice, even though when you told us like a month ago that while you were completely into him, you were determined to stick to one-night stands because you’re afraid of letting yourself fall back into your old patterns.

You haven’t left the couch in a week, but it’s just because of the adrenaline crash hitting because the show is over.

And you want us to believe that just because you’ve spent a year not obsessively looking for Mr. Right means you’ve given up on the idea of true love? ”

God, he can make anything sound absurd when he wants to. “Yep. All true. Not sure why you’re questioning any of it.”

Ethan’s hand slides around my waist as he squishes me tightly. “We love you. You know that, right?”

“Of course I know that, but you’re saying it like this is an intervention, and that isn’t really how you’re supposed to use it, I don’t think.”

“I know I haven’t known you for all that long, but even I know that you still believe in true love.

I think it’s great that you’ve taken the time to focus on yourself and find happiness on your own, but please take it from someone who spent a decade regretting the risks I didn’t take for love.

While everything worked out the way it was meant to for me and Blue, we both had to take the chance on one another, even though we’d both been hurt before to get here.

” Ethan reaches his other hand out to rest over Blue’s on my knee, and it’s both heartwarming and jealousy-inducing.

“We’re not going to push you or anything.

We’ll sit here with you while you try to send yourself into a sugar coma and clean up your gross pizza boxes and help you get back to feeling like yourself, however we can, for as long as you need us to, but I think this guy might be special, and I think that one day you’ll regret it if you don’t even try. ”

My stupid eyes are burning, and my chest hurts, but it’s probably just brain freeze and indigestion from having consumed half a gallon of ice cream in ten minutes.

“Alright, I’ll admit that I have teeny tiny feelings for Liam, but that’s all.

They’re not fated mates, true love, can’t live without him, feelings.

It’s just a crush because he’s hot and sweet, and I had such a good time working with him.

Now that the show is over, we’ll keep in touch and chat on occasion like normal friends do, and it’ll work itself out of my system.

I know that I told you he’s perfect for me, and maybe on paper that’s true, but no one is perfect.

I’m sure that if we tried dating, once we got to know one another a bit more, we’d get on each other’s nerves and end up fighting and not even staying friends.

He’s a good guy, and I’d like to keep him as a friend. So that’s what I’m going to do.”

Blue squishes my knees while Ethan kisses my cheek with a sigh. “Okay. If that’s how you really feel, then we’re here for it, okay. We’ll let it go.”

“Thank you.” I nod and start stuffing in the ice cream once more.

They know I’m lying. I know I’m lying. But if I’m this heartbroken over Liam already, there’s no way I can let myself risk actually being in love with him because if I lost him after that…

I wouldn’t survive it. I’ll let Ethan and Blue hold me while I eat the entire gallon of creamy goodness they brought, and then I’ll clean up my mess, take a shower, and go to bed early.

I’ll get up tomorrow and go to work like nothing is wrong.

I’ll do the same thing the next day and the day after that.

Then maybe I’ll let myself send Liam a friendly text just to check in.

Or maybe I won’t. Maybe taking more time away from him while I’m recovering from the show and convincing myself that I don’t have any mushy love-adjacent feelings for him is a better idea.

Maybe I’ll just keep going to work and coming home over and over again until the empty Liam-shaped hole in my life becomes so normal that I don’t notice it.

Sounds like a perfectly healthy and reasonable plan to me. There’s no way this can go wrong.