Page 47 of The Sun & Her Burn (Impossible Universe Trilogy #2)

I pried my eyes open to see she was sitting on the couch. It was a rag she had been holding to her nose, but it was curled in one loose fist, drying and bloody as was the skin under her inflamed nostrils.

“It’s me who should apologise,” I said, the words kind of slurred because I was coming down from the adrenaline. “She hurt you.”

Mrs. Ramirez was one of the best, steadiest women I knew. If it hadn’t been for her, I would have drowned a long time ago. She stood and came toward me. At five foot one, she was a good eight inches shorter than me, so she had to reach up to tap her palm to my cheek affectionately.

“You are a good girl,” she murmured. “She is lucky to have such a good mija .”

“I am lucky to have such a good neighbor,” I admitted a little wetly.

She smiled and corrected me. “A good amiga .”

A good friend .

“Yes,” I whispered through the mass in my throat. “Thank you for everything.”

“You have been alone in this too long,” she said with a click of her tongue against her teeth.

“I am happy to see not one, but two strong men come to your aid. That Adam Meyers…” Her eyes went glassy with admiration for a moment before she shook herself out of it.

“I have always wanted to meet him. I did not think it would be in circumstances such as these.”

A giddy, almost hysterical laugh escaped me, and Mrs. Ramirez laughed softly with me.

“I’ll introduce you properly when you don’t have a bloody nose. Both of them are good men,” I said, as if it was a secret.

What I meant to say was they’re the best men I’ve ever known, and I want to be with them both .

Mrs. Ramirez tapped my cheek again, consolingly, so maybe she read in my eyes what I couldn’t say aloud.

“A good girl,” she repeated before moving away to grab her purse by the entry table. “Miranda is getting worse, not better. You and I are not enough for her anymore.”

“No,” I agreed, chewing my lip until the skin broke. “I know. I’ll figure something out.”

She nodded brusquely, and without another word, she moved down the hall toward the back door so she could reach her own house without encountering the last of the mess in the yard.

I moved down the hall too, but took the jog in the floor plan that led to the big bedroom to the right.

Miranda’s bedroom door was ajar, so I pushed it open silently to see Sebastian sitting on the edge of the bed with one of Miranda’s hands in his.

My mom was tucked in neatly, the sheets tight around her body so the effect was almost a swaddle.

She seemed more than content in the tight comfort, her head lolled to the side of a stack of pillows, her eyes closed and mouth slack with sleep.

“Mrs. Ramirez gave her some medication, but Miranda wanted me to keep holding her hand,” Seb explained as he looked over his shoulder at me. “I have to admit, I am afraid to let go.”

My heart skipped a beat, then pounded out a rapid two-step.

God, he was lovely.

It seemed impossible that such a man could actually exist outside of film and fantasy.

My dad and uncles had taught me that there were good men in the world, but their love lives left a lot to be desired, given that not one of them was in a long-term relationship.

To know that there was a man—men—who could love the way Seb did, yearn and caretake the way Adam did, changed something in my worldview for the better after years of witnessing Miranda’s hopeless marriages and Dad’s endless bachelorhood.

“Sometimes I spend the whole night just watching over her,” I admitted. “It’s…scary each time she has these episodes. I worry she won’t come back.”

“But she does,” he said, half question and half soothing me.

I nodded. “For now. They’re happening more frequently, though. She has a re-evaluation next week, and I have a few interviews with homes that have experience with FTD. It’s different enough from Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia that she needs nurses with experience.”

“ Certamente ,” he agreed.

He still hadn’t let go of her hand.

I didn’t think my heart could stand it any longer, so I moved forward to lean over his hip and carefully fold my hand over his, helping him let go.

Miranda didn’t stir.

But Sebastian turned his hand up in my grip and laced our fingers.

I didn’t think I could look at him without crying, so I just squeezed back and tugged him lightly from the room.

When we reached the living room, I collapsed onto the couch and buried my head in my hands, one of them still linked to Seb’s.

He didn’t complain about the awkwardness of his position. Instead, he leaned into my side like a protective bracket.

We sat in silence for an interminable amount of time until the front door opened and closed. I didn’t open my eyes or straighten to see who entered because only one person would let themselves in and stride with authority into the living room even though he had never been here before.

The couch sank on my other side, and the other end of the bracket clicked into place the moment Adam’s arm went around my shoulders.

Both men urged me gently to pull back from my hands and sink slowly into the couch.

Into their protective embraces.

The sigh that escaped me as soon as I was settled was like a gust of wind in the wake of a tornado, filled with debris.

“I am so sorry that happened,” Adam said in a low, furious voice. “It is because of me that those…vultures attacked you and Miranda.”

“I was the one who suggested your arrangement,” Sebastian countered in a slightly more measured voice, though his accent was thick enough to eat with a spoon.

“It would have happened one day,” I said with a tired, unenthusiastic grin. “If I was ever successful as an actor. I know you both tend to martyrdom, but there’s no need for it today.”

“It happened today because of us,” Adam insisted. “Someone tipped off Hank.”

I sighed. “That’s what I figured. Do you think we can find out who did?”

Adam’s face was carved from granite, haughty and furious like the sculpture of an ancient Greek god. “Oh, there is no doubt about that. Boone’s investigator is already on the task.”

“Good, thank you. But honestly, your matching scowls, while oddly adorable, are unnecessary. I told you, this was only a matter of time, due to my selfish need to pursue acting. Even without my connection to you throwing me into the limelight, I like to think I could have made it to this level without you,” I teased lightly, knocking into their shoulders to try to alleviate the pressure in the room.

I could feel their agitation and laughed a little at them. “You feel like you failed me? The truth is, you both rode in like knights in shining armor to save me.”

“You saved yourself,” Adam disagreed.

“And Miranda,” Seb added.

I patted them both on their hard thighs. “Sure, but knowing I didn’t have to endure that alone? I hate to sound like a VISA commercial, but that’s priceless. Thank you for being here for me.” I paused and then emphasized. “ Both of you.”

“Anytime.” It was amazing how one simple word from Sebastian could sound like an oath avowed from a serf to some feudal king. As if he would die for me even if he wasn’t called to do it.

It made me shiver.

But it was Adam who shocked me, because he was such a mercurial, hard-to-read man, and I was never exactly sure where I stood with him.

He gripped my chin lightly in his thumb and forefinger to tip my head his way so that I could witness the implacable resolve in his face.

“Anytime,” he echoed in the same tone Sebastian had used.

“For the next three years?” I dared to venture.

I’d always been a fan of “nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

Adam was a man who demanded a brave lover, and I would be no less for him. Even if he wasn’t courageous enough to accept me that way.

“For the next three years,” he agreed, long, tangled brown lashes sweeping over his cheeks before lifting to reveal those green eyes.

“And any time after it. No matter what you are to me in the future, Linnea Kai, you have become my friend. The first one I had made in a very long time, and one I will never let myself be foolish enough to lose. I made the mistake of letting someone good and kind go a long time ago, and I’ve lived with those painful consequences.

I’m a smart enough man not to make the same mistakes twice. ”

I closed my eyes as they burned, and my nose itched. Beside me, Sebastian shifted and let out a small sigh.

“You’re going to make me cry,” I warned them. “I’m not a pretty crier either. I get splotchy and snotty.”

They both chuckled just a little, but it felt like a feat nonetheless.

“Booth is dealing with the cops. They want to speak with you, but I told them they could call tomorrow and you’d arrange to go in if you want to press charges. What Hank orchestrated was essentially assault,” Adam said darkly, a muscle in his jaw ticking.

I shivered, both because the situation called for it and because that cruel current prompted a muscle memory of the way he’d ordered Sebastian and me into our pleasures at the club the other day.

“I don’t know if I have to go so far as to press charges…”

“You absolutely should,” Adam rebutted. “To show them that you will not be pushed around. This is just the beginning of a life filled with scrutiny, Nea. Do not let them think you are an easy target, or they will never leave you be.”

“He’s right,” Seb agreed, squeezing my hand.

I sighed, the gusty exhale stirring the little braids that hung over each cheek. “Fine, but you’re both bossy.”

They did not have the same smile. Sebastian’s was broad enough to cut creases into his cheeks and beside his yellow eyes, his lips darkly pink and stretched wide over white, almost wolfish teeth.

Adam’s was a small thing, restrained to a tipping of full lips that revealed only a sliver of square, straight teeth and a sparkle in his green gaze.

But the shape of both those smiles defined the same thing in response to my comment: smug satisfaction.