Page 14 of Theirs for the Holidays

I slip past him quickly, scampering down the hall to my bedroom as fast as I can. I throw the door closed and get dressed quickly, trying to focus on my breathing as I do.

I feel better once I have some pants on, at least.

I run a brush through my hair as well, smoothing out the bedhead and trying to make myself look more presentable and less mussed.

Once I’m satisfied, I take a deep breath and go back out to the kitchen.

By now, Sawyer and Rhett are awake too, all three of them standing in the kitchen.

Sawyer is at the coffee maker, jabbing at the button with his finger and a frown on his face. He looks up when he sees me and points at the machine. “This thing is janky as hell,” he declares.

I laugh at that. “You’re not wrong. You have to sort of baby it to get it to do the coffee right.”

“Violet, that’s dumb. Who has time to baby a machine to get it to do what it’s supposed to do?”

“Listen, if I had my choice, I’d have a much better one. You know, one of those really expensive ones that can pull espresso and do lattes and stuff. But for right now, the janky one will have to do. I need my coffee any way I can get it.”

It’s still weird to have them here, and I feel off balance from waking up the way I did. Rhett and Lennox are sitting at the table while Sawyer messes with the coffee maker, and I realize that I’m going to have to feed them something for breakfast.

I step around Sawyer and move to the cabinet, trying to see if I have anything other than cereal to give them.

Luckily, there’s always a baked good or five in this house, and there’s a box of pastries that I brought home from the bakery.

“It’s not much,” I say, pulling the box down. “But I wasn’t prepared for house guests, so I hope this works for breakfast.”

“Food is food,” Rhett says, flipping open the lid of the box. “Oh, damn. These look gourmet.”

“Notthatgourmet.” I blush a little, getting down plates. “They’re just from the bakery. They’re not even fresh.”

I pass out the plates, and each of them put two pastries on their plates. There’s a variety of things from Danishes to muffins, and I try not to watch anxiously as they take bites.

“Okay,” Lennox says, looking up at me. “These are very good.”

“Seriously,” Rhett adds, mouth full. “You made these?”

I nod. “Yeah. A couple of days ago.”

He looks impressed, and his brothers seem to feel the same way. It’s such a small thing, and I should already know that I’m good at baking, but still. It makes me flush with pride at my work.

I take a Danish for myself and bite into it, smiling at the crust which flakes just right, tasting sweet and buttery. This was one of my better batches.

The men seem content to eat, but there’s something on my mind that won’t leave me alone until I say it. “So, uh, I guess we should probably talk about how this is all going to go, right?”

Sawyer looks at me, licking sugar from his fingers. “What do you mean?”

I have to tear my eyes away from the sight of him, dragging his tongue along the pad of his thumb.

“I mean, we have no idea how we’ll handle the logistics of this thing. Me dating all of you.” I say it like they need a reminder, although I don’t know how they could have forgotten. “What do we do in public? How do we act? What are the parameters of this whole thing? We have to be in agreement or the story will never hold up.”

“She has a point,” Lennox says.

“Yeah, we know that,” Rhett fires back. He leans back in his chair, looking at the ceiling for a while, and my stomach churns with nerves.

If the three of them can’t get along long enough for us to discuss this, then it’s going to be over before it even starts.

“We’ve got a story for how we got together,” Sawyer says. “Right? That’s a place to start. And it helps that we’re not strangers.”

I don’t look at Lennox when I answer that. “Right, but that’s not going to be enough. We’re going to have to go to Andrew and Isabelle’s wedding, remember? People are going to expect… stuff.”