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“Don’t ask,” she murmurs and stuffs an entire pastry in her mouth, then shoves them my way. “Try them,” she says around a mouth full of food. “They’re good.”
Everly laughs so hard I kick her chair, but she doesn’t care. “Dude. You’re going to be sleeping where so many women have slept before. I hope you clean that place with bleach before you touch any surfaces. Seriously, girls. Beware of STDs. I bet some of them are even airborne.”
“I fucking hate you,” Brynlee tells Maddox, who’s grinning like the bastard he likes to pretend he is.
“Honest to God. One of you had better tell me what I missed,” I try to demand, but it falls on deaf ears when they both ignore me, and Everly picks up my phone and types in my password. Because, of course, she knows what it is.
“What the hell are you doing?” I ask.
“Door Dashing bleach to your new condo. You’re gonna need a lot of it.”
I’d love to say us swapping condos with the guys was a joke or some kind of 90s sitcom thing gone horrifically wrong. But it wasn’t. It was all-hands-on-deck as we spent all day Sunday packing up the penthouse Lindy, Kenzie, Everly, Brynlee, and I had shared for years while the guys move everything down to their place, then brought their stuff up to what used to be ours.
I may not have lived here for the better part of the past year, but it still hurts my heart. We loved decorating this place. Picking each new piece and color. It doesn’t feel like it was that long ago, but in reality, two of us are moms now, Brynlee has been Dr. St. James since we moved in, and Kenzie is officially Dr. Hayes now.
Life moved on, and we all grew up.
And I’m not sure that I like that realization.
Luckily, it didn’t take as long as I expected it to. No one can get an answer out of Callen, Maddox, or Brynlee about why the hell she agreed to the swap—and we’ve all tried. Even Bellamy and Caitlin got in on it with no luck. They said one minute they were doing shots at the bar, and the next thing they knew, Maddox and Brynlee were arguing.
Once the last of the boxes has been moved out, I stand in the middle of my old bedroom and try not to be sad. I was never supposed to be coming back here anyway.
“Hey, beautiful.” Ares quietly sneaks in and closes the door behind himself. “You doing okay?”
I nod, a little too choked up to answer.
“Hey, now. What’s wrong?” He tugs me against his chest and fits my head under his chin. “Why do you look so sad?”
“I’m not sure. Everything is just changing so fast.”
“Maybe it’ll be easier to sneak in and out of your place now that you’re next to mine.” He lifts my chin and presses a quick kiss to my lips, and I immediately want more.
I wrap my arms around his waist and pull him closer. “I like the sound of that.”
“Gracie—” Nixon shouts as he bangs on my bedroom door, and I jump five feet.
“Shit. Go hide,” I tell Ares and push him toward my closet.
“You’re fucking kidding, right?”
When I push him back another step, he loses his smile. “You’re not kidding?”
“No,” I hush him and shove him into my closet. “I’m not. Now be quiet.” I close him in and call out, “It’s open, Nix.”
The knob twists, but the door doesn’t open. “It’s not. It’s locked.”
“Oops. One sec.” I swing the door open. “I’m almost done.” I look around my empty room and point to the remaining box. “Think you could take that downstairs for me?”
“Sure. You know, it might be nice having you next door for a few months, good twin.”
Oh, Nixon. If only you knew I was hiding your roommate in my closet.
“It’ll be fun.” I smile and wait for him to leave.
“Ares and I are thinking about going to West End to grab dinner after this. You wanna come?”
“With you... and Ares?” My stomach flips. I never used to think I was a liar. But I sure as hell am now. “No, thanks. Brynn and I are going to try to get settled. Maybe another night.”
