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“It was a service I provided. Girls back then didn’t know what good sex was until they met me.” He offered a cocky smile.
“You two were twin disasters back then, but Flynn and I... We were good.” She smiled at her best friend and his features softened. “We were better than we are now with our expensive sports cars and our gourmet coffees and our bespoke clothing. We were better than the corporate drones we’re turning into.”
“I’m not a drone,” Gage argued.
“Me neither. We take umbrage to that accusation.” Reid straightened his shirtsleeve. “Though I do enjoy nice cuff links.”
“I wouldn’t go back to being engaged. That was a mistake.” Gage’s tone suggested he needed to state that for the record.
“Hear, hear,” Reid agreed. “I had a lot of fun in college, but I have no interest in reliving my past.”
“That’s why you’re not invited to our hiatus,” Sabrina said, her tone implying the “duh” she didn’t say. “You may be fine balancing work and play, but I, for one, am terrible at it. And so is Flynn. I need to paint and he needs to focus on something other than Monarch’s well-being.”
Stress showed in the lines on the sides of Flynn’s eyes and the downturn of his mouth. Two more months of not dealing with his feelings and she feared she’d lose her momentum. He was saying yes to the hiatus, which was huge. It’d take only a nudge for him to agree to starting it on Monday.
“Flynn. You can trust Reid and Gage. Monarch won’t implode if you walk away. You can start your hiatus on Monday. With me.” She reached over and palmed his knee, noting that his nostrils flared when she did. The way he looked at her wasn’t impatient or upset, but more...aware. It reminded her of the way she’d looked at him on Friday evening.
“I’ll put it in my calendar.” Gage lifted his phone, typing as he slowly spoke the words, “Flynn and Sabrina’s sabba...ti...cal. There. Done.” He showed them the screen. “Monday’s Valentine’s Day by the way.”
“I know.” Sabrina grinned. “Flynn and I are going out.”
“On Valentine’s Day?” Reid’s voice was comically high. “That day should be treated tenderly. Every single man knows that occasion is a minefield. What are you going to do, love? Take him to a fancy couples’ dinner and shag him afterward?”
Sabrina let out an uncomfortable laugh, looking to Flynn to laugh with her, but he looked as if a grenade had gone off in his general vicinity. His shoulders were hunched and his face was a mask of horror. So...possibly she misread his expression a moment ago.
“Thanks a lot.” She let out a grunt. “I wouldn’t be that bad to sleep with!”
Flynn rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.
“I’d happily sleep with you, Sab. I’ve been offering for years.”
“No way.” She rolled her eyes at Reid’s offer. She couldn’t imagine sleeping with, kissing or being romantically involved with Gage or Reid. She winked over at Gage, who smiled affably. They were like brothers.
Her gaze locked with Flynn’s next and they had a brief staring contest. His slightly crazed expression was gone and now he simply watched her.
Flynn was...not like a brother.
But there was a deeper camaraderie between them that was worth resurrecting. And it’d be fun to go out on Valentine’s Day with him. They could make new memories since neither of them had ever been single at the same time as the other.
She blinked as that thought took hold.
Until now.
“So now you’re dating Flynn and we’re still not calling it dating?”
Her brother, Luke, delivered doughnuts to her place on Saturday morning. One of which was a cruller that she tore in half and dunked into her coffee.
Mmm. Coffee and crullers.
“Hello?” Luke snapped his fingers in her face. “You and that doughnut are having a moment that’s making me uncomfortable.”
“You’ll live.” She tore off another bite and stuffed it into her mouth.
Her apartment was in the city not far from Flynn’s, but the two residences were worlds apart. His, a penthouse and shrine to all things soulless, and hers an artsy loft filled with cozy accents. A red faux leather sofa sat on a patterned gold-and-red rug, a plaid blanket tossed over one arm. Framed art hung on the wall, one of them Sabrina’s own: a whimsical painting of an owl sitting on a cat’s head that always made her smile. Butter-yellow ’50s-style chairs she’d reupholstered after salvaging them from a trash heap circled a scarred round kitchen table that she and Luke sat at now.
“Flynn lives in a barren wasteland of a penthouse, but the view is a million times better,” she said, scowling out at the view of a nearby brick wall.
When she’d first rented her place, she’d fallen in love with the C-shape of the building and the ivy climbing the rust-red-and-brown bricked facade. Now, though, she’d like a view of the sunset. Or a sunrise. As it was, very little vitamin D streamed through her kitchen windows, and only for a few choice hours a day.
