2. Chapter 2
Sophia
I must’ve been the only girl in the world lucky enough to be in a relationship with two rockstars.
Well, I guess if I’m being technical, one of them was still rockstar-adjacent.
.. But still! Mason sent a video of Lucian singing to her manager, who sent it to a record label, who then sent it to someone else who was important—I wasn’t sure exactly what happened.
All I knew was Lucian had some sort of tentative record deal.
Between Lucian’s nervous energy and Mason’s nesting instinct, they had completely converted our newly-renovated basement into a state-of-the-art recording studio.
They’d been spending most of their days writing songs, messing around with instruments, and setting up equipment.
They wanted everything prepared to start recording after Rosemary arrived.
Since Lucian was already signed, the record label had sent him a very hefty advance. And with that money, he wanted to take me out. Actually, he wanted to take Mason out, too, but she laughed at the idea of taking off her sweatpants to sit in a car for three hours.
Honestly? I didn’t blame her.
But now wasn’t the time to think of Masie.
All I needed to think about was how sexy Lucian looked in his silk button-down.
Too often, this man wore oversize shirts that hid his incredible body.
This shirt was still loose-fit, but it perfectly showcased the lean muscles in his arms. I pulled my lower lip through my teeth as I ran a finger around the sugared rim of my glass.
For the first time in years, Lucian seemed genuinely happy. His soulmate was finally back in his life, and he was on the precipice of the career he’d always dreamed about. But... one huge concern stuck out in the back of my mind.
Rockstar status tended to come with a certain lifestyle.
Lucian was seven months sober—no drugs, no alcohol, not so much as a cigarette—and I was proud of him.
Like, enormously proud. I just wanted to make sure he’d be able to stand up to peer pressure.
Alcohol had never been a problem for him, anyway. Surely he could handle a little test.
I looked down at my cup, then back to him.
“This is really good. Do you want a sip?”
Lucian’s dark eyes went wide as his gaze darted down to his diet cola.
“You’re fucking with me.” He took a long pull of the drink, then sucked a breath through his teeth, acting as if it was as hard as the liquor in my cup.
I know I was playing with fire, tempting Lucian this way.
When I wrote a paper on addiction transfer during my undergrad program, I learned how an addict's brain searches for anything that gives them dopamine. I just hoped that Mason could be his new addiction. Once Lucian’s music career took off, he’d be exposed to every type of drug and alcohol known to man.
If I introduced him to one of them now, maybe he could stand a fighting chance when I wasn’t around—kind of like how my moms used to let us drink in the basement so that we didn’t go out and do it anywhere else.
This could be perfectly controlled chaos, and it would be fine.
“We’re celebrating.” I smiled, resting my head in my hand. “You never really liked how being drunk feels, and I feel like you deserve to let loose a little.”
Lucian cleared his throat before undoing the top button of his silk button down. One of his many tattoos poked out of the new neckline.
“I–are you sure?” His hesitation almost made me reconsider .
Still, I nodded.
He reached over and slid the short glass closer. Gingerly, he picked it up and brought it to his nose. He winced a little as he inhaled.
“What’s in this?”
“Gin.”
His lips twisted into a grimace as he smelled it once more. “Gin’s not really my thing. Can I order something else?”
“Of course! One drink won’t kill you. It hardly counts as breaking your sobriety.”
He seemed to ease into my words as he picked up the drink menu in the middle of the table. When the waiter passed by again, Lucian ordered something called a “French martini”. I had to wonder if he was subconsciously missing Mason.
“So, it’s officially been just over a month since we got our Masie back. How do you feel?”
At the mention of her name, a smile erupted on Lucian’s face. Seeing him now, you’d never believe that just over a month ago he wanted nothing to do with Mason-effing-Albright.
“It feels like she never left,” he admitted, running a black-polished finger down the side of his cup. “I… she really wants to get married.”
I’d taken my drink back just in time to choke on it. I slipped my finger into the pink satin of my dress, suddenly feeling very hot. And not in a confident way, either—in the, ‘oh my God, I’m five degrees from sweating my boobs off’ way.
“W-wow… that is… How do you feel?”
Lucian squirmed a little under the weight of my question.
“I would really like to take her to the courthouse, and soon. Like ideally, we would have been married yesterday?” His words came out slowly, lacking all of his normal confidence.
I let out a laugh, hoping to shake off some of the overwhelming nerves. When that didn’t work, I picked up my drink and downed the contents. “You don’t want to propose and have a real wedding? Won’t your grandparents flip out if they find out you eloped?”
My words came out way squeakier than I meant for them to, and Lucian’s face tightened for just a second as the waiter came by and placed a pink cocktail in front of him.
After carefully setting down the perfectly full glass, he pointed to my drink and asked if I wanted another. I very quickly said yes.
A fancy skewer of candied raspberries lay across the white foam on top of Lucian’s drink. Lucian picked up the garnish and placed the pick in his mouth, removing the entire stack of berries with his teeth. I could hear the sugar crunching as he chewed.
“Look, it’s not that I don’t want to propose to Mason, and we’ll have a wedding…
someday. But, she doesn’t want Rosie to have her last name; Cameron is weirdly against giving Rosie his last name, so I figured I’d fix it by giving Mason a new last name.
” He swallowed the fruit in his mouth before wrapping his tattooed fingers around the stem of the glass. “It’s called problem-solving.”
If the circumstances had been a little different, I’d totally be okay with this.
Mason and Lucian needed to get married. Every minute they delayed was a slap in the face of the inevitable.
But the idea of Mason getting married while pregnant brought up memories I didn’t want to deal with—ones that always resurfaced just before the holidays, no matter how hard I tried to push them down.
“I know what problem-solving is. It’s just...” As I struggled to verbalize my emotions, I played with my empty cup, really wishing I hadn’t drank it so quickly.
Lucian reached forward, resting his warm, familiar hand on mine.
After ten years together, he felt like home to me.
I looked back up and met his intense gaze.
My heart flipped, and I struggled to calm my thoughts.
Even though I knew Lucian and Mason were adults who deserved to make their own decisions, my instincts wanted to scream absolutely not!
“I… can we compromise?” I pleaded.
His brow furrowed as he raised his glass, still not taking a sip. “A compromise? ”
I nodded, running through everything I could say, trying to rehearse it like I would my responses during meetings. But my mind was running so fast that I didn’t have a chance to glue together a coherent proposition.
“Maybe you can propose to her now? And then, after Rosie’s born, you can have a small ceremony…. say, like, next year? After the holidays are done?”
Compassion filled his eyes as he breathed deeply. Lucian knew exactly why I didn’t want them to get married right now. It was the same reason I poured so much extra effort into making the holidays special. No one could be sad in a house that looked like a set for some cheesy Christmas movie.
“Soph, Rosie’s due on Christmas.”
“I know, I just…. Please?”
He breathed in deeply before mumbling, “Fine.”
The waiter came by and set down another lemony drink in front of me, and I hurriedly grabbed it, ready to embark on any conversation that didn’t end with us bringing up her .
“To us?” I proposed, raising my glass in the air.
Lucian gave me a tight-lipped smile as we clinked glasses and sipped our drinks.
“Well, how is it?” I asked with a smile.
He pressed the corners of his lips together before taking another small sip. “It tastes like juice.”
I laughed as the tension fully lifted between us, and I could finally breathe right again. “See! It’s nice to let loose a little, isn’t it?”
Lucian nodded before putting the cup down and reaching for his soda. I knew I was right to give him this experience. If alcohol was going to be a problem for him, he would have chugged his cocktail and asked for another.
As the night wore on, the ambiance of the restaurant slightly shifted. The stylings of a jazz band replaced the hum of conversation around us. I’m not sure if it was the alcohol in my veins or the fact that Lucian was six feet and three inches of pure sex appeal, but all of a sudden I needed him.
I reached over, my hand resting on his. “Hey, I think we should take this to the bathroom.”
I prided myself on being someone who was weirdly vanilla, for everything going on in my house. I didn’t mind being tied up, pegging Lucian, or even forcing him to orgasm until he learned to be a good boy. As long as I was in charge, I could do anything my partners wanted.
But having sex in public places? That got me hot under the collar. I wasn’t sure if it was the thrill of possibly getting caught, the stress of having to stay quiet, or that doing it in public meant my partner wanted me so badly it couldn’t wait.