Chapter 3 — The Meeting I Didnt Call #3
I looked down at the steaks and realized I had seasoned the same side twice.
It didn't matter. Nothing about the steaks mattered. They had only ever been an excuse to get me into the kitchen, to give me distance, to give them enough space to say what they wanted me to hear without making it a confrontation.
I picked up the platter and went back outside.
The afternoon had shifted while I was inside. The sun had lowered just enough to turn the pool water brighter and the skin around it warmer. All six of them were arranged across my patio in a way that looked casual until a man understood Eden Archer existed.
Kiki sat on the pool edge, legs in the water, white bikini wet and clinging, golden hair drying in loose waves around her shoulders.
Tatum sprawled on my lounge chair with one arm thrown over her face, citrus bikini bright against the towel, red hair everywhere.
Reese sat cross-legged on the patio stone, floral bikini sweet and dangerous, honey-brown eyes turning to me the second the slider opened.
Shay stood by the outdoor bar, black bikini and red ties, drink in hand, grin waiting.
Penny was on the best lounge chair, emerald suit catching light, one knee bent, sunglasses lowered just enough to show me her eyes.
Eden sat near the pool table with her legs crossed, scarf-tie at her hip, hazel eyes already on me.
My towels under them. My music around them. My cups in their hands. My patio full of their bags and sandals and cover-ups and voices.
My quiet house, alive in a way it had not been alive in years.
I stood there with a platter of steaks and a speech dead in my throat.
Eden tilted her head. "Enjoy the acoustics, Luke?"
My face gave me away. It always did.
Shay laughed low. "Told you he was listening."
"I was making dinner," I said.
"Sure," Penny said, pushing her sunglasses back into place. "Very intense dinner."
Kiki looked up at me from the pool edge, sweet as sugar, blue eyes bright with everything I had heard and everything she knew I had not. "You were trying to be responsible."
"I still am."
"I know," she said. "That's why you're so hard to resist."
That should have helped.
It didn't.
I set the platter on the grill side table and put both hands on my hips because I needed to do something with them.
Around me, the evidence of surrender lay everywhere.
Six bags. Four towels on chairs that used to be neatly arranged.
Reese's cover-up over the back of a patio chair.
Shay's empty drink bottle near the pool bar.
Penny's phone angled for the light. Tatum's sandals by the slider.
Kiki's white mesh tote leaning against the towel rack.
Eden's cup beside my grill tools as if she had always had the right to set it there.
My house was no longer neutral.
That was the thing I had not understood when I sent the invitation. A house wasn't neutral. A house was where people belonged, or didn't. It was where silence either protected a man or started to feel like a room waiting for voices.
For ten years, my house had been quiet because I had made it that way. Controlled. Ordered. Mine.
In one afternoon, they had turned it into something fuller, brighter, louder, warmer, and more dangerous than anything I had been willing to admit I wanted.
"You all know why I asked you here," I said.
"We do," Eden said.
"How's that going?" Shay asked.
Tatum rolled onto her side and propped her head on one hand. "You can try again after dinner."
"Very generous."
"We're patient," Reese said, smiling like patience had nothing to do with it.
Penny lifted her drink. "To Patient Luke."
"Hot Luke," Shay corrected.
"Lake Luke," Kiki said, softer than the rest.
The six of them lifted cups, cans, and water bottles toward me in the late sun, and I stood there feeling ridiculous and outmaneuvered and so turned on I could barely think.
But beneath all of that was the part I could not laugh away.
They looked happy here.
Not triumphant in some cruel way. Not reckless. Happy. Like the house had given shape to something all six of them had been carrying for longer than I wanted to know. Like the future had slipped into my backyard wearing bikinis and sunscreen and daring me to call it impossible.
I had invited them here to set a boundary.
Instead, I had given them privacy. Access. My pool. My kitchen. My towels. The first taste of what belonging here could feel like.
I had given them home-field advantage.
I opened the grill lid because I needed somewhere to look that wasn't Kiki's mouth or Tatum's legs or Reese's smile or Shay's breasts or Penny's eyes or Eden's calm satisfaction.
Behind me, their laughter rose again, bright and messy and already familiar.
I thought about the notepad in the kitchen drawer with the speech I had not delivered. I thought about the quiet house I had believed would save me. I thought about all six of them moving through my rooms like they weren't taking something from my life, but bringing it back.
I opened the door.
I let them through.
There was no turning back.