1. Goldyn
I wish I could say this was the first time I’d woken up with a gun to my head, but I’d be lying. There was that failed robbery sophomore year of college in that dodgy off-campus apartment. Then there was the time a month after I started traveling in my van full-time when the cops woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me I matched the description of someone who had just robbed a convenience store.
Neither time had been fun.
However, at least then my body had woken up ready to fight. But right now? Right now, a thick fog clouded my brain and it felt like someone had just submerged my body in a tub of molasses.
I felt drugged, subdued, not like myself.
Like my brain and body were on two different pages. In two different books.
My fight or flight instincts were nonexistent, and all I could do was lay there and will my eyelids to open.
“Holy shit, Rome. The gun is unnecessary,” a male voice complained, the silky timbre doing more to rouse me awake than my own will.
“We could be harboring a fugitive. A fugitive who broke into our fucking house and you’re worried the gun is too much?” came a curt response, his voice dry and devoid of anything remotely pleasant.
A fugitive? That was dramatic.
But he was right, I had broken into their house. And now I was stuck in some zombie-like state on their couch.
Lord help us all.
A weird knot formed in my stomach.
“At least get it away from her head.” That sounded like a third voice. How many of them were there? And why couldn’t I just open my eyes to see?
“Would you want to wake up with a gun to your head?”
“If I broke into someone’s home and fell asleep, I’d say the owner had the right to wake me up anyway they pleased.”
Their bickering would have made me giggle if it wasn’t me they were talking about.
A collective, exasperated sigh came from across the room.
The person closest to me did not drop the gun, and it was just as well. Because something about my perilous predicament finally clicked in my head and allowed my body to function enough to exit its freeze state.
Finally… finally , my eyes popped open and I stared directly at the underside of the weapon and the hand gripping the butt of it.
“Shit, she’s awake!” one of the friendlier voices announced.
Squinting, I flexed my jaw and sat up slowly. My gaze darted to the person closest to me and I winced when we made eye contact.
The man holding the gun studied me with a tight expression, his eyes cold as I imagined, but at least he dropped the weapon to his side.
He didn’t speak, he just stared at me until I looked away. But my reflexes were still kinda shit, so I got a good eyeful of him. He was…mesmerizing. Tall and solid with skin dark as night. Undeniably beautiful, but he was the exact kind of man I never wanted to piss off.
Yet, here I was…
“I can explain,” I croaked in a voice that didn’t sound like my own. “I’m not a fugitive.”
Rubbing a hand over my neck, I cleared my throat and tried again.
“I’m sorr?—”
“Get her something to drink, Sin.”
It was then that I finally let my gaze travel to the other side of the living room and land on two men. I caught a blur of the one walking toward the kitchen. The other one was standing near the staircase, calm and collected with his arms crossed over his expansive chest.
He was just as tall as the man beside me, but his siena skin was covered in ink, inviting me to drag my eyes over the colorful tattoos. My eyes widened when he readjusted his arms and his biceps bulged.
Oh .
“Are you in danger, Goldyn?” He asked me, his voice calm to match his demeanor.
“H-how do you know my name?”
He reached in his pocket, his movements unhurried, and pulled out my sunflower card carrier.
“We found this in your bag while we were trying to wake you up.”
I looked down, mortified that my bag was no longer slung across my torso and that I hadn’t even noticed until now. “Oh.”
“We turned off your alarm too,” the third man announced, reappearing with a large mason jar full of water.
He handed it over to me and I took a grateful gulp. It felt as if someone had crawled inside my throat and rubbed sandpaper everywhere.
“You were knocked out. Must have needed the rest.”
Why was he being so nice to me?
He dropped to his haunches in front of me and sent me a dimpled smile. “I’m Sincere.”
Sincere looked me up and down and heat flamed my skin under his scrutiny. I know he didn’t mean it to be unsettling, but his attention—hell, all of their attention—made me feel like a museum exhibit.
The man holding the gun—Rome, if I remembered correctly—finally tucked it in his waist and cocked his head to look at me with…curiosity?
I didn’t know if that was better than the iciness from earlier, so I took another gulp of water to help me process it.
Jutting a hand over his shoulder, Sincere said, “This is Rome. Sorry about the gun. He’s overprotective.” Then he turned and smiled at the man still hovering near the staircase, like he was afraid to overwhelm me by joining the other men huddled around me. But there was unmistakable gentleness in his gaze that instantly put me at ease. “And that’s my husband, Lorenzo.”
“Oh. Nice to meet you?” I posed it as a question, because while I was charmed by their hospitality, I couldn’t say I expected them to hold the same sentiment.
“Likewise,” Sincere smiled. “What are you doing in our house?”
“Um, I got lost. I knocked. But when you didn’t answer I got desperate and broke a window. My phone died when I was hiking and I don’t know how I ended up on this side of the lake and?—”
“Breathe, Goldyn,” he interrupted, an amused lilt to his words. “We’re not in a rush.”
Romeo scoffed at that, but said no words otherwise.
I cut him a glance and then refocused my attention on Sincere. “I’ll pay for the broken window. And the food I ate. And the tea?—”
“What tea ?” Romeo interjected, his brow hiked and demanding.
“The purple sweet tea that was in the fridge. I had a couple glasses after I ate.”
“Ah, hell,” Romeo muttered under his breath while Sincere’s dimples went missing for the first time since he’d introduced himself.
“Define a couple, ” Lorenzo prompted, walking over to us.
“Two of these,” I answered, holding up my mason jar as a reference.
Why was everyone looking at me like I’d suddenly grown five heads?
Lorenzo stopped beside Sincere and mirrored his squatting position to stare up at me with probing eyes.
For someone surrounded by three unknown men twice my size, I didn’t feel the least bit afraid. Now that the gun was out of the picture, I even felt calm. But maybe that had more to do with my drowsy state than anything else. I was too sleepy to be scared.
“You had more than four times the serving size.”
“Oh.” I shrugged. “I probably needed the calories after the day I had,” I said off-handedly.
“It’s a sleep elixir,” Romeo added gruffly.
“What?”
“I’m an herbalist and I was trying out a new recipe. It wasn’t sweet tea , it was an herbal blend to help people with insomnia.”
“Oh,” I said again. “That explains a lot.”
I thought it’d been the Itis, but this made more sense. A lot more sense.
It definitely explained why I got sleepy so fast, slept through my alarm and could barely wake up even when I knew there was a gun to my head.
The three men stared at me, perplexed awe shone on all their faces.
“I’m gonna go.” My voice broke the awkward silence and prompted Sincere and Lorenzo into action.
“I think you should stay.”
“ What ?”
“Just for the night,” he clarified. “So Rome can check you out in the morning to make sure you’re good. Then one of us will drive you anywhere you want.”
I opened my mouth to object and then closed it when my jaw felt heavy.
“We have a guest room. You can take a shower, relax and sleep off the tea a little more.”
“I feel fine,” I protested.
“You’re slurring your words, mamas,” Lorenzo said, laughter apparent in his tone.
I couldn’t even react to the endearment because my head felt heavy again, and I knew they were right. I needed to sleep this off. And then I would wake up, go back to my van and pretend this never happened.