Kasien
Present
I can’t even remember the last time I had such a good sleep. I shift myself in the bed and open my eyes, the cloudy grey sky outside getting darker.
We must have slept all day. It looks like it’s around five p.m. and the rain still hasn’t stopped. The air smells of cedarwood, rain, and sex—heavy and sweet, like it’s still hanging in the sheets.
This morning.
I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I let that happen.
Adrien and I—sure, we have a history with threesomes, but this was different. This was intimate. That wasn’t just fucking.
That was Kiara, for fuck’s sake.
I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to cut his hands off or put them all over her myself. It was so intense.
Him touching her, but under my watch? Jesus. My dick twitches in my boxers when the memory hits me again.
The way she was right in front of me, ready for anything I was about to give her.
The urge to turn her around and kiss her.
I haven’t kissed anyone all those years. I don’t do that. I just fuck.
But this morning.
Holy fuck.
I can’t kiss her.
This is only temporary. She’ll be gone in a couple of days. I’ll never see her again. Physically, at least. Digitally, I will keep an eye on her. She’ll have a normal life back.
Adrien is rolling on his side of the bed, waking up, empty space between us.
My nose is filled with a delicious smell.
Breakfast, maybe? Kiara is definitely doing breakfast, and I find that fact just so warming it makes me smile.
I imagine her, in her oversized T-shirt, nothing under it, running barefoot around the big kitchen, burning something in the pan, panicking, because I know that girl can’t cook, her hair messy from the long sleep and sex, me having a nervous breakdown from all the mess she made but letting it go.
Then I hug her from behind, take her away from that stove, turn her around, put her on the counter and start a trail of kisses from her cheek all the way down to her belly, then keep going down to…
“Morning,” Adrien whispers.
This fucker.
He’s facing me, his curly hair hanging around his face, falling into his puppy eyes, his hands spread and hugging pillows.
“Did we finally make love to each other, Kas?” he says in a sleepy voice and smiles, fucking with me.
I grab the pillow between us and smack him so hard with it he swears, then laughs at me.
“Shut the fuck up,” I mumble between laughs.
I can’t believe this guy. He overdosed last night, basically tried to kill himself, and the first thing he does is go back to joking around. After finger-fucking my girlfriend.
Not my girlfriend. Fuck.
But I know he’s hurting. He hates himself. I’m already quite dead inside but him? He’s still alive there, suffering and spiraling.
“Don’t ever do that again,” I say with sudden seriousness, my brows furrowing.
“What part do you mean?” He rubs his eyes, acting like nothing happened.
“You fucking know what I mean. Next time I’ll leave you to suffocate with your own vomit and throw you in an unmarked grave in the garden,” I snap at him.
“Does that mean I can do the other thing again?” He smirks and I kick him out of the bed, his body smashing to the ground, some swears leaving his lips.
“I take that as maybe,” he forces out between his whining.
I get up, clean myself and we head toward the kitchen. The smell of a homemade meal is something this house has been missing. It never felt like home to me, since we bought it, but this? I could get used to this.
Me and Adrien sit on the barstools by the kitchen island, Kiara with her back to us, attempting to do something on the pan but I already smell the burning oil.
I knew it. She still can’t cook. Unbelievable.
Her hair is scattered around her shoulders, a little messy, her hands are jumping from one thing to another, licking her fingers.
God, this is almost exactly how I imagined it.
“One would think that after all this time, you’d learn how to cook,” I start as she jumps and gasps.
She didn’t hear us coming, apparently, too focused on her cooking arts. She looks at us, her eyes flicking from one to the other, and she starts adorably blushing, sucking one finger in her mouth again.
Did she cut herself? How clumsy do you have to be to cut yourself while making a simple breakfast?
God, she’s so cute.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, it smells amazing!” Adrien jumps from the stool and goes to check what is happening in that pan, Kiara stepping aside.
He grabs a completely black piece of bacon and shoves the whole thing into his mouth, then continues talking through it.
“That’s exactly how I like it, Troubles.”
He finishes the whole burned thing, winks at Kiara and takes another.
Kiara looks at me, her face red as she’s trying to hold in a laugh. When she sees I fight the same thing, we both burst out laughing, watching Adrien down that carcinogenic crunch.
He’s such an idiot.
I send them both to sit on the bar stools and take over the kitchen, throwing out the rest of that burned stuff before the idiot eats it, and I start making French omelets.
They both sit there, watching me. I’m wearing just grey sweatpants, Adrien still in his, Kiara in the big T-shirt, looking irresistible.
What if I kick him out and bend her over the kitchen island?
No.
The further I let this go, the more it’ll hurt in the end.
I’m chopping some chives, tomatoes, and peppers to put next to the omelets, checking on them now and then and finding them looking at me every time. Both following my every move.
I don’t even realize that I’m smiling. Heat blooms in my chest.
I line the vegetables up by color and plate them with the omelets, sprinkle the chives on and push the plates toward Kiara and Adrien. Then I take mine and sit next to them on another barstool.
“Wow, did you ever think about putting down the gun and becoming a housewife?” Adrien mocks me and Kiara laughs.
“Don’t think it comes for free. You’re getting on your knees afterward, both of you,” I state.
Kiara snorts and Adrien gives me a light smack on the head, so I punch him back and Kiara bursts in laughter again.
I like this.
How does this house suddenly feel like home just because of one crappy breakfast?
We eat and joke around, Kiara is a little quiet, probably processing what happened this morning, but her face is covered with light pink blush and a wide smile that doesn’t come down for a second because Adrien keeps making an idiot of himself by trying to show her that he can balance a spoon on his nose.
Their laughter fills the kitchen, echoing off the marble.
I think this is how normal life feels like.
I want to make them breakfast at six in the evening, then watch a movie and cuddle Kiara to sleep, kick Adrien for trying to cuddle with us, then fall asleep next to them.
But I have a bad feeling that this is just another temporary thing, just to remind me what I can’t have and how fucked up my life is. I crush the thought before it grows into self-destructiveness.
I can have one day. I can pretend I’m normal for one day.
We finish the breakfast and head out of there, none of us sure where we’re going, until Adrien stops in the main living room.
He sprawls out on the leather sofa, grabs the TV remote and starts scrolling through streaming apps.
“I’m thinking Fight Club, what do you guys think?” he says without looking at us.
Kiara instantly lights up. She drops onto the sofa beside him, tucks her bare feet onto the table and giggles, the blue glow of the TV flickering across her face.
“I love that one!” she squeals, and Adrien gives her an approving smile. Before I can even process sitting down with them, she turns to me, catching me frozen halfway across the room.
“I’m not going back to my princess chambers,” Kiara announces, voice firm.
She pats the empty spot beside her, chin lifted.
“Sit. Down.” She tries to sound commanding, but the corner of her mouth gives her away.
I hesitate. Just a heartbeat, but I know exactly what’s happening. None of them wants this to end. And neither do I.
For almost the whole day, none of us said a word about work, Lucien, drugs, Vermilion—any of it. I don’t think they even thought about the shit we carry on our backs.
I know I didn’t.
We can stretch this day. Make it last. I don’t want it to end either.
A massive chandelier hanging from the high ceiling is casting a soft halo over them. Kiara’s dark hair catches warm brown highlights under it and the cloudy light spills through the tall windows. I drop onto the sofa next to her, spreading my arms along the headrest and letting my head fall back.
Her presence still makes me slightly nervous, something curling warm and unfamiliar in my chest. My spread legs brush against her thighs, and she’s got her feet up on the table, arms crossed over her chest.
Her hair still smells like vanilla. It always does.
Then Michael, one of the bodyguards, walks through the living room, giving us a confused look. Kiara notices him and instantly lights up.
“Hey, Bruce!” she shouts, and me and Adrien snort with laughter. “Could you bring us some popcorn, please?” Kiara asks him in the sweetest voice imaginable.
Michael looks me dead in the eyes, silently begging for rescue.
Too bad.
“You heard the lady, Bruce,” I command.
He rolls his jaw and walks off.
Adrien plays the movie, while I get up and pull the lever under the couch to turn it into a huge bed so we can all stretch our legs.
Bruce brings us the popcorn, gives us one last deadly look, and disappears.
Kiara ends up with the big bowl in her lap since she’s in the middle, me and Adrien pressed to her sides so we can reach it too.
After maybe half an hour, we’re so comfortable we’re practically cuddling. However, I keep an eye on Adrien to make sure he’s not cuddling her too much. I may have let him touch her this morning, but it has its limits.
Kiara pours herself a drink from the cocktail table and settles between us again, her body even closer to me than before.
Great.
Another half hour passes and Adrien pauses the movie to go to the bathroom, leaving us alone in silence.
Kiara inhales, the kind of inhale that means she’s about to speak.
I close my eyes.
Please don’t ruin this.
“Could you,” she starts, her voice quiet and nervous. “Do you think you could take me out?”
I freeze.
What?
No.
What?
Like a fucking date?
Absolutely not. My lungs stall, so I clear my throat just to force them to work.
“What do you mean?”
“I know I’m officially missing and everything, but—" she lets out a nervous breath and continues. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. I don’t really want to think about it. I just really want you to take me out. Only once.”
She gulps, looking down at her fingers mushing pieces of popcorn.
Shit.
My whole face burns from the heat crawling under my ribs. I’m so used to having everything under control, and whatever she’s doing right now is absolutely not something I can control.
“Please?” she whispers.
I stay quiet for too long, and Adrien is already coming back from the bathroom.
“Nevermind,” she mumbles, lifting her head to stare at the TV again.
I glance at her from the corner of my eye. She’s watching the movie, her expression empty, and something sharp and ugly stabs through my chest, twisting in my gut.
The movie ends. Where Is My Mind by Pixies fills the room, and my insides knot into one painfully tight mess.
This is so not going according to plan.
I’ve gotten myself in too deep.
I’m fucking drowning.
She should’ve never seen me the day I kidnapped her. I was supposed to stay dead. But she keeps dragging me back.
Adrien puts on another movie, and they both end up falling asleep.
I can’t. Because I know the moment the sun rises, this day will be over.