Lucy squinted at us, then blinked. “You two look… unfairly fresh,” she said, eyeing our soft clothes with mock disgust. “Did you make a deal with a Greek god or something? Is this what being in love does? Because my eyeballs hurt.”
Aurélie pressed a dramatic hand to her chest. “Non. I am also suffering,” she said solemnly. “I just have a very high pain enjoyance.”
I choked.
“Tolerance,” Ivy said flatly without missing a beat. “You have a high paintolerance, Frenchie.”
“That is what I said,” Aurélie insisted.
“No,” Kimi murmured into his coffee. “It was not.”
“Though I have a high pain enjoyance too,” Aurélie admitted. “Just ask Callum.”
“Ew.No. Absolutely not. I saw enough in Silverstone to warrant a therapy session,” Ivy quipped, tugging the blanket tighter around her head so just her face showed.
“You work in PR. You’ve seen worse.”
Lucy snorted, then winced and touched her temple. “Nope. No laughing. Laughter is cancelled.”
There was a click as Marco finally managed to lock something into place on the espresso machine and it whirred to life. He stared at it like it was the answer to his prayers, then looked up at us. A collective sigh of relief rippled around the kitchen.
Except from me. Coffee was still the devil.
I stepped up beside him and reached for the kettle, filling it and setting it on the hob. Tea. Sanity. Civilization.
“Traitor,” I said to Ivy, nodding at her evil-looking mug full of steaming black coffee. “You used to be on the right side of history. Now you’re enabling this filth.”
She shrugged, the blanket wobbling on her head. “I like both,” she rasped. “Depends on the mood. Sometimes I need gentle emotional support. Sometimes I need to mainline rocket fuel. Today I’m hoping it miraculously cures this hangover.”
Aurélie perked up just enough to point at me. “He tried coffee for the first time at our home in the French countryside,” she told Lucy, eyes glinting. My heart flipped.Our home. Sure, we agreed half our life would be there, but hearing it out loud, shared with our people, made it feel real in a whole new way. “One long sip of my favorite French roast. Twenty minutes later, he was doubled over in the bathroom swearing at me for trying to poison him.”
Marco grabbed the carafe before it could finish brewing and filled his mug. A few drips of coffee sizzled and burned as he put the carafe back. “You lost a fight withcoffee?” he croaked, a little too gleeful.
“He was very dramatic,” Aurélie went on mercilessly. “He kept saying his ancestors?—”
“Okay,” I cut in. “We don’t need to traumatize the popstar with my digestive history, thank you.”
Lucy made a weak sound that might’ve been a laugh. “Too late. Visual is already there.”
Aurélie smirked. “I had to get ahead of the sob-vomit. Equal embarrassment.”
The words slipped out of me before I could catch them. “You know exactly what that sob-vomit was from,” I said quietly.Fuck. Apparently, my filter was gone.
The look she gave me was sharp enough to cut through the hangover fog. A warning. A reminder. And underneath it, something like resolve.
“You’re right,” she conceded, voice softer now. “I do.” She swallowed, then glanced around the island at Ivy cocooned in her blanket, at Marco clutching his mug like a relic, at Kimi steady and silent, at Lucy blinking owlishly between us. “Which is… probably why we should tell them.”
My stomach churned uneasily. We hadn’t spoken to anyone about it except a doctor we consulted virtually.
Aurélie rolled her lips together as the energy in the room shifted.
The machine hissed. The kettle rumbled. Outside, a gull shrieked. Inside, four hangover-fogged brains tried to catch up.
Ivy was the first to react. She groaned and hauled the blanket completely over her head like a turtle retreating into its shell. “Oh my God,” came her muffled voice. “I feel like this is just going to keep getting worse.”
“Thank you,” I said dryly. “Love that glowing vote of confidence.”
Her head popped back out, mascara smudged and eyes bloodshot but very, very awake now. “Not you,” she said. “Thesituation. I came here because Marco’s big mouth leaked your location, and now Luminis is sending a company official and medical professionals on a surprise wellness visit. I thought the worst thing I’d have to deal with was a pregnancy rumor and Henric being a dick. Now I’m helping harbor a billionaire pop princess” Her gaze flicked between me and Aurélie. “If there’s more to it than that, I’m going to need… so much more coffee.”
