“Good night baby,” I whispered.
He kissed my shoulder. “Good night.”
* * * *
As usual, there wasn’t time for a morning after. There were tasks for Theo to do, and while I lazed around in his bed for an hour or so more before dragging myself into the shower, I was back at the house before anyone else was up.
I was fixing coffee for myself and River, waiting to see when Ben would wake up, when River came into the kitchen.
He took one look at me and a wide, happy smile spread on his lips. “Congrats?”
I chuckled and ducked my head. “Thanks.”
He came closer and hugged me quickly, then carefully extracted his precious nectar from the machine. “Good?”
I let out a sigh so telling he snickered. “The best ever,” I admitted.
“Oh wow. Well, I’m happy for you, honey.” He hugged me again, this time with one arm to protect his mug.
Since River seemed to be in a good mood, I risked it and asked, “How’s things with Ben?”
His whole face twitched, as if I’d slapped him, but he smiled a bit sadly instead of getting mad this time. “It’s…I don’t know. The couple of times we tried to talk, or rather I tried to talk to him about it all, he just…doesn’t understand. So now we’re just in this weird holding pattern of being friendly whenever we bump into each other, because we were sort of friends as kids.”
“Except it was more than that for you then?” And now, but I didn’t say that.
River glanced at me and smiled even more sadly. He nodded, then took his mug and went to sit on the couch to try and get started with his day.
I felt bad for making him sad. “I’ll make you a to go mug of coffee if you want?”
“Sure, I’ll leave in about thirty minutes, so around that time?”
“Will do!” I began to prep for breakfast and kept an eye on the clock so I could time his leaving. “I’ll make you a breakfast wrap to go as well.”
“You’re my savior!”
I smiled as I listened to him walk up the stairs to get dressed for work. He was bad at eating breakfast this early, but at least I could make sure he’d have something to eat once he got to work. Including the lunch I was sure Rey had already prepared for him last night.
I realized something then; I was so fucking lucky. I had these friends, this place, and I had Theo. Now if I only could make myself call Anderson.
Chapter 20
Theo
As if the universe had aligned, as soon as I got back inside the stable after feeding and taking out the horses, my phone rang. There went my nice afterglow from last night.
“Hey, Jules, what’s up?”
“Theo, it’s…I need help,” they said in a tone that told me something bad was up.
“What can I do for you?” I kept my voice even, making sure I was as supportive and calm as possible, because I’d known them long enough to tell they were about to start spiraling.
“There’s this horrible auction I heard about last night. I don’t have the room right now, you know that, but…” The sob they let out was telling. It had to be really bad.
“Send me the info. Should I grab Seb?”
The relieved exhale from Jules was almost enough to make me tear up. I cared about my friend and being able to help like this was everything.
“Yeah, yeah, if he can get away.”
