Feeling bouncy, I went downstairs and into the living room. I stopped in my tracks when I saw Seb sprawling in the corner of the couch. He had a water bottle in his hands, and my gaze locked on his fingers for a moment. Shit.
I went to sit on the floor by River’s feet and tried not to stare.
“It’s so weird.” Lake sat down next to River with a soda. “I keep meeting so many new people. It’s as if I’m meeting more people now than I did while we lived in New York.”
River nodded quickly. “I was thinking the same thing the other day.”
“Maybe it’s the fact that you’re meeting them for proper reasons instead of in passing?” Theo mused from his spot on Seb’s other side.
“I guess.” Lake thought for a moment. “I mean, back there, I would meet the customers at the bookstore or the corner store clerk. I rarely spoke to strangers outside of those instances.”
“Even when we went clubbing before we acquired Rey, I don’t think we were that social,” River added.
Seb raised his brows.
“It’s Rey’s story more than ours.” Lake smiled at me.
I cleared my throat. “I had to leave home and it wasn’t safe to go back, so I was literally going to freeze to death on the streets when these two found me.”
Sebastian’s expression turned kind of gentle and caring, and I blushed crimson and ducked my head.
River tugged my hair. The oven timer pinged so Riv got to his feet and went to take the first pizza out.
“All right, I’m gonna put the meat lovers one in next.”
Theo made a happy sound, but both Seb and I got up to go get our first slices of the veggie pizza.
Lake said something about eating anything and letting us get the veggies, and then Theo teased him so he threw a throw pillow at his face.
“No need to take it so literally,” River snarked from the kitchen. “I mean they’re throw pillows, but…”
I giggled, walked to the table in the middle of the room, and sat with my back to the windows.
Sebastian was smiling, too, when he joined me.
“So, what’s it like to be a vet?” I asked Seb after a moment.
Lake and Theo sat on the couches, clearly getting tired now that they finally sat down.
Seb and I chatted while we ate, and I started to be able to ignore his face, because the stories he told were so damn interesting.
When Lake and Theo finally joined us and everyone started to eat, River glanced at our hands.
“Guys, did you fight a rosebush?” he asked dryly.
All of us looked at our hands, which were full of scratches. River hadn’t touched the kittens so his were fine.
Seb chuckled. He held up his hands that were remarkably less scratched than ours. “This is what you call the professional touch.”
I rolled my eyes but smiled. Then I proceeded to ask more kitten care related questions.
Chapter 6
Cook
Like everything else, life on the yacht became a routine. Nothing about it was special anymore, it was just…life.
The only times when I could still see the charm of it all was whenever someone new came to visit and exclaimed about this or that. Then I could see it through their eyes for a moment and felt a bit more excited.
