Page 12 of Code Mages & Empty Pages
“Headaches?” Dawn offered.
“The worst!” He grinned at her and licked some more strawberry ice cream from his cone, the barbell in his tongue catching the light. All three Grants had tattoos, and Ed alone had more piercings than I’d ever seen on a person. Somehow, it worked. They were all gorgeous, sprawled on their blankets like supermodels waiting for a photoshoot.
“You could stay on our couch,” Mia blurted, always wanting to fix things for others, even if it meant stretching her ownboundaries. But their house was too small for someone to stay more than a few days. They still had two unfinished rooms, and Desmond and I wouldn’t be able to sort those out in a hurry. If they argued or split up because of the stress, I’d never forgive myself. And it wouldn’t be fair for Dawn not to have her own space.
“Nope,” I said, before Dawn could answer. Her head snapped up, eyes watery, and I felt like a world-class asshole.
“You can stay in my guest room until it’s fixed,” I said in a voice so soft I barely recognised it as my own.
Desmond was the one who broke the silence. “Say that again.” He, Mia, Dawn, and everyone else stared at me.
“What?” I shot back. “You’re still fixing up your cottage. A guest can stay on a couch for a day or two, no problem. This could take weeks to fix,” I said, looking right at Dawn.
And in the end, she agreed.
Chapter 5
Dawn
Icouldn’t believe I’d let Desmond, Mia, and Luc talk me into moving into his house. I still wasn’t sure how Luc felt about me, but I couldn’t afford a hotel room for weeks, and I definitely wasn’t about to crash on someone’s couch for that long, either.
Luc offered to take me back to the cottage so I could grab a few things, but I refused. I needed to wrap my head around the situation on my own, and honestly, I wasn’t sure I wanted him in my space. The thought of Luc seeing my house with the walls covered in spicy character art and the silicone replicas of my MMCs’ peens (for research purposes, obviously) scattered across the bookshelves was just too discomforting.
He’s doing enough by letting me stay in his guest room. He doesn’t have to chauffeur me, too.
I moved fast to pack all the art and my peens into a box and filled two more with clothes and odd bits I didn’t want to leave behind.
“Goodbye, little cottage. I hope I’ll see you soon,” I said as I pulled the door shut behind me.
This was my home, and I didn’t want to leave it for weeks on end. Yet everything I had found on Kraken had clearly supported Luc’s point.
“Don’t go back in, and if you have to, wear a mask, and for goodness’ sake, don’t stay for long and don’t sleep in it.”
So here I am, being a good girl.
I loaded a few things—some clothes, a couple of books I couldn’t live without, and my laptop—into the boot of my car. The address Luc had given me wasn’t far from my cottage and it took me only about fifteen minutes to get there.
Wow.
Luc’s cottage had a brick exterior and a thatched roof. It looked like the product of someone’s fantasy, not the place where my colleague lived. It was freaking gorgeous.
I parked in the front yard and had only just turned off the engine when the door opened. The chubby goodness that was Lucien Atkins stepped out.
“Hey. Did you find the place okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, it was super easy to find. It’s not that far from my house. Thanks again for the offer, Luc,” I said with a tiny smile.
“Don’t mention it,” he brushed it off. “Let me help you carry your things inside.”
Luc took the box with my clothes, and I grabbed the one with my work equipment, my comfort books, a couple of fidget toys, and my peen collection.
“This is the guest room,” he said unnecessarily when he had led me up a tiny staircase to an even tinier landing on the upper floor.
The house hadn’t looked huge from the outside, and I’d expected a minuscule room with a single bed, maybe a tiny desk, and a wardrobe just big enough for the two boxes of stuff I had brought. Yet, it was surprisingly spacious and pretty.
I strolled across the room past the queen-sized bed to peer out of the window. It looked out into a garden, and there were friendly woodlands behind the fence of his ingrown, fairy tale-looking plot of land.
“Wow, I had no idea your house was this beautiful, Luc,” I said as I turned back around to him. “Thanks again for letting me stay.”
