Chapter 379: Coming With a Friend

Lucas dropped onto the bed hard.

The race, the lot, the long cleanup, all of it was still sitting in his body. He only meant to rest for a minute. Then the group call lit up his phone, and he answered without thinking.

Three screens filled at once.

Mia was in the parlor, half reclined on the couch like she had been waiting there on purpose. A tight black crop top clung to her chest, short enough that the soft undercurve of her breasts showed every time she shifted. Her shorts were worse. Thin, tiny, riding high on her thighs, the kind that looked one restless movement away from becoming a problem on camera. One leg was bent up on the cushions, and the inside of her thigh caught the parlor light in a clean, distracting line.

Daisy’s camera was lower, aimed from a bed somewhere in the house. She held the phone carelessly, which only made it worse. Her thin fitted top was stretched tight across her chest, the neckline open enough that her cleavage sat heavy and obvious under the bedroom light. Every small breath made it more noticeable. Beside her, Gracie filled the rest of the frame in shorts so tight they looked less like shorts and more like short pants painted onto her hips. When she moved even slightly, the thick curve of her ass pushed into the edge of the screen, round and heavy, impossible to ignore.

Debbie was in the sitting room, hair loose around her shoulders, wearing the same kind of casual house clothes that did not leave much to guess. Short bottoms. Close top. Bare legs crossed, expression already flat with irritation, like she had prepared herself for this call long before he answered.

For half a second Lucas just looked.

Mia’s stomach and the soft press of her chest in that crop top. Daisy’s cleavage under the low angle of the phone. Gracie’s ass shifting against the sheets at the edge of the frame. Three different rooms, four different bodies, all of them dressed like the house belonged only to them and nobody had expected him to pick up.

Heat tried to rise.

Then Mia’s eyes locked on him through the screen, sharp and already angry, and the temptation died on contact.

She struck first.

"So you left all this time and never checked on us?"

Her voice was sharp enough to wipe the leftover heat out of his head.

Daisy came in right after.

"Where have you been? You said you were going to a banquet. That ended days ago. Days, Lucas. And you still are not back."

Gracie stayed quiet beside her.

She did not know if she was allowed to speak. After everything she had cost him, after the stress and the mess tied to her name, she was not sure where she stood. So she only looked at his face on the screen. He looked tired. Handsome in a worn way. Something in her chest pulled tight, like she had missed him and had no right to say it yet.

Lucas opened his mouth.

"A lot of things came up."

Debbie cut across him before the sentence could finish.

"Don’t start with ’something came up.’ Was it more important than us?"

That was all it took.

All three of them went at him at once. Frustration spilled over frustration. Mia repeating that he disappeared. Daisy demanding where he had been. Debbie refusing every soft excuse before he could even shape one. The call turned into overlapping voices and hard eyes, three different rooms aiming the same anger at one man on a bed.

Lucas waited until the worst of it broke.

"It was trouble," he said. "Real trouble."

The words landed differently from an excuse.

For a moment none of them answered. The heat in their faces did not vanish, but it changed shape. Mia’s shoulders lowered a little. Daisy’s grip on the phone eased. Debbie looked at him longer, searching for injury more than guilt.

"Mia spoke again, and this time the edge was gone. ’What came up?’"

Debbie leaned closer to her screen. "What did that bastard Durnik do this time?"

Even Gracie’s face changed. The careful quiet she had been holding broke for a second.

"That old bastard," she muttered. "Until I put him in the ground myself, he will not rest."

Lucas almost smiled.

They were calmer now. The sharp attack had burned down into shared anger at someone else, and that should have made things easier. It did not. Because the next part was harder than their frustration. Harder to say. Harder to control once it left his mouth.

Then Lucas hesitated.

"It was not that serious," he said. "I already handled it."

None of them bought it.

They could see it on his face. The way he smoothed the edges. The way he tried to keep them from worrying. Mia’s eyes narrowed. Daisy tilted her head. Debbie folded her arms on camera like she was done being managed.

"Talk," Mia said.

"What happened?" Daisy pushed.

"Stop protecting us and say it," Debbie added.

Lucas looked at the three of them, all locked in, all ready for whatever truth he was holding back. After a second he gave a short breath out.

"When I get home," he said. "I will tell you everything."

That almost set them off again. He saw the complaints rising in their faces and cut across them first.

"I am coming home today."

The call went still.

For a second nobody moved. Then the words landed properly.

Daisy reacted first. She forgot Gracie was right beside her, grabbed the phone with both hands, and started bouncing on the bed hard enough to shake the camera. Mia’s mouth opened, then broke into a grin she could not hide. Debbie let out a short disbelieving laugh and covered her face for a moment before looking back at the screen.

All the earlier anger scattered under the same sudden lift.

Home today.

They stayed loud for a while.

Questions stacked on top of each other. What time. Was he serious. Was he already on the road. Daisy was still half bouncing on the bed. Mia kept smiling like she was trying not to and failing. Debbie shook her head once, but even she could not fully kill the lift in her face.

Lucas did not interrupt.

He let the first rush run itself out. Only when their voices thinned and the happiness was still plain on all three screens did he speak again.

"But I will be coming with a friend."