Loving Him For 30 Days のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 101 - チャプター 108

The kitchen counter in the Chelsea brownstone looked like a flour bomb had gone off, which was a magnificent, chaotic sin against the immaculate, white-marble minimalism Lucien usually insisted on. Eli stood over a heavy wooden rolling pin, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, a prominent smudge of yellow cornstarch sitting right on the tip of his nose. He was wearing one of Lucien’s expensive white linen button-downs again—the linen soft from too many washes, the hem hanging halfway down his thighs—and he was entirely indifferent to the fact that he was currently making a total mess of a kitchen that probably cost more than his entire childhood neighborhood in the southern district. A pair of heavy, warm arms slid around his waist from behind, locking him tight against a broad chest. Lucien buried his face into the crook of Eli’s neck, inhaling deeply, taking in the sweet, sharp scent of fresh lemons, butter, and vanilla. "You're tracking flour onto the custom herringbone floors, T

Noah sat on the kitchen island stool, wearing nothing but a pair of gray sweatpants. His legs were propped up on an adjacent chair, wrapped tightly in bulky, black compression sleeves that rhythmically inflated and deflated with a loud, mechanical hiss. It was his post-race routine—forcing the blood back into his sore muscles after pushing himself to the absolute limit on the track. He took a slow bite of his bagel, chewing thoughtfully while his eyes tracked the movement across the living room.Cassian was in his element, which meant the living room looked like a bomb had gone off in an electronics factory.Three separate monitors were set up on the low coffee table, casting a harsh blue glow across the sofa. Wires of varying colors, blue, yellow, and black snaked across the hardwood floor, leading back to a central control unit that looked like a sleek, metallic brick. Cassian was sitting cross-legged on the floor right in the middle of the mess, his fingers flying across a mechanic

Two open suitcases lay side by side on the king-sized bed, looking like two completely different worlds colliding.On Noah’s side, the hard-shell case was overflowing with high-performance running shoes, resistance bands, recovery slides, and neatly folded athletic gear. On Cassian’s side, the bag looked like an electronics surplus store—tangled charging cables, portable power banks, two laptops in padded sleeves, and a small hard case filled with extra drive arrays.Noah stood over the bed, holding three different pairs of running shoes in his hands, staring down at his luggage with absolute concentration.Cassian came out of the closet carrying another black gear pouch. He took one look at Noah’s half of the bed and stopped dead in his tracks. "Noah. No.""What?" Noah asked, looking up with genuine innocence."You are not bringing three pairs of running shoes for a ten-day vacation on a tropical island that is eighty percent water," Cassian said, tossing his gear pouch onto the beds

The red synthetic material of the track stretched out in front of Noah, divided into eight neat lanes under the midday light. The stadium around him was mostly silent today, free from the roar of weekend crowds or the heavy chatter of the full regional team. Only a few local athletes were scattered across the far side of the field, finishing up their warm-down stretches before heading inside.Noah stood at the edge of Lane Four, adjusting the laces on his right running shoe. His t-shirt was soaked with sweat, clinging to his chest, and his lungs burned in that familiar, satisfying way that followed a series of fast two-hundred-meter sprints. Without Eli there to push the pace on the turn, Noah had to rely entirely on his own internal clock to keep his split times sharp.He glanced toward the grandstands.Cassian was sitting four rows up on the metal bleachers, completely ignoring the empty seats around him. He had his legs stretched out over the row in front of him, a pair of dark sun