Changing Everything

  Paisley jumped before a laugh bubbled up from her chest. “God, make a noise or something to warn me you’re coming next time.” Her brown eyes flashed down to my chest, and she quickly turned to go back to messing with whatever she’d brought over. “Don’t you have a shirt you can put on?”

  Stepping up behind her, I rested my chin on top of her head and picked at the pastry she’d just pulled out of the bag. “I do, but you woke me up.”

  “I woke you up? I’m late. And your head is heavy,” she grumbled.

  I put more pressure on her head and she elbowed my stomach. “What’s this?” I asked, and pointed at the wrapped sandwich she’d just set down.

  “There are two sausage English muffins for you.”

  “Do they have—”

  “Extra cheese? Yes, they do.”

  I hugged her waist tightly. “You’re the best.” Grabbing one of the sandwiches, I unwrapped it and held it in front of her so she could have the first bite before taking my own. “I forgot it was Sunday,” I mumbled around the food.

  She laughed and started to unwrap her own sandwich. “Good thing it was my week to get food or I’d be sitting at my apartment starv— Wait. If I woke you up, why are you in jeans?”

  “I could’ve walked out here naked.”

  Her body went stiff. “You don’t sleep naked.”

  I pointed in the direction of my room with my sandwich. “Carrie’s here.”

  “Who’s Carrie?”

  “The girl from the bar a few weeks ago.”

  “There are a lot of girls from O’Malley’s when it comes to you, Eli,” she countered.

  “Ouch. The girl from the night of my birthday.”

  “Oompa-Loompa?”

  “Pay,” I growled in warning.

  Paisley pushed against the island, trying to move me away. “Move, I need to leave.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “You have a girl in your bed who is probably as naked as you were five minutes ago. I should not be here when she wakes up.”

  “And you’re my best friend and it’s Sunday morning. This is our tradition and she’s not going to stop it because I forgot what today was.”

  “Eli, let me go!” she hissed and jammed both her elbows into my stomach.

  I bent forward as I took a step back. “Fuck, Pay!”

  “Language! Let the Oompa-Loompa eat my breakfast, she’ll think you did something nice for her.” She took three steps away from me before I was able to grab her hand to stop her. Turning quickly, she stepped back up to me and tried to get in my face. All five feet of her. “Do you know how horrible you look when you do things like this to all these girls?” she seethed. “You’re twenty-five, Eli, grow up and stop being such a whore! Stop treating every girl you meet like all she is to you is your next lay. Stop letting them all be your next lay! Find someone who you actually want to spend your time with and—”

  “Ohmigod. Are you, like, everywhere?”

  Paisley whipped her head to the side to look at Carrie, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of Pay. Where was this coming from? She’d joked about all the girls I slept with, but she’d never flipped out on me like this.

  “Did I interrupt something?” Carrie gasped and shrieked, “I knew it! You are fucking her!”

  Paisley scoffed and met my gaze. “No, he’s not. That should be obvious since I’m still around and none of the other girls are.”

  With that, she turned and quickly left the apartment. Leaving me still standing there, staring at where she’d been long after Carrie even got dressed and left.

  Chapter Two

  August 3, 2013

  Paisley

  FIDGETING WITH THE material Kristen had shoved at me a few minutes before, I turned to look at my backside in the full-length mirror and grimaced. There was no way this thing was a dress; it was way too short. Like someone-call-TMZ-my-vagina-was-one-chair-or-car-ride-away-from-saying-hello-to-the-world short.

  “I need to wear jeans with this,” I grumbled.

  “I’ll kill you if you mess with my creation. And hurry up, it’s weird that there’s a party in your apartment, and you’re hiding out in here.”

  I wasn’t hiding. I was waiting for Kristen to leave so I could change. Glancing at the four-inch stilettos I was in, my grimace turned into a look of horror when I realized I looked like every girl Eli normally hooked up with. “I look like I’m trying too hard.”

  “No, you look like you’re about to make Eli Jenkins regret that he didn’t snatch you up a long time ago.”

  I looked through the mirror at where she was kicking her feet in the air while hanging off my bed. “Exactly. Like I’m trying too hard.” Looking back down at the shirt that deceptively made my boobs look massive, I suppressed a sigh. “And it’s all gonna be for nothing.”

  “You don’t know that,” Kristen challenged in a singsong voice.

  “Eli uses me to pick up and ward off women. He’s not about to care if you and Jason are trying to set me up with some guy.”

  “I beg to differ.” Her voice hadn’t lost the musical lilt. When I just raised an eyebrow, she groaned and rolled over so she was lying on her stomach. “He beat the shit out of homeboy who you gave your V-card to in college.”

  “Eli beat him up because he posted a naked picture of me with the words ‘Deflowered by Johnny G’ in blood red all over our dorm, which he’d taken of me while I was sleeping.”

  Kristen propped herself up on her elbows and held her hands out, palms up. “If that’s the way you want to see it. I choose to see it like this: Even though he deserved to get his ass beat regardless because of the picture and disgusting way that frat bragged about their conquests, that was how Eli found out you lost your virginity. Eli was jealous, and it’s not like Johnny tried to hide he was the one behind it all. Therefore, Eli took his anger out on the bastard.”

  “Lan—”

  “Don’t language me!”

  I smiled and fluffed my hair one last time before turning. “Fine, I’m ready . . . and your theory has to be flawed since Eli had been talking to me about the girls he’d been banging, and I hooked up with Johnny to try to get back at Eli. It didn’t work, just like tonight won’t work.”

  “We’ll see.”

  With a deep breath, I opened my door and made it two steps before Kristen’s husband, Jason, was walking toward us.

  “My two favorite girls; you both look beautiful.” Pulling Kristen close to his side, he grabbed me in a quick hug and glanced behind him. “I’m gonna tell him, Paisley, swear to Christ I’m going to.”

  “Tell who, what?”

  “Eli,” he sneered. “He told me about what happened last weekend when you showed up for Sunday morning.”

  Ah. Yeah. That . . . Thanks for the reminder. I no longer felt confident in my slutty shirt-dress. I felt like a stupid girl who had no idea what she was trying to do as I was reminded of the countless times Eli had crushed me. “Yeah.” I laughed uneasily. “It was kind of awkward.”

  “He needs to know. He would never hurt you on purpose, and he has no idea that he’s doing it now. I can’t sit back and keep watching you get your heart broken over him.”

  “Jason, no! You promised,” I begged. “You swore you wouldn’t tell him how I felt.”

  He ground his jaw and looked behind him again to make sure no one was coming down the hall. “You can’t ask us to keep watching you go through this. This has to stop, and maybe if he knows how you feel, you’ll find out he feels the same.”

  A spark of hope ignited deep in my chest, but I was quick to put it out. “You can’t know that, and, besides, you’re both trying to stop it now anyway. By you trying to set me up with this Sean guy, and Kristen making me look like a streetwalker . . . I know what you’re really doing. You’re trying to get a reaction out of Eli.”

/>   Jason didn’t respond, but his neck burned red with embarrassment. Kristen had already known I’d figured them out anyway, so she didn’t look apologetic.

  “You’ll see that tonight won’t do anything. There won’t be a reaction, and you just have to be okay with that.”

  “Pay—”

  “Jason,” I hissed, and stepped closer. “It’s not his fault that I fell in love with him.”

  Grabbing Kristen’s hand, I walked down the rest of my hall and into the living room, where dozens of our friends were already hanging out.

  My eyes darted across the many faces, looking for Eli’s, but I didn’t see him or hear his voice before Jason was behind me and turning me to the left.

  “Paisley, this is Sean.”

  I looked up and smiled at the guy in front of me. He was taller than me—not that that was uncommon—but much shorter than Eli, and had eyes I could stare at all night. But that was it. There was no pull other than the physical attraction. And only being physically attracted to someone after having the soul-aching crave I had for Eli was a letdown.

  “Sean, this is Paisley—the girl I was telling you about.”

  He held out a hand, and a creepy smile pulled at his lips as his eyes trailed over me. “It’s great to meet you, I’ve heard a lot—”

  “Excuse us for a minute,” Eli interrupted calmly, but judging from the clipped end of his sentence—and the fact that he had just put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me away from Sean—I knew he wasn’t happy.

  “Eli!” Jason snarled.

  “What is your problem?” I asked as he towed me through the people and down my hallway.

  He didn’t respond until we were in my bedroom with the door shut and locked behind us. “What the fuck are you wearing, Pay?”

  I couldn’t even say anything about his language. I was too excited that he’d noticed what I was wearing. My lips threatened to pull into a smile, but I somehow kept my annoyed expression. “Clothes, thanks for noticing.”

  Eli pointed at the little piece of fabric that liked to call itself a dress. “That does not count as clothes. Put something else on.”

  Wait. What? No . . . this is supposed to be the part where you get all possessive and tell me you’ve been in love with me forever and push me against the wall and make use of this little scrap of fabric. Okay, fine, so I’d been hoping Kristen and Jason’s plan would work. Sue me. “Why?”

  “Because you’re in next-to-nothing and sending a message that that douche was getting loud and clear. Put some pants on at least, Christ, Paisley.”

  Crossing my arms over my chest, I cocked my hip and sent him a challenging glare. “Good! You know what? I’m glad he understood what this outfit was meant for.” At least somebody got it.

  Eli pointed at me. “I can see your underwear, how could he not understand what it was meant for?”

  I looked down and straightened my body as I pulled on the fabric. Like I’d said. TMZ should’ve been there.

  “Sorry if you were excited about this guy, but it’s not about to happen, not after what I just saw.”

  My moment of mortification stopped abruptly, and I slowly looked up at him. “I don’t like any of the women you pick up, but do you see me trying to stop you from taking them home? You can’t just stop me from dating these guys whenever you don’t like them, Eli! Just because you don’t like the fact that someone appreciated the way I look doesn’t give you the right to throw yourself into my life to stop me from trying to find someone.”

  “No, Pay . . . never,” he crooned, and closed the distance between us. “But I won’t watch you find someone by dressing like . . . like this. And I sure as hell won’t stand back while you date someone like him. The second Jason went to find why you and Kristen were taking too long, that guy’s hand was resting on some chick’s ass, and his eyes were on another. He’s a prick, I’m not letting him near you.”

  Wow. Really? Thanks, Jason. Biting down on my lip, I raised an eyebrow and muttered, “Sounds like someone else I know.”

  Eli laughed loudly. “Yeah, well, I never claimed to be a saint.”

  “Clearly.”

  Turning around, he opened up the drawer that held all my jeans, and pulled out my favorite pair. I knew what he was doing, and there was no point in arguing. He wouldn’t let me out of the room until he had his way—and I really hated being in this thing anyway.

  “Take off those shoes,” he ordered, and held out his arm for me to steady myself on as I did. Once they were off, he bent down and held my jeans open.

  “I can dress myself.”

  “Paisley,” he warned.

  Rolling my eyes, I placed my hands on the backs of his shoulders and stepped into my jeans. By the time he pulled them up over my hips, I was trying to hide a smile the size of Texas.

  Swatting at his hands, I buttoned and zipped the jeans and messed with the shirt-dress so it was resting on my butt instead of over. Glancing in my mirror, I had to hand it to Eli; it looked so much better like this. Not that I would tell him.

  “Now this is my Paisley.”

  My breathing halted, and I looked at him in the reflection with a wide expression.

  My Paisley?

  “Come on, let’s get back out there.”

  He called me his Paisley!

  Grabbing on to my wrist, he walked me out of the room and back to the living room where everyone was still going on with their night. Jason was glaring at Eli, and Kristen was giving me a look that screamed she wanted details of what had just gone down in my bedroom. After a small shake of my head, her expression fell. And the second Sean walked toward me, Eli put his arm around my waist and pulled me close to his side—and didn’t let me go for the rest of the party.

  Not that I minded.

  Hours after the party was over, and my apartment was back to looking like my apartment again, I changed into my pajamas and washed off the makeup Kristen had also somehow talked me into. Just as I was propping all my pillows up, my phone rang, and a stupid, cheesy smile pulled at my lips.

  “No, I won’t call a cab for you if you went and got wasted somewhere, call one yourself. If her face is orange again, just say no. The right kind of flower can get you out of any situation your dumb mouth got you in. If it’s bumpy and red, you should probably go to a hospital and get that checked, and I’ll be there soon to say, ‘I told you so.’ ”

  His deep laugh filled the phone, and my body responded from that sound alone. “Appreciate all that.”

  “What’d you forget?”

  “Remember after every formal and prom in high school, and then after almost every party in college, we’d get milkshakes and either go chill on the beach, or go back to one of our places and watch movies?”

  I smiled as I sank onto my bed. “How could I forget, it was my reward for being your wingman.” And some of my favorite memories of growing up with Eli; because it meant that night he was with me—not someone else.

  “Best wingman ever. Never making me go to a dance with anyone other than my best friend so girls wouldn’t get the wrong idea. Always being there if . . . well, just always being there.”

  “What’s bringing up this trip down memory lane? It’s been, what, three years since we did that?”

  “Yep . . . too long.”

  My doorbell rang, and I stood quickly, my brow pinching together as I took quiet steps out of my bedroom.

  “Um . . . there’s—”

  “Are you gonna let me in?”

  My heart took off, as did my feet, and I ran down my hall to the front door. Unlocking the deadbolt, I flung open the door to find Eli standing there—phone between his ear and shoulder, two shakes in hand, and wearing an old shirt and mesh nylon shorts.

  “Chocolate, peanut butter for my wingman,” he said softly as he handed me one of the shakes.

&n
bsp; I stood there smiling and staring at the cup like he’d just given me something so precious.

  “So I only seem to have insomnia when my best friend isn’t sleeping beside me,” Eli hinted with a shameless grin.

  “I have the pillows propped up just the way you hate them,” I offered, still speaking into the phone.

  His blue eyes darkened, and voice dropped low. “That sounds perfect.”

  “Did you want to come in?”

  He simply nodded, and everything in me heated. But I knew what this meant for him, and I knew what he was doing. I knew Eli far too well for me not to know.

  He was making up for last weekend, tomorrow was Sunday morning at my place, and this way he was assuring me that he would be here.

  He was apologizing for tonight.

  And he was letting me know I was still number one for him.

  If only he knew I wanted to be number one for an entirely different reason. If only he knew that having him protect me from someone tonight had made my week. If only he knew that him showing up right now—like this—meant the world to me.

  Stepping back, I waited until he was inside before ending the call, and closed and locked the door behind him. I followed him down the hall and into my bedroom before climbing onto my bed. Watching as he moved around my bedroom, I tried not to let him see how much I loved this. The simplest acts, but acts I wanted with him every night. Flipping off the light, turning on the TV to find a movie for us to watch, and pulling his shirt off before he slid into bed next to me.

  Holding his arm out for me to curl under, he pulled me in close as he got settled up against the pillows.

  “Switch.”

  I handed him my cup and took his from him before taking a sip. “Chocolate, banana?” He made an affirmative noise, and once he stopped moving, I got comfortable against him and sighed. “Thanks, friend.”

  “Anytime, wingman.”

  August 5, 2013

  Eli

  JASON SWUNG INTO my office and slapped his hand on the door. “Lunch?”

  “Uh . . . yeah. Just let me send this last thing . . . done. Where are we going?”