Proving Paul's Promise

  “What the fuck are you doing?” he asks.

  I hold up my water bottle. “Drinking water, numbnuts. Why?”

  “You know that’s not what I mean.” His foot starts to tap.

  “None of your business,” I murmur. I hate it when Matt does this. He’s so gentle and quiet. He’s pretty much the opposite of me in every way, except for our looks. And even in that, he’s thin and wiry, but strong. And I’m…not thin or wiry.

  He points toward the front of the store. “Friday is all of our business,” he hisses quietly. “She’s family, Paul.”

  “I know,” I breathe. “Another reason why it’s best to keep things the way they are.” I throw my bottle into the recycling from across the room.

  “Well, you’ve already fucked up the atmosphere,” he says. “What are you going to do about it?”

  “Nothing,” I say. “I’m going to do nothing.”

  Friday has been a part of our circle for four years. But almost all of that time, I thought she was a lesbian. The five minutes when I didn’t is when the trouble started.

  “It didn’t look like nothing when we got here. You were kissing her eyelids and she didn’t seem too put out by it.”

  “She’s not in the right position for what I want,” I say. I can’t tell him about her being pregnant. It’s not my story to tell.

  He grins. “Well, what position did you want her in?”

  “Shut up,” I grouse.

  “If she’s in the wrong position, flip her the fuck over.” He throws up his hands. “Hell, turn her upside down if you have to.”

  “It’s not that easy.”

  His gaze softens. “Nothing worth having is easy to get.”

  If anyone would know, it’s Matt. He battled cancer and thought he would never get married or have a kid, and now he has three with twins on the way. He fought, and he won.

  “Is she worth having?” Matt asks.

  “I don’t know.” I shake my head.

  “Do you want to find out?”

  “I don’t know.” I drag a hand down my face.

  “I never took you for being a quitter.”

  I heave in a breath. “I’ve never quit anything on purpose. But this fight might be more than I want to take on.”

  “Hell, you knew she had baggage. Layers. You told me you wanted to find out everything about her. Find out why she doesn’t have a family. Find out why she’s all alone in New York. Find out why she’s living in Pete’s spare room until tomorrow.”

  I spin to face him. “She’s living with Pete and Reagan?” I didn’t know about that. “Why?”

  He shrugs. “She had to move out of the dorm after graduation. They had an empty room. But Reagan’s parents are coming to stay for two weeks, so she’s going somewhere else.”

  “Where?” I ask quickly.

  He shrugs. “Does it matter?” But he’s grinning.

  Fuck yeah, it matters. “Is she going to stay with one of the douchebags?”

  “What douchebags?” Matt scratches his head.

  “Never mind,” I say. Hope swells within me. I shouldn’t let it, but it does. I get out a piece of paper and write on it in magic marker:

  ROOM FOR RENT

  PRICE NEGOTIABLE

  ONLY BEAUTIFUL LITTLE

  BOMBSHELLS NEED APPLY

  PREFERABLY ONES NAMED FRIDAY

  I walk out of the back room and go to the bulletin board. I stick a thumbtack in the “advertisement” and walk away.

  I hear a snicker from behind me and turn to grin at Logan.

  You’re a d-o-o-f-u-s, he signs, fingerspelling the last word because there’s no sign for something so stupid.

  I know, I sign back.

  He looks a little worried for me, but I don’t care. I can’t get where I want to go if I don’t take a first step. Regardless of whether or not she’s pregnant, she needs a place to stay and I have two empty rooms. And she’s family, for Christ’s sake.

  I’ve never wanted to eat out a member of my family, though. I scratch my head. I should probably stop thinking like that.

  I whistle to myself as I walk to my office. I have some paperwork to do before my first appointment arrives. And I need to give Friday time to find my ad.

  Friday

  I’ve been working on a particularly tricky tat for a client, and I can’t quite get it right. I motion Logan over to take a look.

  “What do you think?” I glance up at him. He pinches his lips together and shakes his head. “What?” I ask, throwing up my hands. “Use your words.”

  Instead, he takes my pencil and spins the paper toward him. He draws on it for a second and then shoves it toward me. He hands my pencil back and grins.

  “I hate you,” I say, when I see that he just added two lines and made my drawing perfect.

  “I love you, too,” he says. He leans over quickly and kisses my forehead. I squeeze my eyes closed and let him.

  He makes a noise and goes over to the bulletin board. He starts to draw little hearts around the edges of a posting. I tap his shoulder so he’ll look up. “What are you doing?”

  “Adding hearts,” he says, like I should have guessed.

  I tap him again so he’ll look at me. “Why are you doing that?”

  He shrugs. “It needed hearts.”

  “What needed hearts?” I ask. I lean closer so I can read the paper.

  My own heart thuds. “It doesn’t need hearts,” I say. It needs condoms. Well, that is, if I’m not already pregnant. I look up at Logan. “He doesn’t know what he’s doing, does he?” I ask.

  He squeezes my shoulder. “Go easy on him, will you?”

  “Why?”

  “He quit Kelly for you, Friday.” He glares at me. “Like, cold turkey. He quit her. He’s been fucking Kelly for years. And he broke things off with her.”

  “How do you know all this?” I ask.

  “We talk.” He gestures toward his brothers, who are all draped around the room like furniture. Really big, good-looking furniture.

  “Of course, you do,” I say. I pull the thumbtack from the ad and take a deep breath.

  “Go easy on him,” he says again.

  “Fuck that,” I reply.

  He grins and shrugs. “I can’t say I didn’t try.” He takes my shoulders and turns me toward Paul’s office. “Go Friday on his ass.” He slaps me on the butt while Pete and Sam snicker and high-five one another.

  I walk to the back of the shop and knock on Paul’s office door since it’s closed. That usually means he wants to be left alone. “What?” he calls.

  I open the door and stick my head in. “Do you always answer the door like that?” I ask.

  “Yes,” he says. He has the phone balanced between his shoulder and his ear. “What do you want?”

  “Are you on the phone?”

  “On hold, Friday. What do you want?”

  I slap the paper down on his desk and hold my flat palm over it. “What the fuck is this?”

  He looks down at it. “That was a perfectly good invitation, until somebody fucked it up with hearts,” he growls.

  I look down at it. “I kind of like the hearts,” I admit.

  “Next time, I’ll use hearts,” he says. He smiles.

  “You’re looking for a roommate?” I ask. I toy with my lip piercing until his gaze lands there, and then I force myself to stop. “Since when?”

  “Since I found out you’re homeless,” he says.

  “I’m not homeless,” I protest.

  “Where are you living after today?” he asks.

  I’m not at all sure about that, but he doesn’t need to know it. “Shut up,” I say instead.

  He pushes the paper toward me. “I have an extra room. You need a place to stay. Let’s not make it more than it is, okay?”

  “That’s all you’d expect?” I ask, hating how quiet my voice suddenly gets.

  “You could be pregnant, Friday,” he says. “What else would I want from you?”

 
My breath catches. He is so right. I have been looking at this like it’s all about us, but it’s not. It’s all about this baby I have to protect for nine months, a baby he’s now fully aware of, even if he’s not aware of the details.

  “How much?” I ask.

  “How much can you afford?” he asks.

  He knows full well how much money I make; he pays me. But he isn’t aware of the money I make doing commissioned portraits and other artwork.

  He waves a hand in the air. “Don’t worry about what it costs,” he says. “Pay me whatever you can. The room is just sitting there empty. And if you live with me, I won’t have to worry about you being homeless.”

  I snort. “Like you’d worry anyway.”

  His brow rises. “I worry. I worry about you all the fucking time. But if you live with me, I won’t have to. So take pity on me and just take the fucking room, dammit.”

  “Okay.”

  He looks surprised. “Okay?”

  “Yes.”

  He grins. “Okay.”

  “Can I come over tonight?” I ask.

  He nods and brings the phone back to his mouth and starts to speak. I close his door.

  Reagan’s parents are coming tonight. I was going to go to Logan and Emily’s, but I’d rather not have to hear their bed thumping against the wall all night. Emily is almost nine months pregnant and those two still go at it like rabbits.

  Wait. Will I have to hear Paul’s bed thumping against the wall? Shit. I didn’t even think about that.

  Paul

  I try to clean up a little bit since I know Friday is coming over. I toss out all the pizza boxes and put clean sheets on Matt’s old bed. His bedroom is right next to mine, and I can already imagine what it’s going to be like lying in my bed fantasizing about her naked in hers.

  “You’re a little bit whipped,” Sam says from behind me.

  I turn around and scowl at him. “I am not.”

  “Yes, you are. I think it’s cute.” He grins at me as he balances himself in the doorway, dangling from the overhang like a monkey. “You have a crush.”

  “I do not have a crush,” I say.

  “Oh, you totally have a crush,” he sings out.

  I can’t let him tease me like that, so I chase him out of Matt’s old room and down the hallway into the living room. He jumps over the back of the couch, and I go over it after him. I catch him around the waist and knock him to the floor. He’s wiry and quick, and I don’t remember him being quite as strong as he is now, but I pin him to the floor anyway.

  I must be getting old because it’s harder to hold him down than it used to be. A lot harder. Sam’s a collegiate athlete, and he’s even being scouted by a couple of pro teams, so he’s in peak physical shape all the time. Unlike me. Thankfully, I have size on my side.

  A knock sounds at the door. I yell, “Come in!” without letting Sam up. He grunts and shoves at me, but I sit on him. The door opens and a man walks in carrying a box. I freeze, because he looks familiar.

  “Get off me, you big fucker,” Sam says. The man raises his brow at us and looks back at Friday, who is dragging a suitcase.

  I let Sam up, and he swipes the hair back from his brow. He’s sweating. I’m not. But I also wasn’t the one trying to scramble up from the floor.

  “Looks like my kind of party,” the guy says. He grins at Friday, and I hate him immediately.

  Friday rolls her eyes at us and walks inside. “Are we too early?” she asks.

  “Too early for what?” I reply. I don’t like it at all that she brought this fucker to my house. Not one bit.

  “Too early to move in.”

  I look from her to him and back. “Beg your pardon?” I say.

  She points to the dickwad and then to me. “Garrett, you remember Paul. Paul, Garrett. The one who got pinned is Sam. Sam’s a pussy, but he can’t help it because he’s never been loved enough.” She laughs, and the tinkle of it hits me in the gut.

  Garrett sticks out his hand to shake. I take it and squeeze it hard enough that he winces. I can’t believe he came to my house. “Good to see you again,” I say.

  “You, too.” He twists his hand out of my grip.

  “How long are you staying?” I blurt out. I can’t help it. I’m a guy.

  He grins and looks down at Friday. “We’re having dinner, right?” he asks.

  She nods. “Come and help me put my stuff away,” she says.

  I get the feeling she’s talking to him since he follows her into her new room and they close the door. Then she sticks her head back out and asks, “Will you call us when the pizzas get here?”

  I nod because I can’t get any words past the fist she just shoved into my gut.

  “That’s fucked up,” Sam grunts.

  Yeah, I know.

  I flop into my lazy chair and flip through the channels until another knock sounds at the door.

  Friday

  “Damn, he’s smoking hot,” Garrett whispers vehemently. “Just wait till Cody meets him. I’ll get laid because he’ll be fantasizing about your man.”

  I snort. “He is so not my man.”

  I motion for him to lug my suitcase onto the bed, and I unzip it, then start hanging up my clothes. I really don’t have much, because I don’t need much. But one thing I do have is clothes. With my love for all things vintage, I buy stuff at secondhand shops most of the time. It’s pretty much all I wear.

  “Oh, honey,” Garrett says as he flops back onto my bed and fans his face. “He so has the hots for you.”

  I keep hanging up clothes. Garrett snags a thong from my suitcase and twirls it in the air on his index finger. “Someone has a kinky side.”

  “Thongs are not kinky,” I scold.

  “Mmm hmm,” he hums. He laughs. “I bet Paul is one kinky motherfucker.”

  My face flushes.

  He sits up suddenly. “When you finally find out, will you give me all the details?” He looks like a puppy that’s sitting up begging for a treat. He even pants like one.

  “Shut up,” I say, but I laugh, too.

  “So, how’s this thing going down tonight?” he asks, sobering suddenly.

  “When will Cody be here?” I ask.

  “He’s stopping to get the beer and pizza, and then he’ll be here. Do you want me to lay one on him when he walks in the door or wait?”

  I shrug. “Do what comes naturally.” It’s not like Paul’s not going to know immediately when he sees Cody and Garrett together that they’re a couple. A happy couple that has been together for a really long time.

  Someone knocks on my door. “Come in,” I call.

  Garrett sits up on his elbow as the door opens. Sam sticks his head in. He scowls at Garrett. “Your pizza’s here,” he says.

  “Showtime,” Garrett says, and he rubs his hands together¸ excited. He gets to his feet and follows me into the kitchen.

  Paul is watching TV, and he doesn’t bother to get up. I go sit on the couch as Garrett lets Cody in. The two of them stand in the doorway and whisper to each other for a moment. Cody scowls at Garrett and shakes his head. Garrett reaches for him, but he dodges and walks toward us, lowering the pizzas to the end table.

  Cody bends over and kisses me on the forehead.

  Paul makes a noise that sounds a lot like a growl. He picks up the remote and flips the TV off. “I’m going to bed,” he says. “Good night.”

  “Don’t go,” I say. I really, really need for him to meet Garrett and Cody so he’ll understand.

  “I’m tired,” he says. He gets up and fakes a stretch, but a strip of his belly shows under his shirt. Garrett makes a noise, and Cody elbows him in the side.

  “You didn’t meet Cody,” I say.

  “I don’t need to meet anyone else.” He’s kind of cute when he pouts. And kind of annoying.

  Cody sticks out his hand, and Paul takes it reluctantly. Cody holds out a beer next. Paul shakes his head. “No, thanks. You guys have fun.”

  He goes to his
room and shuts the door.

  “Well, fuck,” I say.

  Garrett talks around a mouthful of pizza. “You should go get him.” He waggles his brows at me. “Bring him back so he can play with us.”

  I walk down the hallway past Sam’s room and stick my head in. “There’s pizza,” I say. He nods at me. He’s on the phone.

  I knock on Paul’s door, and he calls out, “What?”

  I open the door a crack. “What the fuck is it with you and that greeting?” I say.

  “Did you want a soliloquy?” he asks. He’s lying back on his bed tossing a ball toward the ceiling.

  “I want you to come back out and hang with me and the guys.”

  “No.”

  That’s all I get? “Why not?”

  “Why should I?”

  “Why shouldn’t you?”

  “I don’t particularly care to watch you with your boyfriends.” He keeps tossing the ball.

  “They’re not my boyfriends, dumbass,” I say. I shove his legs over and sit down on the edge of his bed. “If you’d come out here and spend some time with them, you’d see that.”

  He sits up and moves to the other side of the bed. “I can’t believe you brought them to my fucking house.”

  “Would you zip your fucking mouth before you dig yourself a bigger hole?”

  “It’s my house. I can dig around in it as much as I want.”

  He sounds like a two-year-old, and it makes me laugh. Then I snort.

  “Which one is your baby’s father?” he asks quietly. He stops tossing the ball.

  I shrug. “It could be either one of them.”

  He tenses. I can see it in the lines of his body. He’s solid as a rock, all of a sudden. “I don’t like that. Not at all.”

  “You don’t understand. If you’d come out there, you’d get it.”

  Suddenly, he hooks an arm around me and drags me to lie on top of him. I rest on my elbows on his chest. “I don’t like the idea of you fucking them.”

  “I didn’t fuck them,” I say. I move like I’m going to get up.