Proving Paul's Promise

  I pull my hair back into a ponytail. I don’t usually do much volunteering, but this event is kind of my thing. I owe this rescue mission my life: they took me when no one else would. My life spiraled out of control, and they helped me find my footing. They don’t know the new me, so I have to go as the old me, and it’s the me that Paul has never seen. I am not wearing makeup, and I have on shorts and an old T-shirt that says Will work for change. And I will. I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is when it comes to fundraising for this group. I’ll take dollars, I’ll take change, I’ll take checks, and I’ll take credit cards. If I can get one girl off the streets, I’ve done a good thing and I can sleep easier.

  I put on a baseball cap and pull my ponytail through the back of it. I sling my backpack, which has all my paints in it, over my shoulder. The rest of my stuff is waiting at the tent in the park.

  “We’re going to be late,” I say as I run out of the room toward the front door.

  “Jesus Christ, Friday,” Paul says quietly when he sees what I’m wearing.

  I look down and fidget with my jean shorts. “What?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “I’ve never seen you look so…normal.”

  “Is it bad?” I ask.

  He closes his mouth. “No,” he says. He smiles. “It’s good. Very, very good.”

  I usually wear my vintage clothes and heels when I’m working at the shop, and it’s what people have come to expect so I keep doing it. I get a lot of attention that way, and that’s what the shop needs. “You ready?” I ask.

  He is wearing jeans and a T-shirt with the Reed’s Tattoo logo on it. “Are you going to be okay getting that dirty?”

  He looks down at what he’s wearing. “I don’t see why not.” He stops and grabs my elbow. “You’re not going to have me rolling in mud or anything, are you?”

  “Nothing quite that sophisticated,” I say.

  He rolls his eyes and follows me out the door. When we get to the street, he takes my backpack from my shoulder and puts it on his, and then he takes my hand. My heart skitters. I never would have taken Paul for a touchy-feely kind of guy, but he totally is. He never touched Kelly much in public, or any of the other girls I know he slept with, but with me, it’s like he can’t get enough contact.

  He squeezes my hand. “This okay?” he asks.

  I nod and grin at him. He has the most adorable dimples, and he gives me a crooked smile, showing them off.

  “Aren’t you afraid someone will get the wrong idea about us?” I ask.

  “What idea are you worried about?”

  I shrug. “That they’ll think we’re a thing.”

  “We are a thing,” he says. He starts to swing my hand in his between us. “We are totally a thing.”

  When we get to the park, I see that there’s already a line at my booth. I do this every year and people come just to get some of my art put on their faces.

  “What are we doing?” Paul asks.

  I grin at him. “We’re painting,” I say, rubbing my hands together with glee.

  I motion the first person forward, and he has a little girl with him. She hops up onto my stool.

  “What would you like to be?” I ask her.

  “An ice cream cone!” she says.

  Her dad teases her. “She didn’t ask what you want to eat. She asked what you want to be.”

  “A butterfly!” she cries.

  I get out a brush and start to paint, and Paul watches me closely. In less than a minute, I have a butterfly painted around her eyes that looks like mint chocolate chip ice cream. Paul looks at me. “It’s really good,” he says.

  I grin. “I know.”

  I point to the stock art that’s pinned to the fake wall behind him. “You can do the stock art ones. The baseballs and the glittery flowers.”

  “Okay,” he says, and he sits down. He motions a man forward, and he brings a little girl with him, as well. She hovers between her dad’s legs. Paul holds out the brush to her. “Would you like to try out my paint?” he asks. He sticks out his arm. “Right here,” he instructs.

  She takes it and makes a swirl on his arm, and he makes a big deal about how awesome it is. She grins and hands the brush back. “Your turn,” he says as he sets her on his stool and starts to paint.

  A few minutes later, he helps her down, and I see that he turned her into a tiger. And it’s pretty fucking awesome. I knew he would be good at this. His job is art. The permanent kind. Of course, he rocks at it.

  The kid’s dad shakes Paul’s hand, and one of the volunteers comes forward to take his money and lead someone new up to the stool.

  A few kids later, I look up and find that our line is wrapping around our tent and down the row, and the end is way past where I can even see it.

  Paul picks up his phone and makes a call. “Hey, Matt,” he says. “I want you to close the shop and come to the festival in the park. We need some help.” He talks for a second. “Bring everyone,” he says.

  Paul grins at me, and I shake my head. He seems happy to be here. And I’m happy to have him with me. There’s not much I’m passionate about, but I am about art. And the Reed family. Put the two of them in the same place, helping out a charity I love, and I might as well be in heaven.

  A cheer goes up when his four good-looking brothers show up and set up work stations. Logan brought Emily, Matt brought Sky, and Pete brought Reagan. They all get busy helping to take money and form lines for each of the tables.

  The boys grin and settle in for the day. I hear giggles, and I realize that our line is no longer made up of only kids wanting their faces painted. There are teenage girls and even older women in line now, too.

  “You guys are drawing a crowd,” I tell Paul. His face colors, and he shrugs. The man is seriously sex on a stick and he still blushes when he gets attention? I step up onto a chair and wrap my hands around my mouth. I call out to the crowd, “Attention, please,” I yell. “I think it’s getting hot out here, so they should all take their shirts off! What do you think?”

  A cheer goes up, and I see people who aren’t even in our line stopping to watch.

  Sam grins and yanks his shirt over his head. These boys have nothing to be shy about, I’ll say that for them. I fan my face and look at the crowd. “Just one of them? I think they need some encouragement!” I hold out the money jar, and people come up to put cash into it. I look down and mentally count. “There’s enough in here for one more of you to strip.”

  Reagan looks at Pete and rolls her eyes. Then she motions for him to go ahead. Very slowly, Pete hooks his elbows in his shirt and draws it up over his head. The cheering from the crowd gets even louder.

  Sky looks at Matt and motions for him to go next. “What?” she asks, throwing up her hands when he glares at her. “I am proud of my husband.” He pulls his shirt up high enough for the crowd to see the frog on his lower belly, but then he lets it drop.

  He shakes his head and sits back down. “Not enough money in the cup,” he says.

  “I have a thousand dollars for the three of you to do it!” someone yells from the back of the crowd. A lady walks forward, and we all laugh when we see that it’s Emily’s mom.

  “That’s cheating,” Matt says. But he pulls his shirt off. Several women nearby sigh out loud.

  Sky points to her round belly and says, “He has three at home already and two more on the way.” That makes me laugh, her feeling like she has to tell them that. But he just became the most wanted man out of the five because who doesn’t want a man who takes care of his responsibilities? Matt leans over and kisses Sky’s belly.

  Logan strips his shirt off next. I hear some excited shouts and a few frustrated moans move through the crowd.

  Paul is the only one left who is still wearing a shirt. “Your turn, big guy,” Mrs. Madison says. She fans her face, and the crowd goes wild. Paul stands up, turns to me, and says, “What do I get if I do this?”

  I motion to the mass of people waiting. “Crowd ap
proval?”

  “Not enough.” He shakes his head and sits back down.

  I lean over his table, resting on my palms, and ask, “What more do you want?”

  The grin falls off his face. “I want everything,” he says. “But I’ll start with a kiss.”

  Paul

  Friday has paint smeared across her forehead and all over the side of her face, and I’ve never seen her look more beautiful. She leans over the table, and for once I can’t see her cleavage because it’s covered up by that T-shirt. Yet she’s so fucking sexy she takes my breath away.

  “You want a kiss?” she asks. She sits back and puts her hands on her hips.

  I nod my head. “I want a kiss.”

  I watch her throat as she swallows so hard that I can hear it. “If I give you a kiss, you’ll take your shirt off?” she asks.

  I stand up. “I’ll do just about anything you want me to do for a kiss, Friday.”

  “Off with it, then,” she says. The crowd starts to chant, led by my brothers.

  “Traitors,” I say to them. They laugh and rev the crowd up.

  I reach behind my back, over my head, and grab my shirt with both hands. Then I pull it forward the way men do, slowly pulling it over my head. Friday’s gaze slides up my body as my shirt goes up, and I feel like her eyes are touching me all the way from my belly button to my shoulders.

  The crowd goes wild when I throw the shirt down at my feet. Then I take a step toward Friday. “Time to pay up,” I say.

  She giggles and turns like she’s going to run away from me. I hook an arm gently around her waist, pull her back to me, and turn her so that her front is touching mine from top to bottom. I slide my knee between her legs, and hitch her higher with my hands under her bottom. I squeeze her ass and lift her up toward my waiting mouth.

  Her eyes meet mine, and I freeze. At the last minute, I kiss her on the cheek with a loud smack and set her back from me. She wobbles on her feet, so I steady her with my hands under her elbows. “You owe me,” I tell her.

  “I owe you nothing,” she teases. “You just forfeited.”

  I lean down close to her ear. “When I finally kiss you, it won’t be in front of a crowd full of people. It’ll be me and you and no one else.” I kiss the corner of her lips, and she shakes her finger at me. I grab her finger and pull it against my chest. “And it will rock your world.”

  “Prove it.”

  I nod. “When we’re alone, I will.”

  “Believe it when I see it,” she taunts.

  Since the five of us Reed boys have our shirts off, Friday, Reagan, Sky, and Emily redirect the lines so that the kids go to Friday and the adults come to us. I’m fine with that. I deal with overly amorous women daily, albeit I don’t usually do it with my shirt off.

  A woman who has to be in her eighties toddles up on her walker. She lays her hand on my chest and stares at my nipple piercing. Then she shakes her head and reaches for the top button of my jeans, unbuttons them, and stands back and laughs. “Now, he’ll earn some tips,” she says.

  Friday snickers, and she suddenly can’t take her eyes off my stomach.

  The older woman sits down, and I give her angel wings on her upper arm with her late husband’s name below it. She tells me the story of how they met, fell in love, and went on to have eight kids together. When we’re done, she sticks a twenty-dollar bill in the waistband of my jeans and winks at me. “Don’t let her get away,” she says, nodding toward Friday.

  “I don’t plan to.”

  “She’s going to give you a run for your money.”

  I laugh. She already is.

  Friday

  The volunteers came around with water bottles and Paul sent Sam to get us all lunch in the middle of the day, but by five o’clock, I’m starving. The boys put their shirts back on when it starts to cool off, and our line starts to dwindle. We weren’t even supposed to be here this long, but we couldn’t turn down the people in line. They were all waiting so patiently.

  Paul dips his paintbrush into a cup of water and rinses it out. “I think I’m ready to be done for the day,” he says.

  “Me, too,” his brothers echo.

  Everyone helps clean up. Emily bends over to pick up a piece of paper she dropped, and her shirt slips up her belly. I shake my head because Logan has painted a big basketball on her stomach. It looks like the real thing but even bigger. Once she’s down there, she can’t get back up.

  “Logan!” she cries pitifully.

  But Logan is looking the other way, and he can’t hear her. Paul rushes over to her and offers her a hand, but as she stands up, she scowls and grabs for her belly. “Uh oh,” she says. She looks down at the water that has splashed all over the pavement and Paul’s shoes. “Sorry.”

  Paul looks everywhere but down. “Either you just spilled your water or that baby’s ready to make an appearance.”

  She holds up a full bottle of water that still has the cap on it. “Sorry about your shoes,” she says. She sits down, clutching her belly like the baby might try to crawl out her belly button. “Can you get Logan for me?”

  Sam smacks Logan on the shoulder and points to Emily. Emily crooks her finger at him. “I think it’s finally time,” she says.

  “Holy shit,” Logan says as he runs his fingers through his hair. He drops down in front of her. “Are you serious?”

  She smirks at him. “Either that or I just peed all over Paul’s shoes. And I kind of think I’d never be able to live down the latter, so I’m hoping it’s the former.”

  Reagan jingles her keys at them and says, “Take my car.” Logan pulls his keys from his pocket. “Ours is at our apartment. Go get it if you need it.” Reagan takes them, but I know she won’t use them. She’s going to be just like the rest of us who will be sucking up space in the hospital waiting room.

  “We’ll meet you there,” Paul says, but Logan is focused solely on Emily. He doesn’t even see Paul’s comment.

  Emily waddles to the car with Logan holding her elbow.

  I grab Paul’s arm. “You don’t think she overdid it today, do you?” I ask.

  He leans down and kisses the bridge of my nose. “I think it’s just time for the newest Reed to make an appearance.”

  “Is her mom still here?” I ask. I look around, but she must have left after she made the big donation that made all the boys strip.

  “She’s gone. Logan will text her.”

  “Should I call her?” I ask.

  He smiles and lifts the brim of my baseball cap. “I think this is Logan’s show. We should let him ask us for help when he needs it. He will. Eventually. When he can think again.”

  Paul’s phone buzzes in his pocket. He pulls it out and smiles when he reads the text. “He wants one of us to go to their apartment and get Emily’s bag with her clothes and stuff in it.”

  He was right. He knows them so well.

  Reagan holds up the keys Logan already gave her. “We’ll go.”

  Paul nods. “We’ll meet you at the hospital.”

  Sky drops down in in a chair. “Oh fuck,” Matt says, squatting down beside her. “Not you, too,” he says.

  It’s too early for Sky. Way too early. “No,” she says. “I’m just tired.”

  Matt looks up at Paul like he’s waiting for assurance. “This is a first baby,” Paul says. “It could be awhile. You should go home and sleep for a couple of hours. Take a nap. I’ll call if things go faster than that.”

  Sky shrugs. “We need to go check on the girls and Seth anyway.”

  Matt nods. “Call us if anything goes wrong. Or faster. Or just goes.”

  Paul takes my hand and pulls me toward the exit. The volunteers have agreed to dismantle our tables and hold on to our tips from the day. I already counted it twice, and we made just over eleven thousand dollars with tips and a few very generous donations. It was a good day.

  “You should be very proud of yourself,” Paul says as we go down the stairs to the subway. “You made a lot
of money for the charity.”

  He squeezes my hands, so I squeeze his back. “We made a lot of money. Not me,” I correct. “Couldn’t have done it without you.”

  “That’s what family is for,” he says. He watches my face closely as we get on the subway. There are no seats, so he stands up, grabs one of the handles, and wraps his free arm around my waist. He pulls me against him, and I am so close that I can feel the beat of his heart against my chest. “Where’s your family?” he asks me quietly.

  “Right here,” I say. I look up at him, and his blue eyes are clear and bright. And curious. But not in an intrusive kind of way. In an intimate kind of way.

  “I like that answer,” he says, and a chuckle moves through him and into me. “But before us, who did you have before?”

  “No one,” I say. I look everywhere but at his face. I lay my head against his shoulder so I don’t have to look into his eyes. Because he might find the truth in them, and that’s the last thing I want Paul to know. He cherishes his family, and if he found out that mine gave me away, and then that I did the same thing, he might hate me. I really don’t want him or his brothers to hate me.

  “One day, do you think you could tell me?” he asks. He turns me in his arms and leans down by my ear.

  I don’t want to answer him, so I step onto my tiptoes and press my lips against his instead. He freezes, and I immediately think that I have made a huge mistake. But then a growl vibrates against my lips, and he kisses me back. He licks across the seam of my lips, and feeling like I have never been kissed before today, I tentative reach out my tongue to touch his. His hands bracket my face, and he makes little noises as he kisses me. I can feel him all the way to my toes. I grab his T-shirt in my fists and lift myself up higher, pressing against him as I try to crawl inside his heart.

  A loud cough jerks us apart. I startle, and he looks into my face. His eyes search mine, and I’m worried that he’ll find my fears there, all my anxiety about my past, and then I worry even more that he’ll find my feelings for him shining back at him. Then he’ll know too much. And he could use it against me. I don’t ever want him to be able to go that deep.