“You don’t know that,” I said, meeting his gaze. “Or maybe it’s just that I don’t.” I set the food and the coffee on the table and rubbed my hands over my face.
“So we work hard to make sure it doesn’t happen, and whoever you end up with—we all agree, no hard feelings.” The offer was right there in Jake’s voice. “I told you I wanted to date you, even if you are seeing all of them. What happened with Archie Friday night doesn’t change that.”
“Sex, Jake, you can say sex,” Archie corrected him, and Jake just gave him a baleful look.
“You want me to give you a second black eye?”
“And now you’re proving her point,” Archie countered, almost smug. I smacked his shoulder as I passed him to sit on the other sofa. “Ow.”
“Be nice,” I told him as Jake dropped onto the seat next to me.
“I was being nice, I’m being supportive.” But he dropped the smug act, then reached over and put a hand on my knee. “I’m—happy about Friday. I’m not happy about the stuff that followed on Saturday, but I’m really happy about Friday.”
It was hard to argue the sentiment when I felt the same way. Especially after the last couple of hours.
“Frankie.” Jake pulled my attention, and when he covered my hand, I threaded our fingers together. The tight frown gathering his brows eased a little as he stroked his thumb against the back of my hand. “I’m sorry. I tried to get Maria to get Sharon to take that crap down.”
“I don’t care, it’s fine,” I told him.
“It’s not fine,” he said.
“In the laundry list of things that bother me right now? It’s fine. I don’t have to look at it. And—even if they took it down, everyone has probably seen it anyway.” I should probably call Coop and Ian. The quiet stretched between us, but Jake didn’t let go of my hand.
Archie nudged the food toward me again when Jake said, “I know this is probably bad timing… but it’s Sunday.”
“I know,” I said, and Archie gave me an encouraging look. He’d already told me I shouldn’t cancel the date. “Our date.”
“Yeah.” Jake gave me a little smile and squeezed my hand. “I get that you may not want to go out. But… I’d still like to spend the evening with you.”
“I’m going to grab us some water,” Archie volunteered, and gave my ponytail a little tug as he stood. “You two hang out for a minute.”
Then he was gone, closing the door behind him. Shifting to sit sideways, I half-faced Jake and the hopeful, but worried look in his eyes set off a pang in my chest. “I don’t like fighting with you guys.”
“Yeah you do—just not about when we do stupid shit,” Jake teased. “Unless it’s the time we all jumped off the bridge into the creek.”
“That was not stupid,” I pointed out. “That was insane. You could have broken something.”
“But we didn’t,” he murmured. “Ahhh… Frankie, I’m sorry. I’m sorry we pissed you off and more sorry we hurt you.”
“I’m not mad… not anymore. I was, don’t get me wrong. I was really mad. But mostly hurt and confused. You guys have to let me make my own choices. Even if you don’t like them.”
His jaw tightened. “Can I agree to work on it?”
“Yeah.” I couldn’t ask him to do much more, not really. Even if I’d like it if they just promised to never do it again. That might be unreasonable.
“Then I promise, I’ll work on it. Can we hang out tonight? Or… did you just want to stay here?”
“I promised you time.” That was what he’d wanted. Just us. “But not really sure where we can go. I—I don’t know if Mom is still home, and I think it might be weird if I took a boy home after today.” It also meant seeing her, and I wasn’t ready for that, either.
The corner of his mouth kicked up. “Weird, maybe. But it wouldn’t be our first time. I wanted to take you out out, so… if you’re game, I’d still like to.”
I still had all that homework to do, but… “Okay.”
Relief poured off of him.
“But,” I began, and he seemed to brace. “I have a ton of homework I haven’t done.” It was still mid-afternoon. “When did you want to go?”
“Now?” He grinned. “We’ll grab your stuff, go back to my house. Not sure where Mom and the girls are, but we can study in my room and I’ll grab a shower and get changed—maybe shave. Then we can take it from there?”