“Yep.” Couldn’t keep me away.
Bubba and Jake glared at each other. When I whistled, they both looked at me. Yeah. Let’s not piss on Frankie’s day. “C’mon, time to eat and to plan. You snooze, you lose.”
Archie
Yeah, that bikini looked fantastic on her. It had more coverage than the string one she’d borrowed here, but it wasn’t the skin so much as the way it fit Frankie. Or maybe it was the way Frankie moved. She had a smile on her face, her eyes lit up, and she seemed genuinely happy. Whatever Bubba said to her, hopefully it fixed that stupidity.
We had enough bullshit going on without him suddenly getting cold feet. Then again, if he wanted to bow out, fine. Less competition. I wasn’t too worried about it at the moment. We all got time with her, and I knew I meant something to her.
I was the one she’d called when she needed to get away from her mom. While I wasn’t fond of the tie, the idiot affair Edward was having with her mother added another bond. ‘Course, it also meant I needed to make sure Edward didn’t do anything stupid.
Just thinking about him was enough to sour my mood. As far as Jeremy knew, Edward was in New York. Apparently, he and Ms. Curtis had scampered off there late on Friday. Things didn’t go well at dinner—and by well, I meant I shut that shit down because the hell I was going to let them browbeat Frankie into going along with this farce. Seriously, Edward had done some shitty things, but fucking around with Frankie’s mom? That was low, even for him.
Usually he went for the single, childless chicks. Maybe I should figure out a way to convince him to take Frankie’s mom to New York permanently. They could live in the apartment on the Upper East Side, far, far away from us.
Frankie shot me a look as she squeezed the water out of her hair. The openness in her expression tugged at me. I’d seen her kicked, wrecked, wounded, and hurt enough in the last few days. I never wanted to see it again.
Her smile faded, and she frowned, then mouthed, “You okay?” without saying the words aloud.
Shit, I shook off the melancholy and gave her a quick grin and a thumbs up. “Was thinking about Thursday,” I lied. “We still need to decide what we’re doing for Coop’s birthday.”
“Good call,” she complimented me. “Actually, I’m gonna rinse the chlorine off real quick.” She snagged a towel and headed for the outdoor shower.
Bubba grunted as he bumped me on his way past.
“Are you two going to be pissing on each other all evening?” Coop asked as he slung a towel around his neck. He wasn’t looking at me, but at Jake and Bubba. Yeah, I’d noticed that, too. I was also ignoring it. Jake had a temper. Bubba was biting off his nose to spite his face.
But tonight wasn’t about them…
“We’re not,” Jake said abruptly. “At least I’m not. He made his call. Friends it is.”
Bubba sighed. “You know, fuck you, Jake. I’m done trying to explain it to you.”
I glanced at him. “Explain what?”
“Why I’d rather take this slower than the warp speed the two of you are moving at. Why she deserves a hell of a lot better than to just be another point.”
“She’s not a point,” I gritted out between my teeth, even as I cut my gaze between Bubba and her. She was on the far side of the patio where the outdoor shower was, standing under the water. “She’s never been apoint. That game is done. I’m not playing it anymore.”
Frankie hadneverbeen a game.
“We’re not going to talk about it here,” I said hurriedly. “Do you understand me? She has enough shit to deal with, and that ended before school started.”
Technically, the last time we called points had been the last blowout of the summer. The day all those fucking pictures were taken. But after we got back to school and Frankie, I had zero interest in pursuing the rest.
Patty and I had broken up before that party. She thought it changed things. I told her it didn’t.
Frankiehad changed everything.
“Cut it out,” Coop said softly as Frankie stepped out from the water and used the towel to start drying off. “Gonna go rinse off, I suggest the rest of you do the same and everyone cool down.”
“Agreed,” I said with a nod. “Tonight’s about Frankie, and Jeremy got us ice cream cake for her, so let’s eat, get the homework planning out of the way, and get back to partying.”
If nothing else, that seemed to decide them. They dialed back on the glares, and we all took our turns rinsing off. There were sandwiches in cold pans, chips, and sodas. So even if it took us an hour to get to the food because we’d been romping, it was still chilled and ready to go. Jeremy had loaded us up with everything.
The man was a gift.
Frankie curled up into a chair between me and Coop with Jake and Bubba across from us. She had her laptop open, and I pulled out a tablet and booted it up in between bites. Jake and Bubba killed three sandwiches each.