That was…awesome. It went above and beyond in the realm of friendship.
“I’m really hoping you don’t mind, but I want to take you to school for a change,” Coop continued. “My girl should be the first passenger in this car.”
His girl.
I bit my lip.
“I would love to be the first passenger in your car,” I said, and I wasn’t sure what thrilled me more—how happy Coop was to have a car, or the fact that Archie had done something so damn nice for hisfriend.
That settled it.
All five of us were talking.
I wasn’t going to destroy this friendship between all of us.
Not ever.
Chapter Eight
The Way We Used To Be
Ian
The five a.m. alarm went off, but it didn’t jerk me awake. Hard to wake someone up if they aren’t asleep. Fuck, I was tired. Rolling over, I hit the floor and started the morning routine. Whether we were in training or not, everyday—well, most days—I did one hundred push-ups followed by one hundred sit-ups.
On mornings I didn’t have to be at practice early, I ran. Today, I had practice. We had to get these plays right, or we weren’t going to take that game on Friday. Losing Jake from the line-up hurt more than anyone wanted to admit.
Or maybe it was just getting on my nerves. I totally get why he beat jackass’s face in, but he led with his fists and his heart. We were just lucky he wasn’t out for the rest of the season. Every pump of my arms didn’t help my wrestling with that fact, because I really did get it. I even respected why he’d done it.
The shit Frankie had been taking was unreal. Part of the reason I wanted to take a step back. But I wantedallof us to do it. They weren’t listening. We’d gone from all of us dating her to two of us already having sex with her, and I hadn’t missed the looks on Coop’s face. He bided his time.
Then what? We made it even worse for her because sex muddied the waters.
After I hit a hundred push-ups and no answers, I rolled onto my back and began the sit-ups. I hated the fact she was hurting. I hated even more that I seemed to be the one hurting her.
The words from her text message the night before had been permanently etched into my brain.I really like you, Ian. I hate the idea that you don’t trust me to decide what I want. Or who I want.
She wasn’t the problem. I got it. She liked all of us. Did I particularly like the fact that Archie nailed her as fast as humanly possible?
No.
Did I like that Jake was all over her and had spent the night with her first? No. Not even close.
Coop wasn’t much better. The day he told her he was in, he’d also said the same thing to me.
“You don’t get it.”Coop told me. “It’s been me and Frankie since before kindergarten. No way in hell am I not throwing my hat in the ring.”
“You don’t think that’s not going to confuse her more?” I’d asked her out first. They hadn’t until I did. But I asked her first. They weren’t slowing down. And it was turning into this game of one-upmanship even if they claimed it wasn’t.
“Nope,” Coop said. “She thought no one was interested. I trust you guys with her. But I’m not stepping aside.”
Maybe that was the problem.I panted, trying to catch my breath after that last sit-up. Forearms on my knees, I stared at one of the four photos in my room. It was all five of us from the summer between sophomore and junior years. We’d all started dating that year. But it was still the five of us for everything.
Even for our dates. We’d bring girls with us, but we always made sure Frankie was there because Frankie was one of us.
That was the last time I remember when we were all just us. Archie went through girls like they were tissue paper. At one point, he’d had a thing for girls that started with the letter M. He always swore it wasn’t on purpose, but Frankie was the only one who kept track of them.
I swore, I called Melissa ‘Michelle’ like fifteen times before she demanded to know who that was. Unfortunately, she was the girl who landed between Michelle with two Ls and Michele with one.