Proving Paul's Promise(15)

Kelly wraps her arms around my waist and holds on tight for a minute. I stroke her back until she steps away from me.

“You okay?” I ask.

“I’m jealous,” she says, and then she sniffles. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. We’re still us. We’re still Hayley’s parents. We always will be.” I look her in the eye. “Don’t mess up a good thing, okay?”

“You have a house full of people tonight,” she says. She rocks back and forth on her heels like she’s uncomfortable.

“I know.” I smile. “Isn’t it great?”

She shivers. “It’s torture,” she says. “Too noisy, too smelly, and too many Reeds all in one place.”

That was the problem with me and Kelly. All the things I loved…she didn’t love them back. She didn’t like having my family around, and she didn’t want to have much to do with them. “I love every minute of it.”

“How does Friday feel about it?” she asks.

I shrug. “She seems like she’s at home. She just got here today. She’s renting a room.”

Kelly nods. “I get it.”

“What do you want from me, Kelly?” I ask on a heavy sigh.

“I guess I wanted everything to stay the same,” she says. But then she grins. “I know it can’t, though. I’m getting married.”

“You want me to walk you down the aisle?” I ask. I’m only half joking.

“Maybe,” she says. “That would be pretty fitting.”

“I’m open to it.”

She smiles at me. Finally. “We’ll always be friends, right?” she asks.

“The best kind.”

Suddenly, my door opens, and Hayley runs into the room. I reach down and scoop her up. She has icing all over her fingers and smears it across my shirt. I grab her hands and hold them out. “Has Sam been feeding you cupcakes?” I ask.

She shakes her head and grins. “He said to tell you no, it wasn’t him.”

Kelly snickers.

“Not funny,” I say to her, but I’m grinning, too. I put Hayley down and pop her gently on the bottom. “Go wash your hands.” She runs out of the room.

“I didn’t love you enough,” Kelly says. “I hated the noise and never getting to be alone.”

“I know.”

“I’m glad you didn’t let me break you guys up,” she says.

“I couldn’t.” They’re all I had until her. And they’ll be here long after she’s gone. I knew it then, and I know it now. What we had couldn’t last. But we got a wonderful daughter out of it. “I’m sorry,” I say.

“Sorry I freaked out,” she says quietly.

“It’s okay,” I say, even though it’s not. “We’ll find our way.”

She points to my shirt. “Hayley got you dirty.”

I pull a clean T-shirt from a rack in my closet, and Kelly walks out of my room. I lift my shirt over my head and put the new one on, still tugging it down as I walk out of my bedroom.

“You want to stay for some pizza?” I ask Kelly. I do like her. Just not the same way I used to.

She shakes her head. “Not tonight. Some other time?” she asks. She winks at me.

“Anytime,” I say.

She kisses Hayley good-bye and waves to my brothers. They don’t really like her so they barely give her the time of day. She doesn’t care.

When she’s gone, I look over and see Friday on the couch. I walk over to sit down at her feet, just like I was before, but she looks me in the eye and says, “Don’t even think about it.”

She looked so peaceful before Kelly got here. Now she’s not. Now she’s not peaceful at all. I’m afraid to push it because I get the feeling that if she got her fingertips near my neck now, she’d use those hands to choke me.

What the f*ck did I do?





Friday

I am not a fan of Kelly’s. Never have been. Probably never will be. And I like her even less when I see her coming out of Paul’s room while he’s still pulling his clothes back on. Fuck her.

I look away from Paul with a huff in my breath. He leans down next to my head from behind the couch like he’s going to whisper in my ear. But I put up my hand and push against his nose with the flat of my palm.

“Oh!” Pete cries. He jumps to his feet. “That counts! That so counts!” He points to Friday and then to my nose. “She just hit you in the f*cking nose, man,” he shouts. He high-fives Sam, who’s grinning like an idiot.

I rub my nose. “She didn’t hit me in the nose.”

“Trust me,” she says, “if I hit him, he would know it.” He shoots me a glare.

Paul leans toward me again. “You could tell me what I did wrong,” he says quietly, while his brothers are still placing bets and catcalling about my little shove to his nose.

I lean closer to him and sniff. I expect to smell sex on him, but I just smell fresh, clean male. Fresh, clean, hot-as-hell man. Hmm.

“What did I do?” he asks. He leans his elbows on the couch, hanging over my shoulder. I can feel his warm breath on the side of my neck, and a shiver runs up my spine.

“Nothing,” I say.