Whispers and Wishes (Untouchable Book 4)

by Heather Long

  “And Jake knows you need to talk to someone,” he reminded me. “I’d bet you a dollar that Bubba does, too.”

  “A dollar?” I laughed a little. We were still idling in his car at the end of the drive, and Archie made no move to pull out.

  “I’m trying to practice frugality. How’s it working so far?”

  I snickered, which had probably been his intention.

  “Frankie, this will sound weird, but…we all have four stories. That’s what Nana used to say. There’s the story we share the world, our public face. It seems like a lot, but really, it’s only a little. Then there’s the story we share with acquaintances and people we know. Then there’s the story we open ourselves up to with the people we care about. But there’s always a story that’s just ours. The one we don’t know how to share. Sometimes, we get to glimpse that in the ones we are really close to, but the only person who knows that whole story is you.”

  I swallowed. “That sounds lonely.”

  “Yes and no. You know your story. You know what you need. Babe,” Archie continued, reaching over and sliding his hand into my hair and tugging gently so I’d meet his gaze, “no one is going to think any less of you for going. Fuck, I’m relieved you want to.”

  What? “Really?”

  “I don’t know how to make those dreams go away. I don’t know how to fix what that asshole did so you don’t hurt anymore. I am clearly not the poster child for healthy parent-child relations. So yeah, I’m relieved you’re going to talk to someone who might be able to do all those things.”

  I swallowed. “You know you’re pretty awesome.”

  “I know,” he agreed. “I’m just glad you finally came around and figured it out.”

  With a roll of my eyes, I shook my head. “You are such an ass.”

  “Yep,” he agreed, running his thumb over my cheek gently. “Sometimes. But you need me to be an ass sometimes. I’m pretty sure that’s what you like about me, too.”

  I made a face. “I will neither confirm or deny that.”

  “Good, make me work for it.” He winked, then he sobered. “I’m serious. Go, talk to them. If they aren’t a good fit, we try someone else. I want you to take what you need.”

  “What about what you need? Or the guys?”

  “Eh, I have what I need right now.”

  My skepticism must have showed, because he grinned.

  “Oh, trust me, babe. I have you. I got my best friends. I have my grandfather back. Birthday in a few days. It’s looking pretty golden here, even if I have to learn how to do laundry because my girlfriend is a tyrant.”

  I shoved his arm away from me, and he smirked. “So tell those losers to order pizza if they’re hungry, and yes, we’ll grab coffee if you want some. Then we’ll go do whatever…but I’m sleeping in the bed tonight. I want that much if I’m not going to have you to myself.”

  “Well,” I said, reaching for my phone, “you do have a birthday coming up.”

  We locked eyes for a moment. “Only if you’re ready,” he told me.

  “I’m ready. I would have been ready earlier tonight, but…”

  “But we needed to talk. This is good, too. At least I know you don’t just want me for my banging body or my money.”

  “Nope,” I agreed.

  “Wait.” He frowned. “I do have a banging body.”

  “Hmm.” I was trying to type one-handed.

  His little grunt made me grin.

  “Yes, Archie, I like your body just fine, but that’s not what I want you for. Though it is a perk.”

  “Better.” He paused a beat. “It’s the car, isn’t it?”

  I grinned. “Guilty.”

  He threw his head back and laughed. “Yep, you have good taste.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Be Careful What You Wish For

  The weekend went better than I could have expected or planned for. First, not only did we end up having a movie marathon, but the guys turned up the mocking as we picked the films apart. Luckily, they were all movies I’d seen before, but it didn’t matter—it was still funny.

  As requested, Archie curled up next to me in the bed, but to my surprise and everyone else’s, Ian grabbed the second spot on my other side.

  “If you don’t mind,” he’d murmured. While he had ended up crawling into bed with me the other night, it was only after nightmares had freaked me out.

  Jake and Coop made faces, but rolled with it. Though, like Ian, they didn’t crash on the sofa and grabbed spots in the room.

  “Bigger bed,” Archie muttered as we settled in. It should have been awkward maybe to be tucked between them. I was used to Archie, Coop, and Jake, but not so much Ian. Still, when I tucked my feet against his legs, I hesitated. He let out a hiss at the chill, and when I would have pulled them away, he locked his calves around one.

  The giggles hit a minute later.

  “Dude,” Archie complained with a grin in his voice. “The icy feet you gotta deal with.”

  “I’m dealing just fine.”

  “If you can’t handle it, we can always swap,” Jake offered.

  Ian snorted and then managed to trap my other foot, and the giggles had me biting my lip.

  “Or we can just keep making her laugh,” Coop drawled. “Because that’s an effective way to get her to go to sleep.”

  I snorted mid-giggle and then hiccupped.

  That successfully cracked all of them up.

  Needless to say it was another hour before we shut up and stopped laughing long enough for me to go to sleep. What little awkwardness had been there when Ian first claimed the spot was gone. I went to sleep with my head on Archie’s shoulder and my feet tucked against Ian’s legs, while he had a hand on my hip and Archie held my left hand.

  The cats had picked their places with Tiddles nestled in the divot between Archie and I. Tabby and Tory abandoned us for Jake and Coop respectively. It was a little bit like a game of Twister, but it was comfortable and sweet.

  Despite a couple of nightmares, Saturday proved to be laid back. We slept in. Well, I slept in. Coop got up and fed the cats. Jake got up and ran to the store and picked up donuts and coffee. Ian got up next, then he, Jake, and Archie all went for a run.

  I was aware of none of this until after the fact because I slept until nearly eleven. Coop teased me a little for sleeping through his best moves.

  “Clearly, they weren’t your best then,” I snarked around a yawn that just set Coop off laughing.

  As promised to Jeremy, I got pictures of Archie doing laundry. He didn’t do too badly. Course, he had Coop and Jake advising him with Ian showing moral support. In all honesty, I didn’t think I’d ever laughed so much just doing chores.

  Then again, I’d never had my panties and bras folded or rated by four guys before either. The argument over whose of their boxers I had, however, that they were in the midst of when Mrs. Tagaliono—an elderly neighbor who lived in one of the apartments between Coop and I—entered with her own small basket of laundry just about killed me.

  Dead.

  Seriously.

  I was pretty sure I was redder than the boxers Jake had been twirling around his finger—Coop’s by the way, that had somehow been added to my drawers along with another pair from Archie, and two from Jake. I gave them fair warning if my old ones from Coop vanished, there would be hell to pay.

  The whole time though, Ian watched with a speculative glint in his eyes, and I found myself wondering if he’d end up giving me a pair of his. Then I gave myself a mental shake.

  I shouldn’t be wondering those things. The subtle and not-so-subtle shifts in his behavior left me wondering where this was going.

  Again.

  The minute those questions cropped up, I just shut them off. I didn’t want to borrow trouble. Ian was there. We were talking. It was enough.

  For now.

  It had to be.

  Trina showed up at dinnertime, pissed. She knocked on the door like she was ready to yell �
�police” or something. Jake opened the front door and just backed up a step as she charged in.

  “You threatened him?” She practically vibrated with outrage. Her shoulder-length sandy-blonde hair, so much like Coop’s, flew as she spun from him to look at me. I was perched on the arm of the sofa with my feet tucked under Archie’s thigh.

  He paused the show on robot builds they’d had on.

  “Frankie? Did he tell you what they did?” Agitation climbed along with her tone.

  “Trina,” Coop said. “Stop shouting.”

  Whirling on her brother, she glared. “You threatened him.” Yeah, she wasn’t going to stop shouting anytime soon. “I told you he asked me out and I wanted your help, and you threatened him.”

  “Point of order,” Jake said, folding his arms. “Coop didn’t threaten him.”

  Rolling her eyes, Trina put her hands on her hips. “Having you do it, Jake, is just playing semantics. If any of you guys threaten someone, they know they’re getting all of you. I’m not an idiot.” Then she looked at me again. “Frankie. Talk to them. Fix this?”

  “Um…” I had parts of this conversation. Jake and Coop threatened someone. That I got. It had to do with dating Trina. That I also got. “Who asked you out?”

  “Does it really matter?”

  You know, before Homecoming, I’d probably have still said yes. But that was because Trina was Coop’s baby sister. Now?

  “Yes, it matters. Because some guys are just assholes.”

  Trina glared at me for a long moment, then the heat in her eyes faded as she snapped her mouth shut. Archie wrapped a hand around my calf as Trina all but deflated.

  “I thought you’d be on my side.”

  “I am on your side.” I was. “So is Coop. So is Jake.” I swallowed. I hadn’t been out with some unknown guy when bad things happened to me. I’d been with people I trusted. “So, who is he?”

  “Noah is a great guy, he lives across the street from Mandy, and I’ve hung out with him.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “Doesn’t he smoke?”

  “Thank you,” Coop said, tapping his nose and earning his sister’s ire all over again.

  “That doesn’t make him a bad person.” Trina damn near growled the words. For a moment, it struck me she wasn’t a kid anymore. She was, but she was almost the same age I was when Archie came into our lives. Four years.

  It didn’t seem like much, until it was.

  Still, she was Coop’s baby sister, and as much as she could aggravate him, he loved her to pieces.

  “Smoking doesn’t mean he’s awful,” Trina insisted, looking to me for support.

  “No,” I agreed. We all had vices. The guys liked to drink. Archie often supplied alcohol because he could get it from Jeremy. Definitely not legal. They had other habits over the summer that we weren’t going to dredge up right now. “But that’s literally the only thing I can think of when I think of him. So, he asked you out…”

  I needed a little more data. Not much, because the scenario practically wrote itself. Trina got asked out by a boy, told Coop because she needed his help with something, and all Coop heard was some older kid was sniffing around his sister. Jake also had sisters.

  They had threatened the guys who’d apparently been interested in me and warned them off. It was no great leap to think they would do the same if not more for Trina.

  “He’s a nice guy. He’s a lot of fun.” Trina shifted from one foot to the other and shot looks to where Ian and Archie were both doing their best impressions of watching without staring. They did not have sisters, so it was always kind of funny to watch them around Jake’s three and Coop’s one.

  Guys? No sweat.

  Younger girls? Yeah, they weren’t so smooth then.

  Well, honestly, Archie seemed twitchier than Ian, but after everything I’d been learning about his family? I totally got that. Would siblings have made his life easier? Or harder?

  He could withstand his parents, but it had definitely affected him. The last few weeks had given me a front row to how much he would do and how far he would go to protect me. If he’d had to look after siblings against his parents?

  I almost shuddered at the thought.

  “Look, Trina,” I said, sliding off the sofa and ignoring Archie’s grumblings as I pulled away. “C’mon, let’s talk. Just you and me.”

  “Yeah…wait, what?” Coop demanded. “Why just you and her?”

  “Because you have dangly bits,” I informed him with a flick of my finger to the tip of his nose. “And this is girl stuff.”

  Jake snickered, but Trina’s dour face brightened. “Where?”

  “My room,” I told her. “And the boys will stay out here.”

  “No problem,” Ian said.

  “Yeah, dangly bits stay out here.” Trina marched ahead of me, and Coop groaned.

  “Did you have to use that term?”

  I shrugged. “I happen to like your dangly bits.” Luck and the fact he was on my splinted side saved me from retaliation. I cut a look to where Trina had gone, then eyed him. “Did you really threaten that boy?”

  “Jake did,” Coop said, sticking with the story.

  “Yep,” Jake volunteered. “I have three sisters, I told him Trina was almost a sister to me, too. We didn’t like boys who do stupid things with our sisters. So he should consider his options before asking her out.”

  I rolled my eyes to stare at the ceiling.

  “Did you tell him he couldn’t ask her out?”

  “Nope.” Arms folded, Coop wasn’t even a little bit sorry. “But he’s not using my sister to score points.”

  Period.

  The firmness to his jaw and the flash of guilt in his eyes were all the confirmation I needed. “Okay.” I pressed a kiss to his cheek. “You guys figure out food? I’ll talk to her.”

  “Thanks,” he murmured, then just before I hit my bedroom door, he called, “But don’t promise we’ll double-date with them ’cause I’ll just be planning how to break his legs.”

  Trina stared at me from where she sat on the foot of my bed, and I was fairly certain we wore the exact same expression.

  Boys.

  “I hate my brother.”

  “No you don’t.”

  “Well, sometimes I don’t like him very much.”

  “It’s okay. I’m pretty sure there are days he feels the same way about you.”

  She crossed her eyes and made a face.

  Bumping the door closed, I slid against the pillows to sit at the head of the bed. “Okay, tell me all about him.”

  Surprise stamped her features, and she gawked at me. “What?”

  “You heard me, tell me all about him.”

  Confusion filled her eyes, and she frowned. “What do you want to know?”

  “Well, what do you like about him? What does he do? How does he talk to you? What are you hoping for if you go out with him…those kinds of things.”

  They were the kind of things I used to talk to the guys about back when they were first dating. Some of the girls, too. Though arguably, those were the same girls pumping me for info on how to date my guys.

  Not that I ever shared that much.

  “Um…wow. I thought you were going to try and give me the sex talk or tell me all the reasons this is a bad idea.”

  “Do you need the sex talk?”

  “No!”

  I didn’t laugh, but it was a close thing.

  “Okay. Do you know all the reasons it’s a bad idea?”

  “He’s older than me, we go to different schools, he might have expectations because high school boys like it when you put out. But I’ve only been kissed a couple of times, not sure about the other stuff. I know it can be hard to tell them no, or at least, that’s what Laurie said. She cashed in her V-card at camp over the summer.”

  “Wait, she didn’t want to, but she did?” That bothered the hell out of me.

  “She said she got kind of scared, but he got her through it and it wasn’t so
bad. It wasn’t so great either. That’s not really a ringing endorsement, you know.”

  “No,” I said, slowly. “It’s not.”

  Trina deflated in front of me. “I just…he likes me, and I like him. I like hanging out with him. He asked. Coop was supposed to talk to Mom, but Mom said she’d think about it, but he called me an hour ago and said that after Coop threatened him that maybe it wasn’t a good idea.”

  “Okay, well the guy gets points for actually calling and not blowing you off, but… I’m taking away at least one of them for using your brother as excuse.”

  Her whole expression screwed up in a frown. “Why? Coop and Jake can be scary when they chase guys off. You forget, I’ve seen them do it when it came to you.”

  “Because, you’re a package deal.”

  Trina blinked. “What?”

  “You have a big brother,” I reminded her. “His job, at least the way he sees it, is to protect you. Big brothers threaten guys who want to date their sisters. It’s a guy thing. If that guy can’t handle it…” I spread my hands.

  “So, you think if some guy had stood up to them and asked you out anyway, you might be dating him instead of Coop?”

  “We’ll never know.” Considering my first date was with someone who hadn’t been “in the know” it was very likely. “I know…what it is to want someone to like you for you. To have them want you and want to do things for you. I can blame the guys for a lot of things in warning people off and making me this… isolated and untouchable person. Trust me. I do. We’ve had our moments. But at the same time? No one else was willing to stand up to that heat, which means I wasn’t worth it to them.”

  I’d never really voiced it aloud that way before, but it was true. I went from being furious to yelling at them, to finally admitting what I wanted, and the one-eighty we all took had been heady and intoxicating.

  But the truth was, I adored those four, even if I’d never really admitted it to myself before.

  “You want to be wanted, and that’s cool. But want to be wanted for the right reasons. Sex isn’t status. It should be…fun and intoxicating and make you feel more connected. It should really feel good. It doesn’t matter if his dick is in you or not or you’ve been making out for hours, no still means no.”