“How are you feeling?” I asked as the twins helped clear off the table. “You hear anything from that douchebag?”
“What’s a douchebag?” Molly piped up.
I winced. “Nothing, sweetheart. I made it up.”
“Good one,” Ember said with a snort.
“I aim to please.”
She sighed heavily and lowered her voice so the twins couldn’t hear. “I blocked him everywhere. I don’t plan on giving him the opportunity.”
I bit my tongue, then asked, “What about your parents?”
“Nothing there either. It’s not going to give a girl abandonment issues at all.”
“Lucky for you, you’re never getting rid of me.”
“Pfft. You’re leaving at the end of the year when you move on to play pro ball.” She shoved my shoulder jokingly, but there was a thread of real concern in her voice. I tried not to read too much into it. She was hurting and probably feeling a little alone.
“Maybe I’ll invite you to one of my games when I go pro. You can always come out and watch, you know.”
My hope was to be drafted to the Orlando Falcons once I graduated, but I’d be happy anywhere. Except getting drafted to a team across the country would mean leaving my family and Ember. Playing ball was all I had ever wanted, and she was the only person who’d ever made me second-guess my dreams. Though she’d kill me if she ever knew that. She’d given up her aspirations of being a doctor to take care of her family. If she ever thought I’d give up pro ball to be here with her, she’d skin me alive.
“Can we come, too?” Tillie asked, clearly eavesdropping on our conversation.
I lifted her up and spun her around. “Of course you can. I can’t play without my favorite cheerleaders.”
“Me, too?” Molly asked eagerly. Her wide, innocent eyes were exactly the same color as Ember’s.
After ruffling her hair, I knelt down to her level, her sister still on my hip. “Of course, short stuff.” I glanced up at Ember, who seemed relaxed for the first time since all that shit had gone down. “All of you.”
Ember helped the twins with their nighttime routine after they had thoroughly decimated their tacos and virgin daiquiris—which they called slushies. Their voices trailed from the hallway down to where I was cleaning up in the kitchen, making me smile. I was an only child, and while my parents had been attentive and loving, there had never been any other kids to play with when I was younger. My life growing up had often been solitary. I had to admit it was nice to have their noise and clutter around. It was like a constant hug.
“Tripp!” came a high-pitched call. “Come here.”
“Almost done,” I answered.
“We want you to read us a story,” came another voice.
“I’m sorry,” said Ember as she appeared at the end of the hall. “I tried to convince them I was perfectly capable of reading a story, but they want you. According to Molly, you do the voices the best. There wasn’t any telling them different.”
I dried my hands on a dishtowel and put the leftovers in their Tupperware containers in the fridge. “You don’t have to do that. I don’t mind at all.”
She retrieved her daiquiri and drank deeply despite all the ice being melted. “Proceed at your own risk,” she warned. “They seem like they’re nice little girls, but they can be pretty demanding.”
Ember screeched when I flicked the dishtowel at her legs. “Sounds like they take after their big sister.”
“Hey!” she protested behind my back.
I laughed on the way down the hall to the room she shared with the twins. That’s another thing I admired about her. She didn’t have anything of her own and didn’t whine about not having any luxuries. She even shared her room with the twins without complaint.
Somehow, they’d managed to cram a small set of second-hand twin bunk beds in the tiny space along with a large dresser and double bed for Ember. Her bed was technically a mattress on the floor. She’d admitted to me that when the twins outgrew their cribs, she’d sold them and her bed frame in order to get their bunk beds.
“They deserve to have as normal a life as possible,” she’d explained when I asked why she was sleeping on a mattress.
It never ceased to amaze me how she did without when other women her age always seemed to want more—especially from me.
“Tripp!” the twins greeted. They were both snuggled together on the bottom bunk in matching, albeit slightly small, cartoon pajamas.
Molly held out a book. “Here, read this one,” she said.
Goodnight Moon.
My mom had read this to me when I was younger. I wondered who had read it to Ember? Somehow, I couldn’t see either of her parents reading her a bedtime story.
The twins made room for me to sit beside them, and damned if it didn’t make my heart melt the way they had their arms wrapped around each other. How their parents could fail so spectacularly when they had such wonderful children, I didn’t know.
I began to read, and by the end, their eyes were already drooping. “Again!” they demanded. I didn’t mind. At the end of the second read through, they were fast asleep. I carefully got to my feet and tucked their blanket around them. They were still snuggled together, inseparable even though they could each have their own bed.
“They do that so easily for you,” Ember complained from the doorway. She must have snuck up during the second read-through. “They always fight sleep when it’s me.”
“It’s my charming demeanor,” I told her.
“Right,” she drawled. “Speaking of, shouldn’t you be out somewhere on a date or something?”
“And miss Tequila Tuesday? Not a chance.”
“I thought it was Taco Tuesday this time?” she said quizzically.
“That was for the girls. I brought the tequila for grown-up time.”
She smiled, but it faltered. “You could always go now,” she said softly.
I snorted and went to the counter to make more drinks, this time with margarita mix and a healthy dose of tequila. I thought we both needed it. “There isn’t anywhere else I’d rather be,” I said.
She shook her head but accepted the drink I handed her. “I don’t get you.”
“What’s there to get? I’m not a complicated man.”
A blush painted her cheeks. “Never mind.” She drank deeply from her margarita. I tried not to stare at the way her tongue flicked out to lick away the salt on the rim of the glass.
Instead of thinking about it, I mixed up my own and did the same.
Two hours later, I realized my mistake.
I should have left them after dinner, gone back to my apartment, and locked the door behind me. That would have been the smart option. But no, now I was stranded in my own special version of hell.
Ember stripped off the t-shirt she was wearing over a camisole. It wasn’t a designer label—Ember dressed more for comfort than for style, but she could have worn a potato sack and looked sexy as hell. I drank thirstily to keep from staring too hard.
“I thought I was a good girlfriend,” she was saying. “I helped with his schoolwork. I treated him to dinner when he visited or when I went down to visit him. I took care of presents for his mom and sisters when it was their birthday or his parents’ anniversary. I always helped tidy and organize his place when I stayed over. I don’t get it. I thought he loved me.”
The raw pain in her voice chilled all the heat I’d been stewing in ever since I had made our fourth round of margaritas. I shook my head to clear away the thoughts of her stripping off the rest of her clothes.
Get it together, Wilder.
“You know I’ve never thought highly of Chris. He was never good enough for you. So take my opinion with a grain of salt. It sounds like you mothered him. Not that it’s an excuse for what he did to you. But a man should be able to take care of his own shit, not make you do it.”
At my words, she blinked rapidly, and I hoped she wasn’t going to cry.
She took
another sip, then inhaled deeply. “I can’t believe you said that.” I opened my mouth to apologize, and she shook her head before I could get the words out. “Don’t apologize. You’re probably right. You know he never did any of that stuff in return? He wasn’t like you. He’d never come over if the twins were here. He’d always make some sort of excuse. If he hadn’t dumped me, me having to be here for them 24/7 would have made him bail.”
I couldn’t say she was wrong, so I didn’t say anything.
“I guess deep down, I knew we weren’t going to last, but I dunno. I kept holding on because I thought if I was better, then maybe I could change things. Maybe if I was good enough, he would see that and stay.” She shook her head. “It sounds stupid.”
“You’re right; it is stupid. You shouldn’t have to change yourself for any man. You’re an amazing person. Guys would kill to be with a woman like you. So, fuck him if he didn’t realize how good he had it. I can promise you he’ll come to his senses. He may not let you know it, but he’ll think about you one day and remember what a great thing he had and how he gave it up. He’ll regret it.”
“You think so?” she asked.
“Oh, I know it,” I said, hoping she couldn’t hear the gravity in my voice.
A lengthy silence followed, and I was distracted by all of the ways this could have gone differently. If I’d pushed a little harder, made my move after she’d gotten settled with her sisters, maybe I would have had my chance before she’d met Chris. Now, I was so thoroughly in the friend zone, I doubted I’d ever find a way out.
“What if I’m bad in bed?” she blurted, and I choked on a sip of my margarita. The tequila burned my throat as it went down.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I demanded. Maybe I was hearing things because fuck if I was going to have this conversation. I needed to be much, much more wasted to listen to the details of their sex life.
“He met someone else. If he was…satisfied, he wouldn’t have been looking.” Her cheeks were as red as her hair.
We were having this conversation. Fuck it.
There were things I wanted to say to her that I’d been putting off for way too long.
“Sex is easy to come by—even good sex. It’s the people that come along with it that make it interesting. You can have the best sex in the world with someone you don’t give a damn about, but when it’s with someone you care about, it’s different. Better. Easier. You come harder, faster.”
“I never came with Chris.” She flushed as soon as she’d said the words. “I mean, I did, maybe a quarter of the time. It felt good even when I didn’t, but most of the time, it either took too long, and he got frustrated, or he didn’t care enough to get me off after he was done.”
I pressed a hand to my heart. “Angel, that’s a tragedy.”
She lifted a shoulder. “I’ve read that’s normal for a lot of women. Sometimes it just doesn’t happen.”
“That’s not what I’m hearing from what you’re saying. If he didn’t care enough to take care of you, too, then he was a selfish lover, period.”
And a fucking idiot.
But we were both fucking idiots. Because as much as I wanted to say something, tell her how much I wanted to be the man to take care of her, I knew I couldn’t.
“Maybe.”
“Definitely. Any guy would love to be with you, Ember. They’d kill to make you come.”
I could think of a thousand ways I wanted to have her screaming for me without trying. But I drank instead and forced myself to change the subject.
There’s no way in hell I’d let sex ruin our friendship.
Chapter Seven
Ember
A voice cleared, and my eyes cracked open. Tillie and Molly stood in front of me with their identical stuffed puppies clutched in opposite hands. Tillie was smiling knowingly, and Molly’s other hand was covering her laughter, though it spilled out in staccato bursts.
“Good morning,” they intoned in knowing voices that had alarms sounding in my already-pulsing head.
“Good morning,” I croaked. God, it was warm. Was I getting sick? Being sick simply wasn’t an option. I couldn’t miss any more classes or take any additional time off. I pressed a hand to my head. “Give me a few minutes, and I’ll make you breakfast, okay?”
“Why are you and Tripp sleeping together? Are you boyfren / girlfren?” Tillie dragged out the word couple so that it sounded like it was three words instead of one.
I shot up to a sitting position and immediately wished I hadn’t. A groan came from behind me—a particularly familiar male groan.
Oh, God.
I turned and found that they weren’t kidding. Tripp and I were sleeping together. At some point, we must have passed out on the couch, and during the night, I’d wrapped around him like ivy on a pole. He still lay on his back with his mouth tipped open. My movement hadn’t woken him, and his legs were intertwined tightly around mine.
“Did you break up with Chris?” Tillie asked.
“It’s way too early for this conversation,” I said as I carefully disentangled myself from Tripp’s hold and got to my feet. The heat suffusing my body began to dissipate. “You two go get dressed, and I’ll try not to throw up everywhere.”
Their giggles followed them down the hallway. I was already doing a bang-up job at this sole guardian thing. I smacked Tripp on the arm. “Wake up,” I hissed.
He rolled over and shoved his head into the pillows. The ripple of bare muscle made me realize he wasn’t wearing a shirt. My throat went instantly, painfully dry. I’d noticed Tripp was a good-looking guy, I mean I’d have to be dead and buried not to, but it had never hit me so viscerally as it did at that moment.
It actually stole the words from my throat. Made me momentarily forget how bad I felt and the fact that the twins were still in the apartment. The powerful knit of muscle and sinew under his skin was a testament to the hours he spent in the gym each day training. There wasn’t an ounce of fat to be found, and I wasn’t sure if I should be jealous or appreciative. I settled on trying not to drool.
Then I remembered the conversation from the night before and wished the headache would kill me. I couldn’t believe I’d told him those things! I hadn’t even told Layla and Charlie about my sex life with Chris, and they were my best friends.
I was never drinking again.
I reached out a hand, and it hovered over Tripp’s sleeping body. Where was the most innocuous place I could touch him that wouldn’t make me think about how he said a guy would kill to make me come? His shoulder? Except, he had great shoulders. They made me think about what it would be like to grab hold of them with him on top of me. His arm? Nope. He had a pitcher’s arms. Strong and heavily-corded with muscles. He was all muscle. Everywhere. My gaze drifted down to his abs. Good God, he had fifty-seven of them.
I settled on poking him in the ribs with my eyes closed.
Super mature.
And also a bad idea.
He turned at my touch, and all those abs came into full view. I swallowed hard. His hair was matted with sleep and stuck out in odd directions. Tripp wasn’t brawny like Liam or broad like Dash. He was slimmer, more agile, his build well-defined and sleek. All toned arms and long legs. His hair was more dirty blonde than Liam’s and too light to be a true brunette like Dash. He wore it longer on top and in the front. A Japanese-style tattoo sleeve with cherry blossoms and shades of black and gray waves covered his left arm from shoulder to elbow.
How was it that I’d never really looked at him before?
His eyes opened, and I jolted back, surprise mixing with embarrassment for getting caught.
“What are you doing?” he asked while I tried not to stare at the way his stomach contracted as he sat up. His voice was gravelly from sleep, and I felt it touch me in all sorts of delicious new places.
It was like the fusion of alcohol and sleeping together had done something to my brain. There were all sorts of tactile and visual information I’d neve
r paid any attention to before but spending the night next to him had rewired everything. Now I couldn’t help but notice everything I’d been hell-bent on ignoring before.
“Ember?” he asked when I didn’t respond.
“What?”
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked.
Everything seemed to shoot back into focus. “I’m not looking at you like anything. I was trying to wake you up. We fell asleep on the couch, and the twins woke us up.”
“That would explain why my back is killing me. Your couch is sized for hobbits.”
“It’s not my fault you’re a giraffe.”
“What did you say about the twins?” he asked, rubbing at his eyes.
“They think we're a couple.” The horrified tone in my voice was shrill and made my brain pound in protest. “They saw us in here together and woke me up this morning. God, Tripp, what were we thinking?”
Why did I think those last couple of drinks were a good idea?
His smile was way too relaxed. Why wasn’t he freaking out? “Well, we did sleep together.”
“Yes—literally. As in, just sleeping!” I tried not to remember how good it felt to wake up in his arms.
Tripp cocked his head to the side. “I’m wondering if your horror should insult me.”
My brain stuttered. “I—what? No!”
“I enjoyed sleeping with you.” He said it so sincerely, I could only blink.
Then I frowned. “You’re finding this far too funny, Tripp.”
He reached out and twisted a lock of hair around his fingers. “Maybe I’m just flattered.”
I pushed his hand away. He was only touching my hair, but I felt the responding tingles shoot up and down my arms. What was happening?
“Don’t be stupid. We probably shouldn’t drink like that with the girls around. I don’t want to confuse them.” More like I didn’t want to confuse me.
Friend Zone Series Box Set Page 40
