by Heather Long
“What do you need me to do?”
The open offer had me grinning wider. “Sing with me on it.”
“Ian…”
“Trust me?” I asked her. She glanced to the side and then back at me. “Just sing with me on it. Let me record it, and if you really hate it, I won’t use it.” But no way she could hate it if she would listen to herself uncritically without the voice of that woman in her head. “Help me pick the best tracks.”
As she chewed her lower lip, I had to resist the urge to push. That she would sing with me at all was a big deal. The first time, I had to tease her into it, and getting her to record that piece for Archie had been a break through. But I wanted everything for her. Music might be my dream, but Frankie was every bit a part of that dream.
“I trust you,” she told me, and a grin pulled at the corners of my mouth. “I just don’t want to torpedo your chances.”
“Not possible,” I promised and brushed a kiss to her lips. “You’re my muse, and everything I do is so much better because you’re here. You singing with me? That’s icing on the cake.”
She laughed. “You make it hard to say no.”
“Then don’t say no.”
Head back, she stared at the ceiling for a long moment. “If I hate it, you won’t use it?”
“You have my word.” And my word to do everything in my power to convince her that she was exactly what my music needed.
“Fine,” she said with a groan. I nearly spilled our food with the force of my kiss as I captured her lips and savored her agreement.
“You won’t regret it,” I promised her.
“Let’s hope so,” she whispered under her breath, but I let that go. For now.
I had enough faith in her for both of us…for now.
By the time the guys began to descend the stairs, I’d grabbed my guitar and we were working our way through one of the songs I wanted to use. I only had about half of the lyrics written, but “Green-Eyed Girl” wasn’t hard to verbalize. It encapsulated every complicated feeling I had for my girl—our girl—and I caught sight of Jake on the stairs, pausing to sit as she joined me in the second line.
His grin mirrored my own.
He didn’t continue down to join us until we paused for me to grab a pencil and add a couple of new lines.
“Baby Girl,” Jake said as he leaned over the couch to kiss her good morning, “that was awesome.”
A startled laugh escaped her and she flushed, but the pleasure in her eyes just made me smile. When she threw a look at me for not warning her, I just shook my head.
“You sing like an angel,” I repeated. I’d say it over and over again if I had to.
“A sexy as fuck angel,” Jake agreed. “Do it again…and do you want more coffee?”
“Water for me,” I told him, and Jake nodded as he headed for the kitchen.
Archie and Coop weren’t far behind.
The biggest win of the morning?
She kept practicing with me as the guys filtered into the living room to join us with their breakfasts and coffee. The red tint to her cheeks faded only some, but she pressed on, and the guys? They soaked up every note right alongside me.
Music was my thing with Frankie, but I’d share this part of her, too. Right now, I’d share it with these guys because they believed in her every bit as much as I did.
If I had my way, I’d share it with the world.
Christmas Eve was a blast. We’d gone out in the afternoon for some skiing, more for fun than anything else. Frankie loved it, and I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed it. Coop and Frankie still fumbled some, but they were never short on laughter or teasing.
We headed back before it got dark, and everyone changed into the pjs Archie had left out for us.
“Dude, it’s a good thing I like you,” Jake called from his room. “This has got to be the corniest thing we’ve ever done.”
“We have matching tattoos,” Frankie countered from her room, and I leaned against the doorjamb to mine, waiting for the others.
“Matching tattoos are sexy,” Coop said as he appeared in his doorway, wearing an identical set of pjs to me and probably the others, too. The red bottoms were covered in little Santas, while the white tank tops just said ho-ho-ho.
I’d seen dumber things. At least they were comfortable.
“Stop your bitching,” Archie said. “It’s fucking Christmas. Show some spirit.”
Jake snorted. “That should be a goddamn jingle. Work on that, Bubba.”
The pair stood in their own doorways, and yep, we were all wearing identical outfits.
“You guys are adorable,” Frankie drawled as she stepped out of her room, hands on her hips. “And apparently, we’re not matching one hundred percent.”
She had on the exact same bottoms and a white t-tank that did nothing to hide her nipples and the fact that they were peaked and stiff against the fabric. But it was the words on the tank that had me swallowing a guffaw.
Coop didn’t even try, and Jake shot Archie a look like he was pissed, but his eyes danced too merrily to make it seem real. Archie just grinned and strolled right for her. “Don’t mind if I do,” he teased, as he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her to him.
Her tank top sported a spring of mistletoe in the center with the words Kiss Me and arrows pointing up and down.
Raunchy.
And hilarious.
Only Archie.
Then again…I wasn’t complaining.
Without question, Frankie was the best present we could have gotten.
You Get Me
You Get Me
Frankie
“Which one of your assholes sent me the cactus?” Rachel eyed me through the video chat. The quirky grin and raised eyebrows had me cracking up.
“That would be me,” Coop yelled from the other side of the room. “But really, it’s from all of us.”
“Well, fuck you,” Rachel replied. “I have no idea how I’m getting a condom cactus home.”
A condom… “A what?” I asked, staring at her, and she turned the camera to the cactus sitting on the table. It was indeed a phallic-shaped cactus that looked like it had a condom on it, with little spines sticking out. Laughter escaped me, and I clapped a hand over my mouth.
“Yeah, yeah,” Rachel snarked as she reappeared on the screen. “Merry effing Christmas to you, too.”
It was kind of adorable, and I’d seen the card attached to it. I didn’t know if she’d meant me too, or not. But the guys were getting a kiss for that.
From a set of pricks to the prickly bitch, thanks for sticking it to us and with us.
“Is it really that bad?” I asked, but before she could respond, there was a sound behind her and she twisted.
“Get out, Mack,” she said. The guy must have responded because she huffed. “Get out before I throw this cactus at your eyes, and you need to protect those things. They’re the only balls on you.”
I snorted another laugh, but the door closed and Rachel stared at me with wide eyes that she then crossed.
“Ugh, please tell me all about how miserable you are and that you have gotten tired of all the dick,” Rachel said, but at my expression, she sighed. “No, you look ridiculously happy, which is good. It means I don’t have to stab any of them. Tongue lessons working out for you?”
“I think they’ve got it covered,” I managed to splutter without blushing too much. Actually, the blushing had dialed down some. There was a freedom to being here. “We got tattoos.”
“You got…” She gaped at me. “Pictures or it didn’t happen.”
“I’ll show you when we get home.” Then, because Rachel really did look kind of miserable… “How much longer are you stuck there?”
“We go home day after Christmas, thank fuck. I’m tempted to bedazzle some horns and wear it to dinner tomorrow, because if I’m going to Hell, I might as well get a full scholarship.”
Poor Rachel.
“Girls’ night, as soon as I’m back,” I prom
ised her. “Anything you want to do…”
“Anything?” She waggled her eyebrows.
“Watch it, Manning,” Jake called from across the room.
“You’re just bitter ’cause you want to watch,” Rachel said and winked at me.
I rolled my eyes, and she burst out laughing ’cause Jake went quiet. I glanced over to find all four of them staring at me.
“So…” I said, trying and failing to contain my smile as I looked back at the screen. “Tell me you’ve done something fun while you were there.”
“Drove out to Amish land to get away from the fam,” she said. “That was a good time.”
I shouldn’t laugh.
I really shouldn’t.
But her expression was hilarious.
“So, all done with me, tell me what you’ve been doing. I know who…”
“Don’t hate me,” I began, and she gave me a gimlet stare. “We saw Torched…”
She swore at me in French.
For ten minutes.
It was epic.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Days Like This
Christmas morning dawned with a pinkish-hued sunrise that I watched through the huge picture windows in the living room with my head tucked against Coop’s abs. Instead of choosing who got to sleep with me last night or me going to sleep with one of them, we dragged out sleeping bags and gathered all the pillows and crashed together around the tree. With the soft glow of the Christmas lights and the fireplace crackling to set the mood, Ian had strummed Christmas carols on his guitar and we’d sung them, sometimes really badly, and laughed.
So much laughter.
Archie insisted we each open one present. He also picked out the presents for each of us.
Jake got actual boxing gloves that had all of us laughing, but then again, Jake had just grinned.
For Ian, there were a series of different guitar picks that had my face on them. Wow. Ian loved them, but I died at Archie’s utterly serious, “Now you can finger her whenever you play…” comment.
The guys loved it, though.
For Coop, it was an amusing Dr. Freud therapy ball. Kind of like a Magic Eight Ball with a twist. That, and a bunch of inkblots that made no sense until he held them up with a delighted grin and said, “They’re you. He used your face to map inkblots.”
Archie smirked. “We see her everywhere, there must be a diagnosis for that…”
And that had my face burning. My gift though… I’d assumed it would be a charm, but it wasn’t. It was a photo of all five of us from ninth grade. I barely even remembered that day, just that we had all been laughing. I was hanging off of Jake’s back for some reason, my arms looped around his neck, as Coop and Ian flanked us, and Archie was in the front with his arms spread wide. We all had these wild grins on our faces.
Oh.
“We were getting ready to go camping.” The four of them convinced me camping would be fun. They weren’t wrong. It also involved bugs. But I could live with that. Jeremy had driven us out to a campsite, made sure we had everything, and then given the guys this stern lecture out of my earshot.
Thank. God.
I hadn’t really paid attention then, but I knew exactly what it had to entail now. It had been right at the beginning of our first summer together that bridged freshman and sophomore years.
“I love it,” I’d told him, and the guys laughed at me.
Archie didn’t intend to open a gift, but screw that. I dug around until I found one of the ones I’d gotten for him and thrust it in his hands. Thankfully, the guys had backed me up. He eyed the package and then me. He shook it once. “A card redeemable for sex whenever I want it?”
I rolled my eyes, and Jake hit him with a piece of popcorn. Still laughing, Archie opened it. Considering what he’d just gotten me, I thought it was on the appropriate side.
“You utter sap,” Archie mumbled, before chewing his lip as he stared down at the framed photo I’d wrapped for him.
“But I know how much it meant to you,” I teased him, and he turned it around to show the guys. It was me and Archie at our first mini-golf ‘date’ that I hadn’t known was a date. We’d gotten in one of those photobooths and taken goofy pictures. There was a scrawled note included that he’d written when he asked me to go in the first place.
Don’t ask me why I’d kept the note, but I’d tucked it away in my yearbook. So yeah, maybe I was a sap.
He dropped a kiss on my lips as he stared at the photo. “Don’t think I don’t know this means you want to go mini-golf again…”
The bubble of emotion around us swelled a little brighter. It was well after midnight before we went to sleep, but I hadn’t been this excited to wake on Christmas morning in forever. Coop stroked his fingers through my hair as we watched the sunrise. Eventually, I climbed out of the pile of them and he padded after me.
While he started coffee, I made breakfast. Today, there would be no staff. It was just going to be us. The food for a Christmas feast was also stocked and ready to go. The cook had even left instructions. Pretty sure those were for the guys, but we’d manage. I’d already seen pumpkin pie secreted in the back, along with a couple of other kinds. Cans of whip cream, too.
There would be so much food.
Coop wrapped his arms around me from behind and nuzzled a kiss behind my ear. “Are you having as much fun as you look like you’re having?” The murmured question made me smile.
Tilting my head back, I grinned at him. “More.”
His eyes softened. “Good.”
We worked together easily. He passed me coffee and traded it for the huge platter of bacon I’d fried. Then he got the biscuits in the oven and traded off with me when I got the eggs started. When he pulled out the salsa for the eggs and raised his brows, I grinned. I’d added some sausage, peppers, and other veggies, too.
Jake stumbled into the kitchen first, and thankfully, Coop saved the pan of eggs as Jake swept me up in a kiss. It was all good, until he stole my coffee and I threatened him with a spatula. Ian and Archie shuffled in after, and Coop saved Jake’s life by getting me more coffee.
After breakfast had been consumed, Coop and I made mochas for everyone before we spilled back out into the living room. There were so many presents. I swore that more had appeared overnight. Some came from Santa, and I elbowed Archie and he bit my neck lightly.
“What’s the point of having the money if I can’t spoil my family?” he asked against my ear, and a shiver overtook my whole body. Love. Loyalty. Friendship. That was our family.
The game controllers I’d gotten them were a hit. So were the boxers. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who had that idea, as they’d made a box of boxers for me, too. I found the Christmas charms in one box. In another was a copy of one of my favorite books of all time. Mine had fallen apart years earlier, and it was out of print. Jake had found it for me.
There was a guitar under the tree for me, not for Ian, and I’d been stunned at the gorgeous piece done in red. The acoustic guitar had been sized for me, and I stared at it and then Ian. He gave me a shrug. “You keep saying you want to learn to play more. Now, no more excuses.”
Okay, that delighted me more than it should. Archie and Jake got each other design books and plans. Even funnier, the schematics were for similar yet different items, and it launched them on a discussion of what they wanted to build first. Coop enjoyed the notebooks and reference materials. Not to mention a stack of games they accumulated between them.
When the guys disappeared to call their families, Archie and I wrapped around each other and just made out. There was no hurry to it and no demand, just long, leisurely kisses and cuddling. Not that it didn’t give me ideas for later, but I savored this time, too. From the presents to the food to curling up and napping together in front of movies—and then save me, football, thankfully I had books to read—the day was almost idyllic. It was just us.
The week following Christmas maintained the pattern set by our first week. We w
ent skiing. We went out to sing karaoke. Archie tracked down a place to go out dancing. It was like being on a week-long date with all of them, and we still rotated who slept with me. Invariably, someone extra showed up in the bed before dawn if I only went to bed with one of them, and I didn’t mind in the slightest.
The approach of New Year’s brought only one regret—we were flying home the day after. I would miss the skiing and the lodge, but I thought what I’d miss most was the freedom we’d found here. The guys had taken to holding my hand or wrapping me up in hugs and kissing me whenever the mood caught us. More than once, I’d be hauled out of one lap and into another, only to be kissed soundly. More than once, Jake or Coop had pinned me against the other.
And still, the need for them could hardly seem to be satisfied. Instead of hitting a club or a venue, Archie arranged for champagne, edibles, and freaking fireworks right where we were. I couldn’t even find it in me to give him grief for the cost. It was…magical. They even drew straws for kiss order, and it was hysterical and adorable.
“Making a resolution?” Archie asked as I leaned back against him and watched the fireworks, my lips still tingling.
“Gonna focus on my music full time now,” Ian said, then slanted a look at me. “And hopefully, my partner will be all in.”
I grinned.
“Locking in that school decision,” Coop said. “I really don’t give a damn where we go as long, as it’s got a program for all of us.”
“And we’re all there,” Jake added. “Splitting up is not an option.”
No argument from me. Even if it meant letting go of Harvard.
“That’s not a resolution.” Coop flicked popcorn at him, and Jake just flipped him off.
“I’m making plans, not resolutions.”
I grinned as they sniped at each other.
“What about you?” Ian asked me, and I lifted my shoulders.
“I like all of yours,” I told them. “Finish senior year, we have what? Ninety days or so left? Pick a college that wants me. Turn eighteen. Pass my AP exams. Graduate. Try not to screw this up with all of us. Mine are pretty basic.”
