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**k 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**king 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.

“Nothing is always something in girl code,” he says. He smells like Michelob Light and Paul.

“What girl code is this of which you speak?” I ask.

“The one where you’re right and I’m wrong no matter how we look at it.” He grins. “Talk to me, Friday.” He leans closer, and his lips touch the shell of my ear. “What did I do wrong?”

I grunt and cross my arms.

“That’s it, then,” he says. “You forced me to do it.”

He stands up, stretches, and cracks his knuckles.

“Forced you to do what?” I ask.

“To take matters into my own hands,” he says. He reaches down and scoops me up in his arms.

“Paul!” I screech. “Put me down! Right now!” But all I can really do is grab his neck because he’s moving faster than I thought possible.

“The drawer!” his brothers all cry at once. They’re laughing like hell and high-fiving one another.

“Fuck the drawer,” he says.

“What drawer?” I ask. I am so confused.

“The drawer!” they yell, all pointing toward it. He stops and looks back at them.

“We’re just going to talk. Where the f**k do you think I’m going to put it?” he asks. “On my tongue?”

Pete looks at Sam and shrugs. “I’ve heard dumber ideas,” he says.

“Seems like overkill to me,” Sam replies. He shrugs, too.

Paul shakes his head and bumps his door open with his shoulder.

“That’s what they all say,” Matt calls. “Get a condom out of the drawer!”

“You have a condom drawer?” I ask.

“In the kitchen, yes.”

I must look dumbfounded because he goes on to explain.

“I raised four teenaged boys. I had to be creative about getting condoms in their hands. And on their dicks.”

Paul sets me down gently on his bed. Then he turns around and closes and locks his door behind us. “Let me out of here,” I grit out. I scurry across the bed like a crab.

“Not until you talk to me.” He starts to pace from one side of the room to another.