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The Ferrari leapt forward with a bit of a roar as the light changed.
“You’re judging me. I get enough of that from my parents.” He sighed. “You’ve never judged me.”
“Too be fair,” I said, my own conscience kicking in. “I’m not judging you precisely. I’m just trying to understand.”
“Understand what?”
“You and the guys, you all date, go a little crazy—then it’s done, and you act like it’s nothing. And the girls…” I sucked on my lower lip. He said they dated for six days? Yet she’d been at Bubba’s partywithArchie, right?
“And the girls?”
“The girls act like it was something. They get hung up on you—on all of you. Look at Coop.”
“Coop and the tripping and the falling on her lips? Yeah, I’ll pass on looking at that one. I don’t kiss girls by accident. When I kiss someone, it’s because I wanted to, and she knows she’s been kissed.”
Yeah, I bet she does.Archie could be a lot of fun; I imagined when he poured all that charm on someone, it would be amazing. “But that’s my point, Archie. You kissed Patty, and I’m pretty sure you meant it at the time.”
He was driving farther than I expected, but he wasn’t speeding, so I didn’t ask. “I did mean it at the time, and then I didn’t. I didn’t want to kiss her anymore. I didn’t want to hang out. I didn’t want to talk to her eighty-nine times a day on the phone or text with her all the time. We weren’t really dating. We went out a couple of times, made out a couple of times…”
“Did you get her off?” I had no idea why I was asking this. Morbid curiosity?
“Well, it would have been rude if I didn’t,” he admitted. “Especially after she…” Suddenly, we swung into a parking lot, and he slotted the Ferrari neatly into a parking space. With it in park, he leaned his head back. “Yes, Frankie, I got her off. She got really enthusiastic and… it was a handjob more than a blowjob. It would have been rude to not at least return the favor, and I try not to be a user.” He wasn’t looking at me, he was staring at the building. “And, because I can practically hear you wondering, I gave it a couple of days after that. The more she texted me, the more I dreaded it, so I broke up with her.”
“It was after Bubba’s birthday party.” That wasn’t a question.
“Yeah,” he said quietly then sighed. “So I’m the asshole who didn’t have sex with her.”
Unbuckling my seatbelt, I turned to sit sideways. “Archie you’re not an asshole. If anyone in this car is one, I am.”
He frowned and stared at me. “You’re not…”
“I am… I didn’t even know you’d had your tonsils out. I totally missed that. I wasn’t there for you at the hospital, and I didn’t see you after.”
“It’s okay,” he said, the confusion in his expression clearing. Tugging his sunglasses off, he stared at me. “You were busy this summer. It happens.”
“I shouldn’t be too busy for my friends. Even my irritating ones who drive fancy cars—and me—nuts.”
“I drive you nuts?” He grinned, seeming delighted by the idea.
“Sometimes,” I admitted. “But I am sorry I wasn’t there, and I wasn’t…okay maybe I was judging about Patty a little. But the four of you have gone through a lot of girls the last couple of years. Some of them were my friends.”
“Were.” It wasn’t a question.
I nodded.
“If they aren’t still your friends, they weren’t in the first place,” he pointed out. “I get it. We’re a bunch of possessive bastards, and we’re not giving you up for some girl.”
I laughed. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Well,” he said, giving me a long look. “Maybe it’s what I meant.” He turned the engine off before climbing out. He circled the car, but I already had my door open. He blocked the door for a sec, studying me. “If one of our exes is giving you a hard time, you need to tell us.”
“I didn’t say anyone was giving me a hard time.”
“No, you didn’t,” he agreed with me, backing up a step so I could get out of the car. I slid my phone into the other back pocket before I followed him toward the door. “But I mean it. If someone is giving you a hard time because of us, you need to tell us. We’ll take care of it.”
“Yeah okay, Big Archie. I think I can take care of myself.”
“Agreed,” he told me with a broad grin. “But you don’t have to because you have us and we’ve got your back. No one is going to mess with you and, if they try, they’ll learn very quickly we don’t let that happen.”
