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“Thanks, man.” I put my gear in, but kept my backpack. Then sent a text to say we were on our way to the Pit. “You getting Coop?”
“Yep, he’s waiting.” Jake rolled his head from side to side, but he didn’t make a move to get in the SUV.
“You wanna talk before we go?” There weren’t a lot of other reasons to linger in the lot. No one was parked near us, so we at least had some privacy.
“I don’t know,” Jake admitted. “Part of me thinks we could have avoided a lot of this.”
I shrugged. “There’s a lot of what ifs and shouldas or couldas, thing is, we didn’t.” Not that I had to ask him what he meant. “We started it, if you think about it.”
“You mean I did.” Jake pinned a look on me.
“If I meant you, I would have said you. I’m not a mute. I could have told you to knock that shit off when you started giving any guy who looked at her the stink eye. I could have gotten in the way when Archie basically started making it clear no one was allowed to ask her out. I could have said something when you punched that other kid. I didn’t. So when I saywestarted it, I meant we.”
With a snort and a shake of his head, Jake sighed. “You always gotta be the level-headed, perfect one.”
“Hardly. If I were so perfect, I wouldn’t have played the hint game, I’d have gone straight to her and told her how I felt.”
“Well, you kind of did. You asked her to Homecoming before the rest of us could get our heads out of our asses.”
“Archie was already trying to date her without her knowing they were dating.” A fact Jake and I had discussed when he claimed Friday nights and staked out his territory. “He wasn’t going to slow down. You needed a minute, but I had no doubt where you would take your chances the minute you caught your breath. And I wasn’t wrong.”
Jake spent the night there the week before, kept her out most of the night on Sunday and then Wednesday? Yeah, he was there all night again. The minute I read Coop’s message, I got it. Archie got her in bed first, Jake got her next, and I turned her down.
“Man, you know it’s not like that.”
Folding my arms, I leaned back against the bike seat. “Then what is it like, Jake? We’re all going to try and get her in bed and then expect her to choose? How does that not lead to hard feelings? How does that not in the end turn out to be awful for her? She deserves better than that. She sure as hell deserves better from us.”
“I’m not going to make her choose,” Jake stated flatly. “Do I like that Archie isn’t going to back off? Or you or Coop? No. Can I live with it? Yeah. But I told her, only you guys. No one else.”
How the hell was that supposed to work? “This is nuts. Seriously, nuts. We’re going to screw this all up for her because we’re selfish.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about last night, she couldn’t focus, we had to stay on the phone with her, remind her what was next, talk to her about assignments, and keep her eye on the prize. When was the last time Frankie neededanyoneto help her study? We slow her down. I know I do. Hell, I took a damn AP Calculus class just so I could hang out with her. And because I knew she’d bootstrap me through it.” And I wasn’t proud of it, but I wouldn’t drop, and I wouldn’t let her down.
“Well, we broke it. We fix it. But it’s not just us, it’s the fucking notes and the crap with her car and her mom.”
Notes. I rubbed my hands over my face. Rachel Manning had a thing for our girl and showed us all up with those roses. But they’d made Frankie smile. “Hey… we need to do something nice for her.”
“Yeah, it’s why we’re gonna pick up Coop’s lazy ass and go meet them for ice cream.”
“No, jerk, I meant something nice for Frankie, like those roses. Something that’s just about her and makes her feel good.” She’d liked the songs I sent her the night before, I could do more of those.
“Let’s figure something out.” Jake reached for the driver’s side door, then paused. “Bubba… man, you’re not really pissed about the other night are you?”
“Did you have sex with her?” It was the most blunt I’d been.
“You punched Archie when she told you about him,” Jake said slowly, facing me. “Need to do that to me?”
“Debating it.” I’d punched Archie because he’d taken advantage of what she didn’t know and pushed. There was no way he hadn’t pushed. I got it, she didn’t regret her choice, and I was glad forherthere were no regrets. But Archie deserved the punch in the mouth.
“Then get it out of your system, because what she and I share is between us. I’m not going to drag you if you do or if Coop does or if she and Archie are again. That’s personal, if she wants to talk about it oryoudo. Fine. I’m still your friend, I’ll still listen. But I’m not backing off, Bubba, and if you want to fight over her, I’ll fight you. I don’t want to, but I will.”
Yeah. That was pretty much what I figured. “Just take care of her,” I said slowly. “Don’t… do anything she ends up regretting.”
“What the hell do you think I’m going to do?” Jake glared at me.
“I don’t know, we didn’t mean to hurt her before, and we did. So just be careful.” It was the very least we could do.
