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She snickered, and I had to laugh, too. This was what it used to be like. The five of us playing, teasing, giving each other hell, even before Frankie wanted to date. Sometimes we’d had girls over, but they hadn’t really mattered when Frankie was here.
That should have been my first clue.
Jake caught her arm, but she clasped my hand so when Jake pulled her away from the side, I ended up following. Bubba dove in the far side, no cannonballs, and Archie yelled something.
“Up,” Jake said as he ducked under the water, and then Frankie let out a gasp and a laugh as he rose up with her suddenly perched on his shoulders. “Coop, you wanna base for Arch or the other way around?”
Oh, hell.
Bubba cut through the water to us. “I can do it,” he said as he came up. “Arch or Coop, whichever.”
Jake smirked and the look that passed between them wasn’t friendly.
“C’mon Coop,” Bubba invited, and I rolled my eyes.
“All right.” I waited for Bubba to duck into the water, and then I was on his shoulders and going up.
“Hey,” Archie said. “What about me?”
“You gotta be the ref!” Frankie said. “And throw us some noodles!”
“Fine.” He let out an aggrieved sigh, but I didn’t miss the way his expression shifted at her smile, or the fact that Jake was currently stroking her thigh with his thumb.
“Okay, first one to topple the other wins,” I suggested before anyone else could add some ridiculous rules to the competition. Jake and Archie were both overachievers, but at the moment, I was more worried about the animosity between Jake and Bubba.
Archie passed us the foam noodles, and then it was on. Frankie wielded hers like a champion, laughing as I batted hers back. Bubba and Jake kept moving, and we were heading for the deeper end of the pool.
I half-expected the shove when it came, but Bubba recovered, and I managed to hold onto my balance. Frankie’s expression tightened briefly. Yeah, I wasn’t the only one who saw it. She bopped me and then flicked her eyes at the pool and made a wavery motion.
She wanted to throw the match. I didn’t blame her, but I could take the dive. The guys lunged at each other, and I bopped her and she went sideways, and if I hadn’t been watching for it, I would have missed it. Instead of just sliding off Jake, she hooked her legs under his arms and pulled him with her.
They both came up laughing, and I had about two seconds before Bubba dumped me backwards.
Eh, all fair.
No more water battles, instead Frankie hooked her arms around the noodle and floated, head tipped back. Archie dove back in and we all sorta wound down a little.
“We still need to talk homework,” Frankie said after a while.
“Yes!” Archie lifted a fist, and I laughed. “She didn’t make it an hour. I win.”
Frankie snorted and kicked water in his direction.
“Yeah, no one took that bet,” Jake reminded him. Nor would we. Frankie was too damn determined and driven to get the right grades to get into the right college and get out of that apartment and life with her mom.
I couldn’t blame her.
“All right,” I said, grabbing the edge of her noodle closest to me and tugging her. “Everyone out, and we can get food while we talk the academic stuff, and then we go back to celebrating.”
“I have homework,” she reminded me, then gave me a hug and a kiss. It was just the barest of brushes, but the stupid grin on my face had to give me away. ‘Course, she grinned wider, and there wasn’t anything wrong with that.
“If I help, do I get a kiss, too?” Archie teased as he held a hand out to her. He’d already gotten out of the pool.
“You can have one whether you help or not,” she said as she let him pull her up. Like she had with me, it was a light kiss, a bare brush, and it still sent a shiver down my spine. Not as hot as when she and Jake had been intent on devouring each other, or as hot as when she came alive in my arms, but I didn’t mind watching.
‘Course, she also leaned into Archie and laughed when he blew a raspberry against her throat. That was how Archie Standish, dude with more money than all four of our families put together, always delighted her. He had the capability of being a dork.
“You coming?” Frankie asked as she headed toward the table where the towels and the food waited in the shade.
