Rich Groom (The Dirty Thirty Pledge 1)

“It’s okay,” I say, putting another pancake on the stove. “There were bound to be rumors after last night anyway.”

He takes the coffee that I offer him, but instead of sitting at the kitchen table, he takes my hand and pulls me toward the couch, and onto it. Sitting this time. His arm tucks around me and pulls me into him. “Now, we can talk.”

“Thank you for your permission,” I say, raising an eyebrow.

“I would say I’m sorry, but I’m not.” His grin gets me, and I’m smiling too.

But then I remember what I actually need to talk to him about. And everything that I can’t talk to him about. At least not yet. “I don’t think you’ll be smiling in a minute.”

His face sobers up. “No, I suppose not.”

“You know what I want to talk about?”

“I have a guess, unless last night is all the explanation that you need.”

Pulling up my legs onto the couch, I turn and cross my legs so I’m facing him. But that means his gaze is holding mine and it’s so much—too much—so I press my forehead into his shoulder. “I’m not going to blame this all on you,” I say. “I should have listened, and I should have tried to understand or work it out, but it’s also not all on me, and I need to understand.”

“I wish I had a better explanation for you than that I was a jackass, but mostly it’s that I was a jackass. I didn’t see why keeping an idea in the bank for the future would hurt you. To me, it was a joke. Something that we did every year, almost a bonding exercise.”

I press my lips together, trying to keep my automatic response inside. Just the thought of it makes me angry enough to scream, but he already knows that.

He sees my expression and laughs. “Yes, it is stupid. I can see it on your face. But I wasn’t cheating on you. You were the best thing that ever happened to me, and I wasn’t planning on breaking up with you either. I was in a bad mood that night. I can’t remember why, but I remember it didn’t have anything to do with you. And to make matters worse, I’d already been drinking.”

“Okay,” I say, a sort of relief settling in my bones. It’s a simple explanation, but it rings true to me, and Frankie doesn’t have any reason to lie to me. I already slept with him, and I could walk away if I have to, even if I don’t want to. “Glenn seemed so insistent.”

“Glenn is a fucking asshole.” He says it with such vehemence that I’m surprised, and he sets his cup of coffee on the table in front of the couch. “Trust me, he doesn’t, and I’m not sure he ever did, have my best interests at heart.”

A thought enters my mind. “The Dirty Thirty Pledge. You’re turning thirty. He still wants you to do it, doesn’t he?”

Frankie presses his mouth into a thin line. “It doesn’t matter what he wants.”

“So you’re not—”

Frankie cuts off my words with a kiss. It’s fierce and deep and desperate and it speaks volumes. “Under no circumstances am I participating in that pledge,” he says. “I don’t care what happens. It was a stupid thing we came up with when we were too horny to breathe. I don’t want it. I didn’t want it that night either.”

The way he says it, I want to know what’s going to happen if he doesn’t, but I also don’t want to ruin this moment because it feels so real. I lean into him, breathe in his scent and it feels like comfort and assurance. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

I nod into his chest. He pulls me back so he can see my face, and smiles at me. “So can I see you again? Continue to see you?”

I try to stay aloof and keep the grin off my face. I’m not successful. “I’d like that.”

I kiss him this time, ignoring the hitch in my chest at the things I’m not telling him. But I can’t yet. The kiss is soft and gentle and all I can think about. It lasts a while, the two of us falling into each other, and it feels like neither of us wants to come out. When we finally pull away from each other, it’s like I can take a full breath for the first time since I can remember.

“What was that package?” Frankie asks, grabbing his coffee and taking a sip.

“Oh.” I’d completely forgotten about it. “It’s my EP.”

His eyebrows raise into his hairline. “You have an EP?”

I blush. “I guess you could call it a demo. I recorded a few songs recently, and those should be the finished product.” I couldn’t afford to have it made. Not really. And it was only some old music contacts of my mom and dad’s that allowed me get the recording time and the CDs made. It’s my shot in the dark for my music. To maybe find a way to get myself out of the hole.