“
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 at me and then to Paul’s nose. “She just hit you in the fucking nose, man,” he shouts. He high-fives Sam, who’s grinning like an idiot. He rubs his nose. “She didn’t hit me in the nose.” “Trust me,” I say, “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 fuck 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.
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