Sweet (True Believers #2)(24)
Author: Erin McCarthy

I couldn’t really argue with that. “I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be fine? And if you want to hook up with Robin, go for it, she has a great body.”

Now why the hell did I say that last part? It was a rookie mistake I saw girl after girl make, and I had always rolled my eyes at their naiveté. Never let your emotion dictate what comes out of your mouth. It was a lesson straight out of Guy 101. The minute you did that, you handed control over to them.

Damn it.

His eyebrows shot up. “You want me to hook up with your friend? That’s very generous of you. I appreciate you looking for a landing spot for my dick.”

“Don’t be crude,” I chastised.

“You’re the one who is suggesting I hook up with her five minutes after I met her.”

“Never mind.” I went to my room to get my purse and threw it over my head so that it dangled on my hip. I was wearing an old shirt with peanut butter and jelly high-fiving each other and basketball shorts I worked out in, but I didn’t give a shit. It wasn’t like putting on cuter clothes was going to change the outcome of this day.

“Are you jealous of your friend? Because that seems like a bad foundation for a friendship.”

“Why would I be jealous of her? And what do you know about friendship?” Verbal vomit officially commencing. I grabbed a cookie out of the Mystery Machine and crammed it in my mouth just to shut myself up.

“Apparently nothing.”

We went and got sub sandwiches, and Riley ate his footlong and half of my six-inch, along with two bags of chips and a soft drink that was roughly the size of my dorm room wastebasket.

“Do you have any pictures of your family on your phone?” I asked, an idea for the long hallway to the bedrooms popping into my head.

“What do you mean?”

“You know, like snapshots of the boys. Ones where no one is flipping off the camera.”

He grinned. “That may be a tall order.” But he dutifully pulled out his phone and started scrolling through pictures. “Here’s one of Easton on his birthday. I got him a giant cupcake.” He held it out to me.

Easton was smiling, his dark eyes shining, as he held his giant cupcake up to his mouth, about to take a bite. “That’s perfect.”

“Here’s Jayden with Rory.”

Jayden had his arm slung over Rory’s shoulder, and they both were smiling. Again, I felt a twinge of envy. “That’s cute.”

Then Riley’s smile fell off his face as he flipped through more pictures.

“What?” I asked.

“It’s my mom.” He studied the screen of his phone. “I know it sounds weird, but I do miss her in a way.” He turned the phone to me. “Maybe it’s because I remember her before the drugs, but she wasn’t a bad person. Not like my dad. He’s just a dick. But my mom was just, well, an addict.”

I thought of the picture of her in his bedroom at her prom, and I looked at the picture he was showing me. She looked shrunken, fragile, hardly any bigger than Easton, as she pulled him against her in a hug. He was making a funny face, but she was smiling, like she’d been caught in a laugh, her mouth open to show missing bottom teeth, her skin sallow. But there was genuine happiness there in her eyes.

“I understand,” I told him. “She’s your mom. I’m sure she loved all of you.”

“She did. She just couldn’t stay away from the smack. And it killed her.” He swiped past the picture. “So why did you ask, anyway?” he said, brisk, shaking more chips onto his sub wrapper.

“We can print some of those out at Walmart and hang them in the hallway. It will look great, and personal. You know, let the social worker see that you’re a real family.” I had a thought. “Let me take a close-up shot of your tattoo and we can use that one, too. It’s a tattoo that says you love each other.”

He made a face. “You make it sound so dorky.”

I laughed. “Sorry. I mean, it’s a very tough symbol indicating that you’ll kick anyone’s ass who messes with your brother. Is that better?”

“Definitely.”

By the time we got back to the house with more supplies I was already exhausted. Then we started tearing up the carpet, and I decided that I needed to find a career where I could just look pretty, because this shit was hard work.

“Oh my God,” I gasped, yanking on the piece Riley had cut that I was supposed to be rolling back. Sweat was dripping down my back, and the work gloves he’d given me kept slipping as I jerked the carpet.

“This was your idea,” he reminded me, using his boot to hold down one section while he tugged where he’d sliced with the knife.

“I was a fool.” An exhausted fool. I lay down on the filthy carpet to catch my breath.

“Man up.”

“I’m not a man.”

“I noticed.”

Well, that was something. I rolled onto my side and wished an ice-cold lemonade would appear in my hand.

“Men don’t whine as much as you do.”

Lovely. “You haven’t met my brother,” I told him.

“By the way, this is a perfect photo op,” Riley said. “You’re supposed to be rehabbing houses, right? Here you go. This way you can prove it. It might not be the exact same situation as what you told your parents, but it’s something.”

“Good call.” I dug my phone out of my bra. “Take my picture.”

“You keep your phone in your bra?” He took it from me. “Wow, this is sticky.” He wiped it on his jeans. “You might want to get off the floor if you want to look like you’re working hard.”

“Slave driver.” I peeled myself off the floor and then went back to rolling old carpet on my knees while Riley took a picture.

An hour later all the carpet was out on the front lawn for garbage pickup and we were in the midst of a dusty hell. Coughing and waving my hands in front of me, I threw open the windows, risking Riley wrath. I went over the floor with the broom to collect the piles of disintegrating carpet backing that had been left behind while Riley ripped out the boards that lined the edges of the wall, spiky nails sticking out of them. Another hour and we had mopped the floor and put the furniture back and it actually looked pretty damn good. The floor wasn’t perfect. It had grooves and scuffs in it, but it was a huge improvement over the nasty carpet, and it smelled clean and fresh.

I flopped on the couch. “I have to leave for work in thirty minutes. This is going to be a hellish night.”