“Well,” Jake said. “All right then. Asshole can ride in the back, Baby Girl gets shotgun.”
“Hey,” came the complaint from Archie and Ian, but Coop just laughed as I circled around to the passenger side.
Girlfriend perks.
I could get used to this.
At lunch, I sandwiched between Archie and Ian as we grabbed pizza at Joe’s. It wasn’t as busy, and we could get all the individual slices we wanted. Ian kept one hand on my thigh the whole time, and Archie wanted to see the folder as soon as Coop told them what it was.
He was flipping through it, with me reading over his shoulder. Most of it was pretty straight forward—we’d be doing internships at different businesses, some would rotate us to give us a feel across the board, but it was all about leadership and negotiations.
“Why are you doing this again?” he asked, giving me the side eye. Ian had begun rubbing my thigh, just gentle circles with little massaging squeezes that did nothing for my thought process except to utterly derail them.
“Like I told Coop, it’s about the scholarships and the grants.”
“You got that huge one, babe, you don’t need to pile more responsibilities on your schedule.”
Not that he didn’t have a point but…
“It’s up to her whether she does that or not,” Jake jumped in. “But if you’re looking for our opinions. I’m with Arch.”
From being my hero to joining forces with the opposition. I wrinkled my nose. “I know I have a lot on my plate already.” Four boyfriends were a lot. “But it’s a good opportunity, and it might help me whittle down what I want to do.”
You’d think I had that all in the bag, but I didn’t.
“Is it a good opportunity? That’s two days a week you won’t be at school, which means you’ll have to double up on your homework to keep up with assignments.”
Okay, Jake had a point.
“But stuff like this looks great on college applications.”
Thank you, Coop.
“And if we hadn’t already submitted them, that would be a huge perk.” Course, he couldn’t resist tacking that last bit on.
Ugh.
“Stop all siding against me.”
“We’re not siding against you,” Archie countered, and Ian gave my thigh a squeeze before he nudged my plate toward me. I’d only eaten one slice. I picked up the second one with a half-pout. “We’re all Team Frankie here, right, guys?”
“Definitely.” Ian gave me a little pinch when I rolled my eyes at him. “We’re all Team Frankie, and you have a lot on your plate. If you want to do this, we’ll support you, but cut us some slack. That’s two days a week we’re not going to see you at school, and then you throw in you going back to Mason’s…”
Fine. He had a point, too.
Ugh.
“I would hate to give up on it just because I was afraid of a little work.”
“Is it really giving up if you forgot about it?” Coop challenged.
“Yes,” I mumbled, then took a bite of the pizza, and Jake grinned at me.
“Then, we figure it out.” Jake winked, and Archie nodded.
“I’m going to look more into this program though and ask Grandpa…” He flipped to the next page. “Make sure this isn’t a lot of dog and pony showing with no substance. If you’re going to spend time on it, then they need to make it worth your investment.”
It was a done deal as far as he was concerned. “Tell you what,” I offered. “If you and Grandpa Ted come up with something that says this is a bad idea, I’ll ask Ms. Fajardo to get out of it.”
“Sold,” Archie murmured, then gave me a kiss before he scooted out of the booth with the folder in one hand and his phone in the other. “Gonna go call him now.”
And he was off.
I stared after him a beat, and Ian chuckled as he trailed his hand up to wrap around my nape. “He’ll be fine, Angel. He just has to make sure everything is good enough for you.”
He really did try to fix everything. “You know, I haven’t even finished reading everything in that folder.”
“It’s all fine,” Coop told me. “Before the day is over, Archie will know all the nitty gritty and everything in the small print.”
But that really should be me doing that. Still, it was hard to tell them no. At Ian’s gentle urging, I turned and met his kiss. The slow massage of his lips against mine and the teasing of his tongue had me sighing, and the tension melted away.
Course, I could just let them fry all my brain cells, too.
He lifted his head and smiled at me.
“You two are adorable,” Jake snarked, then threw a napkin. “Stop hogging her.”
“Not my fault you called shotgun for her,” Ian teased without looking away from me.
I rolled my eyes and he gave my nape a squeeze as I turned back to my pizza, but he curled his arm around my shoulders and it was just nice to be cuddled. Seriously, I loved the girlfriend perks. Across the table, Coop wore a grin as he watched me and I crossed my eyes at him, which only made him laugh.
“So enough about me…” I began.
“Not possible,” Jake said with a wink. “But do continue.”
Okay, warmth spread through me, even if he was just teasing. “Anyway,” I said through a laugh. “How are your days going?”
“Meh,” Jake said.
“Not bad,” Coop grunted. “But…I always thought senioritis was a myth.”
“No myth,” Ian agreed as he took a sip of soda. “I keep thinking of all the things I could be doing if I weren’t here.”
“Yep,” Jake agreed, and I stared at all three of them.
“Really?” I turned that over in my head. I mean, I did miss having them around all the time. I’d gotten very used to having them just right there. But I still got to see them in classes.
“I love you, Baby Girl, but yes, really. Not all of us are as enamored of the academic process.”
“Or being away from you,” Archie tacked on as he slid back in next to me. He offered me the folder back. “Grandpa is going to check the program, but he has heard of it. He’ll call back with the details and let me know if he has any concerns.”
“Feel better?”
“Yes,” he said. “Thank you.”
Lunch passed almost too swiftly after that, and we were back at school. But at least it was study hall. Jake dragged me to the farthest corner of the library, where a table had been set up in a little nook between shelves as far from the librarians and the others as we could get. It was also tucked up in the engineering reference section.
One hardly anyone used because according to Jake and Archie, it was hideously out of date and the best resources were online. After setting our backpacks down, he slipped his arms around me and pulled me down across his lap before kissing me soundly. Not that I was complaining, but we were kind of at school.
I didn’t get any of those words out around his tongue demanding access to mine, or with how his fingers dug into my hips and urged me to rock forward. The erection he sported had a tangle of lust coiling in my belly.
“Jake,” I whispered against his lips when he dipped his fingers beneath the waistband of my jeans. When the hell had he unbuttoned and unzipped them?