Proving Paul's Promise (8 page)

She hooks her thumbs in the hips of her panties and drags them down her bottom. She has these two adorable little dimples at the small of her back. And her ass, it’s just as round and perfect as I imagined in my wet dreams.

I turn to face the door. “Jesus Christ, Friday,” I grit out.

She makes a noise, but I can’t tell if it’s a laugh or if she’s still feeling sick. “Next time, you should give me some time alone when I’m in the bathroom,” she yells over the noise of the water.

“Can I go to the doctor with you tomorrow?” I call back. I wince. Why the fuck did I ask her that?

She jerks the curtain back and glares at me. “Why do you want to go?”

I shrug and look everywhere but at her. “I just do.”

“Ten o’clock,” she says, and she jerks the curtain closed.

I want to pump my fist in the air because I feel like I finally won a battle with Friday. All this week has been one fight after another. She fights to pick up after Hayley. She does the dishes and the laundry when she knows I’m planning to do them. She made dinner for me and Hayley twice this past week. Even Sam liked it when he finally dragged his ass home.

I’m not used to having anyone take care of me, and I can’t figure out if I like it. I have been taking care of everybody around me for a long time, but Friday has come in like a steamroller and changed my whole fucking life.

“Hey,” I say. “I want to take you somewhere special with me.”

“Where?” she asks over the rush of the water.

“My dad used to take me to this old movie theater. It’s closed down now, but it’s my favorite place in the whole world. We would have to break in, but the last time I did it, the projector still worked. We would just have to turn it on.”

She sticks her head out of the curtain. “I’ve never heard you say anything nice about your dad before.”

I shrug. “It’s just a movie theater.”

“No, it’s not,” she calls back. “I guess we could go one day. Is it the one with the old ticket booth out front.”

“Yes.”

“I’d like to go there.”

My heart warms. “Good.”

Her voice jerks me out of my thoughts. “Can you pass me a towel?” she asks.

I open the cabinet and get out the biggest and fluffiest one I can find. It must be hers, because none of what I have is this nice. She reaches around the curtain, her skinny little tatted arm waving impatiently at me. God, she makes me laugh.

That’s the best thing about Friday. She makes me laugh. I don’t know why, but just seeing her can get me out of a funk.

“Do you remember that guy who was at the shop last week when we were arguing?” I ask as she scrubs the towel over her hair. I can see it moving over the top of the shower curtain.

“Which time?”

I grin. We argue more than we agree, and I fucking love it. She’s the only person who ever tries to put me in my place. “When you cried and went into the bathroom.”

“Yes,” she says. She jerks the curtain back, and I realize that she’s wrapped the towel around her naked body and tucked the end of it between her breasts. “Stop looking at my tits,” she says. But she smiles and shakes her head so I know I’m not really in trouble. “What about him?”

“He called me yesterday. He wants to come in and do a pilot for a reality TV show based on the shop.”

Her gaze jerks up to mine. I realize suddenly that she has the cutest little freckles across the bridge of her nose. I don’t usually get to see her without makeup on. I like it. I like it a lot. I drag my fingertip down the bridge of her nose.

She scrunches up her face. “Why would he want to do a show based on the shop?”

“Well, there are five of us and apparently people have a thing for tattoos right now. Not to mention that Emily is recording with Fallen from Zero and now Sam is being scouted by the NFL.” I look away.

“What else?”

I grin. “What makes you think there’s more?”

“Because you’re awful at evasion.”

“Well, they really like Matt’s blended family, and the work Reagan and Pete do with the boys in the prison program excites them.”

Her brows arch. “And?”

“And apparently they thought you and I had chemistry.”

She snorts. “Chemistry?”

“Chemistry,” I repeat.

She looks at me in the mirror as she runs a comb through her hair. “How do you feel about that?”

She reaches around me for the medicine cabinet. The front of her body grazes mine, and she steadies herself with a hand on my chest as she reaches for a bottle of lotion. She squirts it into her hands and raises one foot to rest on the top of the closed toilet lid.

“Paul,” she says, jerking me from… Where was I?

“What?” I ask.

“How do you feel about the reality show?”

I shrug. “It’s a lot of money.”

“How much?”

She lifts her other foot and starts to rub lotion up her other leg. “Paul,” she coaxes.

“Enough that they could all get a good start in life.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Would it help you?”

“That’s not important. I just want to see them all settled and happy.”

She nods and steps up onto her tiptoes, kisses my cheek really quickly, and then sinks back down onto her heels. “You should talk to them about it.”

I nod. “I will.” I let my eyes scan her face. “I like your freckles,” I say.

“Good.” She grins. “Do you feel like going somewhere with me today?” she asks.

Logan, Matt, Sam, and Pete are all working today, so I don’t technically have to go in. I narrow my eyes at her. “Where?”

“It’s a surprise.” She smiles mischievously. “You’re not scared, are you?”

I scoff. “Of you? Never.”

I’m only scared of her every fucking day. She makes my gut wrench and my heart skip and my head churn. And she does it without even touching me. One day, she’s going to want to touch me and I’ll get to touch her back. But I kind of need for her to take the first step. I’m terrified of loving her because I know loving her won’t be easy. But I also know I don’t want to miss the chance.

Friday

It’s the end of May, and there’s a big fundraiser today for the homeless shelter in the park. The shelter I volunteer with has set up tents for the weekend, and each one has a different event going on at it. Mine is body paint. I’ll be doing henna tattoos and painting faces for kids all day. Anything that can be painted, I will paint.

I pull my hair back into a ponytail. I don’t usually do much volunteering, but this event is kind of my thing. I owe this rescue mission my life: they took me when no one else would. My life spiraled out of control, and they helped me find my footing. They don’t know the new me, so I have to go as the old me, and it’s the me that Paul has never seen. I am not wearing makeup, and I have on shorts and an old T-shirt that says
Will work for change
. And I will. I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is when it comes to fundraising for this group. I’ll take dollars, I’ll take change, I’ll take checks, and I’ll take credit cards. If I can get one girl off the streets, I’ve done a good thing and I can sleep easier.

I put on a baseball cap and pull my ponytail through the back of it. I sling my backpack, which has all my paints in it, over my shoulder. The rest of my stuff is waiting at the tent in the park.

“We’re going to be late,” I say as I run out of the room toward the front door.

“Jesus Christ, Friday,” Paul says quietly when he sees what I’m wearing.

I look down and fidget with my jean shorts. “What?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “I’ve never seen you look so…normal.”

“Is it bad?” I ask.

He closes his mouth. “No,” he says. He smiles. “It’s good. Very, very good.”

I usually wear my vintage clothes and heels when I’m working at the shop, and it’s what people have come to expect so I keep doing it. I get a lot of attention that way, and that’s what the shop needs. “You ready?” I ask.

He is wearing jeans and a T-shirt with the Reed’s Tattoo logo on it. “Are you going to be okay getting that dirty?”

He looks down at what he’s wearing. “I don’t see why not.” He stops and grabs my elbow. “You’re not going to have me rolling in mud or anything, are you?”

“Nothing quite that sophisticated,” I say.

He rolls his eyes and follows me out the door. When we get to the street, he takes my backpack from my shoulder and puts it on his, and then he takes my hand. My heart skitters. I never would have taken Paul for a touchy-feely kind of guy, but he totally is. He never touched Kelly much in public, or any of the other girls I know he slept with, but with me, it’s like he can’t get enough contact.

He squeezes my hand. “This okay?” he asks.

I nod and grin at him. He has the most adorable dimples, and he gives me a crooked smile, showing them off.

“Aren’t you afraid someone will get the wrong idea about us?” I ask.

“What idea are you worried about?”

I shrug. “That they’ll think we’re a thing.”

“We are a thing,” he says. He starts to swing my hand in his between us. “We are totally a thing.”

When we get to the park, I see that there’s already a line at my booth. I do this every year and people come just to get some of my art put on their faces.

“What are we doing?” Paul asks.

I grin at him. “We’re painting,” I say, rubbing my hands together with glee.

I motion the first person forward, and he has a little girl with him. She hops up onto my stool.

“What would you like to be?” I ask her.

“An ice cream cone!” she says.

Her dad teases her. “She didn’t ask what you want to eat. She asked what you want to be.”

“A butterfly!” she cries.

I get out a brush and start to paint, and Paul watches me closely. In less than a minute, I have a butterfly painted around her eyes that looks like mint chocolate chip ice cream. Paul looks at me. “It’s really good,” he says.

I grin. “I know.”

I point to the stock art that’s pinned to the fake wall behind him. “You can do the stock art ones. The baseballs and the glittery flowers.”

“Okay,” he says, and he sits down. He motions a man forward, and he brings a little girl with him, as well. She hovers between her dad’s legs. Paul holds out the brush to her. “Would you like to try out my paint?” he asks. He sticks out his arm. “Right here,” he instructs.

She takes it and makes a swirl on his arm, and he makes a big deal about how awesome it is. She grins and hands the brush back. “Your turn,” he says as he sets her on his stool and starts to paint.

A few minutes later, he helps her down, and I see that he turned her into a tiger. And it’s pretty fucking awesome. I knew he would be good at this. His job is art. The permanent kind. Of course, he rocks at it.

The kid’s dad shakes Paul’s hand, and one of the volunteers comes forward to take his money and lead someone new up to the stool.

A few kids later, I look up and find that our line is wrapping around our tent and down the row, and the end is way past where I can even see it.

Paul picks up his phone and makes a call. “Hey, Matt,” he says. “I want you to close the shop and come to the festival in the park. We need some help.” He talks for a second. “Bring everyone,” he says.

Paul grins at me, and I shake my head. He seems happy to be here. And I’m happy to have him with me. There’s not much I’m passionate about, but I am about art. And the Reed family. Put the two of them in the same place, helping out a charity I love, and I might as well be in heaven.

A cheer goes up when his four good-looking brothers show up and set up work stations. Logan brought Emily, Matt brought Sky, and Pete brought Reagan. They all get busy helping to take money and form lines for each of the tables.

The boys grin and settle in for the day. I hear giggles, and I realize that our line is no longer made up of only kids wanting their faces painted. There are teenage girls and even older women in line now, too.

“You guys are drawing a crowd,” I tell Paul. His face colors, and he shrugs. The man is seriously sex on a stick and he still blushes when he gets attention? I step up onto a chair and wrap my hands around my mouth. I call out to the crowd, “Attention, please,” I yell. “I think it’s getting hot out here, so they should all take their shirts off! What do you think?”

A cheer goes up, and I see people who aren’t even in our line stopping to watch.

Sam grins and yanks his shirt over his head. These boys have nothing to be shy about, I’ll say that for them. I fan my face and look at the crowd. “Just one of them? I think they need some encouragement!” I hold out the money jar, and people come up to put cash into it. I look down and mentally count. “There’s enough in here for one more of you to strip.”

Reagan looks at Pete and rolls her eyes. Then she motions for him to go ahead. Very slowly, Pete hooks his elbows in his shirt and draws it up over his head. The cheering from the crowd gets even louder.

Sky looks at Matt and motions for him to go next. “What?” she asks, throwing up her hands when he glares at her. “I am proud of my husband.” He pulls his shirt up high enough for the crowd to see the frog on his lower belly, but then he lets it drop.

He shakes his head and sits back down. “Not enough money in the cup,” he says.

“I have a thousand dollars for the three of you to do it!” someone yells from the back of the crowd. A lady walks forward, and we all laugh when we see that it’s Emily’s mom.

“That’s cheating,” Matt says. But he pulls his shirt off. Several women nearby sigh out loud.

Sky points to her round belly and says, “He has three at home already and two more on the way.” That makes me laugh, her feeling like she has to tell them that. But he just became the most wanted man out of the five because who doesn’t want a man who takes care of his responsibilities? Matt leans over and kisses Sky’s belly.

Logan strips his shirt off next. I hear some excited shouts and a few frustrated moans move through the crowd.

Paul is the only one left who is still wearing a shirt. “Your turn, big guy,” Mrs. Madison says. She fans her face, and the crowd goes wild. Paul stands up, turns to me, and says, “What do I get if I do this?”