Page 125 of Not Dating Material

She jabs a finger toward Gabe. “Technically, neither is he. Anymore.”

“He’s an OG.”

“And he moved out.”

Madden shrugs like there’s nothing he can do.

“I’ll be Christian’s stand-in, then,” Elle says before she suddenly throws herself forward and flips the box lid with all the cash Madden was counting. Money flies into the air before drifting across the floor. “See?” she says from where she’s landed. “Nailed it.”

Before Madden can argue back, Seven says, “I invited her.”

“To family night?” Rush gasps.

I almost want to laugh at how seriously they’re all taking it.

Seven sniggers. “It’s not the only Bertha rule I’ve broken this month, so …”

My gut swoops when I realize he’s about to drop it now. Just throw it out there.

But Xander beats him to it.

“You better be about to tell us that you and Molly are dating.”

“Ah—”

Xander whips around toward the others. “And yes, we all agreed not to sleep with each other, but Molly wasn’t there then, so technically, they never took the super-solid oath of no Bertha boning about each other. Therefore, no rules broken. And also, if any of you try to make this not happen, you might want to start sleeping with your bedroom door locked.”

“Is it actually called the super-solid oath of no Bertha boning?”

“Sure is,” Madden says. “I named it.”

Rush turns to us. “Is that what you wanted to tell us? That you’re together.”

Seven takes my hand. “Yep.”

Then Elle lets out a squeal and jumps to her feet, moving to stand in front of us. “I’m with Xander. On the doors locked thing. You try to take away my baby Seven’s happiness, and I’ll hire a hit man. I’ll do it. I have the money to.”

Gabe raises his hands. “I don’t live here anymore, so I don’t give a shit.”

“I guess that threat’s exclusively for us,” Madden says, nudging Rush.

“I have absolutely no idea what any of you are talking about. Oath? What oath?”

“Dude, you were there!”

“Was I? Why don’t I remember this?”

Elle snorts. “Because you don’t remember anything?”

“Huh. Compelling argument.”

“Wait a minute.” Madden rounds on him. “If you forgot about the oath, why haven’t you ever tried to sleep with me?”

Rush blinks rapidly at him for a moment before leaning in and dropping his voice. “Was … was I supposed to?”

Madden huffs. “No taste. The lot of you.”

“I thought we were playing Monopoly,” Rush says to no one in particular, one hand making it into his chaotic waves.

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