Page 32 of Brazen Mistakes

“RJ, you’re scaring me.”

“I need a ride home. If you can’t bring me, I’ll get one of the guys.”

“Of course I can bring you home. But not right now. You need to tell me what’s going on, and I need to finish your hair. Mama’ll kill you if you go in there looking like this.”

RJ turns his back to us, one hand on the back of his neck, the other running through his half-finished hair. “How fast can you get this done?”

“Maybe an hour? Maybe less? RJ, talk to me.”

He marches back to the chair, slipping his hand into mine before collapsing onto the floor, tugging me down beside him. “Get it done, Trish.”

Trish and I share a concerned look, but she takes a seat and divides out the next section. “Why won’t you tell me what’s going on?”

“You love Pops, right? You respect him?”

“Of course.”

“That’s why.”

Trish chews on her lips as she works, but doesn’t say anything else. RJ’s hand rests loosely in mine, his thumb absently drawing across my skin, but it’s obvious he doesn’t want to talk about it, so I don’t push.

RJ says what needs to be said when it needs to be said. But not before then.

The silence weighs on my shoulders, and I slide down, resting my head in his lap, our fingers unlinking. A moment later, his arm wraps around me.

“So Trish, how’s your freshman year going?” I ask, trying to get us all out of this room without RJ having to share whatever he so desperately wants to keep secret. There’s a reason these guys keep secrets, even if they don’t like it. And now I’m keeping secrets with them.

And one big three-letter acceptance from them.

“It’s not what I thought it would be,” she says.

I shift so I can see part of her face from where I’m curled up in RJ’s lap. “How so?”

“I hear so much about all the friends you’re supposed to make, that college friends are different from high school ones, but so far, mine have been a bust.”

Relief washes over me with the successful redirect. “It can take a while. I only kept one friend from freshman year,” I say, not adding that my ex-boyfriend was the reason for that.

“How’d you end up with these guys, anyway? They’re such a tight-knit group, I was surprised they added to the house.”

“They posted an ad. I needed a place to stay.”

RJ runs his palm from my shoulder down to my hand, our fingers tangling. “I’m glad you’re the one who responded,” hesays quietly. “I hate to think who we could have been stuck with.”

“I’m glad too.”

“You guys are so cute! Ugh. I get to tell Jade, RJ. She’s going to scream so loud, the next county will hear her.”

“Wait until I’m gone, please.”

“Like hell. You’re going to have to field all that teenage excitement.”

“You’re a teenager. Your job, not mine.”

“I don’t think that’s how that works, RJ.”

“That’s the way it should work, then.”

I giggle. “I shouldn’t enjoy listening to you two bicker this much.”

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