Page 5 of Pinkie Promise

“Ugh, no way,” Aisling says, giving her brother a palm-outbe gonegesture before climbing up onto the back of the sofa so that she can affix one of the new cheer ribbons into my hair.

“Ash, it’s okay, you don’t need to…” I begin, but then she’s halfway through lacing my first top-plait so I cut myself off and send Connell a slightly guilty look. “This might take a minute,” I tell him as Aisling moves onto the second plait.

He gives me a cocky grin. “Take all the time you need.”

Aisling scoops up the two plaits with a little more vengeance than she usually would, making my head pull back. I release a tiny mewl and Connell’s eyes get a little darker.

“Connell, we live five fucking minutes away from Fallon’s department,” Aisling growls. “Have you seen her legs? They’re super long. That means that she can walk to class real fast.”

“I’ve seen her legs,” he grins.

Aisling’s lip-gloss goes flying across the room.

Connell catches it in his hand and gives me a self-satisfied smile.

I laugh and roll my eyes.

Aisling fluffs up the portion of my hair that she’s left down and un-plaited, and then she releases me to go and perfect itmyself in the mirror. I’m wearing the pretty lilac bow and it’s so fun and girlish that it makes my heart hurt.

I give my roommate a sad look through the glass.

“I would’ve looked so good in the purple costume,” I tell her and she nods knowingly, looking as devastated as I feel.

“Don’t let a good costume go to waste,” Connell says casually, tossing the lip-gloss back into his sister’s lap and strolling up behind me so that he can envelop me in his thick arms.

Aisling throws a fuzzy cushion off of Connell’s bicep before stomping loudly over to the kitchen.

Nothing will ever happen between Connell and me but sometimes Connell likes to pretend that he doesn’t know that information.

“I’m serious, Connell. She doesn’t need all of these lifts that you keep giving her.”

When Aisling turns to grab a mug from the cupboard Connell smiles at me in the mirror and gives me a squeeze. Connell is obviously ten-out-of-ten attractive and he’s also horny twenty-four seven, so being around him helps to fulfil my guy-related oxytocin curiosity. I’m pretty sure that he thinks that I’m hormonally just a really, really,reallylate bloomer, but regardless of what his conceived notions about me are, he always looks out for me and I trust him when it comes to this sweet, teasing, friendly kind of affection.

He’s hot, he knows what he’s doing, and he doesn’t plan on settling down for the next five billion years, so there can be no miscommunication about his intentions.

When his sister turns to look at us again Connell turns us around and starts walking us towards the front door. I stoop to grab my laptop and my canvas tote, and we all pretend that we don’t hear him groan when my hip bumps against his groin.

“She isn’t going straight to class, she’s heading to the gym,” he says to Aisling, pulling up a rolled-up bundle of flyers from his pocket that he told us he’d get printed.

I thump my palm against my forehead and make an anguished sound. “I’d forgotten about that,” I grumble dejectedly, and Connell gives me another reassuring squeeze.

That’s right. I’ve gone from being Carter U’s cheer team’s star flyer to being the girl who literallydelivers the flyers.I pluck one of them from Connell’s hand and glance at the text, an advertisement for the cheer team’s car wash on Frat Row next week. It’s a fundraiser for next year’s costumes, wherein any overspill cash gets donated to charity.

I still haven’t decided if I’m going to participate now that I’m not on the comp team.

Then my brain gives me a little nudge.Maybe it’ll be good practice for that job you were thinking about–

“Please tell me that you aren’t doing the wash,” Connell says to Aisling from behind me, to which she gives him a vicious smile. Aisling is undeniably one of the most beautiful girls at Carter U which means that she gets alotof attention, regardless of her having a boyfriend at a different college anda brother who lives in her building. And that’s saying something, considering the fact that Connell is a six-two bulldozer with biceps that are bigger than the football he throws around.

Like, guys are willing todiein order to flirt with Aisling.

While Connell groans in misery above my head I point towards my mug on the coffee table and ask Ash, “Please can you rinse that for me? I’ll wash it when I get back, but I don’t want Baby Yoda staining.”

She gives me a cross-eyed look because she thinks that I have OCD but then she nods her head, so I blow her a lip-gloss kiss.

“Areyoudoing the wash?” Connell asks me quietly, a smile in his voice as he tucks the flyers back into his pocket. He ignores his sister as she evil-eyes him out of the door.

I shrug against him and he squishes me tighter. “I need to do a car wash forme. Formyfunds,” I tell him.

---