Page 34 of Pirate

So, no. There was no way on God’s green earth that Pirate would ever believe Sophia had slept with Jumper.

Who then? Who else was in Jasmine’s life enough that it would matter or upset her that Sophia had slept with him? Jasmine was an only child, so it wasn’t like Sophia had slept with her brother.

The only other person Pirate could think of made little sense. While Carlos and Sophia were friends, they bickered and bantered at each other like siblings. Sophia’s antics sometimes got her in trouble with the law, which got on Carlos’s nerves. To Pirate’s knowledge, he’d never arrested her, but there’d been plenty of threats.

Still, Carlos was the only candidate that fit. Pirate knew Carlos, was friends with him. Additionally, Carlos, Jasmine, and Sophia grew up together. There was even a rumor going around that Carlos used to have a childhood crush on Jasmine, though the two of them had never dated. Around the same time that Jumper and Jasmine had gotten together, Carlos had met and fallen in love with Zoe. Jasmine, Sophia, and Zoe hung out together, with and without Carlos or Jumper present. Sophia was Zoe’s friend, as far as Pirate knew.

As if she could see the wheels turning in his head, Sophia explained in a low voice, “It was college. It meant nothing. We were at a party alone. Jasmine stayed back at our dorm to study. Both of us were drunk, even though we were both underage. It was just the one time and we swore we’d never bring it up again or tell Jasmine.”

It took Pirate a moment to find his voice. “Why would it matter about keeping it from Jasmine?”

“At the time, Carlos had a crush on her.” Pirate ground his teeth as Sophia used Carlos’s name for the first time, confirming once and for all whom she’d been speaking about. “He doesn’t anymore,” she added quickly. “Obviously. He got over her before we moved back to Mount Grove after graduating.”

“But you still see him. You’re still friends with him.”

Sophia nodded. “Of course. Things were a little awkward for a while, but we both moved past it.”

“Was it like aMidsummer Night’s Dreamthing, where you liked him but he liked Jasmine and Jasmine liked someone else?”

Sophia shook her head. “Definitely not. I’m honestly not even sure how or why it happened. We were?—”

“No,” Pirate held up a hand. “I don’t want to know. At all.”

She nodded her head slowly.

Pirate crawled off of her. He wasn’t sure why the fact that she’d slept with Carlosyearsago andone timehad his stomach in such knots. He wasn’t angry, like she’d mentioned, but he was… He wasn’t sure what he was. It was like there were a million ants crawling on his skin.

He hadn’t realized he’d started pacing until Sophia asked, “Are you angry with me?”

He paused. Turned. She wasn’t sitting there meekly or cowering, awaiting his answer. She was sitting up with her arms on her knees watching him.

“No,” he answered honestly and without hesitation. “I’m not angry with you or Carlos. There’d be no reason to. We’re not dating. Even if we really were married, it was years ago. It wasn’t…” He shook his head. “I’m not angry, Sophia. I’d have no right to be.”

She let out a long sigh, like she was grateful. “Please don’t tell anyone.”

“It’s not my business to tell.” Fuck, why did his skin feel so itchy?

“Like I said, I’ve only ever kept the one secret from Jazz. I don’t like that I now have two secrets from her. But she would understand me claiming I’m dating you to get my mom off my back. That won’t do anything to distract her or take away from her big day. So that’s what I’ll tell her.” She shrugged, looking so forlorn. Pirate didn’t like it—it wasn’tSophia. “It’s close enough to the truth anyway.”

Pirate approached the bed. He brushed her hair back out of her eyes. “So I’m your accidental husband pretending to be your fake boyfriend?”

He’d been hoping to bring a smile to her face with the question. Anything to get that morose look out of her eyes. Instead, her eyes widened and her cheeks pinkened.

Faster than Pirate had time to process, Sophia rose up on her knees and started kissing him again. She dropped her hands to his button and fly. Undeniable passion rose up and the need to satisfy her too overwhelming to ignore, Pirate made no move to stop her this time.

Sophia usedher key to let herself into Pirate’s apartment the next morning. It was still dark out. Enola, her seven month oldPitbull puppy, bounded inside before her. Enola’s two brothers, Winnie the Pooch and Billy the Kidd, were asleep in a large dog bed in the living room. Originally, Jasmine had Pooch sleeping in her room with them, but then Jumper had a nightmare. Aerial did as she was trained to do, but Pooch freaked out. To avoid something like that happening again, Pooch now slept in the living room and then Kidd started to join him.

Both dogs were used to Sophia’s early morning entrances as well as their sister rushing over to crawl on top of them. Sophia had thought about buying the dogs a bigger bed but doubted the dogs would spread out more even if they had more room.

She headed into the kitchen to start the coffee pot. Pirate would be the first one up, needing to get to the high school early. Other mornings, she’d snuck into his room to wake him up with a blowjob before his alarm went off. As tempting as it was this morning, she needed to speak with Jazz before she and Jumper headed off to the clinic.

Leaving the lights on in the kitchen, she walked towards the hall that led to the two bedrooms and the bathroom. Jumper’s and Pirate’s doors were directly across from each other with the bathroom at the end of the small hallway. Though the apartment was small in comparison to the guesthouse where she lived, Sophia preferred it. What a lot of people didn’t get was it wasn’t the size of a place that made it a home, but the people. Her guesthouse felt sterile in comparison.

Apparently the ‘size doesn’t matter’ saying applied to more than just dicks,Sophia thought mentally. Chuckling at herself, she opened the door on the left and entered Jasmine and Jumper’s bedroom.

Aerial barely cracked an eye as Sophia came in. She left the door open so the light from the hallway, which was always on, filled part of the room.

Though the couple was clearly naked under the covers, Sophia walked over to Jazz’s side of the bed, slipped off her shoes, and crawled in.

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