Page 4 of Playboy

“Okay,” Aiden says, tapping at the screen of his device, “it’s sent. I’ll talk to you later.” After they disconnect the call, he holds the phone out. “House is sick, right? Just think, if you get pierced tonight, you might just be ready to test it out the weekend we’re in Arizona.”

Alarmed, I straighten. “That’s almost two months away.”

“Have you not done any research since you started whining about not having your own?” War says with a laugh. “You can’t have sex for six to eight weeks.”

I frown at Brooks, who just shrugs. “Didn’t matter to me. I wasn’t going near anyone back then.”

Aiden shakes his head. “I’d rather not think about when I was with Jill, but I can promise that if I’d been with Lex then, I couldn’t have done it.”

I swallow slowly. Do I really want to do this?

Calliope’s words replay in my mind.If a man gets himself pierced, he’s proven that not only will he be good in bed, but he’s willing to do the hard work.

“Ya know,” Aiden says, leaning against the brick wall outside the tattoo shop. “We ended up here because of a game of truth or dare.”

War nods. “Yeah, and?”

“Maybe we need a little truth or dare to get him motivated.”

Brooks nods. “Yeah, I only went through with it because I didn’t want to admit that I was a twenty-nine-year-old virgin saving myself for Sara.”

I can’t help but laugh. Thankfully, the tension in my shoulders dissipates a little as I do. “Worked out well for you, I guess. You ended up fake dating her not too long after that, right?”

Brooks nods. “And I asked War about why he wasn’t honest with Ava about missing the charity event at the YMCA when we all knew he had a perfectly good reason.”

“Oh yeah?”

Our captain just shrugs. “Brayden called that day. His mom didn’t show up to get him after school. But at the time, Ava hated me, and I was tired of wasting my breath trying to explain to her that I wasn’t a bad guy. My vicious wife never would have believed me.” Brayden is fourteen now, and War and Ava are raising him, along with their two daughters.

“You’re leaving out the part where you refused to admit you were obsessed with her at the time,” Brooks adds.

“And then you ended up in a fake marriage with the woman,” I point out.

“My marriage isn’t fake,” War grumbles.

Brooks arches a brow.

“Fine. It started outkind offake. For her. I was always all-the-fuck-in.”

“What was the truth you refused to give them?” I ask Aiden.

Jaw tight, Aiden nods at War. “He asked me why I hated shamrocks.”

“Back then, none of us knew that Lennox used the word when she broke your heart back in high school.”

“And after getting pierced, you ended up fake engaged to her.” I’m beginning to sense a pattern.Fuck.

War laughs. “That’s about right. After getting our piercings, Brooks fake dated Sar, Aiden ended up fake engaged to Lennox, and I ended up”—his voice dips, and he grits out the words—“fakemarried to Ava.”

I swallow and nod. “Yeah.”

“What’s the worst that could happen, Playboy? You take it one step farther and get a girl fake pregnant?” He laughs.

My balls have officially ascended into my body. “None of you are faking anything.”

Brooks rubs at his face, trying to hide a smile. “Yeah, Sara likes to say it’s the glitter dicks that got us all together.”

“Except I’m different. I’m not getting this for anyone.”Except them,but we won’t tell them that.

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