Page 14 of Pinky Promises

Chapter 6

Callum

IarriveatBenand Lexi’s place a little while later. Walking up the steps to the main floor, I find Ben and Asher lounging on the oversized sectional couch with Olivia on his lap.

“Hey, man, what’s up?” Ben only glances over at me for a second before his attention returns to his niece and he makes silly faces at her.That girl may only be four months old, but she has every single one of us wrapped around her little finger.

“Not much. Do you know where the girls are at?” I shrug my jacket off and toss it on the back of the couch.

Loud giggles come from the kitchen at the same time Asher says, “I’m going to say the kitchen.”

“Ha! Thanks. I’ll be right back. Anyone need anything while I’m in there?”

“Nah, I’m good,” Ben and Asher say in unison.

I follow the noises to the kitchen and find Brynn and Lexi bent over in laughter while Hadley has her back to me. I’m unsure what she is up to, but she’s a little out of control based on the other girls’ expressions and movements.

I stay quiet for a moment, just watching the girls being ridiculous. I’m going to say someone, if not all, got into the champagne. The one and a half empty bottles on the counter are a dead giveaway. I clear my throat, and Hadley jumps, turning to face me.

“Speak of the devil,” Hadley shouts, her eyes a little glassy and her cheeks flushed.

“I mean, I prefer Cal, but I suppose I’ve been called worse than Satan.” I shove my hands in my pockets and give them a smug smile. I wonder if I can get anyone to confess what they were just talking about, but once my eyes meet with Brynn’s, all I can think of is her and my task at hand.

“Hey.” Brynn is wiping tears from her eyes, and thankfully, I know they are from laughing and not over that dick prick again. I know she would have opened up to the girls about that, and I’m curious about how it went. They’ve always been “Team Cal,” but they’ve never bad-mouthed Spencer since Brynn had brought him around.

It seems like a weight has been lifted off her shoulders as I observe her. She’s doing much better than when she left the apartment.

“Hi,” I respond in more of a breathy tone than I intended, never taking my eyes off hers and closing the distance between us. “Do you have a minute? I need to talk to you,” I say in a hushed tone.

“Yeah, what’s up.” She leans back against the counter with her arms over her chest and legs crossed at the ankles.

I glance over my shoulder at the girls, who now have propped their elbows on the counter. I arch my brow in their direction and nod toward the living room for them to get the hint.Get the fuck out!

“Right, we will just head into the other room and see how the guys enjoyed their food.” Lexi catches on faster than Hadley as she rises from her spot at the island.

“But—” Hadley whines, but Lexi loops her arms through hers and yanks her out of the room.

I turn back to face Brynn, and she speaks before I get a chance to. “You missed a delicious brunch. We ended up getting takeout from Oh Crepe! Oh my God,” she moans, and that noise goes straight to my dick.Focus, Cal.“We will definitely need to go back and try everything on the menu. Sorry, squirrel moment. What did you want to talk about? Is everything okay?” Her expression grows even more serious, “Wait, tell me you didn’t do something stupid.”

I can’t stop the corners of my lips from turning upward at her thinking that I did something to her piece-of-shit ex. I can’t say I didn’t think about it. In my mind, I’ve beaten the shit out of Spencer maybe six or seven times already.

“No, I didn’t do anything stupid.” Although going along with Zoe’s plan might be considered stupid. I mean, it’s not like we haven’t been each other’s dates before—we went to prom together—but the reasoning behind asking her to be my datenowis anything but innocent. What if I went to make a move at the end of the night and we had this all wrong and she doesn’t actually see me as anything other than a friend?

“Good. I meant what I said last night. Orange is not your color,” she teases. “How was your morning?”

Great—I jerked off in the shower to thoughts of you, which made me late to get coffee, and I let Zoe talk me into this ridiculous plan.“It was good. Zoe is busy with school shit.”

“Oh, to be young and in college again.” She acts as if we are so old, but there was a newfound sense of freedom that we had found when we moved into the dorms at WCU. “Is she excited about the wedding?”

Brynn diverts her attention from me for a quick second, and her smile fades, but she quickly recovers, plastering another smile back on her face. If she didn’t already have my full attention, I might not have noticed it.What’s going on in that pretty little head of hers?Is it because she’s going without a date? Well, maybe this will cheer her up.

“That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Okay,” she draws out slowly.

“So, something came up, and Zoe isn’t able to attend the wedding.”

“Oh no, I’m sorry. She’s going to miss a good time.” Thankfully, she doesn’t ask for her reasoning for not attending. “Well, we can both be single and ready to mingle. Oh, we could play matchmaker and find each other someone for the night.”Woah, what? Well, that backfired. Here goes nothing.I swallow my nerves down.

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