Just Good Friends (Cheap Thrills Series Book 5)

by Mary B. Moore

  Once we had Zuri situated in it, Rose gestured at me to go in front of her, as Zuri yelled, “Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”

  “Huh,” Rose snorted. “She can remember a line from a movie, but she can’t remember the words to Hotel California?”

  Looking over her shoulder, Zuri scowled at her. “I just made that up.”

  “No, it’s from Back To The Future.”

  “Oh my God,” Zuri breathed, turning to face forward again. “I write scripts for movies. That’s so freaking cool.”

  Gently nudging a now tired-looking Rose to the side, I pushed Zuri in a wheelchair out to my truck, listening to her sing her own version of Smash Mouth’s All Star as she waved at the people in the waiting room.

  When we got to the door, she swapped into Blink 182’s All The Small Things, patting my hand sympathetically as she said, “small things,” making me growl again as people started snickering as they walked past us.

  After that, I literally wrangled her into the car as Rose stood there, laughing her ass off, and prayed for patience as I drove us back to my house. I didn’t want to leave her on her own after the reminder from the doctor about concussions, and I also didn’t want to risk loose lips Lucy getting up and walking over the glass while she was under the influence.

  For half of the drive home, she sang and warbled her way through Celine Dion, some opera-type shit, and then in the blink of an eye, she fell asleep, scaring the fuck out of me. Fortunately, Raoul was at my house when I got there, so he carried her in for me and helped me get her into bed.

  Where I joined her after cleaning the inside of my truck out. And not just because of her concussion.

  Chapter Three

  Zuri

  Something hard, hitting me repeatedly in the forehead, woke me up. It was like someone had a Thor hammer and was just smacking away at me.

  The panic that the guy I was hiding from had found me made me sit up on a gasp. What made me go back down again, holding my face in one hand and almost breaking my nose with whatever was covering the other hand, was when I hit something hard with my forehead.

  “Christ,” a familiar voice groaned, and I moved the soft hand to focus on him, seeing Garrett holding his head in both hands. “What the hell, Zuri?”

  Lifting the heavy hand away from my throbbing face, I winced when it scratched the skin on my cheek and then saw the red cast on it.

  My first question was: They did these in red? I don’t think I’d ever seen a red cast before.

  The second question was: Why is my hand in a cast?

  That one quickly moved on to: Where am I? when I noticed the sheets that definitely didn’t belong to me and were wrapped around me like a fajita.

  “Did you…” I mumbled, still trying to let all of it sink in. “Did you swaddle me?” And then I saw the wall in front of me and felt one behind me as I tried to roll onto my back. “And put pillows around me like a baby on a bed?”

  “You kept rolling around, so I had to do something to stop you hurting yourself and rolling off the bed,” he replied, pointing above my head.

  Following his finger, I looked above me to see the corner of the sheet that was wrapped around me, tied in a knot to the headboard, anchoring me in place.

  “Turns out your arms are like Houdini. I ended up watching a video on YouTube of how to swaddle a baby, thinking it would keep them in place, but obviously, you got free.”

  I wasn’t sure what to think of that information. As far as I was aware, I slept in one position every night. Sure, I’d wake up in a slightly different place on the bed, but everyone did that, right?

  Not sure what to say, I went with the next question. “Why am I here?”

  Wincing when he pushed his hair off his forehead and accidentally skimmed his hand across the spot where our heads had connected, Garrett moved so that he was lying on his side beside me.

  I’m not at all ashamed to admit that seeing him without his shirt on, his lower half covered by a blanket, stole my attention. Well, from what I could see of him with the pillows between us.

  An issue that he fortunately rectified for me when he grabbed them both and threw them behind him onto the floor. Then I was immensely grateful for everything he did because I could see his chest, stomach, and the fact that the sheet was loosely draped over his crotch. That’s when I decided that Garrett was a genius!

  Well, that was until he started speaking.

  “How much do you remember about yesterday?”

  Frowning, I tried to think back. “I did some unpacking. That must be why my back feels like it does. Every time I move, I swear the muscles feel like someone’s cutting them open.”

  The cringe from him made my eyes narrow.

  “Okay, I’ll just give you a quick rundown, then I’ll answer questions. Ready?”

  By the end of it, I was torn between living in my burrito nest for the rest of my life and smothering myself with the pillow my head was on. Judging by the way he was acting, I hadn’t let my problem slip, though, so at least there was that, I guess.

  Deciding the pillow was the only option, I tried to reach for it with my good hand and then stopped when it pulled painfully on the wounds on my back. Left with no other option, I dropped the arm over my face instead.

  “My life is the worst.”

  His chuckle didn’t make me feel better.

  “No, it’s not. You were on strong painkillers, so you didn’t have any control over what you were doing.”

  Raising my arm slightly so that I could glare at him with one eye, I growled, “Like that makes it better?”

  “It was only Rose and me, and we won’t tell anyone,” he lied, looking above my head at whatever was behind me. “No one else noticed or heard you.”

  “She’ll totally tell Raul.”

  Meeting my eyes for a brief moment, he bit his lower lip while he considered it. “Yeah, she might have. But he won’t tell anyone.”

  Hoping he was right, I closed my eyes again, trying to figure out how I was going to get what I needed to do done with one hand and a million holes in my back.

  Almost like he was a mind reader—which, given where my thoughts kept going when I saw his bare chest, I really hope he wasn’t—Garrett patted my thigh, almost hitting the other one given how tightly wrapped up I was.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll help you unpack and sort whatever you need out. I don’t think my brother’s working either, and I might be able to get DB and Ellis to come.”

  The sheriff for our town was called DB by the men, Dave or David by the women. He was also married to a tornado named Tabitha, who had the coolest pink hair I’d ever seen in my life. Ellis was his best friend and the local tattoo artist and was married to her half-sister, Jose.

  They were all such a close-knit bunch that the women would also come if he called the men to help.

  That meant they’d find out about my injuries and ask how it happened if they didn’t already know about it—which was unlikely. On the off chance that they didn’t, though, asking about them would inevitably lead to Rose or Garrett's indication that something else had happened, which would end up with my actions from last night being coaxed out of them.

  Unfortunately, during my musings and rising panic, Garrett had already sent out a message to someone because he dropped his phone onto the bed between us and rubbed his hands together.

  “There. I’ll make coffee while we wait to see who’s available.”

  I would later find out that he’d sent a group message to all of them the night before and that it was already planned. What’d he’d sent this morning was:

  She’s awake and sober. We’ll be there in an hour.

  I wasn’t aware of this until two hours later, after I’d given in and taken some painkillers—ones that wouldn’t make me loopy.

  But I was right about some of it because his phone lit up, and a stream of messages came through from all of them.

  Including the women.

  Cha
pter Four

  Zuri

  After an hour of seeing Rose, Garrett, and Raul—who’d definitely been filled in on what I’d done judging by the lip twitching that’d been going on since I opened my door—struggle not to tell the group around us, I’d snapped, “Just do it.”

  So the whole house knew now, and I was even more embarrassed, seeing as how Garrett hadn’t told me about ninety percent of what I’d done. The shithead.

  “She was screeching the music to Pony while he was sitting there getting sewn up with his top off,” Rose wheezed, holding her pregnant stomach while she laughed.

  “Is that the song from Magic Mike?” Jose asked, her eyes glittering with the tears from how hard she’d laughed.

  Basically, I was surrounded by unsympathetic assholes because the men weren’t much better—sans pregnancies, obviously.

  Nodding, Rose continued, “She went through three boxes of tissues, throwing handfuls into the air and yelling to ‘make it rain, baby. Make it rain.’”

  I repeat—my life was the worst.

  “Why was she singing All The Small Things, though?” Tabby asked as she flattened one of the boxes in the kitchen. “It’s a great song and all, but it’s kind of random.”

  Glaring at me from where he was moving a shelving unit into place with his brother, Garrett growled, “She kept looking at my dick while she did it.”

  All of the women stopped what they were doing and looked at each other, then down at his crotch disappointedly.

  “That’s such a shame,” Jose mumbled, shaking her head.

  Tabby looked genuinely distraught as she nodded in agreement with her sister. “Life just isn’t fair.”

  However, Katy, who was still grieving the recent loss of her grandmother, said her comment loud enough for anyone walking past to hear, seeing as how the front door was still open. “Never expected that. I thought it would be called Gigantor or something grrr that indicated how big it was. Knowing Garrett’s got one of those snack size bananas instead of the—” whatever else she was going to say was stopped by her boyfriend, Jarrod, as he covered her mouth with his huge hand.

  Yeah, nothing about him would be small. Thank you to whoever was in charge of his creation the day his parents did the nasty.

  I don’t know if what I was thinking was visible on my face or if Katy just had superpowers, but when I looked back at her, she winked and nodded her head as much as she could with his hand still over the bottom half of it.

  Lucky hooker!

  Stepping away from the shelving unit, Garrett put his hands on his hips and snapped, “I refuse to defend the size of my dick when she hasn’t even seen it. This isn’t high school where we measure it and compare to make a point.”

  Well, wasn’t that interesting.

  Curious minds needed to know now. And by curious minds, I meant all of the women, including Katy’s sister Aura, who walked through the door just as he said it.

  “Hold the fuck on,” she snickered, holding her hand in the air. “I got told I was needed to help this cutie”—she nodded in my direction—“unpack. Now I have to know if that’s what y’all did in high school.” She paused and then added, “And who had the biggest, and is he still single? Please and thank you.”

  Like they were summoned, Jarrod’s fun-loving brothers, Canon, Bond, and Reid, came in behind Aura.

  “We absolutely did,” Canon chuckled as he walked toward where I’d just taken a seat. “Mine’s the biggest, by the way,” he added with a wink, leaning in to hug me and then deciding better of it and patting me on the shoulder.

  His actions proved my theory that everyone already knew about my mishap, so I shot a glare at Rose, who looked innocently at her baby bump.

  Behind him was Bond, who kissed me on the top of my head. “He’s lying. It’s about as big as one of those snack sized carrots. Mine’s bigger.”

  At the very back was Reid, who shook his head and held his fingers a quarter of an inch apart and nodded at his brothers. “Great to see you, babe. Sorry about that shithead trying to kill you,” he pointed at Garrett, who glared at him. “If you need anything at all, just call me.”

  Smiling sweetly at him, I glanced over and had to hold back the grin that almost broke free when I saw Garrett mouth, “No fucking way, dickhead.”

  Here’s the thing, when I’d first met him, sure, I’d thought he was attractive. But with my life as shitty as it was, I needed to find myself, get comfortable in Piersville, and to just learn to live my new life. It wasn’t an easy thing to do, and not being able to speak to my family or see my old friends made it even worse. I was basically a stranger, even to myself, and had no one.

  But my relationship with Garrett had been as friends—just friends—and that’d been as disappointing as it had been a relief to finally have one here. And with him came Rose, his brother and all of their friends, too. It felt like I had a circle of protection around me now.

  The only one who knew about my issues was Dave, though, and for now, I was happy to keep it that way. In fact, I’d have been happy to keep all of it the way it was, even with my crush on Garrett, but recently things had begun to change between us. He was more tactile, it felt like he was studying me for some reason, and the friendship wall between us felt like it was crumbling.

  Then again, it could all be in my head. Maybe I was reading too much into things? That’s not to say the little territorial displays didn’t make me hope for something different now, because they absolutely did. I just didn’t know how he actually meant them. Could friends be territorial over dick sizes?

  Finally, after ten minutes of arguing over penises, everyone went back to what they were doing, and my new house was starting to look like it was mine with things now in the right place. Heck, Katy was organizing my books in a way that I’d never have considered, but now I wanted them to always be like that—in color order. Genius.

  That was until Garrett picked up a box that I’d meant to hide yesterday. In fact, I’d planned to hide the contents of it in different locations yesterday once he’d left.

  “Hey, what’s in this?”

  Cursing the pain in my back and arm, I tried not to show the panic I felt at him even holding it. If he opened it, they’d all have questions that I couldn’t answer.

  “Oh, it’s nothing. Could you just put it in the closet in my bedroom, please?”

  I couldn’t act for shit, though, because all of the men looked up from what they were doing and studied me.

  I don’t know what he thought was in there, but eventually, Garrett nodded slowly and moved to do what I’d asked. It was Dave who tackled it a couple of minutes later.

  “What’s in the box, Zuri?” he whispered as he made a show of setting out my chess set on a kick-ass tiered table.

  I didn’t play the game, and I didn’t understand it, but when I’d seen the four-level wooden game table and the intricate and beautiful chess pieces that came with it, I’d fallen in love. I’d tried teaching myself how to play, but in the end, I’d come to the conclusion it was just going to be a piece of art for me.

  Glancing around to make sure no one was near us, I leaned in closer as I carefully unwrapped one of the pieces. “It’s my protection. I meant to unpack it yesterday, but I usually put pieces in the furniture—”

  “Protection?” he hissed. “Like safe sex type, or weapons?”

  The question was that ludicrous that I forgot to monitor the volume of my response. “Really? Safe sex? What the hell do you think?”

  The room went silent, and I felt all eyes on us.

  Shooting a carefree smile at everyone, Dave just waved a hand. “She’s like a sister to me, guys. I need to read her the riot act.”

  Holy shit, this guy was good.

  And just like that, everyone went back to what they were doing. Half an hour later, after Dave had repeatedly stressed rules and quizzed me to the point I was getting a headache, Tabby came over and joined us with Rose, who was holding the base of her back.
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  “I swear these babies are pushing my ass hole out of my body,” she moaned as she sat down and lifted her feet onto the box in front of her. “It feels like all the gravity in the world is centered right here,”—she motioned to the bottom of her abdomen—“and it’s pushing everything down and out. I had two pieces of toast earlier, nothing on it apart from some butter, and the bloating is hell. Add that onto the pressure down below, and I’m not even sure my body knows what to do next.”

  “Let her be the example of why you have safe sex,” Tabby snickered.

  Dude, no shit.

  As a lover of random facts, though, I couldn’t stop my mouth from sharing them. “Did you know that on average, fifty percent of women get hemorrhoids during pregnancy? It can be exacerbated by constipation and labor, too.”

  Rose blinked at me, but Tabby leaned forward. “I didn’t have either of those. Is it common for women to get constipated? Maybe I should’ve written down what I was eating and started a blog to help women avoid getting constipation and hemorrhoids.”

  Passing the unwrapped chess pieces on my lap to Dave with my non-decrepit hand, I picked up another pile and started on the first bundle.

  “Roughly forty-six percent of women get constipated during pregnancy, and diet would probably have a lot to do with it. Women need to eat a lot of bran and roughage to help their bowels keep moving, and pregnancy makes it harder for them to do it.”

  Looking at her husband, Tabby frowned. “Did I eat a lot of bran and roughage? I don’t even know what constitutes as roughage nowadays.”

  “No,” he snorted as he put the pieces on the board. Thank God someone knew where they went. I’d made the mistake of throwing the box out after I’d bought it, and I’d used the instruction book as my emergency phone note pad, which had then been thrown in the garbage by accident when I was tidying up. “You ate a lot of shit. Donuts, cake, pies, candy—”

  “I ate fruit and vegetables.”

  “You ate fruit that’d been put into sweet things like cakes and pies, fireball. And I’m not sure tempura vegetables and mashed potato count.”