“She’ll be nineteen next month. She’s legal. I already asked Matty her age back before things went weird with us. That’s her fault too, because she has that hair and she smells good and she smiles at me and watches me. When I catch her staring at me, she doesn’t look away, she just gives me them dimples. Did I mention her hair?”

I bit back a smile. “Yeah, you mentioned her hair a few times.”

Green shot up and went back to pulling his own hair with both hands. “I AM SO FUCKED!”

“Where is she now? I mean, did you take her virginity and run over here, or did you take care of her and clean her up and talk about it?”

Green dropped his hands to his sides and let his head fall back while he stared at the ceiling as if it had answers for him. “We . . . you know . . . both, uh . . . finished. And then I did clean her up. She was all dimpled smiles, and I was so pissed. But them dimples were f**king my head up. She said things like it was wonderful and like she’d always dreamed. Then she asked if she could tell Matty we were a couple.” He looked right at me with his eyes wide. “A couple, Blythe! She thought because we f**ked we were a couple.”

Uh-oh. This did not sound good. What had he done?

He sank down onto the coffee table this time and rested his elbows on his knees as he hung his head in what could only be described as shame. “I told her she should have told me that she was a virgin. That I’d never have slept with her. I blamed it on drinking too much whiskey, and then I told her I had too much going on in my life to be in any relationship. That I f**ked girls, I didn’t date them. . . . Then I left.”

Oh, Green. How could you?

“When did you leave her?”

“I came straight here. I needed a safe place to hide for when she tells Matty.”

He was right. And Krit needed to get home. I wasn’t sure how to keep them from destroying the place without Krit here to control them.

Poor Trinity.

Krit

I flung the door to the apartment open and stalked inside, ready to bash heads. I found Green pacing in front of the window and Blythe sitting in the recliner with her legs pulled up under her, watching him with a concerned frown.

She’d texted me that Green had slept with Trinity and Matty was going to kill him. Please come home. Green is here.

I told Dewayne I had to go and got the hell out of there. He asked if it was an emergency and if I needed backup. I had told him I wasn’t sure—I’d let him know if I did, though.

“You look like shit,” I told Green as I walked over to Blythe.

“I didn’t know she was a virgin. She was flirting and all f**king over me. And she has this hair.” He stopped and cursed.

“He has a big thing for her hair. He will mention it a lot,” Blythe whispered up at me.

I slid my hand under my girl’s hair and cupped it around her neck. “Is she even old enough?” Krit asked in disgust.

Green glared at him. “Yes! She is as old as Blythe was when you hooked up.”

“I was in love with Blythe,” Krit fired back.

“Not at first! You were obsessed with her. She was just one of your crazy addictions. The love came later.”

He was right, but it pissed me off to hear him blow off my feelings for her. “Watch it. Right now I’m the only thing standing between you and Matty.”

Green sighed and looked remorseful. “Yeah, I know. I’m just a mess. I can’t believe I did that. It’s that damn hair . . . and the dimples.”

Apparently, Blythe was right. He really liked the girl’s hair.

“Did she get mad at you and say she was telling Matty? I mean, is he even gonna find out?”

Blythe tilted her head back. “She thought that made them a couple. He said he f**ked, he didn’t date. Then he left her.”

Ouch. He was so getting his face bashed in.

“You can’t stay here in our apartment. I’ll make sure you get down to your apartment alive and get bolted in, though. Then we just wait. The girl may not plan on telling him. You don’t know her well enough to know if she will. Stay alive until our gig tomorrow night.”

Green looked longingly at the door that used to be his bedroom. “I’ll stay in that room. I won’t come out and bother y’all.”

I shook my head and went to the door, and I opened it for him so he could leave. “Not staying here. Give it up. Let’s go,” I said, pointing for him to exit.

Green glanced out the window again. He was looking for Matty to show up.

“While the coast is clear, you need to make a run for it,” I reminded him.

“Fine,” he snapped, and finally got the hell out of my apartment.

Blythe

Before I moved in with Krit, I never made my bed. It was my one act of rebellion after being forced to make my bed growing up in a strict household. If I messed up while making the bed, I got lashed with a belt. So making a bed isn’t something I care for.

However, Krit likes a made bed. For a long time he would make it up in the afternoons when he got home. He never complained or brought it up. He just did it. He liked it nice and straight.

After watching him do this for a while, I decided I could do that every morning. He wasn’t picky about how tightly the sheet was tucked in or if the blanket was exactly straight. He just liked it to be neat.

The first time I did it, the grin on his face when he walked into the bedroom made it worth it. Now I do it just to see that smile. He likes that I do that for him. Because he knows it was something I hated before.

This morning I didn’t have classes. Instead, I settled in to do some deep cleaning. I was still waiting for Green to call for help. So far Matty hadn’t shown up or even mentioned anything. I didn’t think Trinity planned on telling him.

Getting on my knees, I pulled out the panties and socks that had made their way under the bed. Most of the time we throw clothes while attacking each other, so things go missing and end up all over the place. My favorite bra was lost for a month because it was behind the dresser.

I figured I would look for all our missing articles of clothing, then dust and vacuum. Several boxes stayed under the bed. They were Krit’s, and I never asked him about them. It was mostly CDs, from what I could tell, and keepsake items. I reached under to straighten them and check for anything that might have gotten stuffed between them and the wall.

My fingers brushed against a small velvet box. Confused, I wrapped my hand around it and pulled it out slowly. I knew what came in small velvet boxes, but Krit hadn’t mentioned marriage to me. Even though it was all I could think about at the past few weddings we had attended. I loved Krit, and I wanted forever with him, but he didn’t seem to be ready for that step. I was content getting to live together.

The small box was black. I held it in my hand while lying on my stomach beside the bed. I was almost afraid to open it. What if there was something in here I didn’t need to see? What if this was a ring from his past? Had he given Jess a ring?

No. I wouldn’t be jealous of this. I would not jump to conclusions. But there was dust on the box. Not a lot, but still, there was some.

Things could get dusty under a bed fast. After that little pep talk I opened the box.

Nestled in the satin was a huge diamond ring. Of all the things I expected to see, this was not what I had imagined. This ring was expensive. And very real. The inside of the box had the jeweler’s name pressed in black ink into the white satin.

Checking over my shoulder to make sure Krit hadn’t come home, I decided I was going to try it on. I pulled myself up to a sitting position on the floor and gently picked up the ring like it might break. Then I delicately slid it on my ring finger. It was a perfect fit. I tilted my hand from side to side to see the lights glimmer off the stone. Why did he have this? Was he saving it for me?

If he was, you would think he might have mentioned marriage, or hinted at it. But over the past month he hadn’t said anything. In fact, when I had asked him what he thought I should do about the money coming in and where I should deposit it, he suggested I go speak with the bank manager and get some insight on it.

He didn’t offer to go with me. He didn’t even bring it up again.

That didn’t sound like a man who was about to propose marriage.

I reached for the box again and studied the dust on it. He hadn’t just gone out and bought it and stuck it under here recently. The more I looked at it, I realized it had been under here a while. It was wishful thinking for me to pretend he had it under here for me. This couldn’t have been meant for me. It came off with the same ease it had gone on, and then I placed it back into the box just as I had found it. With a sad sigh I lay back down on my stomach and put the box back in its hiding spot.

I wasn’t in the mood to clean anymore.

Krit

Something was wrong with Blythe. I had asked her if she was feeling okay, and she had forced a smile, then reassured me she was fine. When she wasn’t better the next day and continued to seem moody, I had asked her if someone had upset her, and she had said she was fine. A week later, when she was still acting strange and even more withdrawn, I asked her if I had done something to upset her. There was a pause before she said no . . . she was fine.

She wasn’t f**king fine.

I just didn’t know what was wrong. But I was deciding it was my fault. For the first time in our relationship, Blythe was actually pouting. The only time I felt like we were good was when we were f**king. So lately I’d been doing that even more to reassure myself she loved me and I wasn’t about to lose her.

I heard the yelling before I even got to the steps. It was Matty . . . Shit. When he didn’t mention it all week, I figured the girl wasn’t going to tell him about Green. Sounded like she changed her mind.

I took the stairs two at a time. When I got to the first landing, where Green’s apartment was, the door was open and Matty was yelling something about Blythe needing to get out of his way.

Motherfucker!

I stormed into the room to see Blythe standing between Green and a very angry Matty. She had her hands in the air like she was shielding Green. “Do NOT f**king go a step closer to her,” I roared, shoving Matty onto the sofa and wrapping Blythe up in my arms while I glared daggers at my best friend, who had just let my woman be his shield.

“He FUCKED MY COUSIN! I’m GONNA KILL HIM!” Matty screamed, and I felt him move beside me.

I pushed Blythe behind me, then turned to block Matty. “You aren’t going to touch him with Blythe in this room. She could get hurt. And before you go committing a felony, let him talk.”

“Please!” a feminine voice begged, then started crying again. I jerked my head around to see Matty’s cousin and the cause of all this drama watching this unfold, her face red and splotchy. She sure as hell wasn’t saving Green with her body. She was letting Blythe do that.

“She’s my cousin,” Matty yelled. “I would have thought as my friend he would respect that!”

I agreed. But Green had never f**ked up like this before. The amount of time he spent going on about the girl’s hair and dimples made me think he was more attached to her than he wanted to admit.

“You had to tell him?” I snarled at the whimpering blonde. I didn’t get what he saw in that.

She shook her head frantically.

“Don’t yell at her! She was here with me and he followed her.” Green finally entered the conversation.

I turned my attention to Blythe. “I need you to go stand at the door away from danger. Can you please do that for me?”

She bit her bottom lip and looked like she had to seriously weigh the options here. Dammit, did she really think she was going to save Green?

“Love, if someone were to accidently touch you, I would lose my mind. This would go down very badly, and they both know it. Both of them need you to get out of harm’s way.”