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.
“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.