“Seriously? I know how much you hate it,” my friend asked just as his cell phone began to ring. “It’s Brandi. Let me talk to her right quick.” Jared walked a few paces away, but I barely registered it because Darcy was still touching me, looking right into my eyes.

“So, which is it, Tommy or Tomás?” she asked, emphasizing más as if she wanted more. And fuck if I didn’t want to give it to her.

“I meant what I said. You can call me whatever you want,” I said again, trying and nearly failing to keep my mouth and my body a respectable distance from hers.

The corners of her bright eyes squinted just the tiniest bit, and a smile quirked one corner of her mouth. “Well, I like Tommy. You’ve always been my Lil’ Tommy,” she said, giving my cheek an affectionate pat and then letting me go.

Yes, ma’am, I have.

2

Tomás

While Darcy dressed, I hoped I would be able to run to the garçonnière — such a fucking pretentious word — to unpack and jerk off again, but Jared followed me up the steps to the small two-bedroom apartment over the garage. He was still talking to Brandi, but now she was on speaker, asking about the bachelor party.

“I really hope that he hasn’t planned some last hurrah fuck session with one of your grimy ex-girlfriends,” she said with a little more attitude than I was accustomed to hearing from her.

I turned to Jared and gave him a questioning look, and he just rolled his eyes and shrugged his shoulders.

“Babe, I don’t know what Tomás has planned, but I’m sure he’s not lining up some sort of last-minute fuck session with any of my grimy ex-girlfriends. Right, best man?” He thrust the phone under my chin.

“Uh…” I stammered, caught off-guard. “No grimy exes. I promise.”

“That sounds like a lie, Tomás. I’ve never known you to be a liar.”

The laugh that bubbled out of me at that statement was genuine because, of course, I’m a liar. No, I wasn’t lying about keeping Jared away from his grimy exes — who had most certainly started circling the moment they learned of his engagement. But I was lying to myself and everyone about being this strait-laced dude who didn’t even want to be accused of packing a pocket pussy. I was lying when I pretended to receive that affection from Darcy as purely maternal when my dick was hard as fuck. She fucking touched me and kissed me. I would most certainly let her do—

“Bro!” Jared stage-whispered, pulling me back into the present.

Right. I was supposed to convince his fiancée that there would be no exes on the agenda tomorrow night. I took the phone and paced away from Jared. “Brandi, hasn’t Jay always been faithful to you?”