Graduation and Gifts (Untouchable Book 8) by Heather Long (best books to read for beginners TXT) 📕

“You’re moving out of a place you’ve lived for most of your life,” Rachel supplied. “And you’re moving in with the four Peenketeers.”

Thank fuck I’d swallowed that bite before she’d said that, or I would have choked. I glared at her, and she smirked before pointing a French fry at me.

“Yes, you’ve been living with them for months, but they’ve been living with you in your apartment. Now you’re going to move into a place that will be all of yours and you’ll be living together for real, like as more than a default but as an open choice.”

The evenness of her voice coupled with the directness of the statement robbed it of any kind of patronizing tone.

“That’s a lot. For anyone, that would be a lot. You’re basically committing to four guys and agreeing to live with them in a joint space, and there’s so much to that. Trust me, there are like eleventy hundred people that live in my house or have over the years. You think you know a person until you cohabitate, and then you discover that some eccentricities that are cute when they live elsewhere are downright fucking annoying when they are in your space all the time.”

“You’re a barrel of sunshine.” But I appreciated the bluntness too.

“I know.” She smirked.

“And I like living with them. Yes, it’s taken some juggling, but—”

“But,” Rachel interjected, “they can leave to go back to their parents’ places right now. That won’t be an option in New York. It will be all five of you, all the time. That would make me nervous. Hell, it makes me nervous now, so being nostalgic makes sense. Everything works here, right now, and you’re asking yourself, is it going to keep working when you’re there?”

“Well, I wasn’t before,” I argued. “God, Rachel. I was going to ask you about moving in, if we get a big enough place…”

“Nope, I’m good. I’ll get a dorm room and an irritating roommate who will hopefully be hot, so the scenery is good. But I don’t need to hear you guys fucking on every surface or wondering if I’m sitting somewhere you had a screaming orgasm.”

My face flamed, and Rachel dug into her burger with a happy smile.

“Bitch,” I grumbled, and she nudged my foot with hers.

“You love it.”

“I love you, there is a difference.”

“Ha,” she said with a chuckle. “You say po-tay-to, and I say po-tah-to. It’s all the same when it’s deep fried.”

Head back, I stared at the ceiling.

“Besides,” she soothed. “You’re not so maudlin now that you’re picturing strangling me.”

“Clearly,” I retorted and flipped her off before taking another bite of burger.

“As for living with you, you’re sweet, but no, I really don’t want to move in, thank you so much. It’s kind of like when you wanted me to ride in the limo to homecoming and I skipped out on that…”

“By texting Archie and the driver, instead of me.”

“You didn’t even notice I wasn’t there.”

To be fair, she wasn’t wrong. We said we’d get her, and then I was just caught up in the guys all the way to the dance. “Okay, fine, I’m the worst.”

Flicking a French fry at me, she scowled. “I wasn’t telling you that to make you feel bad, I was just pointing out that some things are meant for the five of you and I don’t want to be the outsider looking in.”

All at once, my irritating vanished. “Rachel…”

“Oh my god, Frankie, go back to calling me a bitch. This is not feel sorry for Rachel day. Bless your heart, but I am fine. Besides, dorm living could be a blast. I’m hoping it’s coed so my pool widens for easy hookups.”

I groaned, but no matter what I did, Rachel wouldn’t let me apologize. “You’re really fucking annoying,” I said when we were finally done with the meal and heading outside.

“Thank you,” she declared as she slid her sunglasses into place. At least I’d managed to pay the bill before she had, much to her irritation. I’d done it when she went to pee. A fact to which she’d cried foul when she figured it out.

Too bad, so sad.

Outside, the heat of the day wasn’t so bad yet. At least it wasn’t the wet slap it would be by this time the following month. The breeze was still cool, and the sun was hot. It was kind of the perfect day to go swimming, but Rachel and I had other plans.

Girlfriend plans.

Nails.

Hair.

Then laser tag.

We didn’t invite the guys and I might get in some serious shit for it later, but this was Rachel-time—her words, not mine—mostly because she left for Europe in three more days and the guys would likely spring their surprise on me by then, and well, it could be two months or more before Rachel and I got to see each other again.

In that vein, I let her pick out my nail polish, a fuck me red as she labeled it, and I let her talk me into a temporary color streak in my hair. She’d wanted me to go all Madison Kate pink—her words, not mine—but I elected for Torched blue. The single streak filled out a curl from my roots to the tips. We snapped a selfie, and I fired it off in email to KC.

I hope she enjoyed the tribute. Rachel threatened to post the same shot, but I promised retaliation if she did. I didn’t want the guys to see it on social media before they saw it on me. As it was, they weren’t gonna necessarily be thrilled with me coloring my hair. They’d all been rather impassioned when I suggested dying the whole thing blue.

The lady at the hair place said it would probably last about a month, but it would fade rather quickly if I didn’t take care of it. I liked it. I wasn’t sure I was the girl who could pull it off,