by Heather Long
Trina paled. “Frankie…”
“It’s okay. That part is okay. I know what ‘no’ means, and that guy didn’t get that far. I was thinking about your other friend.”
“Yeah.” She sighed. “Fine, you have a point though, if a guy is gonna bail just because Coop looks at him crosswise…”
“Exactly.”
Nose wrinkled, she blew a raspberry. “Okay, so it’s not totally Coop and Jake’s faults.”
“Oh sure it is,” I countered with a grin. “Just, they weren’t totally wrong, either.”
“I am never telling my brother that.” She gave a firm nod, and I laughed.
“Your secret is safe with me.” It was an easy promise.
“You know I used to wish you were my big sister,” Trina admitted.
“You might have said that a few times.”
Red stained the other girl’s cheeks, even as she laughed. “Still wish it sometimes.”
“Consider me adopted,” I told her. “You hungry?”
“Yes, but I’m not eating with the Dangly Bits crew.”
It was my turn to laugh.
“I’m gonna call one of the girls, then probably go binge something on Netflix.”
Ten minutes later, she was out the door and I flopped back on the sofa.
“Well?” Coop asked, and I raised my brows. “How did it go?”
“It went fine,” I told him. “What are we eating?”
“That’s it? Just fine?” He squinted at me. “C’mon, Frankie, tell me, you know you want to.”
“What I want is food…and a chance to see which of you is going to win the races tonight…”
Yep, dangle the video games and they went for the bait. Well, not all of it. Coop gave me a worried frown, and I smiled before mouthing ‘she’s fine’ and to ‘trust me.’
Despite his grunt, he let it go after that, and I got to tuck there between them as they argued, raced, and drove each other crazy.
Eventually, we even got food.
Sunday started out much like Saturday, except I didn’t oversleep, thanks to the smoke alarm going off.
Ian tried bacon again.
The laughter and grumbling from the kitchen added a flash of joy to the day.
Fortunately, I had a lot of homework to do and so did the guys. So after we managed to salvage some of the not blackened to charcoal bacon, Jake and Coop took over the cooking while Ian and Archie went for coffee. My arm ached like crazy, but I did my best to ignore it. The pain meds helped, sure, but it made studying a pain in the ass.
I really hoped the doc didn’t stick my arm in a cast. The splint was bad enough. A cast would suck.
We also went to get Ian’s bike from the shop. From the repairs, it looked to be in good shape. I still couldn’t believe someone had vandalized it. My car. Then his bike. Only they’d done some damage to his bike.
Serious damage.
“Yeah, I could have lived without that bill,” Ian admitted as he tucked his wallet into his back pocket. I leaned against Jake’s SUV. “You know,” he said. “I’d offer to give you the next first inaugural ride…”
“No,” Jake said crisply.
“I wasn’t going to,” Ian snapped at him. “Not while her arm is still in the splint.”
Not for the first time, I wished the splint was history. “Well, maybe when I’m better,” I suggested, and Ian jerked his attention back to me.
“Really?”
“Maybe.”
“I’m going to hold you to that maybe.”
“Yeah, because it says so much for my level of commitment.”
He snorted. “True. But I’d still like to take you for a ride. Just say the word.”
My heart did a little fist bump with my ribs, and I swallowed. We never had really gotten to go on our date.
What he asked right now wasn’t pretending. Even if it was a simple offer to go for a ride on the bike, it seemed heavier somehow, far more meaningful.
The silence stretched out uncomfortably, and Jake shifted his stance. “C’mon, you got the bike, let’s head back. You coming back to Frankie’s or heading home?”
The weight of Ian’s stare pressed in on me. Meeting his gaze, I read the question in them.
Did I want him to come back?
“I have a doctor’s appointment in the morning. I might be in a much worse mood tomorrow, so tonight would be good.”
A flash of a smile softened his expression, and he winked. “Then let’s go.”
If I thought I was off the hook ’cause Ian was on his bike and Jake in the SUV, I was wrong.
“You okay over there, Baby Girl?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted, not bothering to pretend I didn’t know what he was talking about. “I don’t know what I want right now.”
“That’s okay,” he said. “That means you haven’t closed the door entirely.”
“But I did.”
“No,” Jake argued. “You broke up with Bubba and told him if he didn’t want to date or couldn’t trust you to know your own mind, then maybe you just needed to be friends. That wasn’t closing a door, Frankie. That was giving him a solid kick in the ass.”
“How does he know he really wants to do this when he didn’t before?”
“I don’t know,” Jake admitted as we sat waiting for the light to change. “How do any of us know? Sometimes…sometimes we have to have reality dump cold water on us. Sometimes we have to see the girl we want is about to go out with some total stranger and realize the thing we’ve always wanted suddenly became attainable again.”
“Sometimes, we have to find out our best friends are the best cock blockers there are?” I glanced at him, and he grinned.
“Damn straight.” He brushed his thumb over my chin. “Whatever you want with Bubba. I mean that. I know you’ve got a lot on your plate, but he’s here. He’s been here. I don’t think he’s going anywhere.”
Again.
I didn’t think he was going anywhere before, and I leaned my head back against the seat. “I want to believe that.”
“Then make him work for it,” he whispered. “I’ll help. I’ll model how good boyfriends behave.”
Laughter shivered through me. “You are a good boyfriend.”
“Damn straight.”
The quiet settled there, and I chewed the inside of my lip. “He was just asking me to take a bike ride. It doesn’t have to mean more than that.”
“Nope,” Jake agreed. “It doesn’t. I mean, it does mean more than that, but it doesn’t have to.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re not helping.”
“Sorry, I gotta call bullshit when I hear it. You want it to mean something, but you’re gun-shy about believing it does until you can see it in clear black and white letters. That’s okay, he earned that bit of mistrust on your part.”
And that was what it came down to. I wanted to trust him.
But I wasn’t sure how.
“You know what, adulting sucks.”
Jake laughed, but the shock of masculine warmth cut off abruptly as we neared the parking spots near my apartment. Following Jake’s gaze, I found out why.
My mother stood on the sidewalk, arms folded, posture rigid, and definitely radiating hostility, even if sunglasses hid her eyes. Despite the jeans, she wore an expensive blouse and jacket, both in brighter colors. Her hair had been pulled up into a knot, and a pair of teardrop earrings glistened in the mid-afternoon sun.
The papers she had fisted in her hand drew my attention, and I sighed. This wouldn’t be pretty.
“Fuck,” Jake muttered. “We can just go.”
“Nope, I live here.” And I reached over with my left hand to open the door. He was out and walking around to meet me before I’d even touched my feet to the pavement. Ian pulled in scant moments behind us.
One heeled foot tapping, Maddy waited for me only as long as it took me to step up on the curb. “What the hell is this?” She waved the papers at me in demand.
&nb
sp; “You should have your attorney talk to my attorney.”
My voice didn’t quaver. Go me.
Jake put his hand against my lower back. “Ms. Curtis,” he said.
“Shut up, Jake,” Maddy snapped, and I raised my brows.
“You don’t talk to him that way,” I informed her. “You have a problem, take it up with me. Oh wait, you don’t do that unless you want something.”
“What I want right now is an explanation for this ridiculous and, may I mention, frivolous suit.”
“If you have a question about that, I already told you. Talk to my attorney.”
I pivoted to walk past her, and she slammed a hand out and gripped my right bicep. It was just above the splint, and it fucking hurt. Jake gripped her wrist a split second later.
“Let her go,” he ordered.
“She’s my daughter, I’ll do as I damn well please. Would you like to face another assault charge?”
Oh hell no, she wasn’t going to use that against Jake. “Would you?” I demanded in the same breath as Jake said, “Knock yourself out.”
“Let her go, Ms. Curtis,” Ian said in an almost kind tone. “No one has done any harm—yet.”
Maddy glared past me, and in her sunglasses, I caught Ian’s reflection and his upraised phone.
“But to be clear, we will document every moment of this interaction. You have been asked to go and to take your questions to an attorney. Jake has asked you to let Frankie go. You’re hurting her, and she’s already injured.”
Lips compressed, Maddy transferred her attention back to me and let go of my arm. The abrupt cessation of pressure was a relief, but I refused to let it show. Jake dropped her wrist like the contact disgusted him.
“I would like a moment with my daughter.”
“You’re already having one,” I reminded her. “Right here. The child you so often forget you have.”
“Alone, Francesca. Do not be an idiot on purpose.”
Yeah. Another reason I hated that name. It sounded way snootier than I would ever be.
“Not happening,” Jake informed her as he pulled me back a step and edged slightly in front of me. “You aren’t cautious or caring enough with her. I have zero intention of letting you take that temper out on her, lady.”
There was the faintest tremble to Maddy’s hand, and the color in her cheeks went hot. I bet if she pulled off those sunglasses, her eyes would be blazing. “I will not air our personal business in front of others.”
“Whatever, see you later then.” I took a couple of steps, with Jake keeping himself between me and Maddy. “Or not. I know it’s a crapshoot with you.”
“Frankie.”
I stopped.
“You can’t ignore me forever.”
“Sure I can,” I said, and this time, I didn’t bother to try and soften the derision in my voice. “Just following the example you set, Maddy.”
I was almost to the stairs when she let out a little scream. “I could have given you up for adoption.”
The words stung.
They always did.
“Or an abortion. I could have done that. Then where would you be?”
“Bitch,” Jake muttered, but I turned around and stared back at my mother. She was the one making a scene. I had to guess at least one of the neighbors heard it. But still…
“Where would I be? Better off in the first case, I would imagine, and in the second? Well, I wouldn’t have to deal with you then either.”
“Go away, Maddy,” Archie said as he descended the steps. “Don’t make us get a restraining order.”
She glared. “This isn’t over.”
But that was it. She turned on her expensive heel and walked back to her… Holy shit, that was not her car. It was far more expensive than the car she’d owned.
My heart raced and sweat prickled along my skin as she slid behind the wheel of the Mercedes and stared at me for several long seconds, then Jake, before the engine purred to life, and she pulled away.
That car so did not belong in this parking lot. Not even with the nice SUV and the pricy Ferrari currently parked there.
Ian lowered his phone and then moved toward us as Jake slid an arm around me.
I needed to call Mr. Wittaker. Whatever happened, I couldn’t let Maddy take it out on the guys, and the way she’d looked at Jake worried me.
Maybe Mad Maddy wasn’t the joke she’d always made it out to be.
Maybe it was a warning.
Chapter Eighteen
High Anxiety
The doctor elected to put me in a cast. Archie and Coop had both taken me to the doctor’s appointment while Ian rode with Jake to school. I’d really wanted different news, but he was concerned about the fracture itself.
On the upside, the swelling had reduced, and he’d made the fiberglass cast red—Archie picked the color—and it was kind of pretty. On the downside, it could be six weeks in this cast.
Six. Weeks.
What the hell was I going to do for work in a cast?
The doctor assured me fiberglass was easier to care for. I’d still have to go back every other week to get it x-rayed and to check on the swelling. We had another long list to call him about if any of them happened.
All the way through the process, Coop and Archie kept an upbeat patter and I pasted on a smile. They were all killing themselves to make this easier for me. The least I could do was roll with it.
We made it in by just after lunchtime. I didn’t want to miss anymore days than I had to, even if the guys didn’t care about the attendance records. I didn’t even make it to study hall before I got pulled into the principal’s office.
Maddy waited for me there.
The smile on her face made my blood run cold. I dug my phone out as Mr. Dillard ushered me into his office. Thankfully, I’d texted Mr. Wittaker the day before, so his message was right near the top. I told him my mother was at the school and I’d been pulled into the principal’s office with her.
Message sent, I stopped at the door and refused to take another step. “I apologize, Mr. Dillard, if you want to have this conversation with Ms. Curtis in the room, but I’ll be waiting for my lawyer.”
The principal hesitated. One thing about our principal—he was a good person. He knew everyone’s names. He greeted us in the hallways and had treated us like old friends from our first day here. The man showed up to all the football games, debate tournaments, academic decathlons, cross-country meets, and band tourneys—if there was a contest or someone from the school competed somewhere, he did his absolute best to be there.
Unequivocally, he was on our sides.
He was also a huge proponent of family.
Huge.
Like massive.
Religious, too. Not in your face and drive you crazy religious. Not remotely hypocritical. The man lived his beliefs and truly embraced talking out problems and using love to heal everything. He so wasn’t going to get us.
No. Not even a little.
“I understand why you might feel that way, Frankie,” he told me kindly. “Your mother came in this morning to get my help, and she’s asked me to sit in on this discussion for your comfort. She’s very concerned about you.”
Bull. Shit.
I didn’t bother to look at her. “That’s very kind of you, Mr. Dillard. I’m still not having a conversation with her without my attorney.” Who would ever think I’d need to utter these words where my mother was concerned?
Instead of being remotely put off, he gave me another patient look. “Well, how about this? She has some things she’d like to say to you. We can sit here, and she can talk and you can listen. You don’t have to say a word.”
“I’d rather not.”
“I understand, but I think this is important, and I’ll be here with you. I can even call the student advocate to come down and join us.”
No. Diane had already gotten an eyeful of my crappy situation. My phone buzzed. A glance down showed a message from Mr. Wittaker.
He was ten minutes away.
“Mr. Dillard.” My mother’s voice turned all kinds of breathy, and I swore I threw up in my mouth. “Frankie’s always been a bit difficult. It’s better to just start talking than to wait for her to agree.” She smiled, all sugar and light. “Honestly,” she continued, and glanced at me with a smile that set off every warning bell I possessed.
Look, I got the good mother today. The one who would probably like to bake cookies and shit with me. The one who used to take me for hot cocoa every day before kindergarten. The one who used to encourage me to climb onto the back of the sofa each evening and brush out her hair for her.
Little things that probably didn’t amount to much, but those scraps had been gobbled up by younger me.
Not responding took everything I had. Maybe I should have just texted the guys. It was one thing to have them swoop in when my mother showed up with Archie’s father to drag me out of here—wait.
Where was “Eddie”?
This was twice in as many days that I’d seen her sans the new boyfriend-fiancé-dirty little secret. Well, not so little or secret anymore, but definitely dirty.
Had he dumped her? Archie said it was coming. Sooner or later. His grandfather was in town. Had they ended up having a fight?
I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved, wary, or flat out terrified.
Mr. Dillard pulled at his lower lip as he considered me, then my mother, then back to me. “Would you like to close the door, Frankie? I would prefer to give you ladies some privacy.”
“If you’re staying, Mr. D, then we’re hardly going to be in private.” Not that I needed or wanted privacy. My arm ached like hell, and my gut churned. If I could drag this out a little longer, Mr. Wittaker would get here.
“Frankie, darling,” my mother said. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one watching the time. “I think we really have just shared a classic misunderstanding. I know that you aren’t comfortable with my engagement, and perhaps I did things a bit out of order.”
Was she high?
I didn’t look at her no matter how much I wanted to figure out the answer to that question.
“Yes, Eddie and I have been almost inseparable. I’ve almost forgotten what it is to be so enamored.” She let out a breathy little sigh. “Mr. Dillard, you remember what that first flush is like? It’s been so long, and I let myself get swept away in it. The simple truth is—we’re in love.”
