“It’s almost seventy thousand a year with housing.”
“I know, Mom. I also know it’s going to be worth it.” And I really didn’t want to have this conversation. “You let me worry about it. You got stuff to do with your work peeps tonight, and I gotta get ready for work.”
Mom nodded slowly. “You’ve been applying for scholarships, right?”
“Like my life depended on it. I won’t find out about the big ones until spring.” Might not find out about Harvard until then.
“All right, I know you have everything under control. You always do, but—I want you to have some fun this year. You work so hard.”
“Hard work is what the pays the bills.” Quoting her to her may not have been the best idea based on her grimace.
It was weird, some kids said they couldn’t stand their parents—like Archie. He and his parents were strangers. Then there were people like Bubba who won the lottery with the cool, supportive parents. Coop and Jake didn’t do too shabby, because they seemed to have good parents who were supportive. My mom was supportive for some parts, though she usually tried to get me to aim lower rather than root me on. I didn’t hate her, but we didn’t always speak the same language.
Sometimes, we felt more like roommates than parent and child. You know, I just don’t feel like unpacking that emotional baggage. I should just store it in the closet until I sat down with a therapist some mythical day in the future.
Unlikely, but it could happen.
For now, I got my laundry put away, grabbed a quick shower and got changed. Work wasn’t so bad. We had a post-church lunch rush that tapered to a steady, but manageable trickle. Bubba showed up without the guys around the middle of my shift.
He grabbed a seat at the counter and, when I swung by to get his order, I told him, “I’m kind of busy.” Granted, of the four of them, Bubba had been the most reasonable, but he wasn’t blameless in the scenario.
“It’s fine, I can wait.” The smile he offered looked hopeful, and I tapped the counter. I got his soda to him before I checked on my other tables, but it was semi-quiet by the time his burger was ready. After I served him, I grabbed the silverware bucket and napkins and started rolling the silverware there at the counter so I could talk to him. Usually, they didn’t like it when we did it there, but if it was quiet—kind of like it was now—nobody complained.
“Hey,” Bubba said, studying me. “Still mad at me?”
“Disappointed if I say yes?”
“Maybe?” He tilted his head. Someone as big as Bubba shouldn’t be able to pull off cute or endearing, yet he could manage both. “Look, I’m really sorry about what happened at the apartment yesterday. We were total jackasses.”
“You were,” I agreed. “But it wasn’t just about the apartment.” Because Coop hadn’t gotten that.
“Yeah, I kind of got the feeling…and I didn’t know you liked Kent…” He wiped his hands on a napkin. “I feel like I should apologize. I mean the guy was a jerk. I’m the one who overheard what he said, and I told Jake and Arch about it.”
“I never said I liked Kent.” In fact, I really couldn’t stand Kent. “The point wasn’t him—it was everyone.”
“Okay, you said that. But, Frankie, don’t get me wrong here, I want to make this right. You don’t flirt.” He shifted on the stool, leaning a little closer. “The truth is, I know guys who’ve been hung up on you—you never seemed to care. You shut guys down all the time. You utterly destroy them and keep right on moving.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” It was hard to shut anyone down if they didn’t express their interest.
“I’m talking about the fact that, since I met you, you’ve never had time to flirt or date. You never had time for guys. You’ve been razor focused. School. All the way.”
“I hang out with you guys,” I argued, still rolling the silverware. I’d gotten nearly all of it, and so far we’d been lucky. The tables were still mostly finishing their drinks or doing homework and no one else had come in. “I make time for you.”
“You did—before this summer,” he pointed out. “You did for school stuff. For studying. Frankie, if you weren’t tutoring me, I wouldn’t see you that much between your schedule and mine.”
Did he really believe that? “We’re friends.”
He made a face. “Yeah, we are.” Then he stuffed a french fry in his mouth, and I got the last of the silverware wrapped. “Look…maybe we didn’t handle it the right way—maybe I didn’t. I want to do better and fix this. I don’t want to not see you.”
“I don’t want to not see you, either, Bubba. But I want to do what everyone else gets to do. I want to get asked out, I want to go on dates, I want to have stories to tell and experiences and maybe they’ll all suck. Maybe I’ll be like Archie and find out that what I think they’re like and what they’re really like isn’t the same thing. But I want to have that chance.”
He studied me, a tiny frown tightening his brows. “So, you want us to back off?”
“I want you to be my friends.”
Another frown.
“If you can’t do that then, yeah… I want you to back off.” As much as it pained me to say it. I didn’t want to lose the guys, but at the same time… they didn’t get to dictate everything. It wasn’t fair.
“Okay… Frankie?”
“Yeah?”
“Will you go to homecoming with me?”
I stared at him. Was he making fun of me?
“What?”
“Will you go to homecoming with me?”
Was he really asking me out? “What about Sharon?”
“I’m not dating Sharon. I don’t have a date to homecoming. It’s a school dance and you want to go. I’d like to take you.” He took a last sip of his soda and then pulled out a few bills and stacked them next to his plate. “Don’t answer right now. Think about it… the big asks start next week. I’m going to ask then.”
“Are you serious?” Because if he was really giving me shit right now…
Leaning over the counter, he kissed my cheek. “See you tomorrow, Frankie.” Then he was out the front door, and I was still standing there gaping like a fish.
Was it Bubba’s way of making up with me? Placate me by asking me to the dance? Bubba wasn’t mean. Not usually.
It wasn’t until after I rang up his check that I realized he’d left a card with his cash. It was just a notecard that said Message in a Bottle, that’s my song. Let me know what you think.
Tucking the card into my pocket, I shook my head. I had no idea what just happened. By the time my shift was over, I was thrilled I had the next two days off, but I still needed to find some oomph for my pseudo date and I still needed to swing by the grocery store.
While I waited for the a/c to cool down the car, I checked my messages just in case Mathieu had to cancel.
Dessert Options: Is seven still good?
I grinned. Yep. Just got off work and I’m going to the grocery store. Do you want anything for dinner?
Dessert Options: I thought I would bring over some leftover roast and potatoes my host family made yesterday. I have enough for two meals.
Wow. That would be great. We can heat it up and eat while we do the nine million steps to make the cake.
Dessert Options: I will see you soon.
A little thrill went through me. This was really gonna happen. I checked the messages from Jake and Archie. Their last messages had been from earlier in the day.
After talking to Coop and Bubba, I had to admit, maybe part of the issue had been me. Maybe I hadn’t been clear.
Talk tomorrow after school? I sent it to both of them.
I got almost immediately replies.
Archie: Yes. Coffee in the morning?
Jake: See you then.
I told Archie yes and then leaned my head back. I just had to make it clear to all of them that I was going to date, too. That I appreciated the fact they wanted to protect me, but no more untouchable.
I glanced at the time on my phone and swore. I needed to get going. I wanted to wash off the burger smell before Mathieu got there.
Maybe it wasn’t a date-date, but holy crap, I had a date!
Chapter Eleven
French Connection
Mathieu turned out to be a prompt guy. I was still hopping into a clean pair of shorts after a high-speed dive through my shower, a quick brush of my teeth and the swift rifling of my t-shirts before I finally landed on a plain baby blue one when he knocked on the front door. White shorts probably weren’t a great idea for cooking, but they made my legs look tanner and they looked even better with a t-shirt.
Tiddles yowled his displeasure as I darted around him. I’d argued with myself about cosmetics all the way through the grocery store. I didn’t tend to wear makeup, so I stuck to what always worked for me—lip gloss. Only I hadn’t been able to find my gloss, so I stole one from Mom’s room and found a roll of condoms in the drawer.
Yep, all things I don’t need to know about my mom.
I paused and took three deep breaths before I unlocked and opened the front door. Where my back door had a set of concrete steps leading to it and a hint of a porch, the front opened up into the courtyard where there were boxes of bushes and flowers and landscaping to line the sidewalks. Coop’s door was catty-corner to ours, so I didn’t dare glance over there.
If he saw Mathieu, he saw him, but I was just relieved the guy had made it.
“My apologies,” he said in his gorgeously accented English. “I am not usually so prompt, but Mrs. Wheeler said prompt is better here.”
The apology amused me, I gotta admit. “Prompt is fine,” I said, pulling the door wide to let him in. Tall—maybe not as tall as my guys, but tall enough I had to look up—with rich, chocolate brown eyes and dark brown hair with a natural curly wave that made me think of the word tousled. His tousled hair was gorgeous. “And I should have mentioned…I have cats.”
“Oui?” He smiled, and the strength of it just lit his whole face up. “I love cats.”
“Whew.” Once he was inside, I closed the door and he held up a canvas bag.
“I brought supper and some iced tea. It’s actually quite good. I will admit, however, the penchant for drinking cold tea must be uniquely American.”
Chuckling, I led him to the kitchen. Now that he was there, I didn’t really care that my hair was still damp or that I’d just got off work. “It gets pretty hot here, so cold drinks are better. I, myself, love iced coffee.”
“I shall have to try that. I am working on eating only American foods and tex-mex while I am here.”
I made a face at the Tex-Mex comment, I couldn’t help it. Texas had a lot of Tex-Mex and sometimes I got tired of it.
“You don’t like the food?” He removed the Tupperware containers. They were much larger than I expected. In fact, they looked like fully served meals rather than leftovers.
“I like Tex-Mex fine. I’ve had Spanish tapas before and those are good and tacos, fajitas and enchiladas—they are all great. But I eat it all the time so it’s not…”
“It’s common, not as appealing,” he finished for me.
I popped open the lids and then set the first one in the nuke with the lid resting on top and started it warming the food before getting down a couple of plates. “More or less. Where I work, we serve burgers all the time.”
“Those were very good,” he complimented me in all seriousness. The sincerity in his tone made me grin. Okay, my face was going to end up aching at this rate.
“I’m glad. Next time you come in, try the bacon cheeseburger. The applewood smoked bacon is pretty good.” We sold a lot of them.
“I shall.” He glanced around our kitchen and then at me. When the food came out of the nuke, he took over serving it onto a plate as I got the second one going. “I am… a little nervous about tonight,” he admitted.
Surprised, I stared at him before I turned the nuke back on to get the food heated. “Why?” I mean, I was definitely nervous. A real date—okay a real pseudo-date, he might not think it was a date. I did.
“You are very beautiful,” he told me, his eyes gentling. He kept stealing glances at me as he got the now steaming food onto a plate.
Warmth scalded my cheeks, so I shifted to get him some silverware.
“You are very popular with the boys—you have boyfriends? Yes?”
Boyfriends? As in plural? “I…”
“This is fine,” he hurried on to add. “I find competition healthy, but I was uncertain that you would accept my invitation… At first it was just about getting a chance to know you. But the more I have seen you this week, the more I see why your boyfriends are so protective.”
“Are you talking about Coop and the guys?”
“The tall blond one who walks with you to lunch?”
“That’s Coop.” The microwave beeped, and I jumped a little. He carried his plate over to the table and set it down, then returned to serve the food out of the second container onto a plate for me. “They’re…”
“Protective. I have noticed. I thought to ask you to eat at lunch, but they are always there.”
The observation made me uneasy and nerves fluttered in my stomach. “This is probably better.” I motioned to my kitchen. “We’ll have more time.”
“Yes, and we can work on the dessert.”
The dessert. Yep. That was what we were going to work on. I got out some glasses and then we sat down with our respective meals. Instead of sitting opposite me, Mathieu moved his chair so that we could sit closer. It was a little weird, but not uncomfortable.
“Thank you for dinner,” I said, lifting the iced tea glass. He touched his glass to mine.
“This would be a better toast with wine.”
“I don’t drink,” I warned him. “It’s not really legal for us to drink under 21 here, but I’m not a fan.” After the whiskey incident and the karaoke. Better to stay clean and sober.
“If you ever come to France, you should come to a meal with me there. We will have wine.” He grinned. “The legal drinking age is 18 at home.”
“Ahh…” Wait. “You’re 18?”
“Almost. My birthday is tomorrow.”
“You should have told me.” Not that I would have had the first clue what to get him.
“You are making me my favorite dessert. You have a beautiful accent and a gift for my language. This is a perfect way to spend my birthday, even if tomorrow I will be at school.”
“Here’s hoping the opera cake turns out good.” It would really suck to bomb his favorite dessert.
“I am positive I will enjoy it.” He motioned to the dinner. “Do you like it? Mrs. Wheeler makes the most wonderful roast. Not as good as my grandmere, but much better than Mama.”
I couldn’t help laughing at the very conspiratorial tone, but my first bite of the meat proved him correct. Even after microwaving, it was tender and there was a good spice to it. “This is good,” I told him.
“Excellent.” Relief blanketed his tone. The fact my enjoyment seemed to ease some tension in him relaxed me. All the nerves just drained away. He was nervous. Just like me. “I thought it would be wrong to not treat you to a real date before this evening, so I wanted you to enjoy it.”
A real date.
“I’m having a really good time,” I promised him, and he sat a little straighter in the chair. After that, we both stopped trying so hard. While we ate, Mathieu told me about the process of becoming a foreign exchange student, why he’d chosen to come to the States, and what he looked forward to.
He was only here until Christmas. That part kind of sucked. It was a semester exchange, but his host family had been great so far, and he was enjoying his classes. We didn’t share many because he wasn’t taking AP courses, though he did admit a lot of the coursework was pretty simple compared to home. What intrigued him were the people, the culture, and what we emphasized over compared to what he did in his own classes.
Turned ou
t, he also attended a version of a boarding school so the fact he attended a public school here without a uniform—which explained why he was dressed so sharply the first week—was also an experience. After we were done, I rinsed off the plates then pulled the recipe out and laid it down. He leaned in so we could look at the steps for opera cake side by side.
He smelled pretty good, like sandalwood and something a little muskier. Maybe his soap or his cologne, and at this distance, it wasn’t hard to notice he’d shaved. His face looked baby smooth—not that I was staring hard.
Much.
“This takes a bit to make,” he said. “But it chills well and it’s divine. Do you want me to record as you go?”
“Well—” I hesitated. “What if it comes out terrible? I thought we’d just do this for us and give it a practice run.”
“The taste of the food is important, yes. But cooking should be an experience—a sensual one. Because food has so many textures and flavors. Desserts especially.”
Okay, that made my toes curl. There was something a little naughty about filming a sensual experience. “If we record it,” I said. “I’d rather use my phone, so I can do the editing for the project.” I hope that didn’t come across like I didn’t trust him to film me or do something with the footage. I didn’t think he would, but this was a first date and the guys still had that karaoke they held over my head.
“Oui,” he said in all seriousness. “But I will be an excellent director, yes?”
“Fine.” I checked my phone and cleared the messages from the guys then quietly went through and put their individual threads on do not disturb. No sense in having those pop up while Mathieu had my phone. Rolling it over to the video camera setting, I handed it to him.
“One tip I will give you—the best chefs introduce what they are going to make first. We lay out all the ingredients, we film that bit. Then we get the first layers done. And we show them what you did. We take snippets so I will not film the whole time. I want to help, too.”
Rules and Roses: Untouchable Book One Page 14
