I’d be damned if I’d fight even an ounce of it ever again.
I dragged out her lower lip slowly as I lifted my head. We were both panting, and I hadn’t imagined the little gasps that had escaped when our mouths were connected. I licked my lips, savoring the taste of her still on them.
“Hi,” she said, the pink tinge to her cheeks making her all the more adorable.
“Hi.” A sigh escaped me like I was some eleven-year-old with my first crush noticing me.
But wasn’t that exactly what Frankie had been? Sixth grade, and she’d been the prettiest girl in the classroom. I’d thought Coop was firmly established as her boyfriend. Took me forever to realize that wasn’t the case.
“Okay,” I said slowly, getting my brain and libido back in check. “It’s too cold to stand out here and make out, as fun as that sounds, and I have to share you if we go back inside.”
“Besides,” she said, then bit her lower lip as she grinned. “We have a date.”
“Yes, we do.” I cleared my throat and forced my hand to unpeel from her hip so she could get in the car.
Once she was inside, I closed it and turned around. Exhaling a long breath, I glanced down at my very hard and very interested dick. “Save it,” I muttered, running more scales in my head, not that they could remotely compete with Frankie in the car. I had to adjust myself as I circled the car. Once inside, I waited as she pulled her seatbelt on and grinned. “You’re getting good at that.”
Her eyes practically sparkled, something we hadn’t seen in a while. There were days that were almost normal, and then days like Friday happened. Her first visit to see a therapist a couple of days before that hadn’t been so bad, but the next one? That had just knocked her down.
While Jake had done his best to bury it, the need to pound something flat had been seething in him. Archie and I had dragged him out running, and we’d keep doing it to get the edge off.
“Can I run something by you without you telling the guys automatically?” She held out the car keys to me, and I slid them in and started it for her, but she handled the gear shifting.
“You can tell me anything,” I promised. “I’ll be a vault.” Then, because it only seemed fair, I said, “To be honest, we don’t talk about what you talk to us about unless it’s something you’ve said to all of us. Or we’re picking on each other, and even then, we don’t talk about what you say.” The guys kept the details of their dates pretty close to the vest, too, particularly after she broke up with me. “We don’t talk about dates, either.”
“So they don’t know where we’re going?”
I nudged the heat up and grinned. “They know we’re going to the studio, but probably not why or for how long.”
“Huh,” she said, then chewed on her lower lip, and I leaned my head back to give her the space to work it out. That was the thinking face, where she tossed ideas back and forth in her head before she hit us with them. I knew better than to interrupt. She waited until we got to the first traffic light we had to wait for before she said, “I’m thinking about getting a different job for a few months.”
I slanted a look at her. “You love Mason’s.” The job ran her ragged, but Frankie loved it. You could tell when she was at work, she liked the people and she was good with them.
“I do,” she admitted. “I like being able to put money in my savings account, and I adore Marsha. But she doesn’t want me to even think about coming back before January. She hired someone in because I had to miss so much, and she really wants me to heal.”
Fuck. “That sucks.”
“It’s worse than that,” Frankie said, shifting in her seat. “I have enough in savings, but part of the deal with emancipation is being able to show I can support myself. Not working until January is not going to help that.”
I bit back another curse. “What kind of job are you looking at?” She was in that cast for at least another two weeks, possibly three. It was going to limit what she could do. Not that she’d ever let limits stop her.