point. “But she’s not me,” Frankie said. “And even when she’s pushy with me, if I tell her I really don’t want to talk about it…she lets it go.” She let out a little sigh and reached for her phone. It hadn’t made so much as a twitch since she set it on the table, but she checked it anyway.
No messages.
“Okay, what do you do to us when we don’t tell you things?” Bubba tried, then winced. I didn’t mean to laugh. I swear, I didn’t. But the chuckle escaped anyway.
Frankie pinched me, and I deserved that. “I’m getting better about calling you on it,” she argued, and I agreed.
“Yes you are,” I told her, and Bubba rubbed a hand over his face.
“Yes, Angel, you are. We’re all getting better at this talking thing.”
You’d think it was the one skill we’d mastered, but no, we had a learning curve, myself included. “I’ll talk to her again,” Frankie said finally. “But maybe I should save all the drama here for the next conversation.”
“You haven’t told her yet?” I wasn’t fishing, not specifically, but Rachel had been enormously good for Frankie.
“No, I haven’t talked to anyone but you guys.” Some of the lightness in the air evaporated, and Bubba reached over to slide a hand over her leg, even as I hugged her. “Sorry,” she murmured.
“Nothing to be sorry about,” I said in nearly the same breath as Bubba released, “Angel, you don’t have to be sorry.”
She made a face and then wiggled a little—kind of killing me there—so she could look at both Bubba and me.
“You’re both trying to distract me to keep me from worrying or obsessing or going to find Maddy and pummeling her.”
That last one was new. “I’ll help with the Maddy thing,” I offered.
Bubba shook his head but surprised me when he said, “Me too.”
A tremulous smile curved her lips. “You guys would, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes.” Not even a question. For either of us.
“Try to eat a little more?” Bubba nudged at her as he took her cup and mine to refill them. I tugged her a little closer and tucked my chin against her shoulder.
I loved the way she melted into me and leaned there like she needed me as much as I needed to be there for her. I hated everything about this situation, except us. The part with the five of us was good, and that wasn’t changing.
“I’m scared,” she said so softly, I thought I’d misheard at first. But she leaned her head back and looked at me. “I want to go back to Thursday. Or even Friday morning. Friday morning was good.”
“Friday morning was great. And this sucked,” I agreed with her. “But you’re not alone. You remember that, right?”
She gave me a crooked smile. “Yeah I do. I just…”
“We know, Angel. Us too.” Bubba set the coffee on the table. “And if you’re still up for playing, then you need to eat.”
I watched her as she glanced at him. The flare of hope on her face was hard to miss. But I still didn’t want him pushing something he didn’t want to or wasn’t ready to deal with yet. “Are you sure?”
“Well, I’m positive nothing will happen without you eating at least one more cinnamon roll. Then I think we can work on making you hungry for real food later.”
Man, I really hoped he was up for this, or I was going to get really intimate with my hand in the not too far distant future. We actually got her to eat two more cinnamon rolls, and she finished all of the second cup of coffee before all of our phones buzzed.
One word.
Landed.
From Jake.
She tensed against me, and Bubba shot me a questioning look. It wasn’t hard to read it. Was I in or was I out? Because we had no idea how long it would take Archie to get to his mother’s place and to deal with that situation.
Could I follow orders? What the hell, you only lived once, right?
I nodded.
He exhaled, and then his whole demeanor seemed to settle. Any sign of questioning or hesitation vanished. Fucking impressive if you asked me.
“Angel,” he said, snaring her attention from the phone. “Give me the phone for now and then go into the bedroom and wait for us.”
He hadn’t been kidding about the orders.
With only a little reluctance, she handed him her phone. He caught her hand and squeezed it after she passed it to him.
“I’ll make sure we have it,” he