Adrift With You - A Frankie Morales Series - Chapter 10
Summary: Heading away on a work re-location, Frankie embarks on a flight, but unbeknownst to him, his life is about to change forever. For starters, he will need to fight for it; harder than he's ever fought for anything else before.
Marooned on an isolated island in the middle of the ocean, still recovering from an addiction, his chances of survival are bleak; but he’s not alone on the island, and soon he’s running towards a different kind of life - a life with fellow survivor, Jude, fighting right beside him every step of the way.
And if they can both survive the island together, they can survive anything, right?
Pairing: Frankie Morales x OFC Jude
Chapter word count: 8.9k
SERIES MASTERLIST | MAIN MASTERLIST
☝🏻See Series Masterlist for full smut warnings & triggers in this story. Chapters that contain smut or triggers will be highlighted in the chapter notes below. 👇🏻
Chapter notes: Frankie and Jude make new discoveries on the island, and they have their date. Mentions of suicide.
Enjoy! 🖤
Chapter 9
“AH FUCK!” Frankie yells loudly, and Jude turns, startled, in the water with her spear to see Frankie scramble up onto the rocks like a crab scurrying away from a would-be predator.
“What happened?” She calls out to him, bewildered.
“Careful!” He holds his palm up and she stops dead in the water. “I just stepped on a fuckin’ urchin!” He lifts his foot up and black spines are poking out from the heel of his foot.
“Shit,” she wades closer to him, looking into the water in the bay to make sure she doesn’t make contact with any urchins herself. “You okay?”
He’d been scouring the rock pools for anything edible whilst she fished, when he’d yelled out, and now he winces as he starts to pull the needles from his foot.
“Fuckin’ shit!” Frankie grunts through angry lips curled back over his teeth. “Vamos, cabrones!” (Come on you little bastards!)
“Let me do it,” Jude persuades, and he pushes his foot out to her and rests back on his elbows; his head thrown back and groaning with pain.
She tries not to let her eyes wander over the leanness of his bronzed body as he stretches back, clad only in shorts and his cap. But her eyes betray her anyway and take in the wet sheen over his skin from the waist down.
Clearing her throat, Jude pulls a couple of spines out that she can grip with her fingers, but there’s a few that are embedded too deeply into his skin that she can’t pinch a solid grip onto.
“I need the tweezers to get these out; you think you can make it back with me?”
“Yeah.” He puffs through gritted teeth.
“Lean on me for support; don’t walk on your heel, they’ll get embedded further into your skin and we’ll never get them out.” She advises.
Frankie nods as he slips off the rock, puts his arm around her shoulder and she leads him back to the shack slowly. His weight against her is heavy, but nothing she can’t manage, walking with him slowly as he hops beside her practically.
She smiles to herself at his unfortunate plight, despite the pain he’s in, she can’t help but find it somewhat amusing.
“This isn’t funny, it fuckin’ kills.” Frankie says, trying not to smirk at her too.
“It’s a little funny.” Jude replies, holding onto him. His skin feels smooth against her arm, and this close the scent of brine and sweat fills her nose.
They’re hobbling through the wooded area that separates both sides of the island, when they hear a snapping noise.
They both freeze on the spot.
“Did you hear that?” Frankie asks her, looking furtively and listening like a guard dog on high alert. They stay still for a moment, Frankie balancing on one leg like a flamingo.
They hear more rustling and then a low pitched screech.
“What the hell is that?” Jude asks, astonished. They haven’t heard or seen any animals on the island since they crash landed, so the noise is somewhat disconcerting.
“Sounds like dinner,” Frankie says, smirking down at her. “We can check it out later.”
Jude nods smiling and continues to walk with him. Once inside the shack he throws himself down on the cushion bed, and she sets to work on removing the remaining urchin spines from his foot with the tweezers.
“Lucky we have these. Hold still.”
“Thank you, nurse” Frankie says, as he inspects his foot afterwards. It looks all bloody and sore with tiny pin prick holes dotted around in a cluster on his heel.
“Lots of bed rest and fluids.” She remarks with a wink and he chuckles.
Frankie watches with a relaxed smile as she wraps his foot carefully in a damp t-shirt to alleviate some of the heated throbbing. “Are you excited about our date tonight?” He asks her.
“Depends,” she replies coyly.
“On what?” Frankie asks her with a curious smirk.
“On what you have in mind.”
“A gentleman never tells.” He makes the zipped lips motion with his fingers across his lips.
“I hope you are a gentleman.” Jude remarks with a tight smirk.
“Of course,” he confirms. “I won’t try anything funny, I promise.”
“Good, because I never fuck a guy on the first date,” she smiles through heated cheeks.
“Self-respect is hot.” Frankie grins.
She smiles at him and pats the side of his calf. “Rest up; I’ll go back and get the fish.”
Wandering out of the shack, Jude thinks about their impending date night and wonders what it is exactly she expects from him and that he has planned. How gentlemanly will he be exactly? I hope he at least kisses me... The thought makes her hot.
It’s evidently something she’s thought about and considered regularly as of late. It’s not hard to notice how smiley and flirty they’ve gotten with one another. Frankie feels easy to talk to and she enjoys his company greatly.
And equally it’s something that excites her more and more; much like the thought of him watching her on the ridge as she got herself off, thinking about him doing the same in turn. It’s kinda hard not to, let’s face it; he’s utterly gorgeous. She can only wonder why they haven't given in to temptation yet and pounced on one another. Laying side by side on the cushion bed each night tests their resolve further.
But she knows he's being respectful, and she's thankful for that. She could've been left trapped on this island with a complete creepy letch instead of Frankie.
Jude ventures back to the bay to collect the fish, but when she approaches the tin she’s dismayed to find most of the fish they’d collected that morning are mysteriously gone.
“What the fuck?”
Jude begins looking around and spots tiny footprints criss-crossing around in the sand. She scouts through the trees on the way back to the shack, trying to listen for that screeching noise again; the probable thief that has stolen their dinner, but is unable to track it or hear it.
She explains to Frankie what’s happened and he chuckles, standing up and limping a little towards her.
“We can wait, you know, until it’s easier for you to walk.” Jude says, watching as he frowns each time he puts pressure on his foot.
“No way. I’m taking you on a date tonight. Besides, I wanna get that fucker who stole our food.” He retorts, reaching for a spear. “You in?”
“Try and stop me.” She replies, smiling at him with determination.
“¡Esa es mi chica!” Frankie winks at her. (That’s my girl!)
It’s much cooler in the afternoon as they venture out slowly into the wooded area of the island. A reprieve from the scorching hot sun they’ve endured as of late.
They use the spears to move and poke around in the wispy grasses and bushes of the underbrush, looking for any signs of life. More footprints, droppings... Any evidence of what it is that stole the fish and made that shrill shrieking noise.
A while later they hear it again.
“Weird howling noises in the woods? That’s some straight up horror movie shit right there.” Frankie grits as they push further into the tree line. He limps still and is careful about putting weight on his heel.
“I can see your mangina.” Jude teases him and she hears him chuckle.
There’s a low screech again off to the distance of them. She’s completely unfazed and carries on stepping over stones and reeds towards the sound.
“What do you think it is?” Frankie asks, curiously.
“Sounds like a strangled peacock.” She replies, laughing.
“Maybe a small mammal; or a bird of some kind?” He suggests. “Hopefully something we can eat either way.”
“Well it’s either that or a zombie.” Jude states.
“Very funny, I fuckin’ hate zombies.” He says it like they’re real.
“Who doesn’t like zombies? Come on.”
“They scared me when I was a kid.”
“For real?” Jude asks, smiling.
“Yeah. The first time I ever saw a zombie was when I was seven years-old, and my cousin made me stay up and watch Dawn of the Dead. I didn’t sleep for weeks and the slightest creak in my room would set me off. Él era un cabrón.” (He was a bastard.)
“You’re perfectly safe, they only eat brains.” She turns and pokes her tongue out at him and he can’t help but smirk at her.
“You’re on real form today.” Frankie mocks. “And look, you’re in a white tank top too.” He says as he notices her top.
He can see the black bikini straps poking out around her shoulders and he drifts momentarily back to the image of her spear fishing in the bay with him this morning whilst he stole covert glances at her body all wet in it.
“What are you talking about?”
“Your tank top; it’s white.” Frankie says to her, moving drooping vines and leaves out of his way as they walk through them. “The heroine in all good horror movies always wears a white tank top, you ever notice that?” He confirms to her.
“We're not in a horror movie.” She giggles. “Besides, so does Bruce Willis. Yippee Ki-Yay, motherfucker.”
“You won’t be saying that when I’m dead with my entrails hanging out, and you’re fuckin' screaming and running for your life, unknowingly straight into the arms of a machete wielding maniac, after falling over a branch or two first, making the audience genuinely believe you actually have a chance to get away, and then… BAM!”
Jude jumps when he over emphasises the bam part loudly by punching his own open palm.
“You’ve thought way too much about this.” Jude laughs and carries on.
“Remind me again why I’m risking my life for you?” Frankie says, very deadpan.
“Because I rock. And plus you need me, hop-a-long,” she pushes him gently, and he stumbles and falls backwards on his butt onto a grassy knoll. She can’t help but laugh loudly and unrestrained.
"Oh my God!" She howls.
“Are you fuckin’ kidding me?” He laughs at her, astonished and in awe at how freely she’s snorting in between unguarded giggles.
“I’m sorry,” she reaches her hand out to him and helps him back up, her body quaking with laughter and he can't help but to laugh too.
“Oh, my revenge is gonna be sweet, hermosa. Just you wait.” Frankie surmises to her with a side grin, his cheeks flashing a shade of embarrassment.
“Promises, promises...” Jude titters as they carry on.
They hear the screeching noise again, only this time it seems louder and they stop, listening out. Frankie turns his head and Jude’s eyes scan the trees.
The screech comes again and Frankie jumps a little “Shit,” he sighs out.
“I’ll never be able to count on you in a scary situation, will I?” She asks him, smirking.
“Hell no. I’ll offer you up as bait in exchange for my life any time.”
“Pussy.” Jude remarks and he looks down at her with a pink smirk breaking out his lips. She wonders instantly what those lips will feel like on her own.
“Monkey.” Frankie says, looking at her.
“Are you calling me a damn monkey?” She asks with a giggle, and feigning appal at his choice of friendly insult. “That’s not very creative.”
“No,” he shakes his head. “Look...” He points just past her head and she turns. “Up there, in the tree - it’s a monkey.” Frankie whispers.
Her eyes scan as Frankie steps beside her and gazes up at the tree tops. There’s a little brown monkey sitting in the tree branches, almost entirely camouflage, and watching them back with wide yellow eyes.
“He’s so small,” Jude says in wonderment. “Maybe a capuchin or something?”
Frankie shrugs. “I dunno.”
“He looks cute. I’m going to call him Egon.”
“Egon?”
“Yep. He’s clearly a Ghostbuster, don’t you think?” Jude asks. “I reckon he has a Proton Pack hidden somewhere around here.”
They both snicker and watch as the small ape sits in the tree and screeches again as though he’s trying to communicate with them; trying to tell them that he enjoyed eating their fish.
“I don’t think I can eat a monkey,” she puts to Frankie quietly, feeling a little sad.
“Me either, especially now that you’ve fuckin’ named him.” He laughs gently, rolling his eyes. He takes off his cap and runs his hand through his curled, oily locks.
“How did he even get here?” She asks, watching the monkey as it pulls at a leaf on the tree.
“Maybe it’s native?”
“No, there would be more of them, surely.”
“Who says there isn’t?” Frankie asks, shrugging. He plonks the cap back on his head and looks around.
“We would've heard them by now, right? I’m surprised he’s been quiet all this time.”
They watch Egon for a while, marvelling and trying to work out how the little creature ended up on the island with them. He watches them back, cocking his head this way and that.
They walk back towards the shack as dusk is falling over the island.
“I wonder if he came here with the person who built the shack originally, like a pet or something?” Jude muses out loud as they walk, or rather Frankie hobbles.
He nods at her detective ramblings, smiling as the darkness begins to fall around them.
When they reach the shack, Frankie holds the plastic open for her as she steps through it. He reaches for some clothes.
“Be back soon,” he smiles at her, lingering in the doorway for a moment.
Whilst he’s gone, she flops down on the cushion bed tired and thinking about the monkey and then her mind drifts towards this evening.
She glances at the notebook on the case as she considers what their date will be like and can feel the tingle in her toes at the thought of it. She absentmindedly reaches for the notebook and takes the opportunity to have a curious look through it whilst Frankie freshens up.
She leafs through the pages gently at what he’s been writing. She’s sure he won’t mind; it’s not like he’s kept it hidden or has explicitly told her not to read it.
It seems at first like it’s just him making a note of the passing days. Little doodles litter in the corners of the pages, like stick men and vortexes where he’s scribbled the pen round and round whilst thinking, tossed on the paper like inky confetti.
She flips a few pages in and there’s some rough sketches of the shack; schematics if you like, of how he’s going to build it, which makes her smile at his methodical planning.
She continues turning the pages and stops when she gets to a paragraph he’s written and reads it slowly. It looks like a poem, maybe a haiku of some kind, but she soon realises it’s an admission:
... We’re probably going to die on this island. Both of us are going to die and I won’t be able to save her... I can’t watch her die. Not when she’s the one keeping me alive.
Jude wipes her eyes, shutting the notebook and instantly cursing herself for snooping.
It’s evident that Frankie doesn’t have any hope at all for them anymore. He had tried convincing her for so long that they would be okay, lulling her into a false sense of security, telling her what she wanted to hear, when inside he truly believed that they wouldn’t make it.
Of course, the day he went catatonic after the boat fiasco, she knew he’d given up the ghost somewhat, but to know he still had no hope for them, even now with their routines, was a tough feat to accept. Unknowingly burdening her with the responsibility for his own life, it seems.
But isn’t that what she’s done to him, too? She relies on him heavily to get her through, even if she never tells him or actively puts that pressure on him, or realises it herself at times. Just him being here with her is the most important thing to her survival; there’s no way she’d have made it this far without him - her life is literally in his giant hands, and evidently his is in hers too.
It’s a tough responsibility to place on someone, right?
Jude mulls it over as she sniffs in deep, desperate to keep the tears away, and understands his inner pain and turmoil because she’s spent so many nights lying beside him as he sleeps wondering, that if he wasn’t here with her - if he had died - that she would probably want to go with him. She won’t be able to cope on her own here. It’s draining being here and massively taking its toll.
Maybe that seems melodramatic in a way; losing all hope after a mere few months on the island, I mean what’s two months? Pah.
But think about it; every day they wake up with severe lack of sleep deprivation because the nightmares and belly cramps from being constantly hungry keep them awake. They drink water, but their thirst is never fully quenched. They eat the same fish every day. Maybe once a day; sometimes a few days pass by without eating them at all. And the fish soon starts to taste putrid; like they can’t even taste that’s its fish anymore. They soon start to loathe putting it in their mouth because why bother? They can’t even taste or enjoy the flavour anymore. They can no longer stomach it to swallow it down.
They try their best to stay clean and healthy, but the sun scorches their epidermis every day doing unseen damage no doubt; the sea salt is a permanent perfume they carry on their skin and hair no matter how much they sweat or try to rinse it off.
Their bare feet are cracked and dry from walking over the sand and rocks daily, the clothes they wear now aren’t even theirs and don’t fit properly. They don’t know who they belonged to, what stories they could tell them from the previous owners who are lying dead at the bottom of the ocean somewhere. They try to stay busy; to fish, to re-light the same damn fire over and over again. To collect water even when it doesn’t rain for days.
They build a recycled shack for shelter, but it’s never really home. They consume so much energy every day to stay alive, yet they’re constantly exhausted, spent and on the verge of collapse. They don’t even know what it is exactly they’re living for anymore. They can’t remember their families’ faces. They wonder if they can remember theirs; that they existed once.
All this happens in a very short space of time; a couple of months pass by since they landed here, and they’re both already, figuratively, standing on the edge of the ridge, looking over it and wondering if today will be the day they find the courage to jump off and just end it all in a bloodied heap at the bottom. Just stop the suffering, the constant fighting to live a life that isn’t a life to live anymore. How can it be?
Secluded. Isolated.
Just Jude and Frankie, barely hanging on to anything, because there’s nothing to hang on to anymore. It’s like they’ve been cast out from the rest of the world for something terrible that they did, but the world won’t tell them what it is they’re being punished for.
They talk together, they laugh together to pass the daunting stream of time suffocating them both. They put on a brave face masking their inner turmoil from one another, even though the other senses it. They crack jokes; Jude looks into his molten brown eyes daily, but inside them there’s nothing and she can see it as clear as the day as the emptiness is reflected in hers back at Frankie.
They’re both hollow husks of their former selves stranded here. Thrust together by some cruel, wicked fate and they can’t comprehend how or why it happened. Why the plane crashed, why they had to be on that fucking plane when it crashed; the series of events in their live that worked in some devious motion to put them here, to test them - to break them. They blame God, they blame kismet; Jude blames that no good bastard Nate.
Is God testing them right now? Have they passed or are they failing miserably and the reward is sweet, lustful death? Welcome oblivion? They’re so tired of this shit; just so fucking tired. When the Grim Reaper comes for them, they won’t resist, they’ll get up and take his skeletal hand willingly.
They’re wasting away, getting thinner; Jude’s hair is getting longer, all hair on her body in fact becomes unruly and un-groomed. Her legs are as hairy as Frankie’s some days. And she doesn’t even want to acknowledge the car crash between her legs. His face begins to disappear from the hair that grows on it and she wonders if she’ll forget his face too as he vanishes underneath it before her eyes.
She stops looking in the little cosmetic mirror because the face that’s looking back at her isn’t hers anymore. She buries the mirror in the sand one day, and a part of her forever gets buried with it.
They’ve changed; this horrid landscape has changed them. It’s not an island paradise in the tropics; the brochure lied - it’s Hell that they’re living in, literal Hell.
Every. Single. Day. Is. Fucking. Hell.
And when she reads those words from the person residing in this Hell with her, Jude can’t help but feel united in a peaceful acceptance with him; because deep down she knows Frankie is right.
Even though she desperately needs him to tell her it’s not true; that it’s not all in vain. That they’re both going to make it like he used to reassure her, and then escape into the sunset together back in the real world.
But it’s all a damn lie. He’s only being honest with her, even if he never says it to her face anymore, but instead via words on crinkled paper he wrote when he had lost all hope; when he was deeply hurting and didn’t know what else to do or say to comfort himself, let alone Jude too. The truth hurts after all. Jude wants him to lie so badly to her. But he doesn’t - he can’t - because they both know it.
They are going to die on this island. Both of them.
And there’s fuck all she can do about it except roll over and wait for it to take them.
She stares at the notebook for a long time. For so long that Jude doesn’t hear him come back into the shack at first.
Frankie’s wearing a blue, floral patterned shirt - which he seems to favour over the others most - over a white t-shirt and some shorts. His facial hair seems longer, yet is sparse in some random patches, she notes. Almost as if it’s grown further in the time it's taken him to bathe and return, which is probably mere minutes, but after reading the notebook passage, feels like forever.
He smiles at her, but his eyes regard her differently. It’s almost as if she can now see all the pain that he’s hidden so well from her.
“You okay?” Frankie asks her as he tosses his other clothes into the case they’ve allocated for their dirty laundry.
Jude nods and gives him a bright smile that’s as sincere as she can muster. More lies fed to each other.
“I’ll go and get ready; won’t be long.” She picks up some clothes and makes her way out the shack and down to the shoreline, stopping at the cave mouth for toiletries.
She bathes and washes away the grime and sweat from the day, but it never really leaves her skin. It’ll be a stench that will be about her person always now it seems.
She looks up at the dark sky from inside the water to be met with a vacant, deep sapphire sky and for a while her thoughts are just as blank. Cut off and void. Just floating on the water's surface, naked under the moonlight and willing the current to take her out to sea and drown her.
Once back on the shore, she puts on the sundress, the turquoise one with the sequins she has yet to wear, and sits on the sand and shaves her legs as best as she can with the blunt razor. She nicks her skin a few times, drawing blood as the razor is effectively useless now.
She inspects the razor blade; shimmering at her from under the light of the moon, and as she runs her thumb over the top of it feeling its jagged surface, she envisions running it across her wrists and just bleeding out here on the sand quietly. End it all, no worries; no more just surviving.
But then she thinks of what Frankie had written: Not when she’s the one keeping me alive...
She drops the razor to the sand beside her and places her hands over her mouth, sobbing as quietly as she can. Cramming the chokes and sniffles back into her selfish body and willing herself to stop with the breakdown.
But she can’t, it rocks through her and renders her a lost and frightened mess. The weight of their predicament, the uncertainty of their future, and the longing for home crashes down upon her like a tidal wave, threatening to engulf her in unrelenting despair.
Each tear that streams down her cheeks carries with it a torrent of pent-up emotion, a silent plea for release from the suffocating grip of this life. She cries until her throat is raw, her nose stuffy and until her chest aches with the effort of holding back the pain. And so, as she lays there on the sand, her tears mingling with the saltwater of the ocean, Jude allows herself to surrender to the unfiltered emotion that consumes her, because she can’t do anything else.
She walks up the beach front towards the rocks and the fire after a few minutes of convincing herself she’ll be okay; sniffing in deeply over and over to rid any evidence of her tears.
The heat is felt on her blotchy face as she passes it. Inside the shack, Frankie is sitting on the cushion bed and looks up at her as she comes in.
She tosses her dirty clothes into the case and he stands up to greet her.
“You look great,” he says to her, smiling approvingly and trying to keep his eyes inside his head.
Jude looks down at the previously unworn sundress that’s a little big for her, and smiles at him. “Not too bad, huh?”
He shakes his head. “Not too bad at all.”
“So,” she puts to him as they stand in the centre of the shack, inches apart from one another, staring at each other.
It’s like they’ve both been given new eyes and can really see each other for the first time. See each other for who they really are under that brazen front presented; can see that each of them are a little worn and bruised on the inside.
His eyes fall on the sequins that swirl all over the front of the sundress and glimmer as the flames from the fire through the window hole dance upon them and make them glitter at him.
His fingers twitch, wanting to reach out and touch one, and a slight look of remorse kidnaps his smile for a brief moment.
“What have you got planned for me?” Jude enquires with a smile.
He smirks at her from under the shadows of his cap; a devilish puckered grin breaking out across his lips that makes her skin prickle up and her nipples come alive and harden under the dress.
“Well, I was thinking maybe a movie, but the cinema here really sucks with their listings.” He states.
She giggles.
“Then I thought maybe salsa dancing,” he rocks his hips from side to side a little and she puts her hand over her mouth as she laughs again as she regards his awkward moves. “But I can’t fuckin’ dance to save my life.” Frankie concludes.
“Evidently,” she agrees, licking her lips.
“So, I figured we could go for a drive and maybe have an impromptu groping session in the back of my truck on the ridge. It’s what all the cool kids do, right?”
“Absolutely,” Jude laughs harder this time, and he chuckles in awe at her.
“I like it when you do that.” Frankie admits and his smile remains in place on his face.
“Do what?”
“Laugh like that. It’s awesome.” He steps forward closing the gap, and tucks her damp hair behind her ear.
She reaches up to his wrist and holds onto it for a moment before taking his left hand and circling the little bullseye tattoo over it.
He smells wild, like the sea and the outside world. The elements of the planet absorbing into his skin and leaving a distinct scent mixed in with his own fragile existence as a man. A man that’s seemingly more attractive to her as the days wear on; thinking about his skin against hers, how he’ll taste on her lips - all the ways he could fuck her over this island.
His fingers feel warm on her face as they brush against her cheek. Sure, they’ve both spied on one another for shits and kinky giggles covertly, but his touch is real now and it burns, leaving scorching, painful brands.
“Frankie,” Jude murmurs softly as he puts both his hands on the side of her face and looks down into her weary eyes.
“Mm?” He hums in a bewitching tone as time slows down around them.
“I need you to tell me that we’re going to get off this island. I need you to believe it.” She whispers to him, clutching onto his wrists.
He presses his forehead against hers and breathes out into her face, the rim of his cap pushing it off his head slightly as it makes contact with hers. “I can’t...”
“Lie to me. Make me believe it.”
“I can’t do that either.” Frankie replies, the warmth of his breath flowing from his plush mouth settles into her pores.
She looks at him and can see his lips, so huge and pink right in her eyes, surrounded by the fuzz of his ever growing moustache and beard.
“Please.” She whimpers; his fingers are felt rummaging hypnotically inside of her hair and scalp, making all the hairs on her body stand tall to order.
He draws back and looks at her square in the eye after taking a deep breath. “We’re going to get off this island.” Frankie says directly to her in a voice that isn’t convincing at all.
“Say it again.” Jude prompts.
“We’re going to get off this island.”
“And again.”
“We’re...” He pauses, searching for the strength he knows he had inside of him once upon a time; before he had come to this wretched place. Before he had succumbed to an addiction that messed everything up.
But he’s coming up empty.
“Frankie-”
He sighs softly. “We’re going to get off this island, Jude.” He repeats again, his shoulders sagging.
She looks back into his eyes; those big, unrelenting orbs that hold a thousand secrets and a thousand lies and it’s hard to tell which is which as they churn around his irises.
“Liar.” She says, with a small slip of a smile and he smiles back at her.
“Promise me something,” she puts to him as he regards her.
“What?” Frankie asks.
“Promise me that you’ll always be honest with me. Even if it’s something you think I won’t want to hear, okay?”
Frankie glances over at the notebook and she turns him back to face her. “Just promise me.”
He nods slowly, his face changing as though he’s been caught out on some dirty, twisted secret. “Did you read it all?”
“I read enough.” Jude says, softly. “You once said to me that it was okay to be scared.”
He nods. “I promise.”
She reaches for his hand and squeezes it tightly.
“Good. Now where’s your shitty truck parked?”
Frankie smiles lightly and takes her hand, leading her out the shack towards the fire.
They eat the remaining fish that Egon hadn’t stolen by the fire side and drink water.
But in the spirit of first dates, Frankie explains to her, in great detail, that he’s in fact taken her to his favourite Mexican restaurant in Florida. They aren’t here under the moonlight, but drinking cocktails, sitting at a table by the window watching the world go by, as they eat and talk and laugh about every topic imaginable.
“What’s it called, this amazing restaurant?”
“The Dancing Red Pepper.” Frankie says, after swallowing his fish.
“Really?”
“They make this cocktail, it’s all the colours of the Mexican flag. I have no fuckin’ idea how they do it, but it’s really cool.” He shrugs.
“That does sound very cool.” Jude agrees. “What do you think you’d be doing if you didn’t go into the Army?” She asks. “Like, what did you wanna be when you grew up?”
“I liked science at school… I figured maybe I could be an archaeologist. I wanted to dig up dinosaur bones.”
“Dinosaurs, huh?” She sounds impressed.
Frankie nods. “Almost came in my pants when I watched Jurassic Park for the first time.”
She snorts. “Cute.”
“What about you? What was the dream job?” He queries with a smirk.
“I’m doing it. I love taking pictures. Always have. It kinda gives you a different perspective on the world when you look through the lens.” She speaks with reverence and a deep rooted adoration for it. It radiates out of her and sinks into Frankie’s skin, infecting him with the wonderment of it all.
“What’s your favourite photograph you’ve ever taken?” Frankie asks.
Jude thinks for a moment and smiles looking into the fire. “I was in France, Paris… there’s this row of benches down by the Jardins Tuileries. And it's really peaceful there... it's nice to just stop and rest, you know? I watched when this old couple sat down together. She pulls a sandwich out of her purse and hands him half it, and they sit there and eat together. And like, they don’t say a word to each other. At all. Like, nothing. No conversation, just silence.”
“Really?” He asks.
“Yeah. but it’s not weird, you know? There wasn’t any tension like they’d had an argument or anything. They simply just hold hands and eat their sandwich half with the other, and watch the world go by together. I took the photo when they’d finished, and the man had turned to the woman and noticed she had a piece of the sandwich on her lip. And he gets his handkerchief out of his pocket and just… dabs ever so gently at her face and smiles at her. I captured it there at that moment. That moment when he looked into her eyes and smiled at her with the most adoration I think I've ever seen in anyone's eyes. It was beautiful.”
“They were in love.” Frankie surmises.
“I really think they were.” Jude smiles. “I have it framed in my room… or at least, I did.”
“I’d love to see it one day, your photo.” He says. And she smiles at him with a little nod.
They sit eating together in a wistful silence for a few moments before Frankie speaks again.
“Did Nate ever look at you like that?"
Jude snorts. "No."
"Tell me how you met him."
“You really want to know about him?” She frowns a little.
“Sure, he was a part of your life, right? Even if he is an asshole.”
“He was.” She bites down on the inside of her cheek sourly. “We met at a house party; he was a friend of a friend.”
“Tell me what happened. You said he cheated?” He enquires.
“I walked in on him fucking another woman in our bed. And it wasn’t for the first time either.”
“Shit, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I needed to see it - again. To finally know that I was worth so much more than what he could give me. I’ve spent some time, whilst we’ve been here, evaluating things. I’m sure you have too.”
Frankie nods silently. His mind drifts back to the tumultuous events of his past - the choices made, the paths taken, and the mistakes that haunt him still.
“And it puts a lot of things into perspective, I guess. Like, when we get off this island, there are so many things I’m going to do differently.”
“Did you love him? Like those two people on the bench?” Frankie asks as he looks at her intently, those enquiring eyes of his round and fixated on her.
“With all my piece of shit heart,” she admits. “Did you love your girlfriend?”
Frankie shakes his head. “Not for a long time.”
“Why couldn’t you just tell her?”
Frankie picks up a pebble in the sand; fiddles with it around his thick, shaky fingers. “Because… I was afraid of admitting it out loud to myself,” he replies.
“What were you afraid of exactly?” Jude enquires.
“That I could never really love anybody,” he says flatly. “I know I felt something for her. I know I felt all those things you’re supposed to feel for someone in the beginning. Affection, caring... Maybe even love, I dunno. I just know for a long time we weren’t right, and it was my fault.”
“Why was it your fault, what did you do?” Jude asks.
He swallows hard and sighs hesitantly.
“Frankie, you don’t have to tell me if you’re not comfor-”
“No I…” He sighs again. “I wanna tell you. I-I just don’t think you’ll like it when I do.”
He glances at Jude, her soft features illuminated by the warm glow of the fire, and feels a knot form in his stomach.
For weeks, he’s wrestled with the decision to confide in her, to lay bare the darkest chapter of his past - the chapter he’s fought so hard to overcome, yet has never truly escaped. It's followed him here to the island too.
But as he looks into her eyes, he sees a glimmer of understanding, a flicker of empathy that gives him the courage to speak. Taking a deep breath, he begins to recount the events that had led him down the path of addiction - the pain, the loneliness, the overwhelming sense of despair that had driven him to seek solace in the numbing embrace of drugs.
“I-I had a problem. A problem with drugs. Cocaine. It was so stupid. I lost my licence to fly.” He breathes, feeling his fingers tremble around the pebble further.
“In the Army?”
“No, I’d done my service. Twenty years, or thereabouts. Felt longer. I retired honourably. Entered back into civilization, but it was… different. Tough to adjust and I don't think I really did. I guess I found it hard to settle. We all did.”
“We? You mean your Army buddies?” Judes probes gently.
“Yeah. There isn’t a lot of support out there for us. You're kinda left displaced, y'know? A pat on the back and off you go. I had nightmares for a really long time. I… have nightmares. Sometimes they’re really fuckin' bad. Vivid.”
“I can’t imagine the things you must’ve seen.” Her eyes urge him to continue.
“The things I did,” he holds his wrist out and takes off his broken watch to show Jude the numbers inked into his skin.
“Do they mean something?” She asks, peering at them carefully. She wants to trace her finger over them. “Are they coordinates?”
He shakes his head. “Memories. 9 physical scars. 28 stitches. 39 confirmed kills. 87 civilians. 208 days spent on the front line. 674 bullets.”
“God.” Jude trails off quietly. “Frankie, that’s…”
“I know.” He nods, he tosses the watch on the sand. Jude shuffles closer to him, her knee brushing against his and he smiles thinly.
"9 scars?" She asks, unable to imagine the stories behind them.
He nods. "My body is pretty fucked. But not as much as in here, I guess." He points to his temple and Jude nods forlornly as she tries to comprehend it all.
Taking a deep breath, Frankie begins to speak again, his voice steady, but tinged with emotion.
"It started a few years ago," he says, his gaze fixed on the flickering flames before them. “I dunno, I just… it wasn’t something I actively looked for, it was an opportunity to make some extra cash to help. Things were bad, I was pretty desperate. I was working as a cargo transfer pilot, shit pay and long hours, flying in and picking up small cargo units to bring over borders etc… legitimate cargo. But then I was asked to carry cargo that wasn’t so legitimate.”
“Drugs.” Jude nods.
“It was easy. Too fuckin’ easy. I knew the routes to stay undetected. And then they stopped paying me in cash and paid me in drugs a few times and it started then. I just wanted to sleep. To stop having nightmares. And it worked. Being high was like... all the noise stopped. It was quiet for a while... I got caught. I failed a routine drug test. Pilots can’t fly under any influence. I lost my job after a suspension. I was lucky I didn’t go to jail. And then my life just… spiralled. So fuckin’ fast. And then I went on a job with my buddies. An opportunity came up to make some decent money. Real decent. Could set me up for life. Completely illegal, of course. Colombia..."
He trails off, frowning at the recall of the events in the Andes.
"In Delta Force, we have skills that are specialist. Training for missions that aren't exactly by the book. And this mission was as far from the book as they come. I don’t even know why the fuck I said yes, it was a fuckin’ disaster from the start. We lost one of our own. Tom. He could be an asshole, but he was first in command. He had a daughter… We came home with nothing. Gave the money to the family. It was the right thing to do. I-I came home and threw myself into the drugs to cope I guess. I didn’t tell anybody.”
“You went through all that alone?” Jude asks, looking at him.
“I pushed them all away, it was easier. No guilt. It wasn't just the drugs," Frankie continues, his voice growing softer. "It was the loneliness, the sense of... of failure. I felt like I'd let everyone down, like I'd lost myself somewhere along the way."
Tears well up in his eyes as he speaks, and he pauses, overcome by the weight of his own words. He looks down to see Jude weaving her fingers into his and squeezing gently. He squeezes back.
His voice is steady, but tinged with emotion. “But then I accidentally overdosed and it scared me enough to get help. I went to rehab and it was... terrifying. My sponsor, Eddie, he... I got a new job and threw myself into work. It was all I had, and I needed the distraction it gave me. I was six months sober when I boarded the plane.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a little coin and hands it to her.
"You had this on you all this time?" The coin is small; a little worn round the edge and tarnished.
"Yeah, it survived with me in my pocket. I forgot all about it until after a few days of being here when it fell out as I was washing up my jeans."
“I’m proud of you, Frankie.” Jude whispers.
He simply baulks.
“No-one’s ever told you that, have they?”
“No, just you…” He admits. Frankie wipes away a stray tear, his chest tight with emotion. "Thank you," he whispers, his voice thick with gratitude. "I've never told anyone about this before."
“Did your partner know?”
“Yeah. I put her through a lot. She was there when it got real bad. She was pissed when I went to Colombia. And it was worse when I got back. I think she really hated me in the end. I don’t blame her... I fucked it up entirely.”
Jude squeezes his arm with her other hand and rests her head against it, looking into the fire. “No-one enters into a relationship with the intention of fucking it up.”
“Even Nate?” Frankie questions.
“Well, maybe he’s the exception,” she smirks. “But I think he was just lost in his own way, I guess.”
“Do you miss him?” He asks her enquiringly.
She sighs out. “Sometimes it hurts, like it winds me a bit, from out of nowhere, you know?”
He nods, feeling how good her fingers feel knotted in his own. Her chin knocks against his bicep as she speaks.
“Do you miss your ex-girlfriend? I mean, would you want to try to rekindle things with her again when you get home?”
Frankie shakes his head. “No, it’s dead in the water. I just... I don't want you to think less of me," he admits, his voice tinged with a croaked vulnerability. "But I cheated on her too. Only once. I was completely out of it and, I know it's not an excuse."
She looks up at him, her chin resting on his shoulder.
"I could never think less of you." Jude says, earnestly. "You were hurting, Frankie."
“Back home, I was a completely different man to what I am here.”
"You're strong, you're brave, and you're here, sharing your story with me. That means everything. People can change, Frankie. I’m glad you told me.”
Tears well up in Frankie's eyes again, overwhelmed by her kindness and sincerity. “You told me I could tell you anything, even if you didn’t wanna to hear it.” He murmurs, his voice thick with emotion.
“It's heavy, sure. But, I’m glad you told me. And it’s eight months, by the way. You're eight months sober.” Jude smiles.
Frankie nods looking at her face, inches from his own. “Yeah.”
“I'm just grateful that you trust me enough to open up like this." She surmises.
“I do.” He confirms. He puts his arm around her and squeezes her in close. She feels his hand resting at the hem of the dress, his thumb smoothing over the crease in the dress there on her thigh, running back and forth gently.
She closes her eyes and focuses on the hypnotic feel of it, nuzzling in closer on his arm.
They sit together looking out at the water, blackened by night around the edges of the horizon, but lit up by the moon and galaxy of stars above. Despite the isolation, there’s beauty to be found in this place; times like this where the sapphire water seems to almost glimmer at them and the world is immensely peaceful, save for the gentle rolling waves on the shore; constant background music that never pauses.
“This might sound weird, but being here, with you, it doesn’t suck at all.” Frankie mumbles.
“Ditto.” Jude replies with a smile when he turns to her. She nudges into him playfully with her shoulder and he chuckles.
For a fleeting moment, he entertains the idea of leaning in, of pressing his lips to hers and losing himself in the warmth of her embrace.
His body feels it, blood pumping. Instead, he shifts slightly, adjusting his position by the fire, and forces himself to focus on the crackling flames before him. The temptation lingers in the air, thick and heavy like the smoke from the fire.
Frankie can feel it pulling at him, tugging at the edges of his resolve. He wants nothing more than to lean in, to close the distance between them, and to taste the sweetness of her lips against his own. But he holds himself back, his heart pounding in his chest as he fights against the urge.
Jude senses his hesitation, and turns to him, her eyes searching his face carefully. "Are you okay?" She asks softly.
“I’m sorry that what I wrote upset you.” Frankie says, swallowing hard.
“You don’t need to apologise for feeling that way. I mean, we’re kinda leaning on each other, right?” She feels that pang inside her chest again.
“Yeah... we are.”
“I’m glad.” She smiles. “I’m glad you’re here with me. We can definitely get through this together. This island has met its match.” She makes a fist and he bumps it with his own.
“It sure has, hermosa," he agrees. Frankie looks at her and smiles back before looking out at the sea again.
He stands up with her after a while of contented, thoughtful silence that envelops them both, and they smile back at one another again.
“So, this is the part where I walk you home and then you ask me if I want to come in for a coffee.” Frankie states with the fire casting dancing embers inside his eyes; almost glowering at her demonically.
“You know that's code, right?" She chirps. "Besides, I don’t drink coffee, so good luck with that.”
“Really, no coffee?”
“No, can’t stand the taste.”
“Man, I can’t even function in the morning without a coffee.” He holds out his arm for her, and she links it in hers.
“I had a really good time tonight.” She teases him in a fluttery voice.
“Oh, shut up,” he smirks, as they laugh walking the very short distance from the shoreline, past the fire and towards the shack.
Once at the shack, they linger outside the doorway and both giggle awkwardly.
“So,” Frankie begins.
“Don’t be weird.” Jude concludes.
“Was it everything you hoped for?” Frankie asks, as he puts his hands inside his shorts pockets awkwardly.
“You mean the date?”
“What else would I be referring to?” He shrugs with a smirk.
“It was perfect.”
“Perfect, huh? No room for improvement; I mean the fuckin’ waiter took ages with the dessert.”
“True. Okay, I’ll knock it down to a seven out of ten.”
“Seven? Ouch...” He puts his hand over his chest like he’s been shot.
She laughs again and brushes the hair away from her face.
“If I kiss you, will that bump it up to ten?” Frankie asks with a fixated smile looming over her.
“I don’t know. Try it and see.” She feels her stomach flutter and her heart begin to thrum in her chest.
He simply twists his cap backwards on his head making her chuckle, and pulls her closer to him with his arm around her waist; his touch seems like it’s suddenly burning. He reaches up, his fingers on her chin and tilts her face up to him.
“You’re so fuckin’ beautiful, you know that?” Frankie murmurs to her and watches as her eyes dip, smiling under her fanned lashes and melting somewhat in his arms.
His eyes are deep set and mysterious, rounded and yet almond shaped at the same time. She’s wondered for so long what this would be like, thinking about how he’ll taste, feel...
“Are you gonna smooth talk me, Fish, or are you gonna kiss me?” Jude giggles.
Smiling, he slants his lips against hers, smooching delicately as her hands sweep around the back of his neck and she stands up on tip toes as he pulls her against his slender body.
His tongue slides inside her mouth tentatively and exploring; the wiry, greying hairs from his moustache tickling her lip deliciously. His hand works inside her hair at the back of her head, cradling her closer, and she rifles her fingers through his curls at the nape of his neck and feels him groan inside her mouth.
The noise sets her skin alight, birthing millions of goose bumps across the surface and sending shivers down her spine and into her toes. Jude nips onto his lips and he smiles through the kiss, biting back gently and suckling on her bottom lip; their tongues dancing and grinding against one another as they explore each other’s mouths in a hypnotic rhythm.
Every nerve in his body seems to come alive with the electric energy of the moment, sparking with the intensity of their connection.
But beneath the surface of his excitement, there’s also a profound sense of vulnerability lurking as he trembles. He’s baring his soul to her, laying his heart on the line in a way he never has before. The weight of his confession hangs heavy in the air, mingling with the crackling of the fire and the soft sigh of the night breeze.
Yet despite the uncertainty that dances on the edges of his consciousness, there’s also a sense of rightness, of belonging. In her arms, Frankie feels safe, understood, and accepted for who he truly is, faults and all. And as their lips meet in a tender, yet charged lock, all the doubts and fears that have plagued him melt away into a depth that he feels like he's no longer drowning in. He feels, for a moment, like he can truly breathe above the surface of the water.
For Jude, the moment is a whirlwind of emotions, a kaleidoscope of sensations that leave her breathless and exhilarated. As Franke leans in to kiss her, she feels a surge of warmth spread through her body, igniting a spark of desire deep within her core.
His touch is gentle yet firm, sending shivers down her spine with anticipation. Her heart races in her chest and ears, a rapid cadence matching the rhythm of their breaths as they meld together in an intimate vie for one another.
She can feel the heat of his body against hers, a comforting warmth that chases away the oncoming chill of the night air. With each brush of their lips, she feels herself sinking deeper into the moment, losing herself in the dizzying sensation of him. Time seems to stand still as they linger in each other's arms, their bodies pressed close as if trying to merge into one.
He pulls away, leaving the ghost of him on her lips to taste, and waits, looking at her expectantly.
“Meh. Nine point five,” Jude remarks, and he rolls his eyes smirking, leaning in to kiss her again.
She kisses him back intensely, feeling how wet and warm his tongue is inside her mouth again. It makes Catherine wheel’s spin inside her chest, her toes buzz. She clenches between her legs when she feels him prodding against her belly, something so obviously hard in it's shape, and it makes her whimper.
And Frankie groans at that sound, clutching her closer; his kiss becoming more frantic, her hands grappling at him harder. He squeezes at her hips with a grunt.
“Frankie…” She gasps, running her mouth up the side of his neck, tasting the salted skin there as he licks and kisses over her shoulder, tempted, so fuckin' tempted, to just pull the strap down.
Her mind goes blank, lost in the noise of the colour he paints over her skin with his tongue.
”Tell me to stop,” he husks as his hands slide over her ass, groping and squeezing as he winds his hips further into her body. "Jude, tell me to stop." He begs.
“I don’t want you to stop.” Jude gasps, finding his mouth again as he crushes her to him. She runs her hands down his chest and he shudders. “Take me inside,” she smiles around his lips.
“If I take you inside, I’m gonna fuck you.” Frankie warns with a groan as her hands knot inside his shirt, tugging on it sharply and moaning out at his words. “And you said you don’t fuck guys on a first date,” he pants, feeling his head swim and fill with bubbles.
Jude looks up at him, her heart hammering so loud in her ears that she’s convinced he can hear it too. “I might make an exception, just this once.”
All he can think about is how she feels inside his hands as he tries his damned hardest to cling onto his remaining composure, fingers slipping off the ledge.
And how fucking hard he is right now.
He grins at her, thumb running the length of her jaw before he kisses there again. “Me matas… fuck.” (You kill me.)
“Take me inside and fuck me, Frankie.” She confirms with a blazing smile.
To be continued...
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Designated Person | 9
Pairing: Francisco “Catfish” Morales x F!Reader
Chapter 9: Where The Wild Things Are
Rating: Explicit (18+ only)
Word Count: 8.6k+
Tags / Warnings: alternating pov, infidelity, past romantic & sexual relationship, angst, food mention, jealousy, alcohol & alcoholism, lying, conflict avoidance, crying, internal conflict, birthday party, a low-key dudes rule moment (bros! bros! bros!), tried my hardest hardest with Spanish but I am a white girl I’m sorry if its wrong pls let me know, a lot of dialogue like so much dialogue fuck, children, toxic relationships just bad all around
Notes: WELL HI, long time no see! I know it’s been over 6 months since I’ve updated. I went on a warpath with another series (Psychomanteum—it’s finished if you wanna check it out). But I’m back to force these two dummies to walk through hellfire 💘
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———————————————————————————
Nothing seems right.
For what has to be the hundredth time, you sift through the sparse collection of t-shirts and dresses hanging in your closet. Each time you push a hanger aside to consider a potential outfit, your brain falls into the same pattern.
First, you wonder if Frankie would like it. Granted, if you showed up wearing a cardboard box he’d still want to fuck you.
You want him to like it more than that, though.
You want him to see you and get all weak in the knees. You want him to look at you in that way he does sometimes. That soft, magnetic look that tugs at every part of you. The one that argues against logic and speaks to intuition instead. That can't-eat, can't-sleep, reach-for-the-stars, over-the-fence, World Series kind of look.
After considering this entirely reasonable and attainable goal, you picture yourself wearing the clothes through Angie’s eyes.
You dissect each potential outfit as she would. This dress too low cut, that one too frumpy, the other too short. A critical chorus of slut slut slut plays in the back of your head, accented by the memory of her manicured hands wrapped around your throat, the growl she let out when she squeezed around your windpipe.
“You little slut, I will fucking kill you.”
Throughout this whirlwind of turmoil, snippets from this morning rise to the surface and drown out everything else.
Frankie’s lips on yours, hungry and certain. His strong hands on your body, digging into your skin. The way he talked to you, voice low and strained—Whose pussy is this?
Every time these words repeat, your heart hammers in your chest. Tingles trickle out from between your legs and work up your spine.
The time before this, right after he moved in, when you fucked on the couch… you felt dirty afterwards. It sent you into a spiral of self-guilt that gnawed away at you for days. It reminded you of how sex was towards the end last time. Like you could have been anyone. Like he needed something to make him feel alive, and you were just the most ready and willing participant.
But it felt different this time.
Intimate in a way it hasn’t been in so long. It felt like an act of something bigger and stronger, like he needed you specifically. Not the rush of endorphins. Not just the heat of another person. Not a substitute for the love his wife wouldn’t give him. It felt like he needed you and nothing else would sate him.
“I won’t do that to you again, mariposa, I promise. I’ll fix it, I promise I’ll fix it, ok?”
Right about here is when indecision ties your brain off in a knot that seizes the production of valuable output.
Then you return to yourself, staring into the closet like it’s fucking Narnia, and slide the hanger aside to do it all over again.
—
Frankie collapses into a patio chair with a groan, running a hand through his sweat-soaked hair before replacing his cap, then tilts his head up towards the blazing sun and closes his eyes.
When he trekked through the Andes with his team, there were nights where he felt the cold so deep in his bones, he wondered if he would ever be able to get warm again.
Right now is the opposite of that.
Right now he would give up fistfuls of cash to feel that bone-deep freeze.
He casts a longing glance at the cooler and fantasizes about drinking a cold beer. That psssch-ahsound it would make when he opened the tab. He imagines the condensation cooling his heated skin and the alcohol calming his fried nerves.
Fuck, that sounds perfect.
Through the open window to the dining room, he can hear Angie and her sister Marta gossiping to each other, talking about how so-and-so is dating what’s his face again and blah blah blah. His ears perk up when Marta segues into their personal life.
“Speaking of people getting back together… How are things with you and Frankie?”
Angie doesn’t say anything, but must make a face at her sister because she follows the question up by giggling, “What, can I not ask?”
“Ay, Marta. No seas metiche.”
A beat of silence passes. Marta must non-verbally pry, because Angie speaks again, quieter this time.
“We’ll see.” Then quickly, almost defensively, she adds, “He’s getting his act together, you know. He quit drinking, and he’s doing this parole program. It seems like… it seems like he’s trying.”
“Mmm. Is he still living with that girl? Su amante?”
Frankie knows Angie well enough to know she rolls her eyes in response.
Marta tsks, but any further conversation is cut off by a sudden commotion of squealing and bickering.
He looks down at his watch, reading 1240, and guesses that Angie’s friend Carmen arrived with her five children.
His eyes clamp shut and he fantasizes about drinking a beer. Maybe three. Hell, make it ten. Ten would do just fine. Ten would anesthetize him just enough to let him clear his head and make this whole ordeal manageable.
“Just get through today,” he tells himself, “Just one more goddamn day, then you can be done with this fucking charade.”
The backdoor opens, releasing a burst of chaotic noise. Angie and Carmen step out, and he stands at attention.
“Oh wow, look at all this,” Carmen tells Angie, “Damn girl, you really went all out, didn’t you?”
“We don’t really know what the situation will be next year, with Frankie and everything,” Angie’s eyes flick to him, and she shrugs, “So I figured, make it memorable. For all of us.”
“Sure,” Carmen nods, concern creasing her brow, then she acknowledges Frankie with a quick head-to-toe scan, “Francisco, how’re you doing?”
“Better than I deserve,” he smirks, and gestures to the gift bag hanging off her wrist, “Let me take that for you. Want anything to drink?”
She hands off the present and glances at Angie, then back to Frankie, “Can I get a beer?”
“Sure,” he nods to Angie, “How about you, amor?”
“I’ll take a beer, too.”
“Two beers coming up,” Frankie calls behind him while descending the stairs.
As he walks to the 10’ x 20’ white canopy tent, he tries to eavesdrop, but the two women talk to each other in hushed tones. He has no doubt it’s about him, though, because he hears Carmen exclaim, “Oh shit, really?” then, quieter but still distinguishable, “Good for you, mamá.”
After dropping the gift bag on the designated table, Frankie goes to the cooler to grab two cans of beer and a bottle of water, then returns to the deck, where Angie and Carmen both lean against the railing. They both murmur a thanks when he hands them their drinks.
He rubs between her shoulder blades, “Need anything else?”
“A fucking Xanax,” she jokes while cracking her beer open. He watches foam bubble up from the mouth of the can and his pulse surges green with envy. She takes a long sip, then sighs, “Mmm let’s see. Food is done, Mamá and Marta are bringing everything out. Your mom should be here with the cake any minute. You got everything set up in the tent?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Alright, well,” she takes another swig and shrugs, “Wanna get the slip ‘n’ slide going? We can get the kiddos changed into their suits.”
“You got it.”
He starts away, but she grabs his shirt to stop him.
When he turns back to her, eyebrows raised in question, her golden brown eyes meet his, then drop to his lips, “Thank you.”
His hand finds her waist and he nods, “Not a problem.”
She kisses him, and he kisses her back, thinking of you—always fucking thinking of you— as he tells himself: One more day.
—
Leah picks up on the second ring.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“Tell me I shouldn’t go to this party.”
She releases a big sigh that makes you grimace, then says, “Tell me you’re not actually thinking of going.”
You glance up at the Morales residence through your windshield, sinking down into your seat when you spot Benny, Will, and Dani making their way up the driveway.
“I’m outside in my car.”
Leah is quiet for a moment before she asks, “Do you want to go?”
“Yes and no,” you watch the Millers open the door and go inside the house, “I want to see Sarah, and I wanna be there for Frankie, just because… I don’t know, everything, but…”
“But Angie?”
You nod, casting your eyes down to your hands to pick at the frayed cuticles, “I’m afraid she’s going to say something or do something to retaliate against me.”
“You did have an affair with her husband—”
“I’m well aware,” you snip.
The silence that follows wrings guilt from your stomach. A burning sensation works up your throat behind your eyes, so you pinch them shut and hang your head.
“Fuck, sorry. You’re right. She has every right to despise me. I deserve it. I shouldn’t go, it’s stupid.”
Your words come out all pathetic and warbled by tears, but you continue anyway.
“I feel so torn. I care about them a lot and I wanna be there. I want it to be better so that… fuck. I don’t know. Nevermind.”
“Why do you want it to be better?”
“It’s stupid.”
“No, I want you to tell me.”
You take a deep, shaky breath, tilting your head up towards the drooping ceiling of your car. The answer pulses through your body and tingles on the tip of your tongue. If you speak it you might shatter to dust.
Instead, you offer up a consolation prize to distract her.
“I did something I shouldn’t have,” you whisper, then swing your head down to stare at your steering wheel, “I… had sex with him.”
Leah snorts, “I fucking knew it.”
“Shut up, you did not,” you scoff, “It just happened this morning.”
“Rach owes me $10.”
“You bet that—God, you are the worst.”
You hang up on her, then stare at your phone for a few seconds before sending a text to Frankie.
< ME:
< Are you sure I should come? I feel nervous
A few unresponsive seconds go by before you flip the visor down to inspect your reflection in the mirror. Not terrible. Some black smudges around your eyes. Could use some lipstick.
You remedy these problems while trying not to think too hard about what you’re about to do, lying to yourself in hopes that you can somehow warp the truth.
This will be fine.
—
By the time Frankie gets the hose hooked up to the slip ‘n’ slide, his mother- and sister-in-law are setting the last few food items out on the long folding table under the tent.
Two of Carmen’s sons dash across the deck in their swimsuits. As he passes them on the stairs, he ruffles the older one’s scraggly dark brown hair, calling after them, “Soda and water in the cooler if you boys are thirsty.”
They holler an acknowledgment as Frankie makes his way inside.
The relief of stepping into cool, conditioned air quickly dissipates as the commotion hits him.
At least a dozen conversations meld together in this wall of indistinguishable sound. He can’t quite focus on any of the vaguely familiar faces or isolate one single voice from the warble of people talking.
A heavy, frantic pounding starts in his chest. His hands start to tingle. Noises disappear completely for a second, replaced by a high-pitched ringing in his ears.
Jesus fucking Christ, I’m losing it.
He pulls a chair out from the dining room table and sits down, praying nobody notices him clench his eyes closed to inhale a deep, wide breath.
Then another.
Then another.
Everything starts to come back into focus, and he tunes into someone asking, “Fish, you ok?”
He startles when a broad palm settles between his shoulder blades. Looking towards the source, he finds Will’s dusty blue eyes studying him with concern.
“Shit,” Frankie mutters, running a hand over his face before he clearing his throat and standing, “Sorry, yeah. Think I got too much heat or something.” He gives his friend a quick, one-armed hug, “Good to see you, man.”
When Will parts ways with Frankie, he gives him a look that says he doesn’t buy it for a second, but doesn’t push the subject.
His wife, Dani, approaches with a cautious smile, “Frankie, good to see you.”
“Good to see you, too” Frankie gives her a hug, “Thanks for coming.” They separate and he asks Will, “Benny here yet?”
“Yeah,” he smirks, jerking his head towards the living room, “Shooting the shit with your mom.”
“Figures,” Frankie chuckles and shakes his head, “I gotta go make my rounds, but, uhh,” he gestures from the gift box in the crook of Will’s arm to the back door, “There’s a gift table outside. Food and drinks and all that, help yourselves.”
“Catch up later, yeah?” Will nods.
Frankie mirrors the action as a few waist-high kids race past, budging in front of them when Will opens the door.
He notices a cluster of aimless partygoers lingering between the dining and living room, and starts directing the halted human traffic out to the backyard. It prods them into action, thinning out the crowded common area as he makes his way to the couch, where he finds his mom sitting with Sarah in her lap and Benny at her side. Benny says something to Sarah that makes her and her grandmother giggle.
“Is this guy bothering you?” Frankie asks, unable to stop the smile from spreading across his face.
“Francisco!”
She passes Sarah to Benny and struggles to get to her feet.
“Christ, mamá, let me help you” he mutters while taking her well-worn hands in his to pull her upright.
She’s always been a woman of small stature, barely measuring up to his shoulders once the growth spurts petered out and left him as tall as he’d always be. But each time he sees her, she seems to have shrunk a little bit more.
As soon as she steadies herself, she kisses his cheek, then pulls him down into a surprisingly tight embrace, telling him, “I missed you so much, mijo.”
“Missed you too, Ma.”
She pulls back from the hug, but holds onto his arms to look him over, “How have you been?”
“Fine,” he nods, looking away when her keen dark eyes narrow, “What about you, hmm? How was the drive?”
“Bien bien,” she waves off his questions and takes a step back to smile at the birthday girl, “She’s getting so big, Pancho. Such a pretty dress.”
Sarah grabs at the puffy hem of her skirt and giggles at the attention.
Frankie snorts in admiration at his daughter, then asks her, “You wanna go see your party, princesa?”
“Yes!”
He looks at Benny, “I gotta see if Ang needs me to do anything, do you wanna…?”
“Escort these lovey ladies?” Benny winks at Julieta, “Shit, I’d love to.”
“Jesus Christ,” Frankie mutters, then tells Sarah, “Go with Uncle Benny, I’ll be there in a minute, ok?”
She jumps off Benny’s lap and runs to the back door, leveraging her weight against the knob. It swings open and she escapes, sending Benny chasing after her, laughing, “Hey, wait up!”
Julieta starts after them just as Sarah’s bedroom door opens, and two little girls come charging towards the back door. Carmen and Angie trail behind, the former carrying a baby tucked into her side, the latter looking around with a puzzled expression pasted to her face.
“Everyone outside?” Angie asks her husband, slowing to a stop a few feet away from him while Carmen continues outside.
“Yeah. I, uhh, got the slip ‘n’ slide set up, all the food is out—anything else you need me to do?”
“Is your girl here?”
She smirks and tilts her head at him, like she’s joking or teasing, but the humor doesn’t reach her eyes.
His skittish heart skips in his chest.
Sensing a trap, Frankie searches her face and shakes his head like he doesn’t understand.
Angie raises an eyebrow at him, “Don’t act like you don’t know who I’m talking about.”
So fucking sick of this.
“Whatever,” he blinks, “No. I haven’t seen her yet. Anything else?”
The forced amusement immediately drops from her face and she stomps outside, slamming the door closed behind her.
He takes a deep breath, pulling his hat up to run a hand through his hair, then glances at his watch.
1308
He shakes some of the nervous energy from his fingertips and starts to pace the living room.
What if you decided not to come?
Honestly, it would make today much easier. He could just go out there and play his role. Put on his mask and blame his disposition on the ongoing legal battle. His mother, wife, and friends, they’d be none the wiser.
Something inside him lurches at the thought.
Suddenly and very clearly, he understands that if you don’t show, nothing will change. He will drive this ship into the ground.
As if on cue, the doorbell rings.
He jogs down the steps, swings the door open, and there you are, wearing a pretty floral sundress and a nervous smile.
“Hey,” he backs up to allow you entry.
“Hi,” your smile grows wider, and you step past him as you enter the house, “Long time no see.”At the foot of the stairs, you turn to face him, “Where’s the party?”
“Backyard.”
“Oh.”
When you glance down at his mouth, one hundred butterflies start chittering away at his stomach. He licks his lips and notices himself gravitating towards you. It doesn’t help that you’re doing it, too. The subtle way your body bows in his direction, inching so close he can smell the bright burst of your perfume and the damp musk of your sweat.
“Is everyone out there?”
“Pretty sure,” his eyes flick to the vacant upstairs, then back to you, “Why?”
Just an inch away, you clamp a grin closed and shrug, “No reason.”
“Uh huh,” he raises an eyebrow, daring to rest his hand on your waist. The contact floods his body with a hot, thudding pulse he can taste.
Searching his face, you slide your palm over his heart. Beneath your touch, the muscle pounds at its seams.
Against his better judgment, he leans in to capture your lips in his. Warmth spreads out from his chest through his limbs. You hook a hand behind his neck and pull him closer, your body curving flush against his.
Only hours have gone by since he last saw you, but it feels like months. It’s like that with you. Timeless when you’re together and an eternity when you’re apart.
Pulling back, you look at the floor and shake your head, “Sorry.”
“For what?”
“We shouldn’t, umm,” you swallow hard, shaking your head again as you glance upstairs, “Here, now, you know…”
He glances at the back door, “You’re right. We should get to the party.“
“Yeah,” you take a big step back and clear your lungs with a deep breath, then hold up your gift bag, “Where should I put this?”
“Right this way—”
“Wait, look at me,” you chuckle, tugging at his hand.
He faces you, asking, “What?”
You cup his cheek and lick the pad of your thumb, bringing it to his bottom lip, “Lipstick.”
Your brow furrows in concentration, tongue poking out the corner of your mouth as you scrub off the evidence.
It’s kind of adorable, the way in which you do this. Doting, almost. Reminds him of the times Mamá would catch him with a dirty face in public and try to make him more presentable.
Briefly, he pictures you as the matriarch of a rowdy crew of children. Driving a minivan to school drop-offs and extracurricular activities and family outings. It suits you.
He can’t stop his lips from curving into a smile.
“What?” you grin, eyes flicking to his.
“Nothing,” he murmurs as you tilt his face around and inspect him. “Better?”
“Better,” you nod, “How about me?”
He pinches your chin and looks you over, correcting a smudge before telling you, “All clear. You ready?”
You give a half-hearted shrug, looking around at the ground, then ask, “Your wife isn’t gonna like… yell at me in front of everyone or pelt me with produce, right? This isn’t an elaborate revenge prank?”
“Is that what all the tomatoes are for? Shit,” he teases, earning a chuckle and an eye roll from you. “No, but really. She agreed to be nice.”
“Ok,” you nod, “So I’m like allowed to talk to you and everything without worrying she’ll try to murder me?”
Frankie snorts, “She wouldn’t murder you—”
“She has literally told me ‘I will fucking kill you.’”
“That was—” he shakes his head, then brings his hands to your shoulders and stares into your eyes, “It’s gonna be fine, mariposa. We’re gonna go bullshit with people and eat some food, and then we’re gonna home and watch a stupid fucking movie. Ok?”
You laugh, dropping your gaze for a moment before returning with a bashful smile, “Ok.”
—
As you make your way down the food table, piling tamales and Spanish rice and fresh fruit on a flimsy paper plate, you feel eyes on the back of your head. Whether it’s just one set or ten, you don’t care to know, but the feeling sends a shiver up your spine.
When you reach the end of the line, you take a deep breath before turning to find a place to sit.
Like every other party, the crowd is mostly separated into cliques.
Parents from around the neighborhood stick together at a few long tables, bribing their children to eat and drink water before returning to the slip-n-slide. At another table sits Angie’s family, including the queen herself, whose pointed stare you gloss over, ignoring her and Frankie at her side. You find some familiar faces at a table near the edge of the big party tent: Benny, Will, and Dani. With them is a small, elderly woman who must be Frankie’s mom or an aunt or something, due to the striking resemblance.
The whole thing reminds you of choosing a place to sit in your high school cafeteria. Much like you did in those days, you gravitate towards an empty table nearby, but halt when some calls your name.
Frowning, you look around to find Benny waving at you.
“Over here,” he pulls out the chair beside him.
You approach with a smile, the tension held in your shoulders dissolving just a little as you take the open seat and greet everyone.
“Thanks. I didn’t know if, umm… it was ok,” you chuckle nervously and drop your eyes to your plate, shaking your head.
“Oh, come on now, you’re always welcome with us,” Benny grins, leaning back in his chair to reveal the tiny graying woman on the other side of him, “Have you met Frankie’s mom, Julieta?”
“I have not,” you reach across Benny to shake her hand, “Good to meet you, I’m—”
She waves you off and pushes her chair out behind her. You half-expect her to furiously walk away at your presence, but instead she wobbles over to you and holds her arms open.
“I know who you are. Come here, mija.”
You stand to accept the invitation, stammering out, “Oh—ok—”
Emotion wells up in your chest when her bony arms squeeze tight around you and she tells you, “Thank you for taking care of my boy.”
Not sure what to say, you just hug her back for a few long seconds. The embrace says it all. It feels maternal and earnest and brings a few tears to your eyes. When she pulls away and smiles at you, you notice she’s a little misty-eyed, too, and you smile back at her. She gives your cheek a few pats before you both return to your seats.
“How’ve you been?” Dani asks.
You contemplate the question long enough for Benny to interject.
“Well, she’s keeping Fish out of trouble so I’m sure she’s having a hell of a time.”
You shrug, “It’s nothing compared to some of the toddlers I’ve had to deal with.”
Your audience chuckles, then awaits a follow up.
“No, I, umm… I’m doing ok. Going through a breakup, so that’s tough, but… mostly I’m good.”
Why did I say that?
“A breakup?” Benny leans back and drapes an arm over the back of your chair, “What happened?”
“Oh, we don’t have to—” you laugh at your plate, stabbing a chunk of watermelon.
“Come on, give us the dirt,” Benny prods.
You shove the watermelon in your mouth and wrinkle your nose at him, shaking your head.
“Let the girl have some privacy,” Dani scolds, “If she doesn’t wanna talk about it, she doesn’t wanna talk about it.”
“If she didn’t wanna talk about it she wouldn’t’ve mentioned it,” he counters.
“It’s fine, it wasn’t even a big deal. We were only dating for a few weeks and it wasn’t a good match,” you explain, glancing around the table, “I don’t know why I said it, sorry, I’m just, umm… nervous.”
You notice Will studying you and hold his meticulous gaze for a moment before dropping your eyes to your plate. He speaks up then, drawing the fire away from you.
“Hey, that’s alright. Not like Benny has room to criticize,” he gives his brother a lopsided grin, “Remember that girl that tried to stab you?”
“Not this again,” Benny groans.
“Ok well now you have to tell me,” you say, flashing a grateful smile to Will before nudging Benny, “Come on, give me the dirt.”
“Well, if you’re gonna twist my arm about it.” He visibly shifts into storytelling mode, sitting up straighter as a glint of mischief sparks in his eyes, “First of all, I had no business dating her to begin with. She had a PT Cruiser with whiskey plates. If that’s not a red flag, I don’t know what is.”
—
Trying to be a halfway decent host, Frankie makes his way around the party checking in with people, introducing himself to all the unfamiliar faces and making small talk, recycling the same lines.
Drinks are in the cooler if you’re thirsty. Thanks for coming. I’m doing great, how about you?
Meanwhile, Ang seems to have taken on his former role as the champion beer drinker of the party. Every time he glances at her she’s either guzzling it down or popping open a new aluminum can.
When she and Carmen start directing slip ‘n’ slide traffic and seem sufficiently distracted, he walks up to the table where some of his favorite people are seated and takes the open chair next to Will.
“Look who it is,” Will smirks at him, “We were just talking about you.”
“Christ, do I wanna know?” he leans forward to rest his elbows on the table.
“Probably not, I was talking mad shit about you,” you tease, looking at him with a grin that makes his heart swell.
“Figures you would be,” he shoots back.
You chuckle and shake your head, “No, actually I was just telling them about how I’m teaching you to cook.”
“Oh yeah,” he looks around the table, “Did you tell them about the stir-fry?”
“Ok, you tried with the stir-fry and it was almost edible—”
“Almost edible?” Benny laughs
“Somehow the rice was both undercooked and burnt, and the veggies were mush,” you share, sitting up taller when you meet his eyes, “But it could’ve been worse. You’re learning!”
“I’m just impressed you could get him in the kitchen in the first place,” Benny says, then turns his attention to Julieta, “Mamá, you didn’t make him cook anything growing up?”
She tsks and waves him off, then explains, “His father wouldn’t let me. He was very traditional, you know, said it was women’s work.“
“It’s ok, Ma,” Frankie assures her.
“I am glad you’re learning now.” A smile stretches across her face, “You must be grateful to have such a good teacher.”
“I am, really,” he nods and glances at you before admitting, “I’d be a fucking mess without her.”
Everyone at the table seems to sit with this information in silence for a moment before Will clears his throat and asks, “Are you still working on that car?”
Frankie leans back in his chair and crosses his arms, “Here and there. Lately it’s just been collecting dust.”
“Mind if I check it out?” Will inquires, “It’s been, what, a year and a half since I’ve seen it?”
“Sure,” he frowns, looking over at you and your creased brow as if seeking permission, at which point you give a shrug, then he squints up across the yard and spots Angie talking to her mom and dad. “Let me just tell Ang so she doesn’t lose her shit if she can’t find me.”
The three men stand from the table. Frankie gives you one more glance before starting off towards his wife. With each step he takes across the grass, he wishes more and more that he could kiss you again. Give you reassurance that you’re doing great in this precarious situation.
Angie’s father glares at him as he approaches, which isn’t abnormal. Angie follows his line of sight, wobbling a bit as she lays eyes on him. Surprisingly, she smiles, “Hey!”
“Hey—”
She throws her arms around his neck and kisses him, the action so unexpected he stumbles back a step. Her lips taste of beer and poor judgment. When he pulls away, he plasters on a fake grin and says, “The guys wanna look at the car, is it ok if I slip away for a few?”
“You boys and your toys,” she rolls her eyes, “Fine, just be back for presents in a couple minutes, yeah?”
“Alright,” he searches over her shoulder, “How’s Sarah doing?”
“Good, good,” she nods, “She’s playing with Carm’s kids in the sandbox.”
“Make sure she gets some water, I don’t think she drank any with—”
“She’s fine, Francisco. I’ve got it,” she insists, patting his chest.
He studies her for a moment, then says, “Ok, I’ll be back in a minute. We’ll be in the garage if you need me.”
“Give me a kiss,” Angie demands, her long nails scraping at the nape of his neck. He leans in and presses his lips to hers, feeling nothing but irritation and disgust.
—
When Frankie and the Miller brothers disappear into the house, so does your social armor, leaving you exposed.
For a while you make scattered small talk with Julieta and Dani, discussing Sarah and the party and the weather. You watch Sarah play with her friends from a distance, not wanting to disrupt their sand castle building by approaching. Every once in a while, your eyes cheat to Angie.
A vile, familiar sensation sits heavy in your stomach.
He warned you that it might be difficult seeing them together, but you forgot how bad it hurts to witness.
The way she kissed him doesn’t help. Hanging off him, looking at him with bedroom eyes.
It’s not the same this time. He’s different now.
The foul thing in your belly goes dead weight, making you lurch.
What if he’s not?
Before you can spiral too much, you hear, “Chacha!” and realize Sarah is running towards you
“Hi, pumpkin!” you smile and outstretch your arms to catch her as she slams into you.
“I’m not a pumpkin, I’m just a girl,” she giggles.
“Are you having fun at your party?”
She grunts out an “mhmm” while you pull her up onto your lap. Her face is flushed, skin all heated and damp with sweat.
“You look like you’re hot, do you want some water?”
“Um. Ok!” she smiles.
“Ok let me get you—”
“I got it,” Dani stands and starts towards the cooler.
You murmur a thanks and return your attention to Sarah, “Thank you for letting me come to your party. I’m having so much fun.”
She giggles in response, leaning into you.
“How are you liking daycare? Do you get to play with your friends?”
She nods.
Dani returns with a cold water bottle, twisting the cap open before handing it to you.
“Here you go, sweetie,” you bring the bottle to her lips and slowly tip it back as she takes big gulps of water. Periodically, you pull it away and let her catch her breath, then start again until she pushes it away.
“Better?”
“Much better,” she nods.
“Maybe she should go inside and cool down for a minute?” Dani suggests.
Julieta leans over to feel her forehead, “Too much sun, hija.”
“Do you wanna go inside for a minute?” You ask, tucking her hair behind her ears.
“Chacha will you go with me?”
“You want me to—oh, um… should we ask your mom…?” You frown at Dani, who grimaces, then Julieta.
“Just take her,” Julieta insists, “I’ll tell Angelica if she comes looking.”
“Ok. Ok sure. Let’s go, sweetie.”
You rise from the chair, sliding Sarah to your hip, then carry her up the stairs into the house. Once inside, you sit on the couch with her for a few seconds before she wriggles away and scampers off down the hallway.
“Chacha come see my room!”
“Oh my fucking god,” you whisper under your breath, glancing nervously up at the back door before following her, “Ok, but just for a minute, then we should go back out to the party.”
—
“Are you seriously calling him?” Frankie blinks, leaning back against the workbench.
Will shoots him a look while raising the phone to his ear.
“Unbelievable. It’s like six o’clock in the morning there, you’re gonna wake—”
“Hey Pope, I’m gonna put you on speaker.” Will presses a button and sets the phone down next to Frankie, “Now I want Fish to tell you what he just told me and Benny.”
Gnashing his jaw back and forth, he stares at Will, then Benny. They both watch him expectantly while Santi speaks up, his voice groggy from sleep.
“Alright, let’s hear it.”
Frankie clears his throat and rubs his mouth before saying, “I’m gonna ask Ang for a divorce.”
“Oh shit, ok.”
Will prods Frankie further, “Tell him the other part.”
“Will you just—Fuck, ok. I’m… seeing someone.”
On the other line, Santi chuckles a little, “Uh-huh.“
“Any guesses on who that might be?” Benny asks.
“Oh, I have one—”
“Wait wait wait, let me give you a hint,” Benny grins while scrolling through his phone, pushing off the hood of the car to grandstand, “On June 10–only seven weeks ago, mind you—Fish said about her, and I quote: It’s not like that, we’re only friends. To which you said—”
“—I said bull-fucking-shit!” Santi finishes, then howls, “That is fucking delicious, thank you.”
Frankie crosses his arms and shakes his head at Will, “See, this is why I didn’t wanna tell him.”
“How long?” Santi asks.
“How long what?”
“How long have you been sleeping with her?”
“It’s… complicated, ok?”
Benny giggles and repeats, “Oh, it’s complicated.”
Santi questions further, “Sure, well, let me ask you this: How long have you been in love with her?”
“Why does it matter?”
“You do, though, right? You love her?”
Frankie crosses his arms and glares at the phone, “Yeah.”
“When did that happen?”
Heat flares through his veins. He wrings his neck and mutters, “That’s a stupid question.”
“Why’s it stupid?”
“Cuz, Pope, that’s like… that’s like asking how long ago mankind came to exist. Or asking what point a chrysalis becomes a butterfly. I don’t fucking know, man, it just does. I just know that I do, I love her, and I have for… a while.”
The two men before him are silent, along with the voice on the phone. Frankie, on the other hand, finds momentum in his confession. He continues.
“And Ang… Jesus Christ, I don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve felt like this with her. And the longer I think about it, the more I convince myself I never did. Not this way, like I can’t live without her, you know?” He taps his fingers against his lips, then shrugs, “Maybe I could have at one point, if I tried. But even then… I don’t like who I am when I’m with her. It doesn’t feel right. It’s like I’m wearing someone else’s skin and it doesn’t fit me.”
He glances up at Benny, then Will. Their faces are somber, but understanding. Benny approaches, leaning on the workbench beside him to rope an arm around his shoulders and give him a supportive squeeze.
“When are you gonna tell her?” Will asks.
“Soon. Not today, but this week probably.“
Benny withdraws his touch and crosses his arms in front of his chest, “She’ll go right for the jugular. You know that, right?”
“I know.” Frankie takes off his cap to run a hand through his hair, then puts it back, “She’s gonna try to take Sarah. Fuck, I’m gonna need another goddamn lawyer, aren’t I?”
“Can you afford that right now?” Will furrows his brow, studying him, “Be honest.”
“Probably. Well, maybe. I haven’t thought that far ahead yet.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but is now the right time? You’re on parole and looking to add felony charges to your wrap sheet. Not to mention the infidelity. On paper, your custody case is shit.”
Frankie shakes his head, “If I have to keep living like this… all this lying and pretending… I don’t know, man. I can’t do it anymore. Something inside me is about to break. I can feel it.”
The Millers exchange a look.
“I don’t think I’m speaking out of line by saying we all just want what’s best for you, Fish,” the voice over the phone tells him, “We want you to be happy. If you need to get out, get out.”
Frankie glances up at Will, who nods in confirmation.
“Thanks. It-it means a lot to me,” he shifts his weight to one leg, looking down at his wristwatch, “We better get back to the party. Talk soon, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Santi says, “Hang in there, buddy.”
After hanging up the phone, Will gives Frankie a pat on the shoulder, “We’ve got your back.”
As they file out of the garage into the entryway, Angie walks out from the bathroom. When she notices them climbing the steps, she calls, “Hi boys.”
To his credit, Benny puts on a convincing smile and greets her with a high five, “What’s up, Angie?”
She steps aside to let him pass, then fixes her glassy eyes on Will, “How’s the carcocha looking?”
“Better than the last time we saw it,” Will shrugs, glancing over his shoulder at Frankie, “Just needs a little TLC.”
“Needs to go to the scrapyard if you ask me,” she snorts and tilts her head at her husband as he reaches the top of the stairs, “Hey handsome.”
He gives her a half-hearted smirk, then frowns, “Where’s Sarah?”
“She’s fine, still playing. Francisco,” she tugs on his shirt, so he comes to a stop.
Jesus Christ, her breath smells like a brewery.
His eyes flick to the Millers stalled at the back door. After waving at them to clear out, he raises his eyebrows at Angie, “What?”
“I need your help with something.”
“Sure, what?”
Instead of answering him outright, she takes his hand and leads him down the hallway. His stomach twists with understanding when she pulls him through the doorway towards the bed.
“If you wanna lay down for a bit, I can take care of every—”
She turns to face him, placing her palms on his chest and sliding them up to his shoulders, “I want you to fuck me, Francisco.”
“Ang,” he chuckles with exasperation, shaking his head, “We have a backyard full of guests here, come on.”
“They’re all having fun, no one will notice.” She takes his hand and guides it to her face, gently folding down all his finger but the index and pouts, “Please, Frankie.”
He swallows a groan when she wraps her full lips around his digit and sucks. The wet hot plush of her mouth makes his eyelids flutter and weakens his resolve.
“I don’t think—”
She pulls his finger from her mouth like a lollipop and bats her eyelashes at him, cooing, “Don’t you wanna fuck me like you did the other night? Didn’t that feel good?”
“Well, yeah—”
“We can be quick.”
As she reaches for his belt, something moves at the edge of his vision.
“Mommy, Daddy!”
He looks at the doorway to find Sarah in the hall, holding one penguin toy in each of her pudgy toddler fists. A big, toothy grin spreads across her face and she giggles, galloping into the room.
Thankful for the diversion, Frankie smiles and takes a big step away from his wife, crouching down to ask Sarah, “Hey sweetheart, what’re you doing in here?”
“Showing Chacha my penguins,” she tells him, holding up her toys, “This one is an emperor penguin, and this one is a macaroni penguin!”
“Chacha?”
Something inside him drops to the floor. He looks up and sees you emerge from Sarah’s room. You pause briefly in the hallway, glancing at Angie before meeting his gaze. The pained look on your face rips his heart in two.
“I, umm…” you stammer, dropping your eyes to the floor and shaking your head, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude, I was just—leaving. There’s a thing and-and I have to go.”
With this, you flee down the hall, then the stairs, your footsteps still echoing heavy in his head while the front door slams shut.
—
“Whiskey coke?”
You look up from the bar top’s glossy wood finish to give Bubba a nod.
“Ain’t seen you around here in a while,” he comments while scooping ice into a glass.
“Yeah.”
It surprises you a little, how hoarse your voice sounds. A self-awareness passes over you and you straighten your spine, glancing around the bar before digging a compact mirror from your purse. By the time you finish rubbing the bleeding mascara from your swollen eyes, Bubba is placing your drink in front of you.
You exchange the mirror for your wallet, but when you fish out your card and hold it out to Bubba, he shakes his head.
“On the house.”
“What, do I get the sad sap discount?”
He chuckles a little at this, then shrugs, “If that’s what you wanna call it.”
“Thanks.”
Leaning forward onto the bar, you pull the glass closer, then stab the ice with your straw a few times. Little bubbles of carbonation fizzle up to the surface and release the gassy scent of rail whiskey. Nostalgia sours your stomach.
“Everything alright?”
A deep ache branches out from the weight beneath your sternum and curls around your shoulders. Every cell in your body feels heavy and burdensome.
Staring at the glass, you shake your head.
“I’m all ears if you wanna talk about it.”
“It’s a long, messy story.”
“I got time.”
You glance up at him, studying his concerned expression, and sigh, “You know that guy who meets me here sometimes? Brown hair, usually wearing a hat? Started a fight that one time?”
“The vet?”
“Yeah,” you nod and swallow down the thickness in your throat, then tell him, “We’ve been off and on for years. He’s, umm… he’s married. I was their nanny when it started. I fell in love with him. He made it clear he didn’t feel the same and he wouldn’t leave his wife, but I kept seeing him because I’m an idiot.”
“Sounds like you kept seeing him because you loved him, not because you’re an idiot,” Bubba observes.
“Same difference,” you shrug and tilt your head at your drink, “He’s an alcoholic. After his wife caught us fucking, he went off the rails completely. Still kept seeing him even though he kept me at an arm’s length and drank himself dumb every night. The thing is… I never believed him when he said he couldn’t love me like I loved him. I felt it, and I thought…”
Tingles work up your throat behind your eyes, and everything becomes blurry as you choke out a sob.
“I’m sorry—”
“It’s ok.”
You shake your head and wipe away your tears, but they keep coming.
“I thought if I kept loving him he would see how good it could be and come around. I thought he would admit to himself that he does love me like I love him. I wanted that with him so bad, I just couldn’t fucking let go. Then, umm…”
You clear your throat and take a deep, shaky breath.
“I had to give him an ultimatum. Her or me. He picked her. I cut it off and tried to move on with my life. He called me a few months ago from jail and asked me to bail him out. I got roped into being his custodian while he’s on parole, so he’s been living with me. We agreed not to get involved in, umm, that way again.
“He’s been sober and opening up emotionally while working through this shit. It’s been really hard. But it’s also been good, you know, because we’ve had to hash out all these problems that we’ve ignored for years. I’ve been able to see the real him, and… I love him more than I ever have.”
“Uh-huh,” Bubba raises an eyebrow at you, crossing his arms above his beer belly, “So what happened that’s got you in a fuss? He still doesn’t love you back?”
The question pierces your heart.
Your voice balances a tightrope as you confess, “I thought he did. I really did this time, I was so fucking certain. He promised he would fix it, that we could be together—and I fucking believed him—”
Waves of emotion swell in your chest and flood your eyes with hot tears. You fold forward, burying your face in your hands, releasing sob after sob as you replay the last two months in your head and wonder how you could be so fucking stupid to think it was real.
The world around you melts away until it’s just you and that dense, pulsing pain. Like it’s always been. Like it always will be.
It doesn’t matter how hard you try to help him. It doesn’t matter that you love him more than anything else in this world. It doesn’t matter.
Nothing matters, because he doesn’t love you and he never will.
A hand rests on your shoulder blades and pulls you back to reality. So lost in your self-pity, you didn’t notice Bubba come around the bar to console you. You sit up and wipe your eyes, mumbling out an apology.
“It’s fine, darlin’. Can I do anything to help?”
Sniffling, you shake your head, “I’ll be ok.”
“You sure?”
You inhale a shattered breath and give him a weak smile, “Fifty-fifty.”
He furrows his brow and studies you for a moment before nodding, then taking a step back.
As he makes his way back to his side of the bar, you stare at your drink. A fat droplet of moisture rolls down the thick condensation lining the glass and gets swallowed up by the cardboard coaster beneath.
You wish you could forget about him.
You wish you could feel nothing.
You wish you could hurt him the way he’s hurt you.
So, you pluck out the straw, raise the cup to your lips, and start drinking.
—
The setting sun paints the wispy clouded sky above a brilliant shade of orange. Beneath his feet, the soles of Frankie’s shoes scuff against the driveway. He glances down at his mom, with her arm hooked in his, and says, “Thanks for coming out, Mamá. I hope you had a good time.”
“It was a very nice party, mijo.”
She gives him this stifled polite smile like she’s holding something back. So he prods her.
“What?”
She waves him off, “Nada nada.”
“Come on, Ma.”
They come to a stop at the driver’s side door of her car and turn to face each other. She studies him a moment, then gives in with a huff, “You have been like this all afternoon. Why?”
“Like what?”
“So stormy.”
He deflates, “Don’t worry about it.”
Her lips purse as she tilts her head at him. The ‘don’t make me smack you’ look.
“It’s messy, mom. How I’m feeling,” he wrings a hand behind his neck and shrugs, “I don’t know. Everything is a mess and it’s all my fault.”
“All your fault how? Did something happen?”
“No—well,” he catches himself, swallows, then corrects, “Yeah. I did something bad. And I lied about it. Then I got caught in the lie, and, you know…”
She nods slowly, waiting for more.
“I think I might be a bad person.”
Her expression softens when Frankie says it. She cups his cheeks and stares straight into his soul. Suddenly, he’s five years old all over again, Mamá comforting his bruised heart.
“There is a good man inside you. I know him well because he’s my son. Let him be brave.”
He absorbs this for a moment, then croaks, “Ok.”
“Give me a hug.”
He hunches over to hug her, burying his face in her neck, “Quiero mucho, mamá.”
“Yo a ti,” she squeezes him, then pulls back and asks, “Will you call me tomorrow?”
“Sure.”
He waits for her to get in her car and drive away before returning to the house. Inside, he finds Sarah and Benny reading a book on the couch, while the siren song of the party still roaring out back rubs at his nerves.
Frankie pulls out his phone to confirm you, predictably and rightfully, did not respond to his messages or calls. Reconciling with you will be a fucking nightmare. Going home to face the consequences seems less appealing with each passing second.
He starts to consider other options.
He could stay and drink. Join the party. Doubtful that Angie or any of her people would give a shit. Hell, they would probably encourage him.
Better yet, he could stay and drink by himself in the garage. There’s enough booze laying around, nobody would notice if he drained a bottle or two in order to reach that blissful numb.
He plops down on the couch next to Sarah and brings his attention to Benny’s reading.
“—‘Now stop!’ Max said and sent the wild things off to bed without their supper. And Max the king of all wild things was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all. Then all around from far away across the world he smelled good things to eat so he gave up being king of where the wild things are.
But the wild things cried, ‘Oh please don’t go—we’ll eat you up—we love you so!’ And Max said, ‘No!’ The wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws but Max stepped into his private boat and waved goodbye… and sailed back over a year and in and out of weeks and through a day… and into the night of his very own room where he found his supper waiting for him… and it was still hot.”
Benny flips the paperback closed and looks down at Sarah, who yawns and rubs her eyes, then to her father.
“Still want that ride home?”
Frankie considers this for a moment before nodding, “Yeah. Let me put her to bed and talk to Ang, then we can take off.”
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Dial Drunk - A Frankie Morales One Shot
Young Frankie x f!reader
Rating: Explicit 18+ minors dni, please read the content warnings on this one
Word count: 7,700
Summary: Home has always been the boy next door.
Content: This gets pretty dark so please do read the warning, but I promise there is a happy ending, modern day Triple Frontier AU, (mostly) soft!Frankie, some descriptions of reader but she is meant as a universal (however you would like her to be bub), she has hair and there are outfit references, no age gap, reader & Frankie either teens or early 20’s, specific content warnings: references to neglect/poverty, a parent death, references and consequences of domestic abuse, brief violence, drug and alcohol references, addiction, mega angst. The good stuff? we’ve got flirting, kisses and smut; protected PIV (reader is on the pill but not mentioned), oral (f receiving – this is Frankie, come on), fingering, very light dirty talk, pet names (sugar), Frankie POV. I’ve tried to remove any overt British-isms but some may have slipped in. Please note, we’re always Fleabag coded here. Let me know if I’ve missed anything, I know this one isn’t an easy read.
A/N: This story just flew right out of me, I was like a woman possessed. When I say I listened to Dial Drunk by Noah Kohan about 40 times? I know it covers some really hard topics and I totally get it if it’s not your thing, but I hope the love reader & Frankie have for each other helps you get through it and I promise a happy, fluffy end for them. They’re best friends, idiots in love but we’re going big on the angst. I don’t normally let my reader be rescued by a man but this Frankie did something to me and I let him save the day. I LOVE HIM.
HUGE thank you to @pascalssbabyy for letting me run one million ideas past her & being so amazingly supportive, and of course to my America consultant @katareyoudrilling. You two are the dream. Big kisses to @luxurychristmaspudding for being an incredible cheerleader! Dividers by @saradika/@saradika-graphics
Listen to: Dial Drunk by Noah Kahan, specifically the Post Malone version, and also there are references to Homesick as well.
DIAL DRUNK
You know it’s a fucking cliche, but you’re pretty sure you’ve been in love with your best friend since you were eight years old. He’s a fucking idiot. Always has been. But he’s your idiot.
Frankie Morales has been the boy next door for as long as you can remember.
It was never a particularly nice area, but as the years wore on, the yards became unkempt, the children more feral, the parents increasingly absent. By the time you were teenagers you were both used to going to school on empty bellies and nipping into each other’s houses for three minute showers whenever the water at home was shut off, again.
You never spoke about the indignities that came with being dirt poor, of the realities of parents that either removed themselves or were far too present. You hated when you weren’t able to scrub the filth from under your fingernails and he couldn’t stand when his Dad had money for liquor. But there was solace in the silence. Comfort in a shared nightmare that you never spoke into existence with each other.
It made you brittle, old before your time. It made him dangerous, impulsive, but also quick to seek out relief in an easy laugh. When you think of Frankie, it’s often a picture of him laughing, heavenly crinkles around his dark eyes and a single dimple which you loved so much, that pulls into your vision. He always saw it as his mission in life to make you laugh, sought it out at all times as he tried to take you away from the harshness of your shared reality and gift you some joy for a few brief moments.
It was easier when you were ten, got significantly harder once the hormones kicked in at thirteen and then downright near fucking impossible once you both hit eighteen. A lot less to smile about then.
Frankie washed through girlfriends like they were going out of fashion, seemingly a different girl squished between you and him on the bench of his ancient pick-up truck each month. You never bothered to be anything more than polite. The worst offenders were the shiny ones, the prissy ones that turned their noses up at you and treated Frankie like a novelty toy. A bit of rough that would fuck them in the parking-lot, behind the bar which cast only a cursory glance over your fake IDs.
He was almost impossibly handsome, it was stupid. Fully aware of the effect he had on women, he always used it to his advantage. You’d watch with sharp eyes as he gave teachers, social workers and truant officers those big brown eyes on full blast, lifting his cap quickly and smoothing his hair to the side in the way he did when he was nervous. Boy could get away with murder if he wanted.
You were hardly an innocent in it all. Maybe you and Frankie were more alike in that respect than you’d care to admit.
Your penchant was for the football boys, preferably rich and dumb, easy on the eye and light on the conversation. You got what you needed and then hot-footed it the fuck out of there. Something from their parent’s well-stocked liquor cabinet or a packet of smokes ‘borrowed’ on the way out. No one ever complained, let the trash take itself out.
It was a minor miracle you’d both graduated high school with no teenage pregnancies and only two or three suspensions between you. Your teachers couldn’t contain their glee that you were both off their hands, but also still in one piece. You’d bowled down those corridors with a capital T for Trouble; Frankie in his signature blue cap and more than a hint of mischief, you in your regulation black boots and permanent scowl.
The thing about your Frankie is, he’s a fucking idiot, but he’s also smart as hell. There was no fucking way he was going to stay in this no horse town forever.
There were plenty of opportunities over the years for your close friendship to cross over but you both held back, something sacred in the secrets you held together, a thread that ran through your lives that the promise of sex would have cut through and left you both dangling alone. It was all too tightly wound, and you were both too frightened to go it alone.
Until you had no choice, until he decided to up and leave you. The fucker.
“I can’t smoke weed no more Sugar, not if I’m gonna get into the army.”
You are stunned into silence, so you take a long drag of the joint you were supposed to be sharing, sitting together on a ratty blanket in the flatbed of his truck. You let the haze settle into your mind, feel your limbs soften, exhale into the night air. Your eyes are heavy already, your mouth dry. You swallow thickly. Take a sip of the cheap-ass can of beer you hated the taste of but was a necessary evil.
“You not going to say anythin’?”
“What do you want me to say Frankie? You’re abandoning me. Just like every other fucker.”
It would ideally have come out as a hiss, but your voice is too low, drowning in the weed and you can’t hide that you’ve had the air knocked right out of you. Your one constant, deserting you. Mother. Fucker.
You use the pot to blank you to nothingness, let yourself go entirely numb, so that you’re giggling like a fool by the time Frankie has to practically carry you out of the truck and up into your bedroom. The house is empty, cold. The lights won’t turn on so you’re in the dark.
Your feet are like lead; you let Frankie pull your DM’s off and you float back down onto the unmade bed, somewhere between this world and the next. You’re soft and pliant as he sits next to you with his knees firm on the bed, takes off your borrowed, too big, plaid shirt in an effort to make you more comfortable. It switches on something in your addled brain.
Maybe this is the right time. Nothing to lose now.
You undo the top button on your denim cut-offs, wiggle out of them in a way you hope is alluring, eyes closed so you don’t have to meet Frankie’s. You can feel his gaze on you. He’s completely still.
You’re just in a tight white tank and black panties now, but the room feels hot and clammy suddenly. A pulse of anticipation. You can feel it in your cunt, a beat of desire that you normally close your ears to. You open your eyes, taking in the look of confusion on Frankie’s face; you lift your hands up to him to stroke at the beginnings of a patchy beard.
“Sugar, what are you doing?”
“Come on Frankie, can’t tell me you haven’t thought about it?”
Your arms are too heavy, you let them fall back behind your head, a delicious stretch so you know your tank top will ride up, giving him a better view of your soft tummy, letting your chest rise and fall with a gentle desperation you know he can feel.
His hands almost, almost, reach to touch your face, but he leans back on his haunches instead, lets his hands fall to his feet by his side.
“You’re high as hell baby, we gotta stop. This… this ain’t right.”
You try to sit up on your elbows, but the movement brings spots to your eyes, makes you feel dizzy. You flop back down again. Instead, you reach for one of his hands, draw it up to your breast and place it on you; his eyes flick back and forth between your eyes and your tits, feeling your nipple pebble underneath his touch. He can’t help but let his fingers curl around you, the softest pinch that makes a gentle whine escape from your throat.
He licks his lips so slowly, runs his thumb over the wetness but doesn’t take his other hand from you. He’s a little stoned too, but not nearly as gone as you, his eyes still bright. Considering all the implications of what this might mean.
There’s a heat at your core you need him to feel, you’re practically burning for him and he needs to know.
“I want you to touch me Frankie.”
“I…”
Your hands are gentle but firm, you pull him down so he’s lying beside you, hand still at your breast, breath caught in his throat.
You watch lazily as he runs his fingers down your body, traces the outline of your waist and reaches your belly button, before hovering just above where your panties begin. Your breath in, so there’s a visible gap between the material and the softness there calling his name, beckoning him to let go of reason. He’s just a man after all.
You’ve never even kissed and all you can think of is what it would be like to have his tongue on your pussy, feel the heat that’s emanating from him, between your soft thighs. As if reading your thoughts, he dips his head down and places an almost chase kiss on your stomach, letting his tongue taste the salt of your skin for just the briefest of moments. Fuck. Your hands are heavy on him, rubbing against the thickness of his dark hair greedily and willing him to take you in his mouth, fuck away this pain you’re feeling with his tongue, make you forget that he ever mentioned leaving.
His hand cups your still clothed cunt and holds you tight, you swear he must be able to feel you pulsing beneath his touch.
“Fuck, I could come just lookin at you sugar, hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“You don’t mean that Frankie. You’ve got with plenty hotter girls.”
He shoots you a hurt look, “You seen yourself Sugar? I gotta practically sit on my hands to stop me reaching out and touching that ass, squeezing those tits. You’re… fuck… prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
His hand is grinding against you now, you keen at the praise, lift your hips to meet his fingers and let the pleasure thrum through you. He lets one finger slip underneath the cotton and you know he’s going to find you soaking wet for him. He drops his face down so it’s an inch from you, works his finger into your wetness and looks deep into your soft, stoned eyes.
“This all for me Sugar?” He brings his fingers to his lips, licks your slick right off before he dives not one, but two, thick digits back into you.
“Fuck yes Frankie. It’s always been you.”
He kisses you then. So easy, it’s almost like you’re in a dream, wrapped in a lightness that both pulls you down to earth and makes everything feel unreal. Part of you wishes you weren’t quite so high but you know, as he pulls at your tongue with his own and sighs heavily at the way you instinctively twist together, that this never would have happened sober. He tastes like your sex and something else you can’t put your finger in. You hope it’s not regret.
His fingers don’t stop moving in you, his thumb now pressing against your clit, a jangle of nerves rushing through your spine and you can feel yourself tightening around his fingers, as he ruts his hips against you for some friction. Something clears in the fog of your mind for a second and you realise you want to feel him, desperately. You remove your hands from deep within his hair and undo the top button on his jeans so you can stuff your hands down his pants. It’s all a bit teenage but then that’s what you are? 19 and on the cusp of something, the precipice of forever.
Frankie’s dick is everything you dreamed; weighty, thick, so hard in anticipation. And already weeping for you. You wipe your thumb over the top and savour the wetness of his pre-cum, letting your hand trail down his length before taking him firmly in your grasp. He groans as you pump him languidly, but you can’t really concentrate; his tongue in your mouth, fingers in your pussy and dick in your hands, is all too much for your scattered mind to handle, it’s too much for your body to comprehend. It pushes you over the edge into bliss and you convulse around his fingers, an ‘oh fuck’ dropping from your lips and you turn your face from his as you feel heat crash into your cheeks from your orgasm.
Your hand is still tight around his cock and you marvel at how hard he is. Frankie stutters beneath you, “Sugar I’m gonna come right in your hand, can I… can I fuck you?”
“Please Frankie, I want to feel you, I need to feel you.”
He whips his top and jeans off and you’re still pulsing from your orgasm as he lines himself up and slowly pushes in the tip.
“Oh shit, you’re so tight Shug. I’m not gonna last a minute.”
“I don’t care Frankie, please.” You’re practically begging him, it feels so good, the burn of him, that it’s him. Frankie. Finally.
Inch by inch he invades your senses, makes you so full of him, moving slowly, experimentally, before his lips brush yours again. He rests his forehead on yours, skin burning with desire, stilled for a heartbeat so you can enjoy the connection of your bodies melted together.
It’s just about now that you realise this isn’t a crush, that you love him. Something that can’t be undone is ripping apart inside you.
As you stare into each other’s eyes, he begins to move in earnest, fucking into you at a pace that verges on desperate, the noises coming from him are wild; he paws at your breasts, nips at your throat and you lift your hips to meet him with each thrust.
“Jesus Christ sugar, I can’t…” He grits his teeth, stops moving so he can yank you down by the hips and have access to where you need him, your pussy stretched so beautifully around him. He uses your own slick against your clit, rubbing in tight, firm, circles, just the right amount of pressure, not daring to move lest he explode. The look on his face, it’s so serious all of a sudden, it takes you by surprise, his desire to bring you pleasure, the care that pours out of him and you almost feel hopeless at how pure he is.
The warmth rises in your belly and you tip into oblivion; it feels like love.
He comes as you tighten around him, unable to stop himself, crashing down against you in a wave of pleasure, lips searching for yours again in the dark. You lie together like this, entwined, hot and sticky, in a state of bliss and grief all at once.
“Shug, I’m gonna miss you so much.”
He still leaves; nothing changes except your whole world.
Four Years Later
Your mom died. Although it was a shock, she fell down the stairs dead drunk and never woke up again, it had felt so inevitable that your brain had taken months to comprehend it was real. A gradual decline you’d been a witness to your whole life. Something you’d been dreading forever and now the worst thing had actually happened.
Frankie sent flowers and you cried in the grocery aisle thinking about him.
Your much older half-brothers came home for the funeral, but they only stayed for one, very raucous and horrendously drunk, night. With your dad nowhere to be found, they said they wanted you to have the house.
It still had a big old mortgage, so it was a burden as well as a blessing, but the three of them promised to send a little bit of money each month and you had your job at the diner and working as a receptionist at the insurance place to keep you ticking over. It was doable and at least your home was still yours. You felt inexplicably tied to it, both the house and the boy that no longer lived next door.
This damn house was how Jason happened. Things kept breaking in it, years of neglect meant it was practically rotting from the ground up, and he was always offering to help out. Inevitably you fell into old patterns from when you used to make-out at parties in high school. It was fine. He was fine. Useful to have around until somehow, he seemed to have moved himself in and things started to change between you.
Slowly, a kind of cruelty crept back into the house. Maybe it was cursed, maybe you were destined to always be haunted by unhappy people searching for meaning at the bottom of a bottle, or the tip of a needle. Jason became your problem and no matter how many times you threw him out, he wormed his way back in with false hope and the usual addict’s playbook of tricks. You hated yourself for it. Although not nearly quite as much as you hated him.
You’ve checked yourself out of the hospital and there’s nothing to drink in the house. You crash about for a few minutes trying to find Jason’s hidden stash, but he’s drunk the house dry. Again. You let out a little cry of frustration.
The locksmith is coming in a few hours and you can’t bear to go through that process again sober. You know you’re not supposed to drink on the painkillers they’ve given you, but who would you fucking be if you didn’t spice up your pain meds with a little whiskey chaser?
You know you don’t have enough cash for a whole bottle without even having to look in your purse. A perfunctory glance and now you’re certain you’re going to have to go to the bar if you’re to drink anything stronger than some piss-weak beer from the 7-Eleven.
Your right arm is in a brace and you wince when you blink, with dark purple and yellowing bruises down one side of your face. It’s so clear to everyone in the bar what’s happened to you and you jut your jaw in anticipation of anyone saying a single word. One functioning arm or not, you will take any fucker down who says anything. You feel like a cornered cat; claws sharp, no fear, only rage and a snarl for anyone in spitting distance.
Darlene behind the bar shifts her weight uncomfortably, ventures a cautious, “Shit honey. You ok?”
“Fine thanks Darlene. I just need a drink, please.”
Darlene’s generous with her measure and a few extra coins fall into your hand as she passes you your change. It takes everything in your willpower not to break down and cry right there.
You grit a ‘thank you’ through watery eyes and take an empty booth to nurse your drink in silence. You thank the lord that no one comes up to you. You’ve set your bruised face to a firm scowl and stare off into nothingness as you let the whiskey warm your blood and take the edge off the anxiety that’s still coursing through your veins.
You’re aware Jason could have killed you this time. Very nearly did. You lift your glass up to your lips with a shaky hand.
That’s why you don’t see Frankie at first, you’re practically in a trance when he spots you and does an immediate double take.
You practically jump out of your skin when he slides into the booth unannounced, pushing another double whiskey over to you.
“What the fuck happened Sugar?”
You haven’t seen him in years.
There’s a new scar across his cheek, his hair longer than it’s been since he went through that phase at 16. You hate that you know that, still know that. Almost curls poking out from under his baseball cap.
“Jesus Christ Frankie, you can’t creep up on someone like that.” You take the drink without acknowledging it, add it to your already swirling system.
“I tried to get your attention Sugar, but you obviously didn’t hear me.”
“Yeah well, probably got a busted ear drum along with everythin’ else.” You shrug your shoulders in forced nonchalance but it fucking stings and you suck in your breath in a way that feels way too dramatic.
“Shit Sugar, what the fuck? This Jason? That son of a bitch, I always hated him.”
“You always hated him?” You are so sharp he needs to watch himself or you’ll cut right through him. “When he was sweet as apple pie in high school and you used to go out on benders with him all night, you hated him then did you? You didn’t know shit Frankie. Don’t tell me I should have known better.”
“No, no, that’s not what I meant at all… I just… I… he was never good enough for you? None of them were.”
“Yeah, ‘cause whole armies have walked over me, ey? Dumb slut was bound to end up with a wrong’un, the way she gets through men? Think we’re done here Frankie. I gotta get back for the locksmith, try and keep your old drinking buddy out of my fucking house before he fucking kills me, or I get done on a manslaughter charge.”
You down the drink in one go, suppress the shiver it sends down your aching spine.
“Shug, let me help? Is there anythin’ I can do?”
“Frankie, you don’t even know me anymore? You haven’t been here for four years. Don’t you dare come riding back into town on a white horse thinking you can make anything better. You forgot about me before, I suggest you do the same again.”
You’d stalk out but it hurts too much, so you just kind of limp away in the saddest fashion. Fuck him. Fuck this.
Frankie’s POV
After watching you slink clumsily out of the bar, Frankie stares at your two empty glasses for longer than is sensible. A rush of thoughts chasing him in circles; this was not how he’d thought seeing you again would go. It was a lot more like a Hallmark movie in his head, all soft smiles and whispered ‘I missed you’s’. But your reality had never looked much like a warm focus, made-for-TV, romance. It was sharp and hard, no promise of a happy ending. He knew he was stupid for creating these scenarios in his own head without consulting the one person who would actually have been able to put him right, tell him to stop being such an idiot. You would have set him straight. You did set him straight; no white horse, remember?
Fucking Jason. He did always hate that guy. Although not for the reasons you thought; it was because it made him feel sick to watch Jason touch you. Jason was always a lowlife, although it was hidden under new, well-fitting clothes and shiny, clean hair. Fucking obnoxious. He can still remember that dizzying moment he’d first seen you making out with Jason at a house party all those years ago. He’d actually thrown up, blamed it on the disgusting home-brewed moonshine that was being passed around.
He meant it when he said none of those boys were good enough for you, but Frankie really, truly, still doubts if he is good enough.
These years he’s been away, he’s done things he’s not proud of. He’s not the man he once was, not the boy that you knew so well.
Yet… maybe that’s a good thing. His boys, his new, found-family of Benny, Will and Santi, they lift him up. Help him to believe that he can be something more, could be enough. Santi practically bullied him about it, always asking about you, getting him to pull out his treasured, somewhat tattered photo of you and warning Frankie if he didn’t make a move soon, he was going to have to come visiting.
You deserve so much; Frankie wants so desperately to be the one to give it all to you. This fear of fucking it up, making everything worse rather than creating a space for the life he’s always dreamed of for you both, it’s paralysing.
So, instead of doing the right thing, swallowing his fear and marching right over to your place, he’s done as his father always did, and hidden himself at the bottom of a bottle. He was only supposed to be nipping into the bar for a glass of Dutch courage before he went to your house to find you, but as with a lot of Frankie’s plans, that’s been thoroughly derailed.
Four drinks in, he’s practically freewheeling by the time he staggers up to the bar, again. Darlene looks less than impressed.
“Been a long time since we’ve seen you round these parts, Frankie. What brings you home?”
“My Pop’s going into a home, gotta help him move and sort out the house. And… well…” He nods his head to the door, as if you’re still standing there, scowling at him.
Darlene’s got a tight lipped smile, mouth set in a hard line; “Always been unfinished business between you two. I was surprised when you didn’t come home for her Mom’s funeral? Those brothers of hers caused quite the ruckus.”
“I was deployed, Darlene, couldn’t go nowhere.”
She just hmmms in response, pours Frankie one of her special measures, even with him already so unsteady on his feet. People don’t always know the best ways to show love and care.
He’s knee-deep into a nonsense conversation with some of the old timers around the bar, tongue thick with booze, when Jason makes an appearance. Frankie doesn’t doubt that Mommy dearest bailed out her golden boy without a word of reproach and now he’s tipped himself straight back into the nearest bar. Fucking typical.
Frankie knew he would be mad if he saw Jason, but the force that descends on him, the pure rage that flows through his veins, it takes even him by surprise.
He’s been in plenty of bar fights before, hell, for a while it was the weekend’s regular entertainment. This is different, this is almost like an out of body experience; he’s watching himself as he literally launches himself at Jason. From 0 to 60 in as long as it takes Jason to clock it’s him and let out an, “Oh! Fuck, Frankie! I…”
Last time he was in a fist fight with Jason they’d both been skinny delinquents, with only youth on their side. Now Frankie’s been honed into a literal fighting machine, whilst Jason has mostly sat on his ass drinking, when he’s not been picking on women half his size. Frankie knows it’s not a fair fight, that any judge would say Frankie attacked without even the slightest provocation, but there’s not a thought in his head as he pummels Jason. He has him pinned to the floor and there’s an awful wet crack when his fist connects with Jason’s jaw.
It takes three of the old boys to haul Frankie off and even then, he tries to go back, tries to twist himself from their grasp and get to the dazed, bleeding motherfucker sprawled out on the floor.
Frankie bellows at him, “You go near her again, I will fucking kill you. Do you understand?”
Slowly he comes back into himself, can hear Darlene shouting his name, see the blue flashing lights through the bar window. He stops struggling against the older men’s grip on his shoulders, lifts his palms up in submission, lets out a harsh, deep sigh.
Might just have made things a bit worse here. He mutters a ‘shit’, when two police officers come sauntering in.
“Frankie Morales! Long-time no see, buddy! Looks like you’ve been catching up with old friends.”
Frankie offers up his hands to Officer Danny with no resistance, his heart rate slowly coming back to normal. He gives Danny a somewhat sheepish smile while the officer handcuffs him. The other cop gives Jason a little poke with his boot to check he’s still breathing; he groans but no one makes a move to help him. There’s obviously very little community concern about Jason’s welfare.
“Officer Danny. Been a while.”
It’s hammering it down with rain when they enter the darkness of the evening, Frankie is soaked to the bone by the time he’s sat in the back of the cop car. He leans against the cool of the window, wills himself to feel more sober, for his thoughts to become more ordered and not a jumble of regret, shame and fuck, such a longing to see your face.
Doesn’t think twice about giving you as his emergency contact.
Unfortunately, you have the police department number saved in your phone. It’s practically on speed dial. It flashes up and you pick it up almost instantly, still on high alert.
“Sugar, it’s me. Look, I might just have fucked things….”
You hang up.
You can tell by the slur in his voice that Frankie is wasted, and your stomach drops to your knees as you consider what it could be that he’s done. An uneasy feeling washes around your stomach, this is the last fucking thing you need.
The phone rings again. And again. And again.
You ignore it each time; you’re not here to clean up Frankie’s fucking mess. You’re in enough of a nightmare already without having to deal with whatever the fuck it is he’s done this time. You thought his years away would have at least straightened him out; he was supposed to be a military man now, not being picked up stinking drunk from seedy hometown bars.
A different number flashes up this time. Your old school pal, now a police officer, Danny, who you’re pretty sure is stood next to the drunk tank looking directly at a hammered Frankie sat between the usual reprobates.
“Hey hun, you not going to answer your boy Frankie’s call for help?”
“Danny…. He’s not my boy. He’s not my problem, I got enough of my own…” You pause and wait for Danny to fill the silence, but he offers nothing. “Fine. What the fuck did he do?”
“I believe he was defending your honour, hun. We’re going to let him sober up and then chuck him out, I doubt Jason will be pressing charges any time soon. Thought maybe you’d like to come pick your knight in shining armour up in a few hours? Can you drive with your arm?”
“I can drive just fine…. Jesus Christ.” You can’t help it, your lips curl into a smile. A feeling that might be akin to pride creeps under your skin, tingles in your chest. You wish you’d been there to see it. “Is he ok?”
“Jason?”
“No, fuck Jason. I hope he rots. Frankie? He ok?”
“Not a scratch on him.” You hear it in Danny’s voice too. He’s suppressing a grin and you let one take up residence on your face, it stings but it’s worth it. You haven’t let happiness in for months.
“I’ll come get him in a couple hours. Don’t tell him though, let him stew in his own juices for a bit.” You add a very unconvincing, almost too soft, “Fucking idiot.”
Danny’s still laughing at you when you hang up again.
You’re sat in the police station on the hard, purposefully uncomfortable, scratched plastic chairs. You’ve been here far too often recently, the ladies on the front desk give you an overly warm smile and you find yourself glowering at your black boots. Someone you don’t actually know brings Frankie out to you, deposits him on the seat next to you with his stuff in a brown paper bag resting by his feet. He pulls up his cap quickly, flattens his hair in one smooth move. You’re making him nervous.
He starts to speak, but you don’t want to hear it, don’t want to hear anything.
All you want is his arms around you, to be pressed up against his dirty, blood flecked flannel and smell Frankie, your Frankie. The sweat, the drink, the all of him. He envelopes you, holds you as tight as he can bear, so aware of your fragile physical state. You want to live here, want to forever be pressed up against his hard chest, soft belly, firm arms locking you in. You breathe it all in.
“Sugar, I am so sorry.”
You don’t move away from him, shake your head into his chest, trying to dismiss any thoughts that he may have about needing to be sorry.
Your voice catches in your throat as you look into those beautiful, soulful eyes, “Frankie, I don’t want to die in the house I grew up in.”
“We’re not gonna let that happen, Shug. We’re gonna get you out of here, I promise.”
Suddenly, every phone in the place seems to be ringing at once, you look around at the frenetic energy that has appeared as if from nowhere. Danny is quickly by your side, frown firmly etched into his forehead.
“Hun, we’ve got reports there’s a fire back at your place, jump in my car with me I’ll take you there.” He tuts, “Don’t just sit there Frankie, you’re coming too.”
“Jason?”
“Jason.”
You’re in Frankie’s new home, a six hour drive from your own.
Even with four boys living in this apartment, it’s cleaner than you could ever get your house; it always had a residue of something unsavoury even after you’d scrubbed and scrubbed.
Not that you’ll ever be on your hands and knees trying to scour that kitchen floor ever again. Now it’s gone. Burnt to the fucking ground. Jesus Christ. It still doesn’t feel real.
Frankie’s bed is so, so, soft. After years of never having proper sheets on the bed you just know he’s gone out and got the finest cotton he could find, and you let yourself sink into it. You’re shaking, it must be the adrenaline leaving your body. You’d slept all the way here in the car. That’s what children do apparently, when they’re scared; they find somewhere to sleep, to escape fearsome things they can have no control over. You do feel like a child again, safe with Frankie by your side once more, letting him cocoon you away from the world.
You’re not tired now; on high alert, your nerves are rattling, and you wish, wish, wish you could stop your body from shaking so violently. You close your eyes and feel a few stray tears run down your face.
You hear Frankie come back into the bedroom and crawl slowly up next to you, trying to be as light as possible so as not to disturb you. He kisses the tears away, holds you against him, solid and warm, as you let the ripples of fear continue their travels through you. He nestles into your neck, breathes you in.
“I was always coming back for you Shug. I never should have left you so long, I just always thought I needed a bit more cash, to get myself more sorted, and then I could make everything better.”
“We never needed any money Frankie, why did you think I wanted that? I just needed you.”
“No… thing is Shug, we do need money. We do. Ain’t romantic, but I don’t want what we had before, I wanna keep you safe, keep you warm, have the lights always on if you want them.”
“I always felt safe with you Frankie. Always.”
“Even when we did stupid shit, like stealin’ Mrs Ramirez’s car?” He stutters a laugh, some of the dumbest shit you’d ever done.
You suppress your own laugh, try to keep your mouth set in a firm line. It may be his role in life to make you laugh, but it’s your job to try and maintain the facade that he’s not funny, doesn’t know exactly how to tip you into giggles even when the sky is falling in.
A simple, opportunist joyride in an unlocked car had turned into a nightmare when you’d both realised Mrs Ramirez’s fucking ancient cat was in the basket in the back. You’d practically wet yourself cackling as you’d abandoned the car and Frankie had slunk back to Mrs Ramirez’s house, making up some bullshit about finding Princess Diana (no word of a lie) abandoned on the side of the road. She was so grateful she’d given you both a load of homemade cookies, that you’re pretty sure were chock-full of her medical marijuana. You damn near laughed until you’d cried that evening; stoned out of your heads and replaying the moment you’d both clocked the fucking cat yowling from her basket, again and again.
“Princess fucking Diana.”
You give into the laughter, let your fingers twist into his hair and enjoy the flash of bright white, even teeth, contrasting so beautifully against his golden skin. You’ve missed the sound of Frankie’s laughter so much, but even more? The sound of your laughter melding together, you mirror each other in the pitch and volume, always. Somehow, over the years, it’s become the same laugh.
The chimes of your laughter, they quickly become tears. You try to hide your face in your hands, to stop Frankie seeing you, you feel so pathetic. But he won’t let you hide from him. There are tears in his eyes as well.
“You’re going to stay here with me Sugar.” It’s not a question.
You try and mull it over, find some way to protest, but you can’t land on a single reason not to. The house is gone, but with that will come insurance money and no monthly mortgage payments to make. You’ve never loved your jobs, won’t miss the town gossip that will surely be circulating for months while Jason awaits trial for his part in burning everything to dust.
You could just be here, safe, with Frankie.
“I’m gonna run you a bath. You’re gonna love the tub Shug, it’s enormous. Santi’s got some bubbles I’m gonna steal.”
He washes it all away.
This new beginning is clean, soft, with Frankie right beside you.
You sit in the bath with your knees pulled into your chest, water almost scalding, just how you love it. Frankie is squeezed in behind you, his large frame somehow wrapped around you and his legs must be uncomfortable, but he doesn’t complain, uses a sponge to sop your skin so you’re soaking. In another time it might have been sexy to have your wet skin slippery against each other, but this feels different. Almost ceremonial, there’s a hushed quiet between you.
He’s so gentle, knows you’re still hurting, cleaning every scrap of your skin until it’s practically shining. He uses a jug to wash your hair; you tip your head back and gaze at him, watch the frown etched into that beautiful face, he’s concentrating so hard he doesn’t notice for a few moments, tiniest hint of his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth, but when your eyes do connect he gives you a wicked grin.
That’s him, that’s your Frankie.
He uses his fingertips to run the shampoo through your locks, rubbing circles into your scalp with a pressure that feels as close to bliss as you can get. He rinses your hair clean and then repeats the process with the conditioner, twisting your hair into a tight coil to remove the excess water. You’re never felt cleaner in your life.
You let yourself lie back against his broad chest, eyes closed, hand now on Frankie’s knee. Thumb running against the dark hairs and hard bone. Frankie’s chin is resting on your shoulder, a tickle of his scruff against you as he lets his hand trail down your left arm, the right is hooked over the side of the bath as you try and not get the brace wet.
Something flickers, the energy shifts almost imperceptibly; you stretch out your legs and turn your face with the tiniest of movements so that your lips are a breath away from him.
“Shug….” Whatever he was going to say, you kiss it away.
He carries you, wrapped in the softest of towels, back to his bedroom. Peppering kisses all over your face, naked as the day he was born, golden skin still shiny wet. You’re near hysterical in your laughter when you hear Santi exclaim a ‘holy shit Frankie’ as he catches sight of him in the corridor. Frankie just gives him the biggest grin you’ve ever seen and pushes open the bedroom door with his shoulder.
He carries you over the threshold like a newlywed, “Been dreamin’ about your pussy for four years Shug, I hope you’re ready.”
You wrap your arm tighter round his broad shoulders, lean into the shell of his ear, “Take me to bed or lose me forever Frankie.”
The laughter barrels out of you both, a thousand recollections of movie nights tucked up together to keep warm, empty tummies but the glow of the TV keeping you both distracted. No cable, you’d just had to watch whatever was on. Must have seen Top Gun thirty times.
This is you and Frankie; a quilt of memories that holds you together, wrapped in long, hungry summers, holding each other in the dark as a TV flickers, or hiding in the garden while a storm rages in your kitchen. Maybe you’d like to forget some of these squares, sown into your consciousness against your will, a patchwork of the depths of despair you’ve experienced together.
Frankie was always your light in the dark, you were his comfort in the chaos. Now it’s time to make new memories.
For Frankie, being between your thighs is like an act of worship. He lets out a hum of pleasure that you can feel at your very core as he trails kisses down your tingling flesh, rubbing that fine nose deliberately against your clit and letting his tongue explore you. He’s taking his time, enjoying each pulse of his tongue, each graze of his teeth against the softness of you, swirling your slick with his own spit, so set on his path to make you come undone for him. He flattens his tongue, moving his head quickly from side to side and you buck against him, but he’s pressing you firmly down by the hips, not letting you wiggle free as a stream of almost incoherent obscenities escape your quivering lips.
“Jesus, fuck, Frankie, feels so good, please, please, shit, please, don’t stop.”
He laughs at the merest suggestion and it sends another wave of pleasure through you, you begin to mirror his laughter, but it disappears into the air as a gasp when he pushes two fingers into you, focusing his licks and nips on your clit as he works to find the softest spot in you, curling and pulsing so that you’re a mess of want and ecstasy underneath him.
You prop yourself up on your good elbow so you can watch him under hooded eyes, his eyes are glistening with delight, blown black with desire, pulsing his tongue in time with the rhythm of his fingers. You groan with pleasure, a warmth spiralling up your spine and the fucker actually winks at you as you fall apart.
Bliss on bliss, you clutch at his hair, pulling at it and letting your head roll back as your orgasm washes over you and you throb around his fingers.
He kisses you deeply, your release wet around his scruff and you can’t get enough, feel desperate for more kisses, more sex, more Frankie. You reach for his hard cock and hook your leg over his thick thigh, dragging him into your heat. Fuck it feels good, it feels right. The stretch is divine, he has to stop kissing you to let out a groan of pleasure, snapping back his hips and diving deep into you again and again.
You’re both panting by the time he pulls you up onto your knees, holding you tight against his chest across your breasts, fucking up into you from behind as he rubs his fingers against your soaking seam and you card your hand through his hair. He showers you with kisses at your throat, whispers into your ear.
“I fucking love you Sugar.”
“I’ve always loved you Frankie.”
He spills into you as you come around him, a heat that makes you both collapse onto the bed together. Soft, burning, blissful.
You’re sat curled up on Frankie’s lap, watching the three boys attempt to make you a slap-up breakfast around you. It’s absolute chaos. Santi is insistent that he makes the best pancakes ever, throwing you overly flirty glances as he cracks the eggs and promises the most delicious breakfast you’ve ever eaten with a smirk. You’re already half-full from the bacon Benny insisted you try and the protein smoothie Will forced you to drink. They’re shouting at each other, but it feels like music; there’s joy here and you? You already feel a part of it.
Frankie holds you close, arms wrapped around your tummy, skin hot against yours. You let your head lean on his shoulder, taking it all in.
You have never felt more safe; you are protected, warm, belly full and the lights are blazing.
Tagged in some Frankie fans, but let me know if you'd like to be taken off: @yorksgirl @ptime1999 @1-bb @theanothersherlockian @pedrosballsack @fandx14 @rav3n-pascal22 @ozarkthedog @clownd1ck @ghotifishreads @theywhowriteandknowthings @magpiepills @survivingandenduring @mothandpidgeon @bitchwitch1981 @bitchesuntitled @freelancearsonist @misstokyo7love @chronically-ghosted @readingiskeepingmegoing @sp00kymulderr @survivingandenduring
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he with the dark curls, you with the watercolor eyes
883 words / drabble
main masterlist | notifications blog | ko-fi
summary: you've fallen in love with the man with the dark curls who makes your coastal life with him idyllic
warnings/information: MA 18+ (minors DNI), food consumption, reader is has no physical description, brief smut, frankie fluff
a/n: I have no idea what this writing style is, but it was fun! banners by @cafekitsune <3
frankie has always been a man who 'doesn't need much'
he tells you this every birthday, every christmas, every anniversary
he's happy with what's in front of him
that includes his cottage on the water, his big dogs, and, of course, you
there's nothing more he needs than waking up with your warm body curled into his side
your features softened with sleep, your arm outstretched along his tan torso
wedding ring wrapped around your pretty finger
he'll lean over and kiss the crown of your head before blindly reaching to his side table where dirty coffee mugs and half-read books pile up
your portrait eyes meet his own honeyed amber
once the dogs join the fray, jumping onto the bed and loving licking your sleepy faces, you're both as awake as you'll ever be
if it's not raining and not too cold, you'll both sit on the bench at the end of the pier, wrapped up in a slate gray wool blanket as you drink a coffee
in a spirited mood, frankie will fish
the moody water ripples upon the hook plopping into the cobalt water
frankie tugs the bait along until he feels a subtle drag
before you know it, you're fondly smiling as he reacts to catching a fish as if it's his first time
leashed up and wiggling with excitement, you walk the dogs along the water
their noses are glued to the ground, snorting and sniffing with curiosity
your boots dig into the ground and slosh with each step
the dirt is still loose and wet from the recent rain that's come through
you make small talk and capture pictures of your life to send back to your family and friends
leaving home was difficult at first, but your coastal life has been such a dream
and with frankie, you've come to realize you've never needed much else
for dinner, frankie cooks the fish he caught earlier in the day
you're his sous chef, working in your quaint kitchen with fuzzy slippers on, candles lit and glowing the somber home to an orange, flickering haze
the dogs lay tiredly on the rug, and watch with sleep-happy eyes
the cast iron skillet sizzles upon frankie flipping the fish while you work on the sides of mashed potatoes and asparagus
your kisses grow lazy and sweet by the end of the night
the silver moon dances across the midnight water, lighting your bedroom in a pale pearly film
frankie kicks the bedroom door closed with his boot blindly, his pretty mouth smirking
he always touches you like a delicate petal
at first, anyway
he likes to feel your skin, his palm attaching to your hip under your shirt as he walks you backward toward bed
you let out a silken moan as frankie's lips work their way down to the column of your throat
his teeth graze the soft skin that grows goosebumps in his wake
his stubble scratches and it's just yet another reminder of how perfect he feels without trying
your body has become his home
being his home has become your sanctuary
his hips bracket between your pretty thighs
he thrusts languidly in rhythm with your heartbeat
the drag of his thick cock causes your back to arch
he traps you with his thick arms, your hand clutching to his bicep
blinded by pleasure, frankie moans sweet nothings in your ear
he whispers how much he loves you
how perfect you are
how amazing you feel
how dedicated he is to you
how happy you make him
how much he loves you, again
your fingers weave into his nest of dark curls, loosening the hat hair from earlier in the day
his actions cause sweat to glimmer across your skin
bodies glittering like the waves under a full moon
the coil in your stomach is close to snapping
your pleas and moans for him to finish inside of you sweetly echo in his ears
he groans, feeling so lucky to have someone to spill into
someone to make his own and paint in his name
you reach the edge of the universe together
shaking, clenching, squeezing, crying, kissing
frankie brings you back with gentle kisses, breath lost in your lungs, now retrieved
you can't help but smile as he presses his forehead against your own, pulling the bedsheets up to your chest
he coasts his fingers along your body
mindlessly memorizing the curves, slopes, and dips
like a beautiful map to his favorite place
lips meet, hands hold, noses nuzzle, I love you's exchanged more than once
it's a sweet mantra at this point
to tell someone you love them this much, yet the meaning only grows stronger
despite sharing the same three words and eight letters over, over, and over again
it only heightens the sentiment
frankie is reminded that he doesn't need much
what else could he ask for when this is his life?
how much more perfect could this get?
there was no waiting to win the lottery
waiting for a big, well-deserved raise
waiting for his life to feel complete
because at the end of it all
when summers burn
and the days are long
he feels grateful to spend them with you
he with the dark curls, you with the watercolor eyes
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Come in, Atled Air, come in.
A Pilot!Frankie x fem!reader one shot
This is all fluff, just a little brain worm I had a few months ago and today it decided it wanted to be written.
Happy Morales Monday!
You still vividly remember the first time you “met” him, how a routine Thursday shift in the control tower lodged itself in your brain as a bright memory of when you first heard his voice.
Thursday
“Saltaire Airfield tower to Atled Air flight 117, do you copy?”
You release the switch on the microphone and scan the monitor in front of you. The small commercial flight coming in to land is still too far away to see in the sky, but the radar at the top of the air traffic control tower at the small Saltaire Airfield sees it clearly. You track their progress as you wait for the pilot to respond.
“Atled Air flight 117 here, I can hear you loud and clear, Saltaire tower.”
His voice comes through with a crackle in your headphones and even as you flick the switch to transmit at your end, you’re losing yourself in the way he sounds. The low, smooth gravel of his voice lingers in your ears and slips down your spine, and you know you want to hear him speak again.
“Atled Air 117, we have some sharp side wind gusts coming in off the ocean on runway one so I’m moving you to runway two. I repeat; you are clear for landing on runway two.”
“Copy that, Saltaire tower. Atled Air 117 adjusting course and coming in to land on runway two.”
His voice wraps itself around your brain and you want to push your headphones tighter against your ears to have that warm voice even closer. When he clicks off, you take a second to respond, your finger fumbling on the switch.
“Roger, Atled Air 117. Welcome to the island,” you say, cringing at yourself, you never welcome flights to the island, so unprofessional. This may be a tiny regional airport but correct air traffic protocol is as important here as at any of the large mainland airports. But from Atled Air comes the crackled response.
“Thank you, tower, I look forward to exploring.” The smile in the pilot’s voice is clear, a small chuckle at the end just as he flicks off his microphone. You grin at the runway below the tower, your sharp eyes spotting the small aircraft as it circles and approaches runway two.
There’s no need for you to guide the flight in to land, it’s the only flight landing, the next one isn’t due for another half an hour. Instead you just watch the pilot smoothly set his aircraft down, not even a wobble on the landing gear.
“Atled Air 117, please proceed to gate one,” you say into the microphone as the small passenger aircraft begins to taxi down the runway.
“Copy that, tower,” comes the reply, sending another little delightful shiver down your spine. You only hope you’re on duty when he flies out.
Saturday
Frankie adjusts the aviators on his nose and consults the instruments in front of him before he looks up and out through the windshield. The green smudge of the island is visible below him, a blip in the blindingly blue ocean. It’s only his second flight out here, a new destination for Atled Air, but he’s been looking forward to it since his first trip on Thursday. The voice of the female air traffic controller had lingered in his ears long after he’d brought the aircraft to a stand still by the gate. And unfortunately she hadn’t been on duty when he flew out a couple of hours later. Now he was crossing his proverbial fingers that her sweet voice would hail him as the flight reached the island’s air space.
He hesitates for a few seconds before he flicks the microphone to transmit.
“Saltaire Airfield tower, this is Atled Air 243 approaching your airspace. I’m seeing some turbulence on the radar, but we should be ready to land shortly.”
He flicks off and grimaces, that message wasn’t strictly necessary, he just couldn’t wait any longer to find out if it was the same woman in the tower. But when his headphones crackle to life and her soft voice flows into his ears, he can’t stop the grin that spreads across his face.
“Atled Air 243, Saltaire tower here. You’re a little bit early, I need you to hold your altitude and circle at the outer marker. We have an aircraft with broken landing gear on the tarmac that needs to be towed out of the way.”
“Copy that, Saltaire tower. Atled Air 243 holding at current altitude and circling at the outer marker,” he replies, chastising himself for not keeping the smile out of his voice.
The tone of her voice is slightly veiled and has a lilt, a hint of an accent he can’t place, and it makes his skin tingle to hear the way she rolls the r’s around her tongue. Before he can stop his mind, he wonders what it would sound like to have her say his name, how Frankie would sound whispered into his ear, a warm breath against his neck.
He adjusts his aviators again as he shifts in his seat, thumb hovering over the microphone switch. He shouldn’t really…
“What happened to the landing gear? All ok on the ground there, Saltaire?”
“The pilot missed the edge of the tarmac as he was taxing out and hit a rock,” her voice comes back through his headphones, and sends a pleasant shiver down his spine, “No injuries, just a bruised ego.” The smile is clear in her voice and Frankie smiles at his end.
“Well, at least I know it wasn’t one of our pilots,” he chuckles, “I’m the only Atled flight out here today.”
“I know,” she replies a bit too quickly and then stutters, “I-I mean, I keep track of all our flights. Of course.”
“Of course,” Frankie replies, “You’re a very good air traffic control tower, always on top of things.” He winces at his own line, why the fuck did he say that? Who compliments an air traffic control tower?
“You’ve only flown in here once before,” comes her reply with a small giggle, “but thanks, we do our best even though we’re a small airfield.”
He checks his instruments, looking for a reason to hail the tower again, her bright laughter still ringing in his ears. The island is spread out underneath him as he corrects his course, holding at the outer marker, and his headphones come to life again.
“Atled Air 243, you’re clear to land on runway one, over.”
“Copy that, tower. Atled Air 243 approaching runway one.”
“Welcome to the island,” she smiles through the airwaves and Frankie feels the tips of his ears go warm as he begins the pre-landing checklist.
“Thanks, Saltaire, looking forward to getting on the ground,” he smiles back.
Tuesday
You scan the list of incoming flights as you clock on for the shift and feel your stomach do a little summersault when the Atled Air flight is at the end of the list. Last flight of the day. And so far both flights have been piloted by the same pilot with the low, warm voice. You cross her fingers and send up a quick prayer that it’ll be him again.
The shift flies past, pun intended, as the afternoon slides into evening, and before you know it, Atlead Air 584 is approaching, the final flight. The weather has deteriorated during the day and heavy fog has settled over the island, not unusual, but it does mean flights need extra attention when coming in to land. Your hands shake a little with excitement as you flip the microphone switch and hail the incoming flight.
“Atled Air 584, Saltaire Airfield tower here. I can see you on the radar but the fog is thick on the ground, I’ll guide you in as you approach the outer marker.”
“Copy that, Saltaire tower,” comes his voice through your headphones and you do a little happy shuffle before quickling glancing behind you to make sure noone is watching. The smile in his voice makes butterflies tumble in the pit of your belly, and you quickly take a deep breath, focusing again.
“Atled Air 584, runway one is waiting for you, approach the outer marker.”
“Copy that,” he says, and you hear him inhale and curse in a low tone under his breath, “Damn, it’s thick down there, Saltaire. I’ve got zero visibility of the runway.”
“Just take it nice and slow, Atled, I’ve got you on radar, guiding you in.”
Frankie leaves his microphone open and grips the yoke with both hands, glancing over his instruments, hearing the beep of the outer marker as the aircraft slowly descends towards the fog-covered island.
“Looking good, Atlead,” your voice comes through into his ears, soft and calm, almost intimate in the way your tone guides him, “Keep on that course, middle marker coming up.”
“Copy that, Saltaire,” he replies, releasing a slow breath through his nose, you can hear it woosh gently through the microphone at his end and then he inhales again.
“Inner marker,” you say, “looking good, Atled.”
With a low thud, the landing gear hits the tarmac and the aircraft jolts. Frankie gently reduces the speed and sighs into the still open microphone. As far as landings go, he’s had much, much worse, but next to zero visibility always adds an extra layer of tension to any landing.
“Thanks, tower, great guiding,” he huffs, “Atled Air safely on the ground.”
“It was great flying, captain,” your voice smiles at him through the headphones, “You’re clear to taxi to gate number one.”
Your microphone clicks off and he rubs the back of his neck with his free hand, the other one on the yoke. He drops his hand to his thigh, tapping the outside with his fingers a few times before his thumb is back, hovering over the microphone switch.
“Atled Air to Saltaire tower, you copy?”
“Saltaire tower here, is there a problem, captain?”
“Uh, no…This is very unprofessional but…when do you finish your shift in the tower? Can I maybe buy you a drink?”
“I'm off in thirty minutes. And a drink sounds nice.” You bite the inside of your cheek to stop yourself from giggling, your cheeks aching from the smile stretching your face.
“Is that bar across the road from the airport any good? Can we meet there?” he asks, smiling like a fool at his end, eagerly rubbing his hand over his thigh as he glances up at the tower.
“Sure, see you there, captain”.
Forty minutes later
You glance towards the door again as you hear it swing open, and this time it’s him, the Atled Air uniform giving him away straight away. He scans the bar as you scan him, tall, dark haired and broad, wide shoulders stretching the seams of the uniform shirt tight. As he spots you, the only woman at the bar, he smiles, a dimple appearing on his cheek as he walks towards you. His captain's hat is under his arm, and he runs his free hand through his hair, the chocolate brown curls creating an unruly halo under the dim bar lights.
“Hi,” he says, his low, warm voice wrapping itself around you as he leans forward and brushes his lips over your cheek, “I’m Frankie.”
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not me waking up and thinking about bookshop! reader and frankie morales. turning the sign so it reads “closed” on the anniversary of their first date. the two of you all set to reenact it—but sexier. I’m talking his hands pressing you to bookshelves, asking you to grab things from lower shelves and you flirting with him using titles of books with suggestive wording. but even in the midst of pretend, he can’t stop looking at you in the way he has done since the first meeting—all in awe, completely infatuated. and honestly, you can’t help but look at him the same.
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Hey Han!!
Congratulations on 10k!!! You are one of my favorite PPCU creators and you deserve all the love!
🌕 for Frankie + mirror sex + He looks up grinning like a devil
I can wait to see what you come up with!!!💜💜💜
thank you SO much, jenn! i love you very much and i so happy you're here. this prompt immediately screamed sub!frankie to me so here he is! writing ten sentences is such a fun challenge lol. enjoy!
pairing: sub!frankie morales x dom!female!reader
rating: 18+
warnings etc: smut, established relationship, face-sitting, mirror sex, orgasm denial/control, d/s dynamics, a smidgen of hair pulling. no use of y/n.
"Not yet, Frankie," you instruct him.
There's only a hint of strain in your voice as you grind your pussy against his tongue, your body long and open above him as you reach back behind you stroke his aching cock.
He whimpers into your cunt and - not for the first time tonight - desperately fights the urge to come.
The mirror on the ceiling reflects the scene back to him; half his face concealed between your thighs, your skin glistening with exertion, one hand kneading at your tit, his own arms spread wide on either side of his body against the sheets because you'd forbidden him to touch.
He decides he can't look; if he looks too long he'll come.
He squeezes his eyes shut and lets you take what you need from him, forcing his mind to drift far away so he doesn't disappoint you.
You don't let him off that easy.
"Nu-uh, baby," you grit, fisting the curls at the top of his head until his eyes flutter open, "I want you watch me when I come on your mouth."
Frankie groans but doesn't argue, prying his eyelids apart and drawing his helpless gaze upwards to the mirror, audience to the frantic rocking of your hips over his willing mouth.
And when you do finally break, when you gush onto his tongue and cry that he's a good boy, such a good fucking boy, Frankie grins haggardly up at his reflection, sated off the praise alone even before you softly tell him, "Come for me, Frankie - baby, you can come now."
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okay hear me out, it's about the anticipation
the stolen glances and hands grazing thighs under the table while everyone enjoys a nice dinner to celebrate a birthday
the one look frankie pins you with as you sit to his right, his brown eyes catching the low light of the restaurant and glowing while a smirk plays at the corner of his lips. just for you
his whispered words of 'you're pretty' so simple but they ignite you, pleasure simmering low and purring through your body
the sipping of each others drinks to try them out, sharing straws and fingers lingering as glasses are handed to each other
the way that the cake seems to take forever to be decorated with candles and brought out to the table, the giddiness of inevitable ride home in a crowded car where you press up against him on every curve, his arm a warm weight around your waist
it's about how when you finally get a moment alone together, everyone branching off to their own cars and drive off, he presses you up against the side of yours, his hands skimming up your body to finally cradle your face and pitch it up for him to connect his lips to yours
the welcome home of his tongue licking into your mouth, tasting the lingering flavor of chocolate, elevating the kiss and desire flooding your body
the shared laughter of having survived another dinner hiding the secret of you two exploring what you mean to each
it's about the way everyone already knows but let's you both get away with thinking they have no clue because you both are so happy
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Being inclusive with your reader insert fic is a kindness. It tells people of color (poc) that you are considering someone who does not look like you in your fic. It shows love and dedication to our craft. It tells poc that they belong here too and they can see themselves in your story.
Poc aren’t look for activism in fic, we know fandom isn’t that serious, but we should be able to have that same level of escapism when we turn to fic and fandom. We belong here too. This space is for everyone, not just one group of people.
Just to give a few examples of how simple it can be: say “skin warmed” instead of blushed, say “cradled your head” instead of running fingers through hair, say “angles yourself to kiss” instead of standing on tiptoes, use italics to indicate Spanish to take out a throwaway line of “you didn’t understand Spanish” things like that. Small changes that do not impact the fic at all but make a world of difference in inclusivity!
And for anything you can’t/don’t want to change, simply add warning in the beginning. Things like hair descriptors, anything reader might wear, some backstory for reader (especially involving family or where the story is set), readers job, things like that. A lot of times just having that heads up before the fic makes a world of difference!
And one example of kindness we as writers always worked to change: until recently (just a couple years ago) it wasn’t common to label the gender of the reader. But those who aren’t female asked writers to label it so they know which to read and which to avoid, and now it’s common to label the gender/pronouns of the reader. So it is possible! It just takes effort! And I’m a writer myself so I know it can be done!
We can pretend to be a bartender or a bounty hunter or an actress or anything else. But we shouldn’t have to imagine we’re a white one.
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Cramps
Summary: After going off of birth control, your periods have been a little more intense than you're used to. What starts out as a stressful morning between you and your husband, very quickly turns into a night that bodes very well for the both of you.
Paring: Husband Frankie Morales x Wife f!reader (no use of y/n)
Word Count: 5.4K on the dot (idk how we got here)
Warnings: SMUT (18+) PERIOD SEX, unprotected p in v sex (do better, but also they want a baby so), vaginal fingering, oral (f receiving, again, you're on your period but our pussy eating king Fransisco Morales is an unstoppable force of nature), creampie, praise kink, big fat nasty breeding kink (it's who I am now, I won't apologize for it), Frankie's got a NASTY mouth, Frankie is the best husband, reader is on her period/has period symptoms, talks about family planning/not being on birth control, use of nicknames (hermosa, quierda, cariño), reader has no physical descriptions besides that she can wear Frankie's clothes
A/N: Well... This was gonna be a drabble... and then it was just gonna be fluff.... and then it was gonna be just some implied smut... and now, we're here??? Idk, don't ask me 🥴 self indulgent bc I just finished my period (and my periods have been whack since stopping bc) and what better way to heal myself than imagining what Frankie would be like taking care of you 🥺 also pls be nice to me this is my first time writing Frankie and I'm v nervous EEK I hope you enjoy!!! sorry Javi bby, I still love u
Bitchy.
You wished you had a better word to describe your mood for today, but truth be told, bitchy was by far the most accurate.
You and Frankie were hoping to start trying for your first baby soon, and had recently gone off your birth control after your doctor had told you it may take a few months for your body to regulate itself before you had a better chance at getting pregnant. Your doctor had also warned you about many of the symptoms and side effects that stopping the pill could have, one of those being becoming more aware of your emotions and mood swings throughout your cycle. That, you were prepared for.
What you were not prepared for, was to feel like an absolute psychopath in the days leading up to your period.
Your cycle had been wonky the past few months as your body began to sort itself out- you had a feeling your period was probably about to start soon, but hadn’t thought much about it, considering your terrible and grouchy mood had overshadowed it. You had tried your best to pull yourself together the past few days, chalking up your grumpiness to long hours at work, or just being in a weird funk, but today, you woke up with a fire in your gut, ready to fight, and poor Frankie was about to be your punching bag.
Sweet Frankie had been nothing short of a saint when it came to just about anything, but dealing with your newly heightened emotions right before your period really should have earned him some sort of Presidential Medal of Bravery, considering that your newly discovered highs and lows while PMS-ing were just as frightening as any time he had spent during his time in the military.
Unfortunately for your husband, despite his best efforts, he had been on your nerves all morning. Not because he was really doing anything wrong, but because the little things that you were normally so good about letting go, or the patience you frequently had seemed to have flown out the window, and you were convinced that if Frankie even breathed the wrong way, you were going to absolutely lose it.
So when unsuspecting Frankie decided to ask you a simple request about after work plans, there was very little he could have done to prepare for your response.
“Morning, Hermosa.” Frankie cooed, emerging into the kitchen, his hand rustling through his untamed, sleepy brown curls as he let out a yawn and a stretch, the slight softness of his stomach peeking out between his t-shirt and pajama pants as he raised his arms above his head before settling behind you. He wrapped himself around your waist, pressing a gentle kiss into your shoulder as you finished putting the last of your lunch in your bag for work, trying to force yourself to focus on his sweet good morning, rather than the empty bowl of cereal in the sink that had greeted you first thing when you woke up, already starting you off on the wrong foot in your already irritable mood.
“Morning, babe.” You grinned, forcing yourself to forgo the annoyance hidden behind your smile as you pecked a quick kiss on Frankie’s lips before gathering the rest of your things for the day scattered across the kitchen table. “Sorry, I didn’t have time to make you breakfast this morning because I was running late, but there’s extra scrambled eggs on the stove if you want them. I’m really sorry, Frankie, I gotta head out, have a good day, I’ll see you later okay?” You sighed, slinging your work bag over your shoulder, your hands full of your coffee mug, water bottle and keys, your cluttered grip and running behind schedule only adding to your frustration.
“All good, Querida, no worries. Hey, actually baby, before you leave,” He paused, setting down the coffee mug he was just about ready to take a sip of, as if a little lightbulb had just gone off in his brain, “do you mind picking up stuff to make that really good buffalo chicken dip for Benny’s tonight? I told ‘em we’d bring like, an appetizer or something, if that’s okay.”
For Frankie’s sake, you couldn’t have been more thankful that you had your back turned to him, because if looks could kill, Frankie Morales would have been a dead man.
Every rational part of your brain knew that even though his request perhaps wasn’t the best timing, stopping by the store and making dip to bring to Benny’s for game night really wasn’t that much time or effort out of your day. But today, it seemed like every part of your brain but the rational one seemed to be functioning properly, and the raging, irrational part might as well have heard that Frankie wanted you to prepare and cook a Thanksgiving meal for 74 after you got home from work.
You took a deep breath, your grip tightening around the items in your hand, praying with every bone in your body that someway or another, you had misheard your husband.
“Tonight? As in, like, today, after I get home from work?” You questioned, trying to do your best to keep your tone from sounding too condescending.
“Yeah, we don’t have to be there until 7, I just don’t think I’m gonna have time to since I probably won’t be outta work until 6:30.” He shrugged nonchalantly, taking another swig of his coffee
Oh yeah, you’d heard him right.
You let out a deep sigh, even more over dramatic than you had intended it to be, arms crossed over your chest and stark frown spread across your face as you turned towards Frankie.
“Oh, perfect! That’s a great thing for me to find out about at 7:45 A.M. the day of, Frank!” Your voice oozed with ferocious sarcasm, now slamming your things back down onto the table to run your hands over your face. “No, that’s great, because there’s nothing I wanted to do more than to come home and make buffalo chicken dip instead of all the other shit I needed to do today before we left! Amazing! Thank you!”
At this point, you were almost positive that if your eyes rolled any further, they’d be in the back of your skull, letting out another angry huff as you shook your head at Frankie, who was looking absolutely petrified as he leaned back against the counter, eyes darting to the floor to avoid yours, running his hand over the wispy curls at the nape of his neck. Frankie began to stammer, trying to defend himself from your wrath.
“Hermosa, I’m- I’m sorry? I know it’s last minute, but you normally make it every time we go over there, I just- I figured it’d be easy for you to do? You can get something else, or I can try to stop by the store really quick on the way home, I just might-”
“Nope, you want buffalo chicken dip, apparently I’m making buffalo chicken dip!” You groaned, collecting everything back into your hands, swearing under your breath as you tried to balance everything in your grip. “Jesus, okay, I need to go to work, just- I don’t even know. I gotta go, Frankie.”
“Querida, I-” Frankie pleaded, beginning to trail behind you as you made your way to the front door.
“Frankie, whatever, it’s fine! I’ll make the stupid dip! I have to go to work, I’ll see you later.” You could feel the muscles in your jaw beginning to clench as you gritted your teeth, trying with everything in you to keep from exploding as you headed out of the house. Without even a kiss goodbye, you left Frankie in the doorway, watching you throw your things in the car and slam the door behind you as you drove down the driveway.
But as soon as you were on the road and your house was out of view, you could instantly feel the tears beginning to well in your eyes, slowly streaming down your cheeks as you began to sob, wondering why you had ruined the morning over as stupid as an appetizer, and even worse, that you had been a complete asshole to your husband about it.
You couldn’t have been more thankful that work had been quiet today- no meetings on the schedule, and no one coming to bother you, leaving you plenty of peace and quiet to continue sulking and brooding in your unpleasant mood.
Right around lunch time, you found yourself eating alone in your office, wishing your lunch was about ten times saltier and chocolatier than it was, crying to yourself as you watched a video of a dog meeting its new human sibling for the first time.
Just as you were beginning to pack up the rest of your lunch and start back up with your work, you felt a terrible twinge in your lower stomach that had you just about keeled over in pain, followed by that all too familiar feeling in your underwear.
Frantically scrambling, you reached into your bag to pull out a tampon, hurriedly shuffling to the nearest bathroom, only to reveal the murder scene equivalent as you pulled down your pants.
Your period had come.
In that moment, as much as you were dreading the pain and misery that was the next few days to come, you couldn’t also help but feel a slight sense of relief, realizing that you were in fact, not actually a crazy person for the way you were feeling, you were just PMS-ing out of your mind. You couldn’t also help but feel absolutely awful for your unjustified freak out at your husband this morning, your heart sinking with guilt as you made your way back to your desk, immediately grabbing your phone to text Frankie.
“Hey… I’m so sorry about this morning. What you were asking me to do wasn’t a big deal at all and I totally freaked out on you. My period just started, I think that’s why I’ve been such a bitch this morning. I’m sorry, Frankie, I love you.💕 ”
It was almost instantly after you hit send that the reply bubble popped up in your message, your heart pounding anxiously waiting for your husband’s reply.
“It’s okay, I kind of had a feeling 😉 babe, you weren’t being a bitch- I should have talked to you about it sooner. Shitty timing on my part. I’m sorry. I love you too, Querida.”
Before you could even respond, another message popped up below his first.
“Don’t worry about going to the store or making anything tonight. I already texted Benny and told him we couldn’t come. We can spend the night in, just the two of us. I can pick up takeout on the way home if you want and we can pick a movie to watch.”
You could feel your frustrated facade beginning to melt away as your lips shifted from a pursed frown to a small smirk reading Frankie’s text, your thumbs quickly tapping across the screen of your phone to reply.
“Thank you. You’re the best.”
“Of course. Hopefully none of your co-workers ask you to make buffalo chicken dip before you leave 😘”
“Oh shut up, meanie.”
“Just kidding. Have a good rest of your day, love you. 💙
“Love you too. 🤍”
Although the rest of your day was nowhere near enjoyable, given the fact you felt like you were getting punched repeatedly in the uterus and your personality resembled that of Oscar the Grouch, you knew that your night in with Frankie was your light at the end of the tunnel, and only needed to make it a few more hours before there was at least some sweet relief finally headed your way.
Despite the constant stabbing pain in your lower stomach and back, your drive home from work had you in much better spirits than your drive there, now not only having an explanation as to why you had felt like such a mess, but also knowing the rest of your night was going to be dedicated to nothing but cuddling up in your comfiest clothes and snuggling up next to Frankie on the couch.
As you pulled down your street, you were surprised to see Frankie’s truck already parked in the driveway, wondering what he was doing at home almost an hour earlier than he had mentioned he would be this morning. Gathering all of your things out of the back of your car, you quietly entered your home, confusion scrunching in your brow as you called out for your husband.
“Frankie? Babe, are you home?”
Before you could even kick off your shoes or hang up your coat, Frankie had already appeared at the front door to greet you, boyish grin spread across his face as he grabbed your things out of your hand, carefully placing them on your entryway table before engulfing you in a bear hug, his broad arms wrapping around your body and pulling you closer into his chest.
You could feel all the muscles in your body instantly relax as your face rested against the soft cotton of his t-shirt, soaking in the familiar woody and savory scent of him, letting yourself be consumed by every ounce of his embrace.
“Hi Hermosa.” Frankie cooed, pressing a soft kiss against your temple, running his hands up and down your back as you looked up at his sweet brown eyes shining down at you.
“What are you doing home so early? I mean, not that I’m mad about it at all, I just thought you said that you had to work until 6:30 and-”
“Told my boss I had to head out early for a family emergency.” Frankie smirked, laughing at you playfully rolling your eyes from his so-called excuse.
“Last time I checked, your wife being a grump because she’s bleeding out of her cooch doesn’t classify as a family emergency, Fransisco.” You teased, giving him a little shove, making the two of you giggle in tandem.
“Eh, close enough. I’m really sorry about this morning, querida. I was a dick for not talking to you about plans beforehand and just assuming you could go do it. It wasn’t fair of me.”
“It’s okay, Frankie. What you were asking for wasn’t a big deal and I made it one because I’ve been a psycho all day. I’m sorry, too.”
“Well,” Frankie paused, pressing another kiss onto your cheek, the width of his palm gently cradling your jaw as you stared up at him and his sympathetic smile, “number one, you are not a psycho. I can’t imagine how uncomfortable you must feel right now, so even if you were, I wouldn’t blame you one bit. Number two,” he paused again, shifting his kiss from your cheek to your lips, his thumb delicately swiping across your skin, “you’re my wife and I love you more than anything, and if I can take a little time off to help make you feel better, it’s the least I can do. So, why don’t you go change into something comfortable, and when you get back down here, I will have pizza and ice cream, whatever movie you wanna watch, and a back rub ready for you, okay?”
“Okay. Thank you, Frankie. God, you’re the best.” You grinned, pressing up on your tiptoes to let your mouth meet Frankie’s, the plush pout of his bottom lip swiping across yours, lingering just long enough to let the butterflies in your stomach begin to swirl, heat creeping through your cheeks in the tenderness of the moment.
“Of course, cariño. Te amo. Now go get changed.” With one last peck on his lips, you wiggled out of Frankie’s grasp to make your way up the stairs, grinning to see that your husband had already set out your favorite of his oversized sweatshirts and sweatpants, neatly folded on the bed for you to grab, quickly shuffling out of your uncomfortable work attire and exchanging it for Frankie’s clothes, your smile growing even wider at the feeling of perpetually being wrapped up in the essence of him.
As you made your way back downstairs to meet Frankie, you found your heart skipping a beat again to see that the better part of the living room had been turned into a cozy sanctuary- lights dim and candles lit, both parts of your couch squished together, filled with every pillow and blanket you owned, and Frankie sitting in the middle, giant box of pizza, tub of ice cream and your handsome husband waiting for you.
As if your emotions hadn’t already taken you on a wild roller coaster of a ride today, the adorable sight in front of you had you on the verge of tears again, wiping the wetness pooling in your eyes with the back of Frankie’s sweatshirt sleeve drooping off your arm before crawling into the blanket fort he had constructed for the two of you.
“Frankie… You didn’t have to do this.” You sniffled, curling up next to Frankie as he draped a blanket over your lap and his arm over your shoulder, passing you a plate with 2 large pieces of pizza.
“It’s the least I could do. I put on Hercules for us to watch, but if you wanna-”
Before you could let him finish the rest of his sentence, you were running your hand across the scratchy stubble of his cheek, pulling his face closer to yours as you planted a kiss on his lips, feeling your smiles melt into one another's as your mouths met. “That sounds perfect. God, how’d I get so lucky?”
“I could say the same thing, mi amor. You ready to start the movie?”
“Only if you also pass me that tub of Ben and Jerry’s to go with my pizza.”
“I think I can make that happen.”
About half way through the movie, pizza and tub of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, your and Frankie’s bodies were tangled together in a sea of limbs and blankets, contently snuggled up with one another as Frankie’s fingers traced lazy circles on your back and shoulder as you laid against his chest.
“You doin’ okay, querida? Need anything?” He cooed, his soft voice dancing in your ear. As if it weren’t enough that you had already been through the extreme highs and lows of almost every feeling under the sun today, the one you hadn’t been until this very moment was insatiably horny. While the mood swings you had mentally prepared yourself for with your new period symptoms, the constant other kind of ache between your legs you had not, and feeling the low rasp of Frankie’s words tickling your neck had been just enough to flip the switch to make you desperately needy.
Letting your leg slide over Frankie’s lap, you pushed yourself up to straddle his hips, running your hands through the dark curls of his thick, brown hair, and down his broad chest, your fists bunching the worn fabric of his shirt in your hands as your mouths became a mess of tangled tongues and teeth.
“I need- fuck- I need you, Frankie, please.” You pleaded between muffled moans, his tongue swiping in the parted space where your lips melted together as one, instinctively beginning to grind your hips into his, feeling the bulge in his sweatpants starting to grow beneath you.
“Fuck- You sure, baby?” Frankie rasped, reactively bucking up into you, making you whine as his hands dug into your hips, guiding you as you swirled over the tented fabric of his bottom half rubbing against your covered core.
“Please. Please, Frankie.” You were all but whimpering at this point, nodding frantically in approval as Frankie used the grasp on your hips to guide you onto your back, making you cock your head in confusion as Frankie scampered to the other side of the couch, back turned to you as he reached over the ledge, pulling out a thick, black towel with a smug grin on his face. “Did you seriously have a towel ready incase I wanted to have sex?” You snorted, shaking your head at Frankie, now crawling back to you, caging your body under his with an electric kiss as he shimmied the towel underneath you.
“Maybe.” Frankie smirked, breaking from your kiss to let his lips trail down your body, his hands toying with the edge of his sweatshirt covering your body as he pushed it up your stomach and chest, helping you to shimmy it over your head, leaving your top half exposed. He gently palmed at your breasts, taking each pebbled nipple in his mouth, sucking and flicking at the buds with his tongue before letting his kisses travel down the soft skin of your stomach and waistband of your sweatpants. The clothes on your bottom half soon joined your sweatshirt in a crumpled pile as Frankie nestled himself between your legs, gently nudging your hips to let your thighs part, revealing your pussy, slick and shiny for him with your juices.
Even though Frankie would eat you out for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a late night snack, you couldn’t help but feel guilty that he still found himself between your legs during your time of the month, considering any other man probably would have scoffed at just the thought of going down on you on your period.
But, then again, Frankie Morales wasn’t just any other man.
“Frankie, baby, you know you don’t- Oh fuck!” You gasped, cut off in surprise as Frankie’s tongue licked a long, broad strip across your cunt, making you shudder in pleasure as his head perked up, revealing the devilish grin spread between his cheeks watching your chest already heave in heavy, shaky breaths.
“Oh I know I don’t have to, sweet girl. But I want to. Relax, baby, lemme take care of you.”
Before you could agree, protest, or anything in between, Frankie was back between your legs, arms wrapped around your thighs as they draped over his broad shoulders, digging his fingertips into the plush softness of your skin, dragging his tongue through your folds with the exact grace and precision that he knew made you fall apart in seconds.
With flat, firm presses of his mouth latched against your clit, you could already feel your bottom half writhing under him, the perfect pressure of his tongue dancing around your sensitive bundle of nerves making you moan in pleasure. As your head dipped back, falling into the couch pillow behind you, your hand shot down, fingers burying themselves in the wild curls of Frankie’s hair, tugging at the thick ends for any sort of release as he worked relentlessly at your aching cunt.
“Fuck, Frankie, oh fuck- Fuck, baby, you feel so good.” You whined, your praise only intensifying the way your husband drank every ounce of you up, two thick fingers now gently pressing inside your heat, curled deliciously as they rocked in and out of your entrance, nudging against your g-spot.
Frankie had spent enough time worshiping the altar that was your pussy to know exactly how to make you crumble beneath him, leaving you chanting his name like a prayer as his lips latched around your clit, ferociously sucking as his fingers prodded at the soft, spongy spot that made your cunt begin to clench and heat in your belly pool.
“That’s it, Hermosa. I know you’re close, baby girl. Let me feel you, mi amor. I’ve got you.” Frankie groaned, his words humming deep in his chest, placing chaste kisses on the inside of your thighs before drinking you up like a man starved, adding a third finger into your heat, the added fullness and stretch, combined with Frankie’s relentless pace, enough to have the tingle that had been building at the base of your spine now washing through every inch of your body. Your orgasm began to crash through you, your pussy fluttering as pleasure radiated in your veins, making you cry out Frankie’s name over and over.
Frankie worked persistently through your high, only pulling back after making sure that you had cum again, sitting back on his haunches as he admired the blissed out and ragged mess you had become, your pussy slick and swollen as your chest rose and fell in wrecked inhales and exhales, trying to compose yourself from the Frankie and fucked you senseless with just his tongue.
Wiping the slick and juices glistening in his mustache with the back of his hand, Frankie tugged the sweatshirt covering his own body over his head, followed by his pants and boxers, freeing his painfully hard cock as it slapped against his stomach, his tip red and leaking with precum as his broad body loomed over yours, sucking and nipping at your pulse point as you whimpered his name.
“Frankie, holy fuck.”
“Such a good girl for me, querida. You still want me to fuck you, baby?” He mewled, the metallic and tangy taste of you still lingering on his tongue as he kissed you, laughing to himself at the way you found yourself frantically nodding your head to tell him yes before your words could.
“Jesus Christ, yes. Fuck, please Frankie, I need to feel you.”
Reaching down to stroke himself, he lined his cock up with your entrance, easily sliding into your heat and brushing his tip against your cervix, taking a moment to let you adjust to his fullness. The whine you let out as Frankie filled every inch of you was nothing short of ragged, digging your nails into the skin of his broad back as he ever so slowly began to thrust in and out of you, dragging his length against the slick of your cunt.
“Oh fuck me- Fuck, you hear how wet you are for me, sweet girl? This what you needed, baby? To fill up that pretty little pussy of yours?” Frankie groaned, letting his forehead rest against yours, his sweaty curls now starting to stick to his skin as he pounded into you, rutting his hips at a faster and faster pace.
“It’s all for you, Frankie- Oh shit- only for you.” You moaned, your fingers wrapping around the width of his biceps, flexing deliciously as he hovered over you, sucking you in to a long, deep kiss, fucking into you over and over.
Even with the years between you and the ring on your finger, the possessive part of Frankie’s brain would never get over how the primal and all consuming feeling of knowing you were his, forever, your words shooting straight to his dick as a low groan rumbled in his chest, silently cursing to himself through gritted teeth, watching you fall apart below him.
Readjusting himself, Frankie sat back on his heels, hooking his arm under one of your legs to drape it over his shoulder, the new angle stretching you out in a way that had you seeing stars as Frankie rammed into your g-spot and began thumbing at your clit, still swollen and sensitive from your first orgasm. You could already feel the heat beginning to bloom in your belly once again, your leg beginning to tremble hoisted over Frankie’s shoulder as he dug into the meat of your thigh with a bruising intensity.
Just like he would never get over the fact of knowing you were his, Frankie would never get over watching you begin to crumble under his touch, taking the time to memorize every twitch and twinge your body made as you came closer and closer to your end, always savoring in the moaning mess you’d become as you fell apart around him.
“Fuck, Frankie, Fuck, oh my god- I’m close, baby.” You were all but rambling at this point, your brain barley stringing together coherent sentences as you felt your cunt beginning to clench around his cock, the lewd noises of your moans, wetness and skin slapping together as your hips met filling the room at a borderline pornagraphic rate.
“Meirda, I’m not gonna last much longer, hermosa. Fuck, where do you want me, baby?” Frankie growled through gritted teeth, his eyes locking on yours and telling him everything he needed to know without you saying a word.
“Inside. Fuck, please Frankie, I want you to cum inside me.”
Your confirmation was all it took to flip the switch in Frankie that sent him absolutely feral, the thought of being able to actually knock you up now that you weren’t on birth control anymore, giving you a baby, proving another way to the world to mark you as his? The thought alone was enough to have him bracing every bone in his body to keep him from cuming right then and there.
“Fuck me. You want me to fill you up, querida? Fuck me full of you? Fuck a baby into you? That's what you want, huh?” Frankie moaned, grunting with each thrust of his hips, his rhythm becoming more frantic and shaky as he felt your pussy begin to flutter around him, pressing the pads of his fingers against your clit, swirling them in frantic circles to make sure you came before he did.
“Fuck, yes. I need you too, holy fuck- wanna make you a daddy, Fransisco.”
You could feel the tightly wound knot in your core starting to snap, your legs trembling and breath shaking as Frankie fucked into you, finding yourself on the verge of collapse- but not before Frankie’s filthy mouth got the last word in.
“Jesus, fuck- Fuck, hermosa. That’s what you want, pretty girl? I swear, I’m gonna fuck myself so deep into you it’ll fucking take. Get you fucking pregnant tonight.”
That was all it took to have you orgasm come crashing through you, every inch of your body radiating with pleasure as you came, crying out Frankie’s name as you gushed around him, your eyes practically rolling to the back of your head, your mind going blank and numb, the only thing grounding you were the incoherent ramblings of your husband as he followed suit behind you.
“Fuck, that’s it, baby. Fuck, I’m gonna cum too, fuck, fuck-ahhhhhh.” With one final thrust, Frankie could feel himself spilling against your walls, coating you with his spend as his cock pulsed, making sure he milked himself of every last drop deep inside your cunt before even thinking about pulling out. Moving your leg, Frankie slumped into you, splaying himself across your body as your chests rose and fell in sync, laying in silence as you let your breathing steady, coming back down to Earth from your high.
With a shallow grunt, Frankie carefully pulled his softening cock out of your heat, leaning back to admire the mess he had made between your legs, his cum dripping down the inside of your thighs and pussy glistening with the mixture of your arousal. You let out a soft hiss at the loss of Frankie’s fullness inside you, only to quickly be replaced by a gasp as he buried his two fingers back into your cunt.
“Gotta make sure every last drop stays in there, hermosa. Gonna keep you full of me all night, baby.” He mewled, carefully gathering his spend and pushing it deep inside you, making you whimper as he slowly pulsed his fingers back and forth, pulling away his hand to lean back into your body, engulfing you with an electric kiss.
“Holy fuck, fuck me. Jesus, Frankie.” You laughed to yourself, your head dipping back on the pillow as you buried your face in your hands, at a loss for words at how euphoric you now felt in your post colital bliss.
“Wow, again, already? Gotta give me a few after that querida.” He smirked, making you roll your eyes at his joke as you playfully swatted at him, making him lean in to pepper your body with kisses, leaving you squealing and squirming in delight.
“You are absolutely ridiculous, Fransisco Morales. If you keep fucking me like that, then yeah, absolutley.”
“If I keep fucking you like this, I have a very hopeful feeling that next month, we’ll have something else to care about besides period cramps.”
“I swear to god, if one of my cravings ends up being buffalo chicken dip once I’m pregnant, I’m gonna be pissed.”
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stalemate
pairing: Frankie Morales x f!reader
words: 7.2k
summary: Frankie Morales is your best friend — until a drunken hookup tears you apart.
warnings: 18+ minors dni; friends -> enemies -> lovers, TF characters without the TF plot, no Tom (in this house we hate Tom), alcohol consumption, smoking, angst, jealousy, pining, Frankie & reader being idiots in love, explicit smut, size kink, brief mentions of drunk sex, bad / regretful sex (between reader & OC), oral (f!receiving), unprotected piv, creampie, multiple orgasms, use of pet names (bebita, querida, baby, etc.), grilled cheese as a love language, happy ending, I think that's it but let me know if I missed anything!
a/n: thank you so much to @javisashtray & @pedgito for beta-reading this for me <3 this is for all my frankie lovers out there (aka bitches with good taste). dividers are by cafekitsune. follow @joelscurlsupdates for fic notifications! enjoy :)
Frankie Morales makes the best grilled cheese you’ve ever had. Perfectly golden bread; gooey, melty cheese — just the thought of it makes you drool. He says he has a secret ingredient. Won’t let you in the kitchen while he cooks for you, lest you find out.
Sometimes, upon entering his apartment, you can already smell melted butter. He’ll have started on one without even asking if you want it. He knows you always do.
Sit, he’ll shout from the other room. I’ll be right there. Feel free to put something on — but please, not 13 Going on 30. You’ll thank him and question his distaste for Mark Ruffalo in the same breath: you’re the best, but it’s not my fault Matty is the dream man.
He’ll bring you the wafting plate along with a Corona, and insist that you eat before it goes cold while he makes one for himself. Ever the gentleman, ever the friend — at least he was.
Because the two of you haven’t spoken in a month; not since the drunken hookup that you’re both pretending didn’t happen.
You’d laughed the entire cab ride home from the bar. That last round of tequila shots had left you feeling good, all warm and giggly, and Frankie mirrored you in the backseat with his drunken grin. Eyes glassy, lips pulled wide, he’d smacked you lightly on the shoulder as you recalled Santiago’s pitiful loss in that third game of pool. “When he pocketed the eight-ball…” he trailed off into another fit of laughter.
“And then—“ you attempted, voice caught in your throat as another giggle barreled out. “—the cue hitting his drink!” Your entire body folded over, hands braced on Frankie’s thighs as the two of you struggled to regain composure. Through labored breaths, you squealed. “He’s never going to live that down!”
After a few particularly stressful months at work, you lived for these nights out with your friends. You’d met Frankie through your best friend Mal, who was dating his friend Benny, and your circles had eventually meshed into one. Sometimes it felt like it had always been that way, like you’d known the guys your entire life.
Especially Frankie.
Your friendship was a special one — punctuated by frequent trips to the movies to watch the latest horrible slasher film; by nights spent yapping on the phone about nothing in particular. He’d become a constant in your life. Never, in your right mind, would you even dream of doing anything to jeopardize that—
“You look really hot tonight, by the way.”
He shouldn’t have said that. He shouldn’t have. But then it was you who leaned in closer, you who rested your hand on his hip and plucked the Standard Heating Oil cap off his head, placing it atop your own.
It was you who kissed him first.
He deepened it though — that was all him — large, restless hands grasping at your sides, your back, your face; tongue pushing past the seam of your lips to press against yours. He’d groaned into your mouth when the cab stopped at the curb in front of your building. Cursed under his breath when you pulled away.
And then, your voice ragged and breathless, you’d asked, “do you want to come in for a bit?”
It was a mistake. A horrible, blissful mistake. Waking up with sticky thighs and Frankie’s thumbprint bruised into your hip, you’d found his side of the bed cold; your inbox empty. He hadn’t called, hadn’t texted. Still hasn’t.
The aftermath is cursory glances. Half-assed greetings and pleasantries murmured across the bar. Which you don’t mind, really. You don’t want to speak to him. He’d probably just feed you some lie about losing track of time, not remembering what happened that night.
You wish you could forget it.
The visual is fuzzy; fleeting. But his voice — god, his voice — it still rings in your ears, drips at the nape of your neck like a leaking tap: fuck, baby, knew you’d take my cock; feel so good wrapped around me.
Your friends don’t know. They can’t; they wouldn’t let you live it down. Benny has made plenty of offhand comments already about you and Frankie being perfect for each other, having the same stubborn disposition. Mal does nothing to shut him up. Instead, she encourages him. Tells him he’s so right.
You’re pretty sure your eyeballs are going to fall out someday from glaring too hard.
Because you’re not perfect for each other — far from it, actually. Fuck, you can’t even communicate effectively. How could you ever be in a real relationship?
Not that you want that. Frankie is…well, Frankie. Sure, he’d felt undeniably incredible on top of you, inside of you — but he isn’t the type to settle down. In fact, you don’t think you’ve ever heard Frankie talk about dating.
Besides, he’s clearly not interested in being anyone’s anything right now. Not even your friend.
It hurts; cuts deeper than you care to admit. Just weeks ago, you’d spent an entire weekend at his place, marathoning the X Files and gorging on cold pizza. Now, he won’t even look your way for more than a few seconds.
Won’t make you a fucking grilled cheese.
It’s a Friday night, which means you’re meeting your friends at Sid’s. The glow of neon seeping through the windows of the old dive bar is warm and inviting as you step out of your rideshare and make your way toward the doors.
Frankie is sitting at the bar with Santiago when you enter. Hunched shoulders, narrowed eyes trained on his bottle of Corona, he appears detached from whatever Santi is saying to him. He doesn’t acknowledge you when you stroll up to them — not until his friend’s hand lands hard on his back, pulling his attention away from the beer. He offers a half-assed hello and an even more half-assed half-hug, and then he’s sliding back onto his barstool.
Ever-oblivious, Santiago doesn’t seem to notice the way Frankie curls in on himself; the way your back is up like an agitated cat’s.
Mal and Benny turn up minutes later, immediately ordering a round of shots for the group. You down the liquor eagerly, not bothering to lean on salt and lime to numb the sting. You want to feel it. You order another before joining Mal and the guys at a pool table in the back, letting the acid slide down your throat with no more than a wince as Santi racks the balls.
“Alright Fish, you’re up,” he says. “Me and you. Whoever loses buys the next round.”
You watch as Frankie quirks a brow at him. Takes a swig of his beer. “You sure you want to make that bet, Pope?”
Santi grins; nods confidently. “Hell yeah, I do.” The rest of you don’t bother to suppress your laughter. You catch a glimpse of Frankie, head thrown back, his broad, glistening neck exposed, and you have to fight to ignore the sudden panging in your chest.
When Santi inevitably loses, you order a vodka soda. You’re already feeling a bit tipsy after two shots in less than twenty minutes, so the drink goes down smooth; quick. There’s a rush to your head as you settle back at the bar and fiddle with the wrapper to your straw, letting the slightly soggy paper roll between two fingers.
You barely notice when Frankie slots in a few seats down, your attention drawn only when you hear his voice. It’s deep — sounds just like it did when he had his chest pressed to your back in the dim light of your bedroom — and his intonation nearly gives you whiplash.
When you snap your head up to look at him, you find he’s speaking to a woman. Her back is turned to you, long, dark hair tossed over her shoulder and her elbow resting casually on the bartop, but you imagine she must be beautiful by the way Frankie is visibly fawning over her. You’re staring, you hear her tease. Can’t help it, comes his reply.
Something like discomfort builds in your throat. Rises up up up. You take a long sip of your drink, letting vodka and sugar push it down.
You’ve never seen Frankie flirt with anyone, apart from you. It’s strangely unsettling, listening to him smooth-talk her. I’m a pilot, you know, he brags; could take you up in the sky someday if you wanted. Her giddy squeal comes seconds later; really? You’d do that for me?
You feel bad for her. She doesn’t know yet that all he’ll do is disappoint her.
He feeds her lines as you sip on your drink, citrus and grain burning only when he tells her: yeah, I came with friends; they’re all over there. Gestures toward Benny, Mal and Santi standing around the pool table in the back.
Scoffing, you stand from your seat at the bar and retreat to the patio. You don’t bother to check if Frankie is looking.
It’s cooler here, a sobering breeze carrying salt air with it as it wafts by. A few patrons have spilled outside, most smoking on faintly glowing cigarettes as they talk and laugh boisterously among themselves. You’d planned to sit alone, to plant yourself on a bench and enjoy your drink in solitude. But then a stranger is approaching you — a man, cigarette grasped between two of his fingers — and he’s asking you for a light.
He’s in his mid thirties, if you had to guess. Curly, dark hair sprouts every which way from his scalp; rounded, green eyes studying you as he awaits a response. He’s tall, though not as tall as Frankie. His shoulders aren’t nearly as broad and his chest isn’t quite as wide. His t-shirt hangs loose around his torso, swallowing his narrow frame — dissimilar to the way Frankie’s button-down clings to him.
Then again — why are you even comparing? Maybe the opposite of Frankie is exactly what you need.
You’ll have to seduce this stranger first, though. Not that it seems like it’ll be very difficult. His eyes are already raking over you, lips turned up at the corner as you take a casual sip of your drink.
“I don’t smoke,” you admit apologetically.
“Ah — that’s alright.”
He has an accent; midwestern, maybe? You don’t bother to ask. You don’t care, really. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is—
“You here all by yourself?”
“Yeah,” he laughs at your lack of subtlety. “Are you?”
“No,” you say. “My friends are inside.” Lowering your voice, you add, “but I was thinking about leaving soon.”
“Why’s that? Early morning tomorrow?”
You shake your head. Rub at your neck as if working out a knot, a contented hum pushing past your lips at the press of fingers into skin. Your stranger’s eyes trail rather conspicuously downward.
“Just over it,” you sigh exasperatedly. “I’d much rather be home…in bed…out of these clothes.”
You pull gently at the strap of your dress, as if you can’t bear the sensation of it against your shoulder any longer.
Your stranger’s gaze darkens, and the grip on his box of cigarettes grows tighter.
“You uh — want some company — once I find a light?”
Too fucking easy.
“Sure,” you giggle.
He slips away only for a minute or two, giving you just enough time to second-guess yourself. You know nothing about this man, not even his name; only that he smokes American Spirits and smells like tobacco. Should you really go home with him?
But then you think of Frankie inside — talking up a woman at the bar, pretending that you don’t exist — and that just about makes up your mind for you.
Your stranger reappears, now-lit cigarette dangling from his lips. The tip of it rages red and angry, and you think you know how that feels.
He smirks at you as he stuffs the pack into the front pocket of his jeans. An unceremonious silence hangs in the air as he sucks on the filter and puffs out a string of smoke. You wait patiently for him, quietly.
He snuffs the butt of his cigarette out in a nearby ashtray. Takes your empty cup and discards that too.
Can’t wait to get you home, he whispers in your ear then. You feign arousal, peering up at him and batting your eyelashes. Me neither, you mewl. Let’s go.
You lead him back through the bar, finding Mal and letting her know that you’ll be going. She seems a little perplexed, quirking a brow at you as you grip tightly onto your stranger’s arm, but she tells you to have fun anyway. Text me, she mouths as you make your way to the exit.
You only get a few feet, though, before you’re intercepted.
Frankie is blocking the door, arms crossed, a panic-stricken look on his face that you can’t quite comprehend. “Hey,” he says, “can I talk to you real quick?”
Your stranger backs off. Lets go of your arm and starts out the door. “I’ll wait outside,” he says, slipping away with a wink before you can protest.
The bar is bustling with noise, people in every corner drinking and laughing and dancing. Strangely, though, you’ve never felt so alone. So vulnerable. And you hate that Frankie has this power over you, the innate ability to make you feel so fucking small. It’s infuriating, it’s—
“Are you sure you want to leave with him?”
“Excuse me?” you scoff.
Frankie stares you down, face red, eyes inky-black. “You don’t know this guy, do you? What if he’s a murderer or something? Or like — a pervert?”
He’s grasping at straws, you know it. It’s why you laugh; roll your eyes.
“What are you, my keeper?”
“No, it’s just — I’m just concerned for your safety, okay?”
You’re briefly stunned. After weeks of ignoring you, he cares about your wellbeing? How can he be so hypocritical?
“I’m fine,” you bite back. “Why don’t you go back to your girl at the bar? Worry about getting yourself some instead?”
He’s wounded, if only slightly. His lips part like he might retaliate, but he’s silent. Dejected. Satisfied, you brush past him. March out the door without so much as a parting glance.
Finding your stranger leaning against the bar’s brick exterior, you force a smile. He outstretches a hand and you take it, reluctantly. “Ready to go?” he asks.
You’re not so sure anymore, but you nod anyway. Squeeze your stranger’s bicep and preen under his lustful gaze when he tenses in your grip. “Yeah,” you purr. “I’m ready.”
Cold air bites at your toes the following morning. It wakes you from a deep slumber; bitterly pulls you into consciousness. Confused, you yank at the covers. But a mysterious weight holds them in place, and only then do you remember then that you’re not alone.
Eyes sliding open reluctantly, you scan the room. Your dress from the night before is draped over the chair in the corner, your stranger’s clothes piled up on the floor nearby. He snores next to you, an arm raising to hang above his head, and you shift. Slip out of bed and pull a t-shirt on before padding into the bathroom.
Early morning light spills across tile, bounces off the mirror above the sink. You squint, shuffling over to the window and yanking the blinds closed. Then you check for damage in your reflection. Your makeup from the night before has stained your cheeks and your eyes look as tired as you feel, but otherwise there appears to be no physical evidence of your rock bottom.
The sex wasn’t great — not even good, really. Your stranger had lasted all of three minutes, had fanned his hot breath across the shell of your ear as he came, and then collapsed on top of you. Rolled over and drifted to sleep. He’d started snoring before you could even process what had just happened.
Cold water splashed across your cheeks does nothing to cool the burn of regret that scorches your skin. You feel uncomfortable, almost as if your body is tainted, now, remnants of your stranger leaking from between your thighs as you steady yourself at the edge of the sink.
He must’ve heard the tap, or maybe the pounding in your chest, because he emerges seconds later. He yawns and stretches, feline-like, in the doorway. “Hey,” he mutters. “How’d you sleep?”
“Pretty good,” you say, eyes twitching slightly as you will them to stay put above his waistline.
“You always up this early?”
You nod. It’s a lie, but he doesn’t need to know that you’d nearly jumped out of bed at the sight of him still there. He doesn’t need to know that for a split second, you’d almost hoped it was Frankie.
He asks if you want to get breakfast. You shake your head in faux-sympathy. “Sorry, can’t. I was hoping to get some cleaning done.”
“I could stick around and help,” he offers.
Jesus Christ. Just take the fucking hint.
“That’s so nice of you; I’m just more efficient by myself,” you lie again.
If Frankie were here, he’d grab the cleaning rags out of the closet just off the kitchen. He knows where they’re kept: second shelf, on the left. He’d wipe down the counters and the coffee table while you’d work on clearing dishes, disposing of pizza scraps. And he’d probably put on his dad-rock playlist — against your wishes — though you’d inevitably find yourself dancing to Foo Fighters and giggling when he’d sing along and mess up the words.
It begins to sink in then, as you shoo your stranger, now dressed, out the door, that your attempt to use sex as a way to get Frankie out of your head was useless. He’s still there, refusing quite adamantly to budge, all mussed curls and big eyes and deep voice. There’s no evidence that he’ll be leaving any time soon.
The revelation renders you nauseous. You spend the rest of the day with a hangover that you’re sure has not been induced by alcohol. And by the time night falls, darkness descending over your bedroom like a fog, you still feel sick.
A week later, you drag yourself to Benny and Mal’s for their monthly game night. You’d tried to get out of it, told Mal you haven’t been feeling great — which isn't a total lie — but she��d begged you until you broke.
Will is coming, and it’ll be the first time we’ve all gotten together in over a year, she’d whined through the receiver.
And then-
I know things were weird between you and Frankie last time at the bar, but you can’t let that stop us from seeing each other.
How do you know that, you’d asked, chewing on your bottom lip, the phone tucked between your ear and your shoulder.
He basically moped around the rest of the night after you left. Kept bitching about you leaving with that guy. He seemed really…agitated. You don’t have to tell me what happened, just please don’t bail.
So you’re here, steeling yourself as you climb the steps to the front door, hoping that if nothing else, you can make it through the night without strangling Frankie for his lack of discretion.
You enter the house with baited breath.
Your eyes immediately catch Frankie, tucked into the corner of the sectional, fingers wrapped tightly around his beer. He meets your gaze briefly before letting it slip to the floor by his feet, as if he’s trying to pretend he hasn’t seen you at all.
“Hi,” you try.
He looks back up at you, or rather past you. Taps his fingers along the bottle for a long moment. “Hey,” he says finally, to the wall behind your head.
“How have you been?” the words come out forced, almost foreign. You shift your weight awkwardly and he sighs.
“Fine. I’m fine.”
“Right,” you mutter. More silence. “Me too, in case you were wondering.”
“Good,” he says, voice cold. “That’s good.”
You’re not sure whether you want to slap him or kiss him. Because as infuriating as he’s being right now, he looks gorgeous, denim shirt hugging his biceps, his shoulders; stray curls peaking out from under that stupid Standard Heating Oil hat. You yearn to rip it off his head, run your fingers through his hair, nip along the sharp line of his jaw; the broad expanse of his neck.
You long to feel something other than the prominent ache that’s permeated your body for weeks, now. And you fear that he’s the only one who’d be able to alleviate it.
Your mouth opens again just as Benny emerges from the kitchen. Whatever words you were about to utter are lost in the ether as he pulls you into a suffocating hug and thanks you for coming.
“Mal’s in the kitchen,” he says. Grabs a handful of Lays from a bowl on the coffee table and shovels them into his mouth. Still chewing, he adds, “we got those wine coolers you like; they’re in the fridge.”
With a hurried thanks, you slip away unscathed.
You find Mal crouched in front of the open fridge, rustling through a produce drawer stocked with beer cans.
“Hey,” you announce.
She seems almost surprised to see you when she cranes her neck toward your voice, despite your promise to show. Eyebrows raised, mouth slightly agape, it’s as if she’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. She pulls another drawer open. Fishes out a wine cooler and passes it to you with an outstretched arm.
You take it in one hand. Help her up with the other.
“You’re here,” she says, and it sounds like more of a question than a statement.
“Yeah. I said I would be.”
“I know, I know. It’s just — I wasn’t sure. The whole Frankie thing…”
“It’s nothing; I promise,” you lie. “Water under the bridge. We’re fine.”
She quirks a brow at you, disbelief coloring her features, but she lets it go. Closes the fridge with a thunk and adjusts her sweater at the hem. “Good,” she says. “I don’t want you two ruining game night.”
It’s half a joke, but you know deep down she means it. She takes this all very seriously. Back in college, she’d forced you and your suitemates to play Cards Against Humanity with her every weekend. None of you had the heart to tell her when it started to grow monotonous, and so the tradition carried on well past graduation, eventually evolving into a new tradition with new friends.
Games bring people together, she’d said once over a round of Monopoly that had stretched well into the night, resulting in delirious laughter and a warm, fuzzy feeling in your chest.
You’d believed her at the time. Now, you’re not so sure that it’s foolproof.
The two of you rejoin the guys in the living room, Santiago and Will having shown up in your absence. You greet them as Benny pulls out a stack of game boxes. Settle on the couch, as far away from Frankie as you can manage.
It starts during the second round of Charades.
The first round had gone fine — good, even. Teamed up with Santi and Will, you’d avoided eye contact with Frankie for the whole of it. Focused only on guessing Santi’s horribly-mimed clues in between handfuls of trail mix and sips of watermelon-flavored bubbles.
It’d felt a bit like old times, all of you in one room again. Mal snuggling into Benny on the loveseat; Will catching his brother up on time spent touring the country, giving motivational speeches to recently discharged veterans. He’d asked you how you’ve been as Santi studied his next word, and you’d remembered then that everything was very much not how it once was.
And you hadn’t missed Frankie’s discomfort at the question; the way he set his beer bottle down on the table with a bit too much force, glass clanging against wood. Though if Will noticed too, he hadn’t said anything. Just moved into a story about some woman he met on the road that reminded him of you.
Santi’s turn had ended with a whopping zero points for your team, and now Frankie is standing at the front of the room, unfolding the scrap of paper in his hand and reading it to himself. In the lull, you find yourself staring at him, eyes near glazing over at the sight of the tiny paper pinched between long, thick fingers. Fingers you remember the reach of, the weight of.
He crumples the paper and stuffs it into his pocket, signaling that he’s ready to go. Mal flips over the sand timer on the table. And you almost don’t notice at first when he starts, mind occupied by equal parts lust and annoyance, that he’s fucking mouthing the phrase.
You watch, enraged, as Benny squints to read his lips. He raises his hand excitedly and jumps to his feet; yells out the answer with a sureness that Frankie affirms with a nod.
“That’s right. It’s the Empire State Building.”
“That’s fucking cheating!” you shout, a bit angrier than the situation calls for, and the room grows quiet. Fury coursing through you, you add, “are you fucking serious, Frankie?”
You feel the eyes on you; the awkward sheen you’ve cast over the room. Mal shifts across from you, glaring when you turn to face her, and you laugh defensively.
“What, nobody else thinks that’s unfair?”
“Please,” Frankie sneers.
“No, she’s right,” Santi tries — ever the peacemaker. “We’ll just add a rule going forward; no mouthing the words.”
“Fuck that,” you hiss. “I want their point taken away.”
Frankie scoffs from the other side of the room. “Bullshit! We earned that before the rule was added.”
You’re fuming now, standing to get a bit closer to his height; though he still towers over you. Mal is right on your heels, placing a hand on your shoulder in an attempt to placate you. You brush her off. Take another stride toward Frankie.
“There shouldn’t need to be an official rule against it, Frankie. It’s common fucking sense — which clearly, you have none of.”
Visibly offended, he says nothing. Just tenses his jaw.
“Why did you come tonight?” you continue, voice more level now; direct.
You hear your name uttered behind you, tone pleading, warning. You ignore it.
“Seriously, why?”
He’s quiet for a long, drawn-out moment, eyes pointed at the floor again.
“What are you talking about?” he spits, finally.
You laugh, amused and irritated, and these things somehow feel one in the same. “I mean, clearly you don’t want to be in my presence or even acknowledge my existence — unless it’s to cockblock me — so why are you here?”
His brows furrow; lips twist. For a second, you think he might actually leave. He adjusts his cap, jangles the car key in his pocket — but Benny stops him before he can take a step.
“Just — cut it out, okay? Both of you.”
“He’s the one-“
“I don’t care,” Benny interjects. Scanning the room, you catch sight of Santi and Will and Mal, all visibly agitated, and you sigh.
Guilt washes over you, then. The twisting of Santi’s face, Mal’s doleful stare, the wordless look exchanged between Benny and Will. All confirm your fear that you’ve effectively ruined their night.
“I’m sorry,” you mumble.
Frankie echoes your apology. Still, the others aren’t impressed.
“I don’t know what’s been going on lately with you two, but you need to figure this shit out,” Benny says. He sounds like a parent: stern and slightly disappointed. “Can you please just — go in the other room and talk through it?”
Though you haven’t much cared for Frankie’s opinion as of late, you still turn to him to gauge his reaction. He appears just as hesitant as you are, just as guilt-stricken. But something more lurks behind his eyes — something like fear, anxiety. Why, you aren’t sure.
You raise a brow at him, a wordless question. He answers with a sigh.
“Fine,” you both say at once.
“Thank goodness,” Mal chimes. Herding you two like cattle with a hand on each of your backs, she leads you out of the living room and into the adjoining hallway.
Her voice drones behind you as you make your way toward the third door on the right. Shall we continue the game?
The guest room is primly kept. It appears almost untouched at first glance, though you know that to be untrue. You’ve stayed here before, after blurry nights spent drinking shitty gin and singing karaoke. That must’ve been years ago now, though, after Mal and Benny first bought this house, and you begin to wonder if your tumultuous friendship with Frankie only made you neglect your friendship with her. And that only adds to the anger stirring inside of you — because what was it all worth, if it’s ended up like this?
Frankie closes the door behind him with a click, and the air in the room feels exponentially thicker.
“What the fuck was that?” you hiss.
He scoffs. “Me? You’re the one who freaked out and started an argument over nothing!”
“It wasn’t nothing. You were cheating.”
“Please.” He rolls his eyes. Takes two steps toward you. “That’s not what this is about and you know it.”
“Oh,” you laugh, “so you are aware that you’ve been an asshole?”
He says your name, voice suddenly lower, softer. Your entire body tenses as you struggle to keep strong, to not think about how it sounded in your ear in the midst of pleasure.
“I wasn’t trying to be-”
You throw a hand up; silence him. “Well you have been,” you groan. “You’ve been a huge fucking asshole. You hurt me, Frankie. You were my best friend, and then you just�� stopped returning my texts. You won’t even look at me when we’re in the same room together. Did you regret it that much?”
The room goes still. You watch as Frankie’s chest rises and falls arduously, his eyes settling on you. They’re dark, pupils blown wide, squeezing shut as he exhales long and hard.
“No.”
You quirk a brow at him, confused.
“No?”
“No,” he repeats, averting his gaze. “And that’s the problem — I didn’t regret it at all.” His eyes lift slowly, finding you again, voice more sure when he adds, “I’ve wanted it for a long time”
You can barely comprehend what he’s saying, your heart climbing its way out of your ribcage and up your throat. You gulp, feeling the shape of it there as saliva slowly slides past.
He takes another two steps forward, mere inches from you now, and your breath hitches.
“Do you know how difficult it’s been to look at you without getting fucking hard?” he whispers. “How many times I’ve fucked my fist in the past month imagining it was you?”
Your mouth falls open, stunned. “That girl at the bar-”
He shakes his head. “I thought maybe if I fucked someone else, it would help.”
“And did it?”
“I didn’t — I didn’t go home with her,” he admits, a little bashfully. “I couldn’t do it.”
His hand lifts, then, cautious and shaky. It finds its way to your face, grazes your jaw so softly you’d think you imagined it if you couldn’t see.
“Why not?” you squeak.
He nods, as if he’s finally accepting something he’s known to be true, admitting it to himself before he does so out loud.
“Because she wasn’t you.”
It feels as if your entire world has spun on its axis.
Without thinking, you wrap your hand around Frankie’s neck and pull him toward you, crashing your lips into his with a groan. He’s quick to respond, desperately tangling his fingers in your hair and winding his tongue around yours, a broken moan slipping from his throat.
For a long moment, that’s all it is. It’s clashing teeth and restless hands; the draw of blood and the taste of it, earthy and metallic on your tongue. It’s the two of you, reconciling for lost time and unshared feelings and the overlooked need for each other through tangled bodies.
And when you finally pull apart, his lips are swollen and his eyes are glazed over, and you’re sure you don’t look much different.
“Frankie,” you whine as his mouth latches to your neck, warm and wet. He doesn’t retreat; just hums against you.
“Need you,” you say breathlessly. “Need you to touch me.”
His large hand skates down your front, under the waistband of your leggings. He presses two fingers against your clothed clit, and your knees buckle. You lean into him, bracing yourself with a hand on his chest as he begins rubbing small, deliberate circles into cotton.
Lips trailing up to your ear, he nibbles at the lobe. Presses his tongue just behind the shell of it and sighs. “Been wanting this since that night. Want to make you feel good. Want to do it right.”
You mewl in response, high-pitched and too loud, and you have to bite into his shoulder to keep from crying out again. He’s still working you toward the brink, pace relentless, beseeching you every time you buck into his hand.
There you go baby, that’s it; I got you.
You know he does, can feel the support of his unoccupied hand at the small of your back, holding you to his strong body. And god, how you’ve missed the feeling of it pressed to yours. You think that that alone could make you come.
You feel yourself slipping as your orgasm approaches, legs slumping underneath you more and more with every pass of his fingers. “Frankie,” you warn, teeth still anchored in his skin. “I’m going to-“
The words are muffled, but he gets it. Presses down harder and works his fingers faster. “Come on baby,” he growls in your ear, “come on.”
Your orgasm hits you so hard that you collapse, your body dead weight in Frankie’s grip as you writhe. He grasps onto you tightly, working you through it with his unyielding touch, swiping back and forth, back and forth as the final waves crest.
You’re panting when it ends, and still when Frankie helps you to the edge of the bed. Perched there, staring up at him with glassy eyes, you realize you’ve never felt so sated and so needy at the same time.
“Frankie?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“Please fuck me.”
He should probably say no. After all, you’re in your friends’ guest room, people just a few hundred feet on the other side of the door. But then again, he’s already made you come.
You watch him consider it, eyes flickering to the door and back to you, dark and deep and pooling with want.
In the end, he can’t help himself.
“Can you be quiet, querida?”
You nod, though you’re sure that even if you said no, he wouldn’t care. He’d do just as he’s doing now: pressing your shoulder, encouraging you to lay down on the bed; helping you pull your sneakers off, then your leggings, then your shirt; stepping back to marvel at your half-naked form before him.
“Fucking beautiful,” he murmurs, and your entire body heats from the inside out. You feel like you’re on fire, his stare keeping you alight as he undresses down to his boxers.
He climbs over you with a hand on either side of your head, pressed into the mattress. The lip of his hat bumps you, and you immediately rip it off of him, tossing it aside and tangling your fingers in dark curls.
You tug at them, dragging him down until his face is hovering just above yours, and he responds with a strangled moan. His body pressed to yours now, you can feel the weight of his hard cock against your clothed pussy. Your mouth finds his again in a languid kiss — slow and deep. You feed each other sighs and moans, taste each other’s longing. His hips roll into yours with every exhale, teasing you — reminding you, and you feel like you’re steadily going insane.
He pulls back, panting. Rests his forehead on yours.
“Can I take this off?” he asks, plucking at the strap of your bra. You nod furiously. Lift the upper half of your body so that he can undo the clasps.
Breasts suddenly exposed, you feel your nipples begin to harden. Frankie groans at the sight of them, so pert and needing. Wordlessly, he dips his head, buries his face in your chest. His tongue wraps around one of your nipples and you cry out, hand flying to your mouth in an instant.
“Oh fuck,” you moan into your palm.
“Feel good?” he asks, knowing smirk playing on his lips as he shifts his focus to the other nipple. You feel so sensitive everywhere, the heft of his tongue going straight to your clit, and you can barely answer him. A shaky yes tumbles from your mouth — the best you can do. He hums, so low the vibrations burrow under your skin and barrel through you, and you keen at the sensation.
“God, you sound so pretty,” he sighs as he rolls one of your stiff peaks between two fingers. His other hand drifts down your body, dips between the two of you and pulls your panties aside.
“Fuck,” he curses, fingertip brushing over your seam just barely. “You’re soaked, bebita. That all for me?”
“Mhm,” you whine. “All for you Frankie; fuck-“
He’s shifts down your body, hooks both arms under your legs and drags you toward him in one swift motion, leaving you no time to process before his tongue is on your pussy. “Have to taste you,” he babbles drunkenly, plunging into your leaking cunt and lapping at you.
“Oh, oh shit,” you moan as he drags his tongue up to your clit. “Please baby, please.”
“I know; I got you,” he soothes. Then he begins to lave your clit with the soft flat of his tongue, warm muscle encircling the throbbing nub. Wide eyes staring up at you, he observes intently. Responds to every sound, every tell with a switch in direction or an increase in pressure. He’s so attentive, so desperate to make you come on his mouth, and it sends you into a sort of delirium.
Your second orgasm hits you out of nowhere, slams through your body with so much intensity, you don’t even have the strength to warn Frankie before your release is gushing all over his face and, undoubtedly, the bed below.
He growls against your cunt. Comes up for air and kisses you hard, letting you taste yourself on his tongue as he tugs his boxers down and frees his aching cock. Notches at your entrance without detaching his lips from yours.
It’s a stretch — you recall it being so last time too — though the alcohol had done wonders to loosen your body. Now, you feel every devastating inch of him as he pushes in. He’s gentle. Tells you how good you’re doing as he feeds you more and more of his cock. There you go, that’s my girl, taking it so well for me. And for some reason, him calling you his nearly makes you come again.
He notices the way you preen in response. Thumbs across the slope of your jaw as he settles inside you. “You like that, baby? Like me calling you mine?”
“Yes, Frankie — fuck. Want it.”
You don’t specify whether you mean him or his cock. You’re not entirely sure. Not that it matters. You know he’ll give you both, give you anything. Can feel it in the way he gazes at you through heart-shaped eyes as he lets you adjust to him.
“So fucking beautiful, you know that?”
Your eyes roll back and saliva pools in your mouth. “God,” you breathe.
“I’m serious,” he says, finally beginning to move. The slow drag of his cock brushes your g-spot and you gasp. “Was so stupid before, fucking you drunk. Wanna remember every second, every noise you make, every inch of your perfect fucking body.”
“Jesus, Frankie.”
He pushes back in with one deep thrust. Sets a pace that, while not rough, definitely isn’t gentle. You begin to babble and writhe under him. Hook your legs around him so he can get even deeper.
He groans. “Tell me how it feels, baby.”
“It’s so fucking good,” you cry. “Feels like fucking heaven, Frankie.”
“Nah, that’s you.” He lets his head fall on your shoulder, drives into you faster. Pants into the crook of your neck. “Perfect fucking pussy.”
It ends all too quickly — with your fingernails dug into his back and his sweaty curls sticking to your forehead. Your cunt clenching around his cock, pulling his orgasm out of him just as yours begins to roll through you. You free fall from the cliff’s edge together, breathless moans spilling between your slotted mouths, his warmth flooding you and leaking from the place you’re still connected.
As the room around you slowly comes back into focus, you hear the sound of distant laughter. Benny’s boisterous chuckle and Mal’s much softer one. Clearly distracted, they’re likely blissfully unaware of what’s just happened. You giggle, covering your face as Frankie pulls out.
“What’s so funny?” he asks, prying your hands away.
“We’re gonna have to get them a new bedspread. We just defiled this one.”
He stands, then, pulling you upright with him. You squeal as blood rushes to your head and your vision goes staticky.
“Worth it,” he smirks. Gives you a chaste kiss. “Got my girl back.”
You dress and rejoin the group as inconspicuously as possible. Pray they don’t notice the way you’re wobbling on your feet, or the sheen of sweat that’s coated your skin.
“You sort everything out?” Santi smirks knowingly as you reassume your place on the couch, Frankie settling back into the corner.
“Yeah,” he mutters, refusing to make eye contact.
“It’s about time,” Benny shouts from the kitchen. Frankie’s head shoots up, pivots toward his voice.
“What do you mean?”
He emerges in the doorway with a shit-eating grin. Mal stifles a laugh from the loveseat.
“Just saying it’s about time,” he shrugs. “That’s all.”
Shit; apparently you hadn’t been as quiet as you thought.
The others chuckle as you and Frankie exchange a mortified look. The embarrassment is short lived though, Will clapping his hands together, asking what game you all want to play next.
An hour later, after a couple rounds of Codenames and another wine cooler, you head out the door with Frankie right beside you. It feels odd, not hiding anymore. But more so, it feels right.
He leans you against your SUV under silver moonlight. Kisses you with plush, soft lips against yours; restless hands roving up your sides. Pulls back with a suspiciously large grin.
You cock an eyebrow at him. “What?”
“Nothing,” he says. “Just glad I stopped being an idiot.”
“I don’t know about that,” you tease, and he smacks you gently on the arm.
“Come over?” he asks, his hand draped over your waist.
You think on it for only a second. Nod. “Yeah. As long as you make me a grilled cheese.”
“That can be arranged.”
end notes: thank you so much for reading! if you enjoyed, please consider commenting and/or reblogging :)
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Pickup Truck
summary: frankie hates your boyfriend. in fact, everybody does. but he’s willing to give him a chance. you’re his best friend, after all.
until frankie discovers something he can never forgive.
pairing: frankie morales x f!reader
ratings/warnings: 18+. MDNI. this fic contains allusions to, but no descriptions of, domestic abuse. please do not proceed if you know this will upset you.
frankie's pov. no lady and no baby for our boy. drinking, violence (against pos bf), angst, lots of hurt, allusions to dv. comfort, fluff. frankie to the rescue. unprotected p in v (wrap it irl!). oral, f receiving. creampie. bad spanish (again). kings of leon references. happy ending, of course.
wc: 9.8k
an: whew, this was an emotional one to write. but i hope a good love comes to all of you in time, no matter where you are at the moment. and if you already have it, may it always keep you safe.
lovely divider from @saradika.
Frankie really doesn’t like your boyfriend.
Scratch that. Nobody does.
Nobody really knows where you found him, either. A sweet, smart girl like you, moved back to your small town from your big city life, and it looks like you picked up the very first guy who sidled up to you in a grimy bar.
Which, if you’re really honest, is exactly what happened. Because he was nice at first. Real nice. He was charming and sweet and interested - he bought you drinks all night and didn’t push to come in when he walked you home. You went for dinner a few times, and sure, he could be a little rude to the waitstaff, but it was only because he was so focused on you. He bought you flowers and took you for rides, and sure, sometimes he’d come home far too drunk after seeing his friends and get a little too close, a little too loud, but he always apologised.
And sure, he sometimes made you cry, but he always made it up to you. Sweet promises, small gifts. And he'd never laid a finger on you.
Not until last week, anyway.
You don’t know what to do. You don’t know who to turn to. The thought of it makes you so sick you have to lock yourself in the bathroom at work. How did this happen? How did it turn so sour?
And how do you get out?
Walk you home to see
Where you're livin' around
And I know this place
Frankie walks you home from the bonfire. He always does.
It’s his favourite moment of the night.
He gets to have you all to himself. Gets to watch your cheeks cool in the night air, watch as the blush from the heat of the fire subsides. Your giddy, wide eyes, your tipsy babbling about stories which had been swapped over the flames, picking out particularly scandalous details for you two to giggle about before doubling over into breathless laughter over something Benny had said.
He likes to hold your elbow, your hand, as you catch him in your amusement, gripping onto his bicep. He loves to lose himself in this little pocket of time with you.
He loves the sparkle of the stars, the glow of the streetlights as they light your features.
Frankie loves you.
And he’s so glad you’ve moved back from your life in the big city to come and be around your real friends again. So glad that you’ve all found your way back to each other. Tonight has left him with such a mellow tingle in his bones that he finds he can’t stop smiling at you, looking at you, on your walk home.
Bonfire nights have always been your monthly hangout, a time when you can be sure you’ll get the whole gang together. There used to be more of you through highschool, and still a fair few during college. It dipped when the boys joined the forces, when people moved further east and further north. But eventually Frankie, Benny, Santi, and Will had come back. Jessa, your other best friend, had returned too. A few others coming and going - Lily, Marcus, Maggie - also back and forth from their new homes to their old ones. And then eventually folk had just… settled.
Frankie felt like he was one of the last, like he was maybe the one finding it the hardest, retired to a life of civvy duties. Unable to hold down a girlfriend, struggling to stick at a job, sofa surfing around friends’ places. He was still flying whenever he could, but then this coke allegation happened, and it was like the world was finally swept from under him.
You were the first person he had called, the first person to talk him down from his panic, that debilitating squeeze around his heart when he thought about the future. The first person who made him feel like it would be okay.
So of course his joy when you had come back had been immeasurable. Maybe this time, he’d thought.
And then you’d met Tanner.
He’s pulled from his thoughts as you drag your hand out of his, skipping a little further up the dark street until you reach a corner. Frankie watches as you spin on the spot in the quiet neighbourhood, gesturing down the pathway before you.
‘This is me.’ You say.
But you don’t turn to keep walking. You watch him, a small, excited smile on your lips. Like you’re waiting for him to work it out.
Frankie drags his eyes from you, away from thoughts of your new boyfriend, to look up and down the street you’ve led him to, and for a second he is pulled beneath the ebbing flow of memory, towed with the riptide of things forgotten.
This is his grandmother’s street. Was his grandmother’s street.
The cracked concrete, the peeling paint of the porches. The weeds, the flowers, the smell.
He breathes your name like you’re the only thing tethering him to the now.
Breathes your name through the bright, sunny flashes of his childhood. His mama bringing him here with his brother, his papa swinging him by his legs in the flower-riddled front garden. Cartoons in the ripe heat of the afternoons, him and his cousins stuffing their faces with Guagitas and Frugele until they’d made themselves sick while the younger siblings napped in the sunbeams of the bedroom next door. Cycling over on his bike after school to sit at her kitchen table to do his homework, letting her fuss over him - his height, his friends, his grades, girls -
A skinnier, younger Frankie stopping by his abuela’s house with you to pick up her up for his nineteenth birthday party, along with her homemade tamales, her chiles rellenos, and specially made pumpkin sopaipillas for later on. The way you had chatted to her, natural, easy going, how you had made her laugh, her eyes sparkle. How, when you had taken some of the plates to the car, his abuela had pinched his cheek. I like her, she’d said, Será tuya algún día, mm, mijo? And Frankie had flushed bright red, batting her arms away as she chuckled at him. He had hidden in the back bedroom when you came in from outside, and listened a little longer to your conversation as he waited for the heat of his face to die down. When he reemerged, you had helped his grandmother into her shoes, her cardigan, and kept ahold of her arm until she got into Frankie’s beat up old car. At the end of the night, his abuela had kissed both your cheeks several times, rocked you back and forth in a hug, and clapped her hands as she said how she looked forward to seeing you again.
When you came home from college every summer, you’d have tea with her in her garden. She always asked Frankie about you, about how you are doing. When he told her you were coming home, she’d been so excited. Quizás este sea el momento? She’d said to him, squeezing his hand. He’d smiled, his heart quietly full of hope. Tal vez, abuela, he’d said.
When he called you two weeks later, his voice weak from crying, to tell you that she’d passed, you had been heartbroken. And it seemed like her wish, the red thread she’d seen between the two of you, had been snipped, too.
Pour yourself on me
And you know I'm the one
That you won't forget
Frankie likes to listen to you talk, because he’s never much been one for talking.
He supposes you just bring it out of him, though. Because here on this street, in the moonlight, he tells you more about his grandmother. You spend hours walking up and down the pavement as he recounts every story he can remember; him and his brother, his parents, aunts and uncles, cousins. Birthdays, weddings, funerals. The street comes alive with the ghosts of people, the spectres of feelings. You and Frankie talk of growing up. Of falling in love. Of each other.
Your small, well-loved house is half way down the street, four up from his abuela’s. It does something strange to his heart to have two of his favourite people, who loved each other in their own ways, so close but so far away.
Your fingers hold his wrist as he shows you a scar on his palm from eating shit on his bike when he was eight, and when he looks up, your eyes are shining under the streetlights. There is a glint of moon in your teeth, and a shocking want so clear on your face, but when he meets your eye there is suddenly hesitation, a realisation, a shuttering. Frankie stops his story. There is a moment, and then it slips away like sand.
You shiver, chilled all of a sudden, and wrap your arms around yourself. Frankie tries not to look too hard at the goose bumps blossoming on your bare skin, tries to fight off the urge to kiss the little raises until you’re warm again under his touch.
‘Cold?’ he asks, and you smile back up at him. God, his heart.
‘As a hole,’ you giggle, and he feels himself smile goofily back at you. ‘We gotta warm up.’ You say, and then freeze.
It takes Frankie a little while longer to hear the inadvertent invitation in your words.
Boyfriend. Boyfriend.
You both stand on the porch, frozen, like some great frost has swept over the land. If Frankie squints, he can imagine the glitter of your eyeshadow, now fallen, dusted on your cheeks, is a collective of tiny constellations of ice.
Your body is wracked with a shiver again, but when Frankie looks you in the eye, you’re burning up from the inside. He swallows.
If he could only make the steps towards you. If he could only will his heavy feet to move, if he could summon his nerves to do exactly what his brain says, he would already be in front of you. He would have your face in his hands, be able to look into your eyes to see that deep, hidden want again, and kiss you. Again and again and again, and he wouldn’t stop, because things like that shitty boyfriend of yours wouldn’t matter anymore.
No. The whole world would be glitter and stars and constellations of ice crystals.
And then you blink, smile softly, and wish him a goodnight.
When he can finally lift his foot to move, your door is already closed.
And in your denim eyes
I see that something's awry
And I see you’re weak
You don’t see Frankie for a while after that, always finding a way to brush off his attempts to hang out.
At first he doesn’t worry too much about it. You’ve just moved back - you have a new job, a new place, new friends to get to know. Tanner.
Frankie finds other things to do. He gets business cards made up for the flying school he’ll be setting up next month. He pilots people across the state, sometimes across the country. He sees the boys for drinks, even sees Jessa for a coffee. He starts to worry when they say their texts have gone mostly unanswered, and they haven’t seen you either.
It must be why he turns up on your front step one day, a six pack in hand.
You open the door on the second ring of the doorbell, and Frankie finds himself rendered speechless. You look… different.
Tired and wary, a little thinner. And when he gets you chatting, you say you haven’t really been anywhere, done anything. You’ve been settling in, getting used to it. You have two beers each, but you seem on edge, like you’re waiting for a knock on the door. And then Frankie asks about Tanner, and your eyes linger on the entryway a little longer.
‘Yeah,’ you say, ‘He’s okay.’
Frankie’s jaw twitches, his stomach clenching uncomfortably.
‘Just okay?’ He asks.
Because you should be excited. You should be gushing and giddy and falling in love. But you’re not.
‘Yeah,’ you shrug. ‘He’s good.’
There’s something in your eyes. Something which shrinks away, skitters back. Something drained, something sapped of life, of energy. Hurt, maybe. Fear, perhaps.
When Frankie thinks back now, he knows he should have pressed you harder. Maybe should have taken you to his, made you talk a little more for a little longer. Away from Tanner, the threat of his presence. But he didn’t. He didn’t.
And he hates himself for it.
When he comes around
I see you're fixin' to shine
And my face won't speak
When Frankie next sees you, you’ve had a hair cut, and there are deep, dark bags under your eyes. Both of these things worry him equally.
Your beautiful hair that you’d been growing out since you were young, hair that you swore you’d never cut shorter than it was in seventh grade, when your mum had to chop it into a bob after you got gum caught in it. And here it is now, much shorter.
Jessa says she likes it, and you give her a watery smile, a weak thank you. She asks where you had it done, when. She asks if you like it, and you shrug. You say you’re trying something new. You say Tanner likes it.
Over your shoulder, Frankie exchanges a look with Santi.
You’re quiet the whole time you're at the bar. Far too quiet, so far from the bubbly conversation you usually hold, your loud cackle, your bent-double amusement. Your affection for your friends - the hands on knees, arms around shoulders, kisses pressed to cheeks. It’s hardly there.
Frankie offers to walk you home, but you wave him off kindly. Tanner’s picking me up, you say, he’s probably outside. Jessa frowns at you.
‘Are you sure, babe?’ She says. ‘It’s not even late yet.’
You smile and nod at her, gather your stuff to go. Jessa catches your arm.
‘We’re still on to go shopping Saturday, though - right?’
You smile at her, the first warm one you’ve mustered all night.
‘Of course,’ you say, ‘I’m looking forward to it.’
When you stand to leave, you hug everybody goodbye. Tightly, for longer than usual. Frankie doesn’t give you an option when he walks you out to Tanner’s car. The smug prick is hanging out the driver’s seat window. He watches Frankie as you walk up, hostile, threatening, arrogant, and somehow still ridiculous. And, Frankie thinks cruelly - ugly.
Frankie pulls you into his arms a few steps away from your boyfriend. He kisses your hair, and you sigh.
‘Have a good time on Saturday,’ he says softly. You twitch a smile at him.
‘Thank you, Frankie.’ You say before stepping back and walking to open the passenger door. As you climb in, Tanner winks at him.
‘Gettin’ a new one tomorrow,’ he says, stupid fucking grin on his face. ‘New car. Exciting stuff. Anyway, better get this one back,’ he says, squeezing your knee a little too hard. You don’t look at Frankie, something like humiliation colouring your cheeks. ‘See you around, Frank.’ Tanner says.
Frankie steps back from the car as it glides forwards, and he watches it disappear up the street.
Deep anger burns in him. And a kind of fear. It crawls over his skin, cooling the sides of his neck. His heart churns uncomfortably in his chest.
He tells your friends about it when he returns to the table. And they form a plan. Jessa texts you a time she’ll pick you up on Saturday. You say you’re excited again, you need some new clothes.
But Frankie knows Jessa won’t take you shopping.
No, she brings you here, to the beach, to the bonfire. To him, to Santi and Benny and Will. Because they’re worried.
So worried, they tell you.
They sit you down in one of the chairs around the fire, and they explain why they’re worried. They tell you they love you - so much - and they just need to know if you’re okay. Because they can help. They want to help, want you out of this, because he’s not good for you. The silence, the hair, the clothes you were going to buy. They tell you they hate the way he doesn’t let you speak, how he speaks to you. And you are so quiet through all of it, Frankie begins to get more worried. He speaks to you gently over the fire, but you can’t meet his eye. He tells you his worries, their love for you again. He swallows down his own confession, anything to make you see. How they don’t want you pushed closer to him, want you to be pulled closer to them instead.
But your eyes are so vacant, so far away, that Jessa leaves her deckchair next to you to sit on the burned up log closer to you on your other side. She takes your hands, and you finally, finally look at her. You open your mouth, and you say so quietly -
‘You’re right. You’re right.’
It feels like the biggest gulp of oxygen Frankie has ever taken. He feels lightheaded from the relief, from the knowledge. They were right, they were right, which is a terrible, terrible thing.
Will clears his throat, and Frankie looks at him to see similar thoughts flicking over his face like film reel. He licks his lips, opens his mouth, and -
Hate to be so emotional
I didn't aim to get physical
But when he pulled in and revved it up
I said, ‘You call that a pickup truck?’
And in the moonlight I throwed him down
Kickin', screamin' and rollin' around
A little piece of a bloody tooth
Just so you know I was thinking of you
Whatever Will is about to say is cut short by the sweep of headlights over the brush near the dunes.
A beat up old pickup truck bumps up the track and pulls up alongside Will’s Ranger. The driver’s side window slides down, and Tanner’s face emerges from the gloom. He revs the engine loudly, making you and Jessa jump. A sick feeling curls in Frankie’s stomach as he watches him, this piece of shit who’s been so busy crushing you down.
Tanner leaps out of the truck, and slams the door. Frankie looks over at you, visibly panicked on the other side of the fire. How the fuck did he find you?
‘Hey baby,’ Tanner says, sickly sweet as he strolls towards you, ducking to press a kiss to your unresponsive mouth. He turns to the rest of the group, eyes skating over Will and Ben until they land on Frankie. Tanner steps towards him, offers his hand.
‘Good to see you again, Frank,’ he says, ‘Told you I’d be getting a new ride.’
Frankie stares at his hand. He takes a deep swig of his beer, breathing deeply before looking Tanner in the eye, refusing to shake it.
‘I’m surprised to see you.’ He says to the dirty-haired man.
Tanner tries his best to appear unfazed, but there’s a glimmer of something hot behind his eyes.
‘’Course man, wanted to show off the new pickup.’ He says, grinning broadly. He looks around again, eyes falling hungrily on Jessa. She shifts uncomfortably on the log, rearranging her body so there’s less for him to look at. A deep heat begins to rise in Frankie’s chest.
He glances again at the ancient car that Tanner’s driven up in. The front bumper almost hanging off, the red paint aged and scratched, bumps caved in all up the sides, the roof sagging.
‘You call that a pickup truck?’ Frankie says lightly. Tanner narrows his eyes at him, angry, before he catches the sound of Santi’s laugh.
He whirls around to the other man and spits -
‘Who the fuck are you?’
Frankie almost laughs, too. Almost.
Pope spreads his hands. He looks up at him through his brows, a glint in his eyes that Frankie is violently familiar with. You must notice it, too, because you clear your throat and say -
‘Santi’s one of my friends.’
Tanner doesn’t even look at you. Just keeps staring at Pope.
The moment seems to last an eternity. Frankie feels like he’s watching everything through sludge, like he’s in someone else’s dream. His whole body is on edge, vibrating, ready to lunge - he’s just not sure at who. He looks between the two men before he catches your eye through the flames. The adrenaline in Frankie’s heart gutters at the look of panic in your eyes.
Please don’t let them do this. Please help me stop it.
Frankie glances back to Pope, and says, so softly only he can hear it -
‘Pope.’
And Santi immediately looks away, taking a swig of his beer.
Tanner stands there still, clearly baffled at Santi’s sudden lack of interest. Then he turns to the rest of the group like a petulant child, a toddler who has been ostensibly robbed of its favourite toy.
‘It’s a good truck,’ he says, before turning to you. ‘Ain’t it, baby?’
You hum your agreement as Tanner scoops a beer from the pile by Will’s chair, shucking off the top with his teeth. Jessa looks away, disgusted. He settles himself in the deckchair at your side.
‘Y’aint allowed to touch it, of course, sugar,’ he says to you, before laughing into his bottle. ‘Ruin everything you come into, anyway. Root of all my problems, ain’t ya?’ Tanner takes a pull of his beer. The group is silent around him. Around you. Tanner notices.
‘Boy, fun bunch you are.’
You look at him through your eyelashes.
‘Baby, that’s enough.’ You say as softly as possible, and Frankie cringes at the pet name.
Tanner looks at you sharply. Dark, furious. It’s in the pinch of his jaw, the anger at what you’ve said so obviously rolling around in his skull.
Frankie hates him for it. And he hates that he hates him for it. There are already so many things he hates him for, but he’s so fucking stupid it’s almost funny. Not your equal in any way. In kindness, in conversation or in intellect. And not even willing to try. To learn. For you. Just trying to dumb you down instead, squash you into smaller, more digestible bites to chew on.
When it comes down to it, Tanner has nothing smart to say back. He just pushes a short breath from his nostrils and mutters out a little -
‘Well, well, well.’
Then he flexes his fingers against the chair, and you flinch.
You flinch hard, your brows coming together, chin scrunching, waiting for the blow to land. And when it doesn’t, your eyes flicker open slowly. Hollow, bereft, drained and dim.
Tanner hasn’t noticed, but everyone else has.
The awful unveiling of your last secret.
Frankie forces the bile down his throat. His head swings forward to the ground of its own accord, a faint, resonant ringing in his ears. When he looks at his hands, they aren’t his own. In fact, he recognises no part of his body as the ringing gets louder, as he gently places his beer bottle on the floor. When his eyes leave the dirt, the mix of faces around the fire are all mirror reflections of each other. Horror, disgust, grief. Grief that this is what you hid from them, this is what they have taken too long to pull you from. The burning building splintering around you, your shell of a body immovable in the middle.
You won’t meet his eye. You won’t meet anyone’s eye as your hand shakes around your bottle. Jessa notices. She stares at your trembling fingers for too long, but she can hardly say anything. None of them can. Her eyes shine like beacons from her seat, wet with tears. Frankie sees her bottom lip quiver, her chin dimple. And then she swallows, swallows again, and reaches for your hand.
You flinch again, softer this time, and Frankie is sure everyone around the fire - everyone in the town, the world, must hear his heart crack. Because he feels it so keenly, so deeply, that it takes the air from his lungs. His breath is caught in his throat, and no matter how hard he tries to draw it, it seems impossible to claw it down. He’s drowning. He’s drowning right here in front of everybody, and it makes it all the worse to know that this is how you must feel. Every damn day.
Come on, he hears Jessa say, Let’s go and get another drink. And through the dark swirling of his mind he watches the two of you stand slowly and disappear towards the back of Frankie’s truck. He waits until Jessa has you hidden from view, her arms around your hunched back as you bring your hands to your face - crying - and that’s when the thread snaps.
Frankie gets to his feet, slowly.
Pope and Will watch him. Benny is still staring at Tanner.
Tanner looks up at him, chin jutted out, smirking as Frankie approaches.
He’s challenging him. He’s waiting for a war of words, for the shouting to begin, for the insults, the observations to fly.
He expected the wrong war from a soldier.
The first punch sprawls him out of his seat. It makes a satisfying cracking sound, and the first trickle of blood starts to bleed from behind his lip.
Then Frankie kicks him. He kicks him hard in the ribs, making sure he doesn’t have enough time to recover from the punch to deflect Frankie’s boot.
Tanner clutches at his abdomen, wheezing, gazing up at Frankie with bewildered eyes. Fucking coward.
Frankie grabs him by the front of his shirt, pulls him upwards. He has nothing to say to him, but the fury he feels, this deep, endless, swirling pit of rage, he lets him see. He lets it fill him from the soles of his feet all the way up through his eyes, and he lets it bleed out. He lets the blackness flood the ground. He lets Tanner watch it, lets it petrify him, and then Frankie swings again. Tanner takes it on his chin this time, his jaw snapping closed, and when it goes lax, a couple jagged bits of tooth fall out. Frankie grunts in satisfaction and swings again, again, until blood spouts from Tanner’s eyebrow and his cheek begins to bruise and swell. Frankie breathes deeply, in rhythm, doesn’t even feel it when Tanner manages to land a lucky punch to his eye socket. He plants a knee into the other man’s crotch, lands him an elbow to the back of his head when he keels over, and then shoves him to the ground. Frankie gets on the floor with him, raining blows down on Tanner’s body, his face. He’s methodical about it, a punch to each eye, the crack of the cunt’s nose, one to either side of his mouth, then bloodying up his jaw. He’s aware, somewhere, that Tanner is screaming. Strangled, gargling sounds trying to claw up his throat. And then he’s aware of two pairs of hands around each armpit, dragging him away, pulling him up. Will is saying something in his ear, that’s enough, Frankie, alright now, and Benny is speaking, too, panicked - you’ll kill him, Fish, come on man.
Frankie blinks, really looks at Tanner where he lays bleeding on the dirt. His eyes already swelling, a couple more teeth scattered on the ground next to him. His face different shades of red and purple, a mess of a man, and Frankie is pleased. He could keep going. He wants to see him bleed much, much more. Will and Benny keep their grip on him.
‘Leave,’ Frankie growls, low, without a quiver in his voice. ‘And don’t you ever come back. You ever look at her again, I’ll gouge out your fuckin’ eyes. You ever touch her again, I’ll break every bone in your body. I’ll make sure they don’t find anything left of you.’
Tanner doesn’t say anything, which must be the only smart thing he’s ever done in his life. But he still doesn’t move.
The four men watch him for a moment, the silence heavy, broken only by the crackle of wood and Tanner’s heavy, wet breaths.
Then Benny lets Frankie go, steps forward and picks the man up by his collar, swinging him around to the direction of his truck. He throws him down on the dirt.
‘Move,’ he spits. ‘Get out of here. And if you have the courage on the way, wrap your fucking truck around a telephone pole.’
Tanner finally has the good sense to crawl over to the vehicle. He hauls himself up the scarred body work before creaking open the driver’s door and slipping inside. The truck sputters to life, yellow bulbs flooding the bonfire site again before it quickly backs away, turns, and drives off. Frankie watches its blinking red brake lights until he’s sure the cunt is gone, and then he turns around.
You’re stood with Santi’s arms wrapped around you, back from the fire where Tanner’s blood is drying. Pope strokes your hair, squeezes you tightly as your body shudders. And Frankie can only stare.
Minutes might have passed. Hours. And Frankie is terrified. Terrified that he’s scared you, broken you, pushed you away. And then you turn your face on Pope’s chest, moving your head from shoulder to shoulder, and you’re looking at him. Eyes red-rimmed and raw, face flushed and damp, and it’s like Frankie’s trance breaks.
Frightened, he takes a step forward. He breathes your name.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says, and you shake your head. Fuck. What has he done? What has he allowed himself to do? ‘I’m sorry, querida, please - I know, I know -’ but what does he know? He looks to Santi, pleading for help, and the man offers him a small smile as you step out of his arms.
Through a fog, you come towards him. Your chin wobbles. Your eyes swim. You’re a little wide-eyed, a little shocked. And something else, something beyond his reach.
You get to him, and your arms make their silken way around his middle as you begin to cry. Hot tears stain the front of his shirt, and he cradles you to him, holding your skull gently, enveloping your abdomen. A loud sob looses from your ribs.
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers, ‘I didn’t mean to scare you.’ You wrap your arms around him tighter, press your nose into his sternum.
‘I’m not scared of you, Frankie,’ you sob into his chest. He clutches at the back of your head, holds you even closer, strokes your hair. When you speak again your voice is higher, strained with your tears. ‘I could never be scared of you.’
The sting in Frankie’s throat becomes hot, burning. He doesn’t know whether to pull you impossibly closer or to push you away, to run as far as he can from your broken, heaving body in his arms. Because what he’s done should scare you. It should. He’d lost all control. The only thing he’d been able to see, to feel was his all-consuming, depthless fury. And Tanner’s face as it splintered, bloodied, swelled. And he’d wanted to keep going, until there was just pulp. No nerve endings, no teeth, no eyes, no mouth, no body that he could ever hurt you with again. He doesn’t want you to hurt any more.
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers into your hair.
Trembling misery
And as cold as a hole
I hug your bones and skin
Frankie holds your hand the whole way home, the drive passing in a dazed silence.
You still don’t talk when you get to his place, when he unlocks the door, lets you in, and locks it behind him. You take his hand in the quiet cool of the house, lead him upstairs. He follows, slowly, sore, exhausted. Trying to process it all.
When you reach the landing, you turn on the bathroom light, and he trails behind you. He stands propped against the sink as you dig around in his medicine cabinet, finding wipes and bandages and anything else you think might be useful. You take Frankie’s hand again, examine his bruised, bleeding and swollen knuckles with solemn eyes. You are so gentle, twisting his hand in the light, inspecting. You look over it for a while, and Frankie watches you. When you reach for an antiseptic wipe, your hand is shaking.
Frankie winces silently when you start to dab at the blood on his knuckles, cleaning it away with minute swipes. You chase the dried rivulets of blood down his fingers, over his palm. The scar there from when he ate shit riding his bike.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says. You ignore him, breathing shallowly as you inspect his hand, holding his wrist, cleaning blood which is no longer there.
‘Might be a hairline fracture or two,’ you say, distant. ‘I won’t bandage it, gonna let it dry out first. But you’ll need to rest it. And we’ll need to ice your eye.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he says again, into your hair. You shake your head, and the light catches the different colours in every strand. Frankie’s throat tightens.
‘Please stop apologising.’ You whisper.
A shaky breath pushes itself from between Frankie’s lips.
‘No, querida,’ he says softly, ‘It wasn’t right. Shouldn’t have done it. And I shouldn’t have let you see -’ he swallows thickly, throat bobbing. He looks over your head at the white tiles behind you as your grip on his wrist tightens. You still don't look up at him. ‘But it’s not how you treat someone you love. Not how it should be. Should be protecting them, treating them right, loving them the way you love -’ him. He cuts himself off, because he realises as he says it he’s wrong. So wrong.
Right to be like you in your gentleness. In your care, your touch, your tenderness, your loving. But Tanner deserved none of those things. He didn’t deserve your faith, didn’t deserve your protection or your silence either. None of it.
He closes his eyes.
An image of you flickers through Frankie’s mind. Your fingers on his wrist as they are now, your eyes shining under the streetlights. The glint of your teeth, and the want so clear on your face, then the hesitation, the fear, the shuttering -
And if only he had kissed you then. If only you had taken him inside. He could have shown you what it was supposed to feel like. He could have saved you from the hurt, the fear which lay ahead.
There’s a splash of warmth on the pale skin of the underside of his forearm, and he opens his eyes again. You’re still hunched over his hand, but your movements have stilled. Frankie waits, confused, before another warm drop lands on his arm and you hiccup a sob out. He whispers out your name, and you turn your face up to him, devastated.
Frankie’s face crumples, and your grip on his wrist loosens enough for him to lift his hands to your face and cup your cheeks.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says, ‘I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said it. I wasn’t thinking -’
‘You think I love him?’ You croak.
Frankie’s jaw works around his next sentence, his next thoughts. He tries to process what this means. That look in your eyes, your tears, your implication. His lips move, but no sound comes out.
‘I don’t love him, Frankie,’ you choke, ‘I don’t. Christ - I don’t think I ever did, I never could -’ you suck in a deep, stuttered breath. ‘I’ve never - never hated anyone more. I couldn’t stand him, couldn’t have him near me, couldn’t have him touch me -’ Frankie flinches at your words. ‘But I was so scared. And embarrassed. I didn’t know how to leave - I didn’t know how to tell anybody about what was going on. I was terrified of what he’d do. To me, to you guys, if he found out I’d spoken about it. And he made it so hard for me to see you, so hard for me to get away.’ You sob now, panic and relief forcing out your words. ‘I thought - wherever I go, he’ll find me. He’ll track me down, and he’ll bring me back - and somehow - somehow that was worse than if he tracked me down and - and - I don’t know, killed me or something -’
Frankie’s eyes shutter. He can’t even follow your thought, so awful is the image, the gaping emptiness. He pulls you close, he lets you cry. Curled into his chest, your body wracking with tears, shaking, tense and uncontrollable, the sounds you make rooting in his brain. They file themselves away in a box where very few things go. Deployment. Tom. The darkness after his investigation. You break and break in his arms, and it’s all he can do to hold the pieces of you together. To press kisses to your head, breathe in the smell of your hair, rub his hands over your back, cradle you like a child.
He doesn’t know how long the two of you stand there for. He waits until you stop sobbing, stop crying softly, stop hiccuping, stop sniffing. He waits for a few more minutes in the silence, too. And when he pulls away, he presses a long, sweet kiss to your forehead.
You blink up at him through red, swollen eyes.
‘You’re safe here.’ He says, and you nod.
‘I know. Thank you. For - everything.’ You say thickly. Frankie swallows, nods. You know it all anyway. Any time, for however long you need.
He pads downstairs to get you a glass of water, and while he’s pouring it, he can hear you blow your nose, wash your face. Somehow, they are the most perfect sounds in the world.
Crackling wood’s gone white
And my eye swole up now
I can see the light
Frankie gives you one of his sleep-stretched t-shirts and an old pair of shorts for you to wear to bed.
The clothes dwarf you a little, and he can’t wipe the small, thrilled smile from his face, even when he looks away. You look fucking adorable.
You giggle at him every time you see it, your little what? only making him smile harder. It stretches his mouth until it hurts and his cheeks start to cramp up, squishing his swollen eye. Stop he tries to say, but it comes out as an equally breathless huff of laughter - and that only makes you giggle more. So much so that he sweeps you up into his arms to stash you under the covers, and you laugh even harder as he tucks the sheets in tight around you, just like his mama used to do when she wanted him to stay put.
He looks down at you from the side of the bed, hands on his hips, and you laugh back at him - eyes shining, mouth open in wide hoots of delight, your hands coming up in a desperate attempt to contain yourself. He points a finger at you.
‘You need to calm down,’ he says, voice tight with bridled amusement. ‘It’s bedtime.’
But you cackle back at him, this glorious puddle of sunshine in his bed, only howls of laughter for a response. Unable to help himself, he returns your joy, turning off the bedside lamps to slip in beside you.
In the darkness, your snorts subside into ragged breaths, and you turn on your side to look at him. You study him as though you never want to forget a single line on his face; such warmth, such affection in your eyes that Frankie’s whole body swells and lifts.
You take his hand beneath the sheets and hold it between your faces, smiling softly at him.
The first and only girl he’s really ever loved. This brilliant, fierce, bright, intelligent woman damped down by the waste of fucking space who had bled by the fire. At the thought of it, Frankie feels his heart fall out of his chest, down through the floorboards, and plummet towards the middle of the earth.
And finally, he begins to cry.
He tries to stop it, he really does. It’s selfish, he thinks, so awful and selfish to cry in front of you when it’s you who should be wrapped in his arms, swept away by emotion again if you needed to be, safe and warm and unworried, never having to fret about anything again.
But he can’t stop it. It comes out in great shuddering breaths - pained, wracked sounds slipping past his lips, and he can’t help it. He tries to gather them in his hands to shove them back in his mouth, tries to scoop them in his arms and press them back into the caving ache of his chest, but he can’t.
When Frankie was a child, he saw his dad cry once. Only once, and exactly like this, after his father’s brother was killed in a car accident. He had seen it through a crack in his parents’ bedroom door, and it had hurt him. It had wounded him, as a child, to see his father break with such grief, such pain, such emptiness, and to know there was nothing he could do about it. And now, he is split into those two people - younger self, older self - as he thinks of you lying next to him on the bed. This person who he loves so much, who is now so full of the knowledge of the worst parts of living, wound up so tight within you that you let it settle, let it unfurl around your bones. He sees your hurt, your grief, your pain refracted around him tenfold, and he hurts with you. He sees you as the boy he once was, this poor creature looking in at a heart breaking, as he has unknowingly watched yours break for months.
And he’s so sorry, he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to stop saying it.
But here you are, still, performing the ultimate act of kindness. Comfort.
He feels the mattress move as you slide closer to him, and then your hand is on his back, swooping in gentle movements. He feels the scrabble of your fingers under the ribs he has pressed into the bed, the pressure of your arm moving under him so you can hold him properly. Frankie sobs harder, but he opens his body to you. You press closer to him, burying your face in his neck, and he breathes you in as he cries. Your scent is here, you are here. And like you heard him, you whisper -
‘It’s okay, Frankie. It’s okay. ’M here. I’m safe.’ And this realisation allows a little more air, but it doesn’t make Frankie’s guilt, his shame any better. But you’re right, he knows it. And somewhere in his crying, this turns his gasps to tears of relief. Softly, you retract your arms from around him.
You take his hands away from his face, and kiss the palms. You kiss each fingertip, each bruised and cracked knuckle. You lean forward and press a kiss to each tear, each trail of saltwater on his face. And you are so beautiful in the moonlight. Soft and wide eyed. Safe. Kind, always kind, and full of understanding. Frankie sees now that you have been crying against him, too, your eyelashes cloyed with tears. Sees his thoughts in your eyes as though you have had each of them zip to you through the air. When you were a child, you saw your dad cry once. Only once, and exactly like this, after…
A smile breaks through your eyes, chasing away the remnants of tears, glazing down, softening your lips.
And Frankie doesn’t think this time. His feet don’t fail him. He doesn’t think of stars or glitter or constellations of ice crystals. He just kisses you. And kisses you and kisses you and kisses you. And he doesn’t stop, because nothing else matters anymore.
You’re safe. You’re warm. You’re in his bed.
You’re here.
You tip your head back, deepening the kiss, licking into Frankie’s mouth. He gives in so easily to you he’s almost ashamed. But then your fingers clutch at him, ball at the bottom of his shirt, tangle in the thick of his hair, and all his thoughts are forgotten. He feels you slip a soft, strong leg over his, pulling him forward. You groan against him, and Frankie’s cock twitches. You feel it, you must do, as you pull your body closer to him, tight against him. Frankie is so lightheaded he doesn’t know where his hands are, what they’re doing - and when he concentrates, he finds them skating over your back, squeezing the tension out of the back of your neck, gripping your hip.
He moans against you as you rock your hips over his thigh, as he feels the heat of your sex against his skin. He feels like he’s on fire.
You slip a hand under his sleep shorts and palm him, brushing his silken length with two fingers, feeling him grow harder, thicker against you. You take him in your hand, pump him once, twice with the perfect grip, the perfect speed, like you were made for him. He’s gasping against you, panting as you suck his lower lip into your mouth.
‘Baby,’ he groans, breathless, ‘We don’t have to. We really don’t -’
You look up at him through gorgeous, glazed eyes.
‘I want to,’ you say, ‘Do you?’
Dangerous, dangerous question.
Frankie tries to shake his head, look away, think of anything but the tight fist of your fingers around his cock.
‘I do,’ he says, ‘I do. But I don’t think - this is the right thing -’
You loosen your grip, draw away from him. His body aches with a shudder.
His eyes flick back to yours again - confused, hurt - fuck, he can’t do that to you, ever -
‘I - I don’t want to take advantage of it - of you,’ he says. Your eyelashes flutter against your cheeks as you look down the sheets towards your toes. His jaw tightens. ‘And - and I don’t want this to mean - different things for us. I don’t want it to ruin what we have.’ Frankie breathes out heavily through his nose. He has to tell you now. He has to. ‘I don’t want it to mean different things, because I love you. I always have. And if we do this, if I have you even just for a night, I - I’ll never recover from it.’ Tears spike in his eyes again. He tries to smile. ‘You’d ruin me. And I don’t think I’d ever forgive you for it.’
Your breath hitches in your throat, and Frankie watches as your eyes flit back up to his. They search his face, the dribble of his barely-shed tears, the slope of his sad smile. You bring a hand up to cup his cheek, running your thumb over his scraps of beard. He closes his eyes.
‘What you said earlier,’ you begin. Frankie swallows. He waits for the blow of rejection. ‘About me - about me loving him.’ He opens his eyes slowly to find yours, bright and clear. Something begs to bubble over in them. Something golden and warm. ‘You were wrong - obviously. And I couldn’t tell you truly why, because I was afraid. So afraid of pushing you away, even though I think that’s all I’ve ever done. I’ve never thought I was worth it, Frankie. I don’t deserve you. And I am terrified of how much I love you.’ You beam at him, eyes bubbling over with that thing - love - ‘I love you,’ you say simply, like it’s not the most beautiful thing he’s ever heard.
A stunned little laugh ripples up his throat, and you copy it. He grips your face in his hands, and kisses you again, again, again.
‘I love you,’ he says.
‘I love you, too,’ you giggle.
‘And you are,’ he presses to your lips, ‘You are absolutely worth it.’
He rolls over on top of you, and begins to kiss your jaw, nipping at the skin there, before moving down your throat. He kisses you with a hot, open mouth, sucking marks into the sensitive skin at your pulse point. Mine, he groans, and you whimper against him, rubbing your thighs together.
Frankie pushes your shirt up - his shirt - so he can bite at your chest, press kisses to every bit of exposed skin. Every single part of you that deserves to be loved, every single place which has so far been unknown to him. He sucks each nipple into his mouth, delighted when you keen beneath him, panting, please, please Frankie, before he sinks lower down, peeling his shorts away from you to expose your glistening cunt.
He groans, unable to take his eyes away from it as he leans forward, pressing his body into the mattress to lick a stripe from your asshole to your clit.
‘Frankie -’ you groan down at him as he begins to work at you, sucking and licking, nipping at your thigh before slipping his tongue into your hole, swiping and tasting everything you’re giving to him. He grinds himself into the mattress, hissing at the relief, the uncomfortable weight of his cock dragging below him.
‘Taste so good, baby,’ he tells you, and he doesn’t think he ever wants to taste, wants to smell anything else ever again. All he can do is eat at you, breathe you in, until you’re begging him -
‘Frankie, your fingers - please -’ And he flexes his hand at your hip before brushing a fingertip against your entrance and gasping at the pain.
You try to bear down towards him, but he rips his hand away, lifting his head towards you.
‘Can’t,’ he gasps, and you mewl, bucking your hips up to his face, desperate. ‘Hand’s fucked,’ he says, and you still your movements before beginning to laugh again. It’s loud and from your belly, and it's bizarre. But Frankie gets it. He gets it, and he giggles too. He doesn’t try to fuck his broken knuckles into you, but he does try to continue lathing you with his tongue. You’re making it pretty fucking difficult, though.
‘Stop laughing,’ he huffs against your clit, ‘I’m trying to make you come.’
‘Okay,’ you say, gasping for air, ‘Okay. I’m sorry. I’m very sorry. You’re doing really well, by the way.’ But this only makes him laugh. He groans, leaning his forehead against your inner thigh. ‘This is impossible.’ He pouts.
‘Nooo,’ you cry, leaning up on your elbows to pout down at him. ‘Please, baby. I’ll be good. I’ll be so good. I won’t laugh anymore.’
‘Promise?’ He says. You hold out your pinky to him.
‘Pinky promise.’ You say.
Frankie stretches his hand out to you and tries to extend his pinky. He winces at the sharp pain which shoots from the movement, and grunts at you, your eyes sparkling with mischief.
‘You bastard,’ he says, trying and failing to hold his smile, ‘You knew I wouldn’t be able to do that.’
‘Just keeping you on your toes,’ you grin, and then before you can make any more smart remarks, Frankie resumes his ministrations, lapping and tonguing at your clit, your hole, mouthing hot, wet kisses to your pussy. He shakes his head from side to side, running your bud in tight, hard little circles until you’re a moaning, whimpering mess beneath him. Your hips buck unconsciously, and Frankie hooks both his arms around your thighs to hold you down, flattening his hands against your belly to keep you firmly in place. He reaches up to twist at your nipples and you gasp.
‘God, Frankie, tongue feels so fucking good -’
He can feel you begin to pulse against his chin as your whines get higher in pitch, and he groans as you twist handfuls of his hair.
‘Come on, baby,’ he says, ‘Give it to me. Wanna see you come, querida. Wanna taste it. Come on my face.’
And you do, the sensation of it arching your back tight like a bow, a strangled moan cutting off into the ceiling.
‘Fuck, Frankie, fuck -’ as he drives you through it, nodding and murmuring against you as you try to wriggle free, squealing in protest until you manage to twist a leg and set a foot against his chest, pushing him off.
‘Fucking - hell -’ You pant, and Frankie grins down at you, smug.
‘Good?’ He asks, quirking an eyebrow.
‘Oh, fuck you, Morales.’ You laugh, pulling him in for a sloppy kiss, moaning when you taste yourself on him. Your tongue explores every part of his mouth, every crevice behind every tooth, like you can’t get enough of him. Like there'll never be enough of him. ‘Now fuck me.’ You whisper.
And Frankie does not need to be told twice.
He rips his shirt up and off his back, shucks his shorts down his legs, and squeezes himself tight as he can in his left hand. He ruts into his palm, thumb swiping to slick his heavy beads of precum down his length.
‘Ready?’ he asks, looking down to find you staring wide-eyed at his cock. It twitches under your gaze.
‘What?’ He says, and you shake your head in quiet disbelief and amusement. You lift your eyes back to his face, and they are so dark with arousal he almost melts into the mattress.
‘Nothing,’ you shrug. ‘I just somehow never believed Pope and the boys when they said it was like two coke cans put together.’
‘Jesus Christ.’ Frankie laughs, his face pulling tight with a grin as he lines himself up at your entrance, swilling the head in your arousal.
‘I mean, what if it doesn’t fit?’ You babble, and he shakes his head.
‘It’ll fit, baby,’ he says. ‘We’ll make it fit.’ Then he sinks the first inch in, and just waits. He waits and watches you, watches as your mouth falls slack, all the smart things coming out your mouth grinding to a halt. He throbs at how tight you are around him, at how you clench already, trying to suck him in further. And fuck, you are so wet.
‘You okay, querida?’ He asks through gritted teeth.
You manage a nod, a broken whine escaping you.
‘Move Frankie, please baby -’ you beg, and he groans as he pushes further inside you, watching the obscene stretch of your pussy around him, the way it pulses, the way it gets wetter and warmer and tighter around him. When he bottoms out, he feels the hot rush of his orgasm leap towards him a little too quickly.
‘Fuck, baby,’ he breathes, closing his eyes just to make sure he doesn’t come right away. You squirm beneath him, canting your hips up, trying to fuck yourself. Frankie grips you, gritting his teeth. ‘Stay still,’ he hisses, flushing a little. ‘God, fuck, please - just for a minute.’ He opens his eyes to find you watching him, your bottom lip caught in your teeth. His eyes glaze down your body - his t-shirt bunched up around your chest, perfect tits, perfect belly, and your sweet, sopping cunt split open on his cock.
He groans again, slipping out, watching as he retreats, soaked by you, before pushing back in. A high pitched whine leaves your lips, and you twitch your hands up to play with your tits. Frankie doesn’t think he’s ever seen something more sexy in his life.
‘That’s right,’ he says, ‘Keep playing with yourself like that, gorgeous. Look at you.’
So you do, looking up at him with doe-eyes as he fucks into you, soft at first, letting you adjust before quickening his pace, readjusting his angle, feeling you leak around him. His balls slap against your ass loudly, and you keen up at him, eyes wide, begging for something as you tighten like a coil around him, something you can’t quite voice. But Frankie knows.
He swipes his thumb against your clit, and your eyes roll into the back of your head, your back arching again. He groans at the sight, and works the bundle of nerve endings in tight circles, faster and harder, harder and faster, until you’re gripping him so tight he thinks you might push him out.
‘Come baby, come,’ he pants, ‘Please, querida, need to feel you - need to feel you soak me. Need you to come for me, come on this cock, baby, please -’
And he groans, long and loud as you clench and pulse around him, milking him, pulling him impossible deeper - fuck, Frankie, oh my god, feels so fucking good - the delicious pressure at the base of his spine at breaking point as he fucks you through it, as he pants and gasps -
‘Come, Frankie,’ you plead, ‘Please - want you, need you -’ and he spills himself deep inside you, hips stuttering, eyes clamping shut, overwhelmed and short circuited. He’s never known it could feel like this - good to the end of every synapse - and he’s fucking it in with three long thrusts, pulling out slowly just to watch it dribble out of you as he twitches against his thigh. He thumbs your clit just to watch you seize and sigh against him, then sits back on his knees to look at you.
‘You are something else,’ he says in disbelief.
You smile lazily at him.
‘Ain’t so bad yourself, Morales,’ and he laughs, throwing himself down next to you, kissing anywhere he can. I love you, I love you, I love you. Safe.
You lay there for a while afterwards, just feeling each other, calming your ragged breathing. Eventually, Frankie rises from the bed to grab a washcloth, coming back and swiping between your legs tenderly, gently, before collapsing back into bed and pulling you into his chest.
He feels like he’s in space, and he tells you as much. He spills secrets like a child at a sleepover. He tells you about the glitter and the stars and the constellations of ice crystals. You match him with a galaxy of feeling spanning the time he’s known you. And he feels that this is a dream, this love which floats like a nebula within the bed. He tries to keep his eyes open for as long as possible, even as you sleep. And even when he does drift off, he dreams of you. He dreams of you sparkling with stardust, waiting for him with your arms open.
When he wakes the next morning, you’re still there. Safe, soft and warm against him, furled into his ribcage, heart beating against the hand that’s pressed against your chest.
Everything’s okay. That red thread still intact, after all.
When the sun rises, bloody and mild, it’s never been so sweet.
A little piece of a bloody tooth
Just so you know I was thinking of you
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makes me so eepy
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twinkle [frankie morales x f!reader]
summary: when his daughter starts preschool, frankie needs a little help with after school care. enter you--and much to his dismay, frankie cannot stop thinking about you.
ratings/warnings: E [smut, so much yearning, me making stuff about nannying and childcare, POV switch toward the end, frankie is kind of a perv but in a respectful way, PIV, male masturbation, frankie pussy eating king, subby Frankie, bossy reader, praise kink, kind of a housewife kink, I truly don’t know what got into me with some of this]
wc: 8.3k [i maybe got carried away]
a/n: please go to @ezrasbirdie-updates to be notified of updates! shout out to my love @mothandpidgeon for betaing! so this is @haylzcyon's christmas present, and i may or may not have used that as an excuse to make frankie look sweaty and pretty and wild in front of the christmas tree. also i always wanted to do frankie fucks the babysitter, so. happy holidays, babes! dividers by @saradika-graphics.
masterlist | frankie morales masterlist
Time moves faster since Francesca arrived, squalling and twisting her way from her mother as Frankie looked on in terrified fascination. Since her birth, he’s barely had a second to breathe. He thinks he wouldn’t mind the world moving so fast if the price of it was anything but her getting older at exponential speeds.
It feels like yesterday she was in diapers, and now she walks and talks and has her own opinions. Wherever she got this big brain of hers hadn’t come from him, of that he was sure. Now she’s old enough to notice; to be affected by his shitty moods or arguments with her mother or even when he’s late to pick her up.
This year, though, there’s you.
You are a complication he couldn’t have foreseen in his wildest fucking dreams, but you’re here, and he’s tried his best for months not to let his feelings affect you or Franny.
None of it’s your fault, of course; you’ve done nothing but be professional and caring and kind toward his daughter, and it makes this distant asshole act of his even more difficult.
And goddamn, the holidays do not help.
It’s his own goddamn fault he hired someone he was attracted to the second you came into his life. He’s tortured himself with this crush for months now; this totally inappropriate crush that haunts his every waking moment, despite his best attempts at distancing himself.
Frankie had been reluctant to get a nanny. Nannies were for wealthy families with four kids and vacation homes, not single fathers in two bedroom apartments and a preschooler.
It was easier when she was in daycare—he could drop her off there in the morning and pick her up at six, but preschool threw the whole damn thing off. Preschool ends at noon, and he couldn’t leave work every day to go get her. He didn’t want to ask Franny’s mother for help, too afraid she might use that as some kind of evidence that he wasn’t stable enough for 50/50 custody.
He didn’t think she’d be that vindictive, but it was a possibility. So he’d sucked it up and asked around, taking your number from Franny’s very enthusiastic preschool teacher who said you’d worked for a number of families in her classes.
He was, of course, fucked the moment you’d walked into that coffee shop around the corner from his building, smiling brightly as you sat down and stuck your hand out to introduce yourself. You’d worn a suit, clearly tailored to your form, and handed him what he was sure was an impressive resume from a leather portfolio. He’s more than ashamed to say that he’d barely glanced at it, hiring you just a few minutes later.
“Parents usually want to run a background check first,” you’d said, a little alarmed.
“Oh, uh—it’s okay. Franny’s teacher told me how highly recommended you are by all the parents from her class. The ones you worked for,” he’d said, tongue twisting over every word, but praying he’d covered his blunder. “And I need someone soon.”
“If you insist, Mr. Morales,” you’d said. “But I should meet her first.”
With that, he’d completely agreed.
He tried to stay as cool and calm and professional as you were, giving himself a stern talking to in his truck on the way home from work, and it took him all of three fucking days to cave.
You greeted him at the door on your third day, and he wondered if that was a normal part of having a nanny. It felt wrong, being ushered into his own home, but he’d liked seeing you there looking so soft and comfortable with Franny.
“Pick up went great, she knew exactly where to go. Miss Nicole and I are friends, obviously, so she’d have gotten her to me anyway. We ate all our veggies at lunch—”
He liked the way you said “we” instead of “she,” but he’d be damned if he could explain why.
In the middle of your report, you swooped down to pick Franny up and away from her puzzle to hand her off to Frankie, whose arrival she was wholly uninterested in. It wasn’t the first time you’d done it—you said it made for a good transition; a signal to her that the day was over and it was Daddy’s time with her now.
Frankie’d been working on his impulse control over the last few years, but all that progress seemed to fly out of the window the moment the v-neck of your t-shirt gaped just enough to see a lacy black bra. He bit the tip of his tongue just to keep himself from groaning.
“Daddy!” Franny admonished, reaching for him from your arms. “You not listening!”
“I’m sorry, baby, I’m a little tired. What’d I miss?”
You shrugged, and he kept his eyes firmly on your face. “She’s got some sniffles,” you said. “I didn’t wanna give her anything for it without you here, but I thought you might wanna keep an eye on it.”
He nodded, taking in the rest of what you had to say as you gathered your things to go home. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to start dinner, but I can certainly do that going forward,” you’d said, and his mouth had gone dry as he imagined you in his kitchen cooking for him.
For Franny, he had to remind himself.
“I…sure, I mean, you can—uh, I don’t usually plan ahead?” He stuttered, too focused on not choking on his own spit.
“No problem. I’m happy to do meal plans for you two,” you said. Does he pay you enough to do meal plans? “Just let me know.”
You were on your way out the door when he found his voice.
“Did you have, um—how was your day?” He asked. You stopped and turned back, a shy smile on your lips.
“It was really good, Mr. Morales. Franny’s a good kid. Thank you for asking,” you said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He watched you walk out, eyes glued the sway of your hips.
During your second week, a heat wave hit. Franny was miserable stuck inside, all the excessive heat warnings making it too dangerous to play at the park after lunch. Even the balcony wasn’t shaded enough, and you had to bring her inside after twenty minutes.
“She’s been a handful,” you told him that Friday. “But that’s hardly her fault. She’s just restless.”
He could tell you were tired, though, and he worried you’d decide not to come back in two weeks when Franny came back from her mom’s.
It was so hot outside it crept into the apartment despite the central air, and your shirt clung to you, damp with sweat.
He wanted to do something for you.
“Do you like ice cream?” He asked, taking off his cap and running his fingers through his damp hair as he watched you microwave Franny’s dinner.
“Sure. Why?”
“I thought—if you’re not busy—after she eats, maybe we could get ice cream?”
You crossed your arms and grinned at him. “Is this some kind of bribe?”
“Not a bribe,” he said. “I…just want to take you for ice cream.”
“Ice cream?” Franny’s voice came from the living room, and you laughed.
“What you think, mija?” Frankie asked. “We all get some ice cream after you have your dinner?”
“Yes!” She exclaimed, clapping her hands.
“Guess that settles it,” you giggled. “Come eat your dinner, Franny.”
“Er—you don’t have plans, right? No boyfriend I’m keeping you from?” Frankie asked, settling her into her booster seat.
“Not these days. My social calendar is pretty dry lately. Ice cream sounds good. I won’t even charge you for my time,” you grinned, and Frankie’s heart thudded in his chest.
No boyfriend.
The ice cream shop was just around the corner, right next to the coffee place he’d interviewed you, but he almost regretted walking there in the goddamn heat. The air conditioner was on full blast, and he had to force himself to look away from your now-stiff nipples.
Franny chattered about something he couldn’t pay attention to and you entertained her in between slurps of your ice cream cone. The outside heat infiltrated the small shop every time the door opened, despite the frigid air conditioning, and the vanilla ice cream slid between your fingers.
Frankie watched your tongue dance across your knuckles, not wanting to waste your treat. He couldn’t help but imagine what else you might lick up so enthusiastically, regardless of how fucking wrong it was.
All you were doing was eating. He shouldn’t have been so fucking turned on by something so mundane. Not here in public, not by the woman who cares for his daughter.
The ice cream kept melting, messy and sticky and dripping down your fist, and he gritted his teeth, nodding every now and then to the words coming from your gorgeous, hot mouth.
Deep breaths, in and out, it’s fine, just eat your ice cream—
Something crunched in his fist, and he looked down to see his stretched-white knuckles covered in chocolate ice cream, his grip so tight he’d crushed the cone. Franny laughed, and you laughed, and he laughed, too, praying his scarlet cheeks weren’t too noticeable as you grabbed napkins and cleaned the mess before he could even react.
He loved that, though, the way you take charge; how you know exactly what to do.
“Hold still,” you ordered. He obeyed, watching you throw the crushed cone away and wiping his hand down with a wet wipe from your bag. You dried him off with a napkin, running your fingers over his skin to make sure you got everything.
“Thank you,” he murmured and you smiled, squeezing his hand and lingering there for a second longer than he expected. Electricity jolted through his body at your caress, and on the way back, he racked his brain for reasons for you to stay.
He found none, of course, other than the real reason—to make you come as many times as you’ll let him—so he let you go home.
Later that night, when Franny was asleep and he found a second of peace in the shower, he braced the tile wall with his forearm and wrapped his hand around his aching cock, pumping himself as he thought of you and the ice cream dripping down your knuckles and your stiff nipples and the way your soft hands felt on his. He let himself imagine your taste, what you’d sound like as he devoured you, what your hot, wet pussy would feel like on his face, around his cock—anywhere, he wasn’t picky.
He hadn’t wanted anyone like this in years. Not that he hadn’t had flings or attempts at relationships since he and his ex split, but his desire wasn’t like this. Frankie closed his eyes and imagined what your tits looked like under your shirt, if you knew he could see how cold you were. He choked back a loud groan at the thought of you wearing some thin little bra on purpose, just to fuck with him, just to see if he’d get on his knees for you.
Frankie squeezed the base of his cock, desperate to draw this little fantasy out a bit longer, but his body betrayed him. He came too quickly, breathing hard and murmuring your name as his spend spattered against the tile. As he pushed himself off the wall, the guilt washed over him while he watched his come circle the shower drain.
What the fuck was he supposed to do?
Two weeks later, he’d told himself he was over it. Franny was with her mom, so he hadn’t seen you, and it was just a fluke—you were beautiful and new, and he just got overexcited. It wouldn’t be a problem now that he’d gotten over his little crush.
Sure, the first week consisted of him jerking off all over his apartment when he looked too long at something you touched or sat on, or when he scrolled your socials for a while, or thought about you, but that didn’t mean anything. Guys jerk off a lot anyway.
The second week he slowed down, only touching himself once while he listened to a voicemail you left about needing to leave a few minutes early one day next week. And then again after he called you to let you know that was fine.
He was starting to wonder if he could run out of come. He hadn’t masturbated this much since he first discovered he could do it.
On the Monday you returned, he was much too tired from work to be nervous about seeing you again on the way home. It wasn’t until he pushed open his front door to find you in the kitchen, stirring something in a pot, barefoot in a pair of leggings with Franny on your hip, that he remembered how fucking out of his mind you made him. His mouth watered.
You turned around at the sound of the front door, setting Franny down so she could run to him. He greeted the both of you, your bright smile disarming him as he scooped Franny up.
All that progress he told himself he made on his stupid, ridiculous crush evaporated
“Hi, Mr. Morales,” you said, tapping the side of some spice jar into the pot.
“Frankie,” he said, against his better judgment. “Just Frankie is fine.”
“Frankie,” you said, testing the word in your mouth. “I like that name, you know.”
“Thank you,” he said, fighting the strong urge to wrap his arms around your waist and kiss the back of your neck.
You declined his invitation to stay and eat the dinner you’d made.
“I have a date,” you explained, and something ugly clawed at the inside of his chest. He ignored it because you were allowed to have dates, and he couldn’t say a fucking word about that.
Franny calls him out the moment you leave.
“You love herrrrr,” she said from her booster seat, artfully arranging the broccoli on her plate. He stared at her, dumbfounded.
“And what’s that supposed to mean, little miss?” He asked. She looks up at him, exasperated, as though it’s a hassle to repeat herself.
“She’s pretty, so she’s the princess,” she said. “And you supposed to love the princess.”
Frankie laughs, always impressed with the perception of his three-and-a-half-year-old. “All right,” he says. “Eat your broccoli, mija, it’s almost bath time.”
She was not as excited about that.
“Do you need me Monday?” You asked him Friday evening. “It’s Labor Day, so—”
“Oh! I guess it is, isn’t it?” Frankie laughed, suddenly pleased about his three-day weekend, as if he hadn’t known about it before. That quickly turned to concern for you, though, because that certainly meant your pay would be short, and Frankie knew all too well what that was like. “Technically, no. Do you have plans?”
“No,” you sighed. “Just hoping I can pick up a shift at my other job.”
“You have another job?” He asked, but it seemed silly as soon as he said it.
“Well, of course,” she grinned. “You pay well, Frankie, but there’s two whole weeks I gotta supplement.”
“What’s your other job?” He asked.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” You winked, and God, were you flirting with him?
You were flirting with him.
“What if, uh—we’re going to the lake with some of my friends. What if you come with us and watch after Franny, and I’ll pay you double for hazard pay.”
You raised your eyebrows. “What’s the hazard pay for?” You asked.
“Putting up with my idiot friends,” he said, and you laughed. He really loved making you laugh.
You chewed your lip, thinking it over as you put your shoes on. He told himself it would be a big help to have someone to help with Franny, and ignored the fact that she had three overprotective uncles with plenty of experience reining her in.
In the end you agreed, and he was mostly successful at keeping himself from seeming too excited about having you with him at the lake where he could, maybe, get to know you a little better.
And it all went well. It went beautifully. The guys loved you, he learned where you went to school, where you grew up, how you got into nannying, what your second job was.
He learned that he was your favorite client, and you weren’t just flattering him. He wasn’t as stuffy as the others, you told him, which was nice. He made you feel less anxious.
His chest warmed at that—he wanted you to feel comfortable.
But then there was the fucking sunscreen.
He forgot all about it, of course, but you let them use yours. You slathered yourself in it on the way there, some fancy organic SPF 100 shit that smells fucking heavenly, adding a second coat to Franny halfway there and asking him, so politely, to put it on your back when the three of you arrived.
Your skin was so soft—he felt like such a fucking creep as he lingered over the base of your neck, stroking you with his thumb and squeezing your shoulder when he’d finished. You were so beautiful that day—you always were, of course, but in the sun, splashing around the lake with his friends and his baby, it felt right.
Like you were supposed to be there; like you should have been there all along.
He dropped you off that evening and you kissed his cheek, and he grinned like an idiot all the way home. He tried to tell himself he was imagining things, but what if he wasn’t?
What if you liked him?
For the rest of the week his truck smelled like that sunscreen. He’d get to work, completely unable to concentrate and tucking a boner into his waistband, contemplating asking you where you’d bought it just so he could get some and jack off with it.
He was losing it over you.
This was bad. It was bad.
He saw how much Franny loved you and how much you loved Franny, and he had to figure something out. What if he made you uncomfortable enough that you left? Even if you were friendly, even a little flirty, what if he crossed a line? A month and a half in, he couldn’t lose you.
That Friday, when he got home and found you making Franny eat carrots—she’d never eaten carrots before—he made himself put a stop to it before he did something completely stupid.
“Frankie!” You called from the little breakfast table. “Did you have a good day at work?”
“Yeah, uh, can we talk? Over here?” He motioned to a further corner of the living room, away from Franny’s ears.
“Everything okay?” You asked, stretching your arms over your head. He almost lost his way then.
“Fine, fine. Look, uh, I think—” He cleared his throat. Why was he so fucking nervous? He’d killed people; how was giving the babysitter instructions so difficult? “I was thinking, we maybe should go back to some less informal interaction. I’d like for you to call me Mr. Morales from now on, please, and we should probably not be so…casual.”
Hurt ghosted over your features, confusion following them for the briefest second. Your posture changed; you stood straighter, your arms down by your sides as you pulled your shirt to cover yourself more.
He wasn’t expecting that.
“Oh! Sure,” you said, swallowing harshly.
“It’s nothing—”
“Personal. I understand. No problem at all, Mr. Morales,” you said, looking away from him as you gathered your bags. “I should probably get going then. I’ll see you Monday, sir. Bye, Franny!”
You scurried out of the door like you couldn’t leave fast enough, and he stood there as Franny chomped on her carrots, feeling like the biggest asshole in the world.
This wall he’d put up is the best thing for his daughter, though, and you’d taken it in stride. He counts himself lucky—thinking with his dick could’ve led to him hiring someone much less professional. But not you. Your recommendations hadn’t been so glowing for no reason.
You always look nervous when he comes home now, though, like you’re waiting for him to find something to be upset about. It weighs on him sometimes—you’d told him he made you feel comfortable, less anxious, and he’d pulled the proverbial rug out from under you just a few days later.
But it’s right. Overall, it’s the right thing to do.
It doesn’t mean he’s over you, though, and this current situation he’s found himself in might be the death of him. Or your job. Maybe both.
The logistics of equal custody can get a little tricky around the holidays. Franny’s with her mom this year for Christmas, and Frankie’s leaving early to visit with some family. His flight leaves at six in the morning, and his ex couldn’t get the day off.
It was like a word problem on a standardized test, and he’d been bad at those in school.
You’d come up with the solution on your own—you’ll just stay the night and through the next day until her mother gets off work, and that way he gets to spend as much time with Franny as he can before she leaves for a week longer than usual.
It makes sense.
He’s behaved himself for months now, but here you are in his apartment, having a mini-Christmas with Franny. You’d pulled him aside when you arrived, looking more nervous than he’d ever seen you—he thought you were about to tell him you were quitting after this.
“I just wanted to check and make sure before I give it to her, but I got Franny a present. It’s nothing big or noisy, I promise,” you assure him. “But would that be okay, Mr. Morales? I didn’t wanna cross any lines.”
You take better care of his kid than he does, and he’s made you feel like you can’t even get her a Christmas present. He wonders if that was the norm in the other families you worked for, the ones you’d told him that day at the lake that it was nice to have a break from.
“Of course it’s fine,” he says softly. “She’ll love that. Thank you.”
You give him a sort of lop-sided smile as you open your bag and pull out a neatly wrapped box with a big silver bow on top.
Franny squeals over her early present—a pink camera with a unicorn on the front, small enough for her little hands to hold and simple enough for her to figure out how to use within a few minutes. She runs around the apartment for a long while until Frankie tells her it’s time for dinner. At the table, she takes several pictures of her macaroni and cheese, of him, of you making silly faces.
He didn’t even know Franny liked taking pictures so much.
“How’d you know she wanted that?” He asks later as you empty the dishwasher.
“Oh, she’s always stealing my phone and using the camera. I keep finding pictures of Barbie dolls and tea parties. I thought she might want one of her own,” you say. “And I won’t panic about my missing phone, like, five times a day.”
“That little thief,” he says, and you laugh.
“She’s just curious. Much better than my last charge, who flushed my phone down the toilet twice.”
Frankie’s mouth falls open, aghast. “On purpose?”
“On purpose,” you smile. “Franny’s been a breeze.”
Frankie leans against the kitchen island, and when you turn around you’re dangerously close to him. He should move, he thinks, get away from you, but the lights from the Christmas tree are dancing in your eyes.
You clear your throat. “Should we make some cookies? Franny was asking earlier.”
Frankie clicks his tongue, looking at the refrigerator. “I don’t know if I even have cookie dough.”
“I can make cookie dough,” you say, standing on your toes to rifle through the cabinets. “Bet you have everything in here.” He takes you in like this, greedy for you as your ass jiggles every time you jump a little to grab something else you need. A sliver of skin shows between your jeans and top, and his hands twitch as he tries to keep himself from curling a finger through your belt loop and pulling you against him.
“Butter, sugar, flour, baking soda, salt, hmmm…oh! An egg. Are these eggs good?” You ask over your shoulder, and he pulls his gaze from your ass.
“Should be,” he says, the back of his neck burning like he’d been caught ogling you. “Made eggs this morning.”
What the fuck is wrong with him?
Franny sidles up next to him, peering at you with interest. “What you doing, Daddy?” She asks.
“We’re making some cookies,” he says. “You want some?”
“Yes, please!” She says, snapping another picture and toddling off to the living room to take pictures of the TV screen.
You pull out a mixing bowl and a cookie sheet, setting them gently on the little island. “Hand me the measuring cups,” you order, and he does without a second thought.
“And the flour?”
“Yes ma’am,” he says.
He watches you work, waiting for any instructions you might give. It all feels so natural, slipping into this rhythm with you, and his cock stirs every time you nod at him with approval. You’re more relaxed than you’ve ever been around him.
Everything you do turns him on, and it’s a fucking nightmare he doens’t want to wake up from. By the time you get the cookies in the oven, you’re covered in flour and the kitchen’s a mess again. He catches you before you start cleaning up, insisting you go take a shower and let him do it.
“It’s the least I can do,” he says.
“Thanks, Fran—um, Mr. Morales,” you say, and his heart thuds at the slip up. You slip away before he can change his mind again and tell you to disregard what he’d said before, call him Frankie, or Frank, or Francisco, call him whatever the fuck you want to call him.
He almost chokes when you walk out in a pair of sleep shorts and a tank top, a fluffy robe thrown over your shoulders. He takes a deep breath, his attention now on making sure Franny doesn’t try to eat every cookie on the plate.
They’re amazing—obviously they are, because you made them, and everything you do is amazing, and he doesn’t know how much longer he can go without telling you that maybe he doesn’t just have a crush, maybe he isn’t just a pervert, maybe he just really, really, really fucking likes you.
But it won’t be tonight, so he needs to relax.
He gets Franny to bed by eight, miraculously, and when he comes back to the living room it’s just the two of you. It’s almost never the two of you, and he can’t tell if he’s just imagining it or if the air in the room’s gotten thicker.
You’re wrapped in that fluffy robe, legs tucked under you as you scroll your phone, so comfortable on his couch, in his home—goddammit, he wants you in his home all the time. How can you make him hard just sitting there, just existing?
“I’m gonna jump in the shower,” he says, and you nod, not looking up. “You’re welcome to watch whatever you want.”
“Okay, Mr. Morales,” you say.
He is a weak, weak man.
“You can—look, I’ve been thinking. I don’t think the Mr. Morales thing is necessary anymore. Just…call me Frankie.”
You smile softly. “Not gonna change your mind again?” You ask, and he can hear the uncertainty in your voice. “I don’t mind…I’m used to strict boundaries. It’s okay.”
“I won’t change my mind,” he says, and you nod. You don’t call him Frankie, but you don’t argue with him, either.
He’s proud to say that he doesn’t jerk off in the shower, not with you right on the other side of the wall, no matter how insistent his cock is.
Frankie digs out the one pair of pajama pants he owns and a white t-shirt, foregoing his usual tank top and boxers, tucking his dick under his waistband and hoping you don’t notice anything.
“Great British Bake Off?” He asks, nodding toward the tv as he sits on the other side of the worn leather couch. You’re stretched out over the other cushions, a blanket covering your bare legs. He wonders what you’d do if he pulled it off of you and crawled between your legs.
He doesn’t.
“Mmhmm. Old episode, though,” you say, getting up to hand him the remote. “I’ll just—”
“You going to bed already?” He asks.
“Yeah, I didn’t wanna be all in your space, you know?”
But he really, really wants you to be all in his space.
“We could watch a movie. If you want.”
You smile.
Frankie tosses and turns on the couch—this’ll be hell on his back in the morning, but he’d wanted you to be comfortable. And it’s not just the position keeping him in discomfort—he’s so fucking horny he thinks he might die.
He rolls over on his stomach, smushing his cheek into the pillow and sighing. He tries not to think of you asleep in his bed, all vulnerable and soft. He tries not to think of your tits spilling from that tank top, of the shorts riding up your thighs and exposing your pussy. He tries not to think of you having a dirty dream, whimpering in his bed and rubbing your thighs together, hips moving on their own and searching out friction in your sleep.
Fuck.
It takes him a moment to realize he’s doing that—moving his hips in search of friction, pressing down into the worn leather couch. It feels…good.
Frankie picks his head up, peeking around the room to make sure all the doors are closed. He turns the volume up on the tv to cancel out any noise and grinds his hips down.
His fist clenches around the pillow under his head as he presses up and down, back and forth, his foreskin doing most of the work. He should stop this, but he doesn’t know how he’ll get to sleep without some relief. He pulls his pants down and shirt up, trapping his cock between the soft leather and his belly. You were sitting right where he’s rubbing, and he can almost smell your soap. Precome pours from him as a hard shudder runs through his body, biting on the pillow to keep himself quiet.
It feels so good, so wrong—he shouldn't be doing this out here where you could walk right out and catch him. It would be humiliating, wouldn’t it, if you found him like this, fucking against the couch that smells like you?
But that only spurs him on, sweat accumulating on his temple as he rocks back and forth, grunting as quietly as he can. He keeps his eyes open, scanning the room, wishing now that you’d find him like this. He can almost hear that quiet giggle of yours as he humps faster, his eyes finally closing as he feels himself nearing his peak.
How wet would your pretty little cunt get, watching him humiliate himself for you? Would you like that? Would you spank him, ride his cock, put your fingers inside of him—what would you do?
His eyes fly open at a sudden noise, and there you are, standing still, your mouth slack and eyes wide open.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
You can’t sleep.
Of course you can’t sleep, not in Frankie’s bed, even with the sheets smelling like fresh laundry. The scent of him is still embedded into the mattress, baked into the fibers of his pillow. You try not to think about what he does in here when he’s alone, or even when he’s not—how many people have felt the scratch of his patchy beard between their thighs; his thick, calloused fingers roaming their bodies? How many people have fallen apart around his cock? Was he rough? Was he soft? Did he talk them through their orgasm?
Did he let them talk him through his?
You’re not sure which would be better, but you’ll take whatever he’s willing to give.
Not that he’s willing to give you anything.
This was stupid, falling in love with a client. It complicates everything, makes it so much harder to be objective. And it’s not permanent—one day they won’t need you anymore. Leaving a kid is always hard, but this one? This one’ll hurt if you don’t get it under control.
Sometimes you think there might be something there, but it’s always a fleeting glance here or there, a touch that lingers a little too long. He’d made it very clear months ago he wanted a professional relationship only, and that was totally fine. He didn’t want anything else.
Right?
You toss and turn a little longer, the TV on the other side of the wall a bit too loud for comfort. Surely he’d fallen asleep by now.
The door opens without a quiet creak, and your eyes adjust to the relative brightness of the living room. The tree lights are still on, twinkling like little stars. Movement from the other side of the room catches your attention, and it takes a moment to work out what’s happening on the other side of the room.
Frankie’s all lit up by the tree lights bouncing off his warm olive skin, but it’s his hips you're mesmerized by. His eyes are closed, a thin sheen of sweat glimmering from his exertion as he grinds himself against the couch—the exact spot you’d been sitting in earlier—panting quietly, allowing himself a weak whine every few seconds.
Holy shit.
It briefly occurs to you that you should turn around, afford him this private moment he might desperately need before a stressful trip, but how private is he being, really? How’s this your fault?
You could’ve come out at any time, but here he is. In the middle of the living room, doing…that. Wetness pools between your legs, as if you weren’t already aroused enough, wrapped in his sheets and fighting with yourself about stealing one of his shirts.
He looks so beautiful in those lights. His mouth hangs open, hushed groans starting to pour out with each new thrust of his hips. A particularly bright flash comes from the TV screen and you catch a glimpse of his cock trapped under his belly, and you’ve never wanted to be a couch so badly in your life.
Frankie Morales has a huge dick.
You knew it.
When his eyes finally open, he blinks a few times, and everything moves in slow motion—his eyes go wide and panicked as he stills, pushing himself up to stop the cant of his hips, but his cock doesn’t seem to care what’s happening.
In fact, his cock seems to like it an awful lot.
He tries to cover himself but seizes up before his hands make it to his waistband; instead he gasps, crouching over and grabbing the back of the couch; he squeezes the cushion with one hand as his eyes close again and lets out soft, needy grunts. Your eyes slide back down to his throbbing cock, unable to look away from the ropes of thick, pearlescent come splattering onto the couch, his hips thrusting into nothing.
“Oh, fuck,” he whines, and you have never, ever seen anything hotter in your life. The sound of it landing rings in your ears; you can barely hear his apologies. “Shit, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
You hover in the hallway for a moment, trying to decide if you should go to him or disappear, but he’s looking at you with his big eyes, his chest still heaving with effort.
“It’s okay, Frankie,” you say, taking a chance. “I’m not upset.”
He frantically stuffs himself back into his pants, pausing as he takes in what you’ve said.
“You’re not?” He asks through ragged breaths, looking around for something to clean up his mess.
“No,” you murmur, grabbing the remote on your way to him and turning off the TV. “Not at all. I…liked it.”
Frankie doesn’t move as you settle in front of him, doesn’t recoil at your fingers finding the hem of his shirt and tugging up. He raises his arms up and lets you pull it over his head.
“You made a mess,” you whisper, and he nods, transfixed as you use his shirt to clean it up.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, looking up at you through long lashes and groaning as you run your fingers through his sweaty hair. “You liked it?”
Frankie puts his hands on your hips, a shaky finger curling into your waistband and tugging. With the TV off, the lights glitter in his eyes, and the little halos bouncing off his glistening chest are angelic and sinful at once.
“Yeah,” you murmur. “Sit back.” He listens, no questions, and you straddle him, both knees planted firmly against his outer thighs. “What were you thinking about, baby?”
He sighs, squeezing your hips as you explore the breadth of his chest all the way down the swell of his belly.
“You,” he admits. “Always you. I think about you all the fucking time, I’m so sorry, I know it’s not—”
“Shh,” you soothe. “It’s all right, Frankie. I think about you, too. All the time.”
He runs his hands over your waist, hovering at the hem of your shirt and searching your eyes for permission. You nod, and he slides his hands up your shirt, thumbing at the sides of your breasts. You rock gently against him, waiting for his answer.
“You don’t think I’m a…pervert or something?” He asks.
“I didn't say that, did I? I think you were being a bad, bad boy out here. Thinking about me, fucking yourself where I could walk right in here,” you chastise, and he shudders underneath you.
“I’m so—”
“Why don’t you apologize properly, hm?” You purr. “We can get comfortable in your room. If you’d like.”
He nods eagerly, but before you climb off, he wraps his big hand around the back of your neck and presses a kiss against your lips, pulling a soft squeak from you. You melt against him, almost forgetting you’re in charge, but his lips are so soft and needy you haven’t lost any control.
How long has he wanted to do this?
Why hadn’t he done it before?
“Frankie,” you murmur against his lips, and he pulls back, letting you guide him to the bedroom.
You lean against the pillows, his eyes darkening as you spread your legs. He makes himself at home between them, pulling off your tank top and stripping your shorts in two quick motions.
“You were bad,” you murmur again, and you don’t just mean earlier.
“How can I fix it, bebita?” He asks, eyes softening, and you think he gets the message.
“You wanna make me come?” You ask, and he nods eagerly, pressing himself against you. He’s already stiff again.
“I’ll give you anything. Please,” he begs.
“You can eat my pussy to apologize,” you order and he whines, crashing his mouth to yours in a sloppy kiss. He trails down your chest, licking and sucking little marks until he gets to your cunt, tweaking your nipples between his thumb and forefinger.
You thread your fingers through his hair and tug; he shudders and buries his face in your cunt, teasing your clit with his tongue.
“Fuck, I knew you’d taste good, I knew you’d taste so fucking good,” he growls. “Open your legs a little more for me, please, baby, lemme see you.”
He inhales, nudging your clit with his nose and circling your hole with his tongue. “Smell so fucking good, too, goddamn. Knew this little pussy would be so—fucking—good—”
Frankie Morales is relentless with his tongue, grunting like an animal as he takes his time to figure out what feels good and moaning in satisfaction when he finds something you like.
Pressing firmly with the flat of his tongue, he licks long, languid circles as his fingers dig into the meat of your thighs. It feels like heaven, like you’ve needed this your whole life, and you clench around nothing as your orgasm nears.
He notices.
“You want my fingers, bebita?”
“Please,” you sob, forgetting you’re supposed to be in charge. All you can think about is his soft, wet tongue and the way his hair feels between your fingers. He slides one thick finger inside of you, hooking it upward and curling, brushing against something that makes your toes curl. Your hips thrust up so high he has to lay his forearm across your belly to hold you still.
“Think you can take another one, baby, gonna give you one more,” he says, and you have to bite your fist to keep from crying out as he pushes the second finger in. He strokes you insistently, fingers working in tandem with his persistent tongue and your whole body tremors as you inch closer and closer.
“Frankie,” you whimper. “Frankie, Frankie, Frankie, please—”
“That’s it, just let it happen, come on, don’t fight it, baby, come for me, come f—” You fall apart around his fingers, mouth open as you gush so hard you push his fingers out of you, and he lets out a long, guttural moan, praising you with soft murmurs. “Oh fuck, fuck yeah, so good, baby, did so fucking good, look at all that you gave me—”
You throw your arm over your face, sobbing quietly as it just keeps going, your legs shaking and twitching as he rubs your outer thighs. “Fuck, Frankie, Frankie, feels so good, feels so good,” is all you can manage.
You lift your arm to find him looking up at you, eyes glazed over and his face dripping with you and he’s so, so beautiful. You don’t think he knows how beautiful he is, and you wonder if anyone’s ever told him that.
He crawls up your body to meet you, kissing you fiercely, still hungry for you. “Am I forgiven?” He asks. You smile and slide your thumb over his bottom lip.
“No,” you murmur, and his sweet, eager face falls with disappointment. Your reach down and wrap your fingers around his cock, closing your eyes to savor the way it pulses in your hand. “You still need to fuck me, don’t you? Because I still need your cock, Frankie.”
“R-really?” He asks.
“Unless you don’t want to,” you say, giving him an out. “But I would really love you to fuck me with that big, pretty cock.”
“Yeah. Yes, ma’am, please, let me—”
He clamors for his bedside drawer, fishing out a condom.
Responsible. You like that.
He rolls it down that pretty cock of his and starts to line himself up with you, but you have something else in mind.
“Wanna ride you,” you say, switching positions with him. His eyes rove over your body as you swing your legs over his thighs, and he scoots up to a sitting position against the pillows.
“Wanna kiss you,” he says, groaning as you sink onto him. “Think about this all the time.”
You breathe as you adjust to his size, the slight stretch disappearing quickly as you start to move. You wish you could feel his cock without the barrier, wish he could come inside of you and watch it leak out of your spent pussy, but the way he’s looking at you, worshipful and earnest, more than makes up for it. He pulls you to him, all teeth and tongue and need as he pants into your mouth.
“Shit,” he says. “Shit, I don’t know—don’t know how long I’ll last. You feel so fucking good. Wanted this for so long.”
You moan at his confession, your pussy clenching around him and pulling another groan from him. “You gonna come that fast, baby? When you just came? My pussy feels that good?” It’s too easy to tease him. He wraps his arms around you, like can’t get close enough to you, and whimpers and holy fucking shit, you love that noise.
So you keep talking.
“It’s okay, Frankie. I won’t be mad. You’ll still be a good boy for me if you come fast, you can’t help it if it feels good, right?”
He shakes his head, grunting something that sounds like “no” as he starts to thrust up into you. He slots his arms under yours, his fingers anchoring over your shoulders from behind, and all you can do is hold on. Not exactly riding him, but this is really fucking good, too.
“Fuck me like you need to, baby. Wish you could come inside me, Frankie. Wish you could make a mess inside me, I’d make you clean it up, lick it out of—”
“Wanna come in you, wanna come in you so bad,” he says. “Wanna keep you, wanna—fuck—wanna make you my little woman, want you to boss me around, please, baby, fuck, I’m gonna come—”
Frankie lets out a long, quiet groan, shuddering like he had in the living room, and you whisper encouragement in his ear.
“Sorry,” he moans. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”
“It’s okay, baby, it’s okay,” you murmur, not entirely sure what he’s sorry about. He doesn’t let you move from him, your foreheads pressed together, lips molded as he comes back to Earth.
“Hey,” you murmur. “You okay?”
“I’m…oh, fuck,” he says, kissing you all over your face. “I’m amazing.” He kisses your nose. “You’re amazing.”
“Yeah?”
After he takes some time to breathe, you’re able to move from his lap, his softening cock slipping from you. You could’ve kept him in there all night, you think.
He ties off the condom and throws it away, throwing on boxers and says he’s going to check and make sure Franny’s still asleep.
You make your way into his bathroom to clean up, putting your clothes back on and dreading whatever post-orgasm clarity conversation was about to happen. His mumbled apologies seemed like a bad sign, and your stomach churns.
He’d also said nice stuff, things you know better than to take seriously if men were in the heat of the moment, but you don’t think you’d mind bossing him around if he let you. As you open the door, you take a deep breath and find him sitting on the bed with a glass of water on the nightstand.
Dammit, he’s so pretty.
“Hey,” he says softly. “We should probably talk—”
“Look, I get it,” you cut him off, trying to get ahead of him. “I’m still fine to stay here through the day tomorrow. I can give you some good referrals to other sitters—”
“What do you mean?” He asks, frowning. “Why would I need that? Are…you’re quitting?”
“No, I mean—I thought you’d want to remove any complications,” you explain.
“You’re not a complication,” he says, holding his hand out. You look at it warily, taking it with suspicion. “I wanted to tell you I’m rescheduling my flight so I don’t have to leave tomorrow.”
“Really?” You ask, and he nods, handing you the glass of water.
“You thought I was gonna fire you? After…that? Right before Christmas?” He asks.
“I’ve heard plenty of stories, Frankie,” you murmur, taking a drink of water.
“I wanted to spend time with you. I want to take you on a date, if you’ll let me.”
“I’d love that,” you say, the constriction in your chest dissipating with his sweet smile. “I just…”
“What?” He asks, cupping your cheek. “You can tell me.”
“You don’t like me,” you say.
“What?”
“You don’t like me! You did, and then—and then you didn’t anymore, back in September. And you were apologizing when we—”
“I was being an idiot. I wanted to do what was best for Franny and I thought if I came onto you it would fuck everything up,” he says. He rubs the back of his neck and gives you a sheepish grin. “And I was apologizing because I came so fast. You just felt so good.”
“Oh,” you say, letting this information wash over you with another swig of water.
“Oh?” He asks, his eyes all big and round and worried and sweet and how can a grown man be so cute?
“It’s a good ‘oh’. I’m glad I know. I like you, Frankie. I always have.”
“I like you, too.”
You fall asleep tangled in his arms, talking late into the night, and in the morning you wake up to the noise of a camera shuttering and several bright flashes.
“Why you both in here?” Franny asks, clicking away like a miniature paparazzo. Your mouth opens and closes with all the grace of a land-dwelling bass fish, and blessedly, Frankie wakes up before you can answer.
“Come here, mija, let me see that,” he says, and Franny climbs in bed with the two of you, presenting her camera to Frankie for inspection and successfully distracting her as you slip out to put your robe back and start breakfast.
They come out of his room a few minutes later, and Frankie comes up behind you, wrapping his arms around your waist and kissing the back of your neck.
“Merry Christmas,” he says.
“It’s not Christmas yet.”
“Close enough,” he says.
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Cravings
Frankie 'Catfish' Morales x F!reader
Summary: Pussy eating king frankie, who gets his aforementioned nickname when you tried to come up with ways to prevent him from relapsing back to coke.
Warnings: soooo much oral —pussy eating, cum eating, grinding, dry humping, cumming in pants, kissing, Frankie's mouth is everywhere, alcohol, drunk sex, unprotected sex, little dub con since Frankie doesn't ask if he can cum inside, overstimulation, free use esc situations
Notes: This is NOT the Frankie free-use series I mentioned before; I'm a bit delayed with writing it, so here's something else i had started as a drabble but then... did not stay a drabble. Please like and reblog if you enjoy this fic!
18+ ONLY
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Rather than drowning himself in coke, Santi slyly suggest he drowns himself in pussy instead. The guys around the table laughed, but you kind of agreed and told him you'd help set him up on hookups. Frankie didn't want to go through the trouble of having to find a potentially different girl each night. Plus, his cravings were sporadic. He would need his fix in that moment whenever it came.
He remembered back when you had drunkenly admitted guys could hardly satisfy you because you had a high drive, usually cumming on your fingers at least 6 times a day before bed, often times more on lonely weekends. He was left speechless at the time, but now he couldn't get Santi's proposition mixed with that knowledge of you out of his head.
You tried to cook him meals instead or buy him hoards of candy, but the idea was stuck in his mind. You knew you'd be a convenient alternative, given you only lived less than 10 minutes away and was always around when he needed help. But you were afraid of crossing that line with one of your all time best friends.
Eventually, being around him so much—"on call" as the boys put it—left you susceptible to his sweet touches, ghosting lips against your ears, sporadic twitches and jittery hands, antsy fingers dancing along your hips. You considered the option heavily before finally caving: you were doing this to HELP him, as his friend. Just a little relief every so often when he absolutely needed it.
You came 9 times on his tongue the first time. It wasn't even that he was trying to make you cum, but the eagerness in the way he moved so fast, growling and moaning at the taste, his lips attached and never left your heat. His big nose just perfectly bumping your clit each time he pointed his tongue dove deep into your craving hole, curling up and hitting that soft spot inside you left you shaking and crying out his name, back arched and fingers clawing at his shoulders.
He was sated for almost 6 days (and you needed the ample recovery time because not even your fingers could make you cum so hard) before the craving hit again. Incessant knuckles pounded your doorstep. You had barely unlocked the door before he was shoving himself in and devouring your mouth with his. "I need another hit, carniño."
He didn't wait for a response, knocking you on your ass on the sofa and stripping your sweats and panties off before throwing one leg over his shoulder. Flattening his tongue, he licks a long strip along from your hole to your clit, obscenely guttural moans from the back of his throat filled your ears. He looked wild-eyed and crazy, as if starved for weeks and was finally given the sugar rush of the century.
You inevitably move in with him, claiming his spare bedroom, worried about how bad he gets when he goes anything longer than a few hours without you.
He makes you ride his face until you're suffocating him, and he still can't get enough. Your juices flood his mouth and nose and his eyes roll back as he loses air. You try to get off and apologies, but he's caged your thighs with his muscular arms, holding your pussy flat against his face as he devoured you more, ignoring your squirming pleas. He hums against your nub, the vibrations sending you into your own addictive high. You cum again, and again, and again, and soon you're tugging his hair, crying his name with fat tears down your cheek, leaning back and scratching at his chest to let off, but its useless. He's so lost in your cunt that you become light headed, barely holding on to the headboard as your lower body continues to spasm.
He only pulls off for a minute, squeezing his nostrils to force out your juices. He's so dazed, pupils blown wide, beard and mustache drenched in your slick, so pussy-drunk and in love that he wants to do it again. "Sweetest fucking cunt, I swear. Just wanna curl up and live inside here, querida."
You offer to suck him off but he gestures embarrassingly down, where you turn to see a dark splotch on the belt-line of his pants where the tip of his spent cock peaks out, dribbling little white drops onto his lower belly, having cum untouched just from eating you out.
It gets to the point where you lock yourself in the bathroom when you take a shower just to have 10 minutes of peace. Your pussy is so puffy, clit so swollen from his constant assault day and night that you have to calm down and remind yourself what good its doing for him. He hasn't touched the white powder in weeks.
He's wondered where you've gone when he sees the bathroom light illuminate under the door. He knocks a few times, then raps harsher with his fists, calling out your name. You tell him you just need a minute. The makeshift locks on the bathroom door of Frankie's apartment isn't designed to keep an ex militant out, and he just pushes it forward with enough force that it gives way and he let's himself in. You go to cover yourself when he pulls the shower curtains away, but the same needy expression on his face as he narrows in to the slit between your legs has you aching once again. It's Pavlovian, the way he stares, practically drooling, hands twitching by his side, sending signals to your cunt to start dripping for his appetite. He spins you around so your cheek is smothered against tile, ass out towards him, not caring about the water drenching his baseball cap, grey shirt and pants as he kneels on the shower floor and puts his face between your legs. He moans when his lips start sucking on your nub, tongue thrusting in and out of your hole. He keeps you in your spread position with his arms holding your waist, making their way to spread your ass for him to dive further in, knees between your heels. You reach one arm back, knocking his cap off as you card your fingers through his damp hair, gripping it when you cum and grind yourself back on his scruffy face.
He's otherwise so gentle, so soft spoken, but when he gets between your legs, something primal takes over and you can hardly recognize him.
Sometime in the evening while you were watching a movie, you see his knee bouncing next to you. You has snapped at him earlier and refused his hunger when he peppered kisses all over your neck, down your back, then tried to yank your pants down while you were cooking dinner for the two of you, nearly burning your arm on the stove from such force.
You hated that you had outright refused him for the first time, but the truthfully the swollenness between your legs needed rest before he wrecked you again. He's biting his lip so hard, stealing glances at you before rubbing his hair and shifting his cap back on.
You instead take your top off, having gotten comfortable enough to go without a bra when it was just the two of you. Frankie is a bit shocked, only used to seeing you strip your pants first before anything else.
You crawl over to him before sitting in his lap, thighs spread over his. He swallows the lump in his throat, unable to take his eyes off of your tits right in front of him. His legs are still bouncing in agitation, the movement making your breasts jiggle right in front of him. He groans, licking his lips, breathing heavily.
"She needs a break, Fish," you said quietly, your soft and small hands seeking his big and callous ones, pulling them up over your waist before letting them settle on your cups.
He doesn't hesitate or ask further, head leaning forward and lips immediately latching on to your nipple. He moans, eyes closed as he sucks around the areola, tongue swirling your pebble as he kneads them in his hands.
You're trying so hard not to grind down on his cock, instead sitting upright on your knees so you're not fully resting your damp panty-covered crotch against the tent in his pants. The position is more head level with your tits, but he doesn't like that. He grips your hips to bring you flush against him, gasping out when you instinctually start rocking your hips steadily against his clothed length.
He noticed how heavily your chest is flexing, glaring up at you to see your brows furrowed, face tilted towards the ceiling trying not to cum on him. He cups his hands against your cheeks and brings you in for a sweet kiss, his lips slotting perfectly against yours as his hands return to palming your breasts. He presses his forehead against yours so your eyes meet, goosebumps wracking your whole body at the lust behind his eyes, and something more you couldn't place. "So good to me, querida. Perfect lips"—he gently pecks your lips—"perfect tits"—then a generous kiss to each of your breasts—"my perfect girl." You could smell the scent of your pussy on his lips, as if they'd be stained there now. Kissing your lips, your throat, collarbone, down the valley of your breasts, and erect nipples, and all the way back up again, was enough to keep his mouth busy and his craving subsided. And it worked almost as well, the two of you cumming sticky and wet against one another in your underwear with heavy sighs and sated eyes; you had calmed him down enough to get him to remove his clothes and put on a fresh pair of boxers before tucking him to his own bed with your favorite blanket.
As you tip toed into the bathroom to prep for a bath, you stared at your naked reflection: how swollen, and red your breasts were, covered in raised bite marks the shape of Frankie's jaws. Among your new scars are the faded scratches and bruises of Frankie's fingertips on your waist, stomach and lower back from how incessantly he devours you while his face is buried in your sopping pussy, like he had to sink his claws into you so you wouldn't slip away as he feasted. You look like you were attacked by a passionate lion.
His sweet nothings every time he stared into your eyes was what really turned you on. You tell yourself that it was just the withdrawal symptoms talking. That he was basically just high on a new drug.
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To you, it must have looked like Frankie's craving were only getting worse with how increasingly frequent his lips found themselves attached to your body. In truth, his desire for coke steadily grew less, and it wasn't the replacement of the powder that he was seeking from you but rather the insaitability of finally having you that grew stronger.
The rest of boys noticed the effects you're having on Frankie too. They see it when he meets them for a drink every other Saturday, the way he anxiously taps his foot under the table, glancing around like he's unsure what to do, where to go, because he can't sit still. It's the signs of his cravings kicking back in, and they're all worried at first. But it's not until you up show later and slide into the booth next to him that they notice: Frankie casually drapes his arm around your shoulders like he always did—that part was normal. But what was new is how they could visibly see Frankie's heart rate slow, the way he slumped against the bench and completely calmed down from just your presence.
They also couldn't help but notice the way his eyes raked you with a mix of lust, love, and obsession, his dark gaze never once leaving the sight of you the entire night. All the while you laughed and chatted with them about your week, oblivious to the change in demeanor of your friend from just a few months ago.
You assured the boys that you two weren't fucking—and it was true, you hadn't slept with him once. albeit a few blow jobs, it was exclusively just Frankie eating you out or kissing. You were very hopeful that his cravings were going to go away soon since its the longest he's been off coke. You were even talking to your old landlord to see if your old apartment a few blocks away still had openings since you'd be moving out of Frankie's place soon. Santi couldn't help but see Frankie's dejection, his arm sliding away from you as he excused himself to get more beer.
By the end of the night, Frankie was drunk out of his mind. Will suggested he slow down so he wouldn't pass out before he could walk home. It sounded like a good plan, until Francisco glanced over to the bar and saw you sitting there and smiling at a guy who was flirting with you. Fish took a giant gulp of his beer, downing the entire jug before slamming it on the table and striding out of the booth towards you. He overheard the guy asking if you had a ride home tonight.
"She comes home with me. Every. Night," he slurred, his sweaty palm skimming possessively over your jean-clad thigh and snaking between your legs, face coming so close to you that your noses slide against each other. Frankie's eyes bore into yours with so much desire, it bordered on range. You knew those were his craving eyes. The pungent smell of alcohol on his breath made you flinch as he tried to pull you in for a kiss. You quickly tell the confused guy that he's your roommate and you need to get him home immediately. You could barely finish excusing yourself from the stranger before Frankie was dragging you out of the bar. You managed to wave to the others, making a drinking gesture and pointing to Frankie before being yanked into the street.
He was stumbling all over the place, breath uneven as you hoisted him up to lean against you, eventually making it through his apartment entrance and turning the key to unlock his unit.
With a renewed sense of urgency, Frankie slammed the door close behind him and pinned you up against it, his hands roaming your body as his mouth desperately sought yours. "Craving," he mumbled against your open lips. "Need"—tongue forcing its way into your mouth, he nipped at your lower lip, sucking on it before releasing with a pop— "need you," he panted.
"I know, I know—Jesus Fish. I'm—gonna help—gonna take care of you—" you breathed, ashamed of how quickly you could feel your panties dampen. It never bothered him though, and only encouraged his sweet tooth more. You weren't nearly as drunk as him, but your few margaritas made you extremely susceptible, even welcoming, to his touch.
You hummed into his shoulder when his hard bulge rubbed purposefully against your covered core. He bit your earlobe as he fisted your low-neck shirt before pulling it down roughly, the fabric tearing away. You gasped, ready to scold him but he pressed his mouth on you again, teeth clashing, his hands slotting down your body to pinch, grope, scratch at any bit of skin he could get.
"So—so good t'me. Always taking—such good care of me, cariño."
His fingers dip into your ass and hoist you up so he's carrying you, your arms and legs wrapped securely around him as he boldered through his apartment, kicking his door open before tossing you on the bed, watching you bounce. You never break eye contact as you unbutton your jeans at the same time Frankie pulls his shirt over his head, tossing it aside to unfasten his belt and zipper.
Clambering over you to reseal your lips, you breath in his scent, hands exploring his tone arms, down his chest and muscle middle all the way to the little pooch of tummy hanging. His hands gripped your jeans and pulled them along with you down the length of the bed, bringing you to the edge, his grip pushing up on the back of your thighs so your knees are digging against your rib cage, pulsing pussy exposed at his mercy. "I fuckin' love this pussy, querida," he growled before burying his face between you folds for the thounsandth time. "So fuckin' wet for me," he mumbled against your thigh, nipping at the skin.
He ate you out with precision, eyes hungry watching you, determined to make you fall apart quickly. He wasn't doing it for his own taste, but the sheer satisfaction of watching you writhe for him, knowing your body inside out as the only one who could get you like this. He's languidly thrusting two fingers in and out. You didn't even need to be stretched: he'd practically been prepping you for months now. You're crying out into the air as you cum, hips bucking against his nose with your heels digging into his shoulder blades. Frankie pulls away, kissing your stomach and up your tits before making you taste yourself on his lips.
The feeling of his cock nudging your entrance make your once dazed eyes go wide and alert. He pauses, suddenly worried. He can't read your expression, time dragging out too long and it scares the fuck out of him that he's taking it too far, that you didn't agree to this.
He had wanted to tell you everything right then: how he dreams of you riding him, or when he fists his cock in the shower when you're at work to the thought of what your tight walls would feel like wrapped around him when first violates you, how he automatically gets aroused now when he just sees you or smells your laundry, or admitting how many times he's actually cum in his pants without you noticing when he is buried between your legs, dying to have you cum around his cock instead of his tongue.
It's not until you sense his hesitation that you wrap your arms around his neck to pull him close, sharing the same breath of air, nodding as your calves hook over his ass and squeeze his hips, the tip of his flush cock slipping in to your wet heat.
You both sigh heavily into each other's mouth when he takes charge again and thrusts fully inside you. He scrunches his eyes closed, forehead dipping down to your breast bone to revel in the overwhelming feeling of the tight space inside you.
You warmly caress his hair to bring him back up to you, kissing him and whispering, lips trembling, "Don't—don't think about it. Just... just use me."
His heart sank: You probably just thought this was another hit for him.
He didn't want to think about the fact that you were everything he'd needed in that moment, the image of perfection beneath him beautifully laid out for his eyes, his touch, but not for his soul. He gritted his teeth, pulling out then slamming back in, jolting your whole body up the mattress. It was fast, rough, and not at all how he wanted your first time to be with him, but he couldn't control his urges. He was gasping loudly as he fucked you, your cunt gushing around his member, the obscene sound of slick and skin slapping skin echoing in his otherwise empty apartment.
He brought his thumb to rub messy circles on your clit, sending you into a spasm of praises and expletives, but the most satisfying sound was his name repeated over and over again.
He barely manages to pull out before jerking his cock only twice and creaming all over your folds and clit. Groaning in post orgasmic bliss, he watches you heaving and shaking, filthy pussy covered in his seed. Half of his mind is only working now as he slides back down to lap you clean with his mouth, his own saltiness filling his throat, fingers scissoring inside to get your juices flowing, obsessed with the sight in front of him: your back arched off the bed, heels digging into his lower back as his hands pinning your hips down flat so he can work his mouth over you. And then you're cumming again, so angelic on his tongue, your sweet moans going right to his dick, hardening once again as he ruts into the mattress. He nips your clit and sucks, reluctant to pull away as he lines up and splits you open. You scream out, and if it weren't for the way your barely-recovered battered walls kept sucking him back in, he'd be worried you're in pain. His hands hook under your lower back, lifting you off the bed as he plows into your squelching cunt over and over again.
Youre both covered in a thin layer of sweat, the pillows and comforter of his bed strewn haphazardly around the floor as he dominates you. The headboard slammed recklessly agains the wall, and neither of you cared about your neighbors trying to sleep at 1 in the morning. He ignores the oversensitivity of his cock and your clit, forcing you both into an unexpected climb of another orgasm like it was a primal need.
It was happening without warning; he should be asking for permission, but he knew you took the pill, and he's been dying to release inside you from the moment you first let him put his lips on you. You're cumming on his cock again, hips bucking and grinding against him without your clit being touched, and he was done for.
With a harsh cry, he climaxes again, his length flooding your womb with ribbons of white. His arm shoots in front of him, flat on the bed next to your ear to hold himself up so he didn't crash down on you as his hips jerked, pushing his seed deeper in to you.
He rested most of his weight on top of you, labored breaths combined into one. He kisses the top of your nose, whispering "thank you," unsticking your sweaty bodies as he rolls you two over to have you lying on top, your head next to his. He pats your hair over your ear, pebbling your forehead and eyelids in kisses. His cock twitched in your spent heat, cum leaking out and dripping down to his balls and on the bed.
"Glad I—could...help..." you mumbled, eyes already closed as you drifted into sleep.
His softening dick slipped from your pussy, warm hands wiping you with his shirt before settling you gently on a pillow. He watched the gentle rise and fall of your breaths, naked and fast alseep on his bed. He pulled his sheets higher to your shoulder, his heart beating faster at the way you snuggled further into his pillow.
Frankie stared at the ceiling for hours, hand on his forehead in anguish, wondering how the fuck he was supposed to tell you it wasn't cocaine he was craving last night.
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Part 2: Crash
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