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intheorangebedroom · 1 month

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Tonight you belong to me, chapter 3

Summary: He comes to you every Friday, in a shady motel on the outskirts of town. What happens if you can't make it to the motel on Friday evening?

Pairing: Frankie Morales x fem!Reader (OFC)

Rating: Explicit 🔞 see series masterlist for extensive tw.

A/N: Happy Frankie Friday, Orange besties 🧡 @frannyzooey thank you for your help and beta reading, I fucking adore you so much it's downright obscene 🧡

Word count: 12.2k

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Chapter 3: The Man At The Frontier

Make us come, baby. Make us come together.

These words are yours.

Even if you never see him again. Even if you lose him before having had the time to map the freckles on his skin. To sleep in his arms. To hear him repeat them. They’re yours to keep.

He mouthed them against your skin, sunk them into your bloodstream in bright mahogany before coming undone, wrapped around your body.

They’re yours, right?

Even if you don’t get to see him ever again.

—

It starts with the cramps. That’s how it usually goes. A myriad of microscopic pliers nipping at your intercostal muscles.

Your eyes shoot open at the familiar ache. The early morning hues redefine the room in blue shadows. You blink your sleep-heavy eyelids a few times, confused, before your vision adjusts and you recognize the room around you. It’s your bedroom. Your nightstand, your lamp, your books. Your pills. Your tube of scented hand cream. The chair in the corner, that ugly, Louis XV style, transparent polycarbonate monstrosity by that French designer. The large windows. Those damn floor-to-ceiling windows that let in too much light, too much heat, too much open view. Nowhere to hide, in here.

It has to be sometime between 4 and 5 am, you assume, before another cramp seizes you. You curl up into a tight ball on the edge of the bed, pulling the comforter to your chin.

Not today. Please. Not today.

Friday.

Inside your abdomen, nausea streams densely, like liquid lead, from your ribs to your stomach, as cold shivers run up your spine. Sweat breaks on your forehead. You know only too well what’s happening, but it can’t be, there’s been no warning signs. No headache, no stabbing sensation in your lower belly, no spinning head.

Today is Friday.

You reject the obvious.

Were you so engrossed in the memory of him to pay attention? His hand wrapped around your nape, his forearm molded along your spine, pressing you into his chest, making you two as one. Closer.

Nausea is already lapping at your esophagus. The pliers bite harder at your ribcage and you know you have to move now if you want to make it to the bathroom before it happens. Shuddering, you push away the comforter, then get up and run.

Kneeled on all fours on the cool bathroom tiles, you dive headfirst into the toilet’s porcelain bowl as everything inside you collapses on itself, emptying the content of your stomach, mostly liquid. You should have eaten something last night.

You know you’re not pregnant. For an infinity of reasons.

Because you haven’t let Adrian fuck you in weeks. Because, when he does, he always wears protection. That’s your mutual, very tacit agreement. A silent understanding that you’re never the only woman, at any given moment. An unspoken confession on his behalf, implicit permission on yours.

Because your contraceptive pill is the only one you’ll never stop popping.

Because you’ve suffered through more stomach bugs than you care to count.

And of course, because Frankie won’t come inside you.

You stand up on fawn-like legs and flush the toilet.

You splash water on your face and grab your toothbrush with a trembling hand, shaking from head to toe. You know this is only the beginning, but it’s coming in strong. This one is most likely going to be a bad one. At least for now the pain is gone.

Above the sink, the woman in the mirror stares at you with unsettling, disproportionate glassy eyes. Her skin looks waxy, she scares you, and you have to lower your eyes. You brush your teeth as quickly as you can.

You haven’t made it back to the bedroom when the second wave of cramps squeezes your abdomen. The pain folds you in half, and you let out a low whine.

It echoes like distant thunder along the glass walls of the empty corridor.

—

On Fridays, you count. You break down hours and minutes and steps and heartbeats into small, bearable quantities, so that you can live through them without going crazy. Today, however, you’re counting trips to the bathroom, and the time between two attacks from the cramps, like you’re readying yourself to give birth to a terrible monster, feeding off you from the inside of your quivering body.

You’ve managed to spend most of the day hiding in your office, with the window cracked open, and the AC cranked up to the max. The clothes you wear are the same as yesterday. Your expensive formal blouse sticks to your sweaty skin in clammy patches. You’re cold, cold and hot all at once. In fact, you’re burning up, and a chill sweat has you shivering in the non-existent breeze.

You haven’t gotten any work done, to state the obvious. You’re just dozing in and out of consciousness between two crises, head like a rock sinking onto your arms on top of your shiny glass desk. Its surface fogs with every one of your short breaths. You’re running out of toothpaste.

Being the boss’ daughter has never granted you any particular privilege over your coworkers, except on days like this. At the first signs of sickness, you go home, or call in sick. Stay in bed for a couple of days, sleep it off, sip water tentatively every time you throw up until you can finally keep it down. No one has ever thought to comment on the frequency or duration of your sick leaves. Not even your father.

Kaytee has probably noticed something’s wrong with you. Her office is right by the bathroom, and you've run there seven times since you’ve arrived this morning, an hour late, which is uncommon, to boot. You look like a walking corpse, your eyes eating up half of your face and your lips pinched in a tight line. And surely, she will find a way to use this against you in the near or distant future. She’s been dying to take your place ever since she was recruited nearly two years ago, champing at the bit, waiting for you to slip so she can bury you.

If she only knew. How you are dying to let her have it all. That you are convinced she’d be so much better at the job than you’ll ever try to be.

With your last shred of energy, you push down the thought, like you push down the nausea and the shivers. On Fridays, everything that’s not him is irrelevant. At 6pm sharp, you’ll count your steps down to the parking garage and hop in your car. You’ll sit in traffic until you reach the 589 and you can finally cruise towards the motel in the protective semi-darkness of the Tampa suburbia.

You haven’t yet considered what will happen beyond this point. When he steps into the room and finds you sitting there, looking like an undead version of yourself, reeking of stale bile, rancid sweat and toothpaste.

All you have to do is make it there. You won’t give up, simple as that. You’ll suck it down.

Demonstrating resolve you never knew you possessed, you make it to sundown. You hold out through the pain, through the cramps, through the soreness on your knees and the abrasion in your throat and the stabbing sensation behind your eyes and the pulling of your gums.

At 6pm, you turn off the alarm of your phone and put it away in your purse. The room swirls around you the first time you try to get up. You wince, falling heavy on the simile leather chair you sweated on all day. You wipe your damp forehead and neck with a tissue, and you stand up again.

All the blood in your body rushes to your feet. There’s not a drop of it left in your brain. You swallow hard against the bitter taste clinging to your tongue and palate and start counting your steps toward the elevator, only to lose track somewhere after 18.

Dark, green circles flash in rapid succession across your pupils, narrowing your vision. You grip the strap of your purse harder, and register you can’t feel your fingers. Something is wrong with your balance, your whole body slants to the left. You try to correct its trajectory but you can’t feel anything below your calves either. What you can feel is your forehead and your nape, defined by pain, burning hot and somehow also freezing where beads of sweat run down your skin.

You’ve made it to the lobby when everything fades to black.

—

In your early 20s, you had genuinely tried to shake off the melancholia. An honest, hopeful attempt. You were away at college, and even though you didn’t get to choose your major, different and various paths seemed possible, within reach. A couple of years after graduation, when you had met Adrian, you had tried again, with renewed vigor and motivation.

You did want to get better.

You cut back considerably on hard liquor. You smiled broadly, at everyone. You said “please,” and “sorry.” Applied lipstick daily, polished your nails weekly. You went out to dinners and parties, wore high heels and interacted with strangers, drank wine in stem glasses and in reasonable quantities.

On your mother’s advice, you went to “see someone.” As your father prescribed, you read the news and followed sports results.

But the sadness kept settling down inside you, like the white particles inside a snowball. The vomiting spells became more frequent. Despite your willingness and earnest efforts, you kept falling short, and each fall hit you with increased brutality.

For your mother, you were too much. For your father, never enough. For Adrian, you would soon come to realize, you were a commodity.

Trying to please them in turn, learning your cues, anticipating their needs and wills and whims, torn up between their contradicting desires and expectations, smiling pretty and meek, you completely lost track of what you liked and who you were.

Anxious, confused, perpetually dissatisfied and unsatisfying, you withdrew within yourself. Hid away between the folds, detached and ready to flee, wishing for nothing more than to disappear.

As Ava grew up, her loud and unapologetic personality compelling everyone’s attention, she provided you with a reprieve and, most importantly, a purpose. But a diffuse sense of guilt soon arose, as your little sister’s struggles could hardly be instrumental to your self-fulfillment.

Inside of you, isolation and loneliness grew solid, like a second skeleton, keeping you upright.

Apathy soon took over. You resorted to medication to control it all.

And when it was no longer enough, you found your way to the Hole in the Wall.

—

The smell of rubbing alcohol floats around you in the chilled darkness, its rough acetone accents abrading your nostrils. There’s an undertone to it. Rotting perfume and decaying bodies. A faint beeping sound tugs at your consciousness, and as you begin to come to, pain strikes you in multiple places.

Something sharp stings the thin skin on the back of your right hand. Each one of your intercostal muscles is sore. Your throat is parched, rougher than sandpaper; your tongue too big for your mouth, stuck to your palate. Every single joint in your body is sensitive, but the worst, by far, is the piercing ache in your forehead. It glues your eyes closed.

Panic floods your brain with static when you stir, wincing against the shooting pain, and you don’t recognize the motel’s mattress. The one you’re lying on is too hard, the linen covering you too starchy, the darkness is closing in on you, you need to open your eyes, fence off the pain, find Frankie…

Frankie.

You never made it to the motel. Where the hell are you? When the hell are you?

“Ah. At long last, she wakes. How are you feeling, babe?”

Adrian’s honeyed voice hauls you through the darkness. Your eyelids flutter against the light until you open your eyes to a square room with a single, large window, blazing sun darting through.

Adrian is sitting in the corner by the foot of the bed. A hospital bed, apparently. A narrow, dark blue mattress, unusually high, encased with rails on each side and at your feet. You’ve never been hospitalized before.

He’s looking at you with a Cheshire cat grin stretching his thin lips, like he was just let in on a juicy secret. He’s dressed in his golf apparel.

The violent luminosity intensifies the splitting sensation in your forehead, it vibrates to the back of your skull, from within, from the sides.

Squinting, you turn your head to the side to take in your surroundings. On top of a beige, melamine nightstand are a black phone with a long twisted cord, an oval device with a red and a white buttons and another cord, and a metal kidney dish.

There’s a tray table over your legs, with a jug standing next to a hard glass already filled with water, and some paper napkins. There’s a needle in your hand. A drip. With a cord. You flinch a little at the sight. A white rectangle eats up the tip of your index, a red light flashing from inside it. Another cord. It’s linked to the source of the beeping sound, a square monitor to your right, displaying wobbly lines of green. Another two cords are plugged in, you follow their sinuous lines to your bed, where they disappear under the sheet, and you take in the two round patches taped to your chest.

So many cords. Too many sensors.

“Where’s my phone?” you mumble.

Your tongue feels like a piece of carpet. You’re not sure whether it’s even your voice anymore.

“You scared us this time,” Adrian says. His tone is cold, practiced, policed.

You reach for the plastic glass and bring it to your chapped lips. The liquid flows down your throat like a waterfall; you wince again.

“Can you pull down the blinds, please? The light hurts.”

He lets a moment pass before he gets up, then circles the bed, unhurried, pacing toward the window, but instead of shutting the Venetian blinds, he sits by your side. The mattress dips under his weight. You hold your breath, anticipating a new jolt of pain. Behind him, the daylight forms a halo, blurring the outline of his silhouette. Your eyes water against the brightness.

“What day is it?” you try again.

“One thing we don’t understand is why you didn’t go home. You got us all worried, you know?”

The beeping picks up pace, imperceptibly. You wipe your eyes with the back of your hand. The one with no cords linked to it. You know this dance, he won’t cooperate until you ask the right questions, the ones he wants you to listen to him answer. Better to give him what he wants, for now.

“What happened?”

“We don’t know exactly, that’s the thing. Well, you were sick, this you know,” he punctuates his words with a knowing grin and a wink, “but instead of coming home, you stayed at work, for some reason. We think you lost consciousness on your way out, and you hit your head on the elevator’s frame in your fall. We couldn’t help you right away because most employees had already left the floor. Jerry found you. He called your dad.”

You close your eyes, blocking the image of Jerry, of all people, finding you sprawled out and unconscious on the floor. And why would he call your father? Why not 911? You resent that collective we. Who the hell is we? Right about now, you could swear it’s the entire world versus you.

Besides, you’re fairly certain Kaytee was still in her office at the time. She never leaves before 8pm at the earliest and makes sure everyone knows about it.

“You split your forehead open. Apparently, you were running a pretty high fever, too. Oh, and you were critically dehydrated, according to the doctor I saw this morning,” he frames the words critically dehydrated in air quotes. “He also said something about a light concussion, I think.”

You lift a heavy hand to your forehead, the tip of your fingers gingerly testing what they find there, a gauze dressing, held in place by medical tape.

Having the clinical explanation behind the multiple aches throbbing inside your body somehow eases some of the pain.

“I’m sorry I scared you,” you say, unable to look him in the eyes with the harsh light behind him. “I need my phone. Can you give me my phone, please?”

“What do you need your phone for?” he asks casually, seemingly absorbed by something on his pants.

It’s a dare. You know that tone all too well. Today, however, you find that you don’t feel like playing. You want your goddamn phone.

Frankie cannot possibly have tried to reach you as you never exchanged numbers, but you want to call the motel. Find out if he came. What happened then. You want to know what time it is, what day, how much of him you’ve missed. You’re craving his touch, his skin between your parted lips, your heart pumping on empty, racing madly from the need for him, and of all the sensations making your body known to you, this one by far hurts the most.

The beeping sound accelerates, drawing Adrian’s attention to the monitor, then to you. His cold blue gaze narrows on your face. You try to slow down your breathing, hoping it translates to your heart rate.

“I need to call Ava. She must be worried.”

“Ah yes, your sister, of course,” he exclaims, feigning a bright mood, as if you’d just reminded him you’re traveling to Hawaii together next week.

Getting up, he walks nonchalantly to the foot of the bed, leaning against the wall underneath the TV set, hands in his pockets. The black screen dwarfs his lean proportions. His red polo enhances his pallid complexion. You avert your gaze, lest the monitor picks up your disgust like it does your nervousness.

“Yes, it’s true, she probably got very distressed, when you didn’t show up at all last night,” he agrees with affected concern.

There’s a foul taste in your mouth. Acid, rubbing alcohol, and something else. The glass is empty, but you don’t think you can lift that jug. Each one of your muscles is vibrating, waiting for the axe to fall. If only that fucking monitor could stop beeping.

“Remember back in October, when Kenneth went to New York over the weekend for the symposium at NYU? Well you’ll never guess. He saw your sister there, in some uptown restaurant, making out with her…” his upper lip curls, “with this older woman, her girlfriend.”

So this is it. He knows. All this time, he’s known. Since October, practically since the beginning. And he let you believe you had him fooled, that you had the upper hand on the situation, that this part of your life was yours. He lured you into a false sense of safety, a deluded feeling of freedom. And all the while, he’s known.

It’s really your fault, for forgetting that’s how things are with him. That nothing truly is what it seems. That he likes you scared, anxious. Perpetually waiting for the other shoe to drop.

There’s no point in trying to control the beeping, now. In fact, given its cadence, you expect a nurse to barge in any minute.

“Polly’s not old,” is your answer.

“Yeah, whatever, they’re degenerates, both of them.”

“Where’s my goddamn phone, Adrian?”

“What do you want your phone for?” he barks.

The words are spat in your direction, and the sheer volume of his nasal voice startles you. Red blotches erupt on his cheeks and neck, his eyes are blazing with contempt.

“You need to call your fucking dealer? Is that it? You think I haven’t noticed that you’re high half of the time?”

You remain perfectly still, holding your breath.You can feel your skin pulling at the medical tape in your hairline.

He doesn’t know shit. In fact, he’s scared. He’s so, so small.

“Listen, I don’t care what the fuck you do every Friday night, ok? But can you at least be fucking discreet about it?”

The poison in his tone and his words corrodes your confidence.

“They will announce the senior partners in January, I cannot fucking lose your father’s business until it’s done, do you understand me? So whatever you do,” he points his index finger at you and stabs it through the air to accentuate each of his following words, “you be fucking discreet. More fucking discreet than that shitshow you pulled, do you get it? Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Should you nod? Is he waiting for you to manifest your understanding of the situation?

You hate yourself for thinking, ever so briefly, that he might have been jealous, that he might have cared. Held down on this bed with all these cords, you feel like a butterfly pinned in a glass case, on display in a cabinet of curiosities, a mere object amidst a multitude of other trophies covered in dust and mold. You’ve always hated butterflies. They gross you out.

You allow yourself to breathe again when his posture relaxes. Looking down at his feet, with his hands on his waist, he shakes his head and huffs. The stance reminds you of Frankie, the difference in their proportions almost comical, like a circus monkey aping the brawny horseman, the one who gets top billing in the show.

Frankie had you pinned on a bed repeatedly, without ever making you feel like a study in entomology.

“Your dad is waiting for me, I’m already late,” Adrian says, coming toward you, “I’d love to stay a little longer, but you know how he is about golfing. Don’t want to keep him waiting!”

He pecks a kiss on the crown of your head. The pain darts through your skull in all directions, all the way down to your spine.

“Where’s my phone, Adrian?” you call one last time as he strides toward the door.

“You don’t need your phone, babe. What you need is to rest. Get those magical hospital electrolytes. Doctor’s orders,” he adds with a wink.

And he’s gone.

Furious tears hang from your lashes. You focus on the plastic box on the tip of your index, and you begin to inhale and exhale, as deeply and slowly as you can. It’s shaky at first, but you’re encouraged by the decreasing cadence of the beeping.

Adrian and your father go golfing at 2pm on Saturday afternoons. Meaning you’ve been out for over fifteen hours. Without your phone, you have no means to assert the time. Your watch is nowhere in sight, neither are your clothes, shoes, jewelry, purse.

The room has a phone, but you have no idea if it’s connected. You don’t know the number to the motel. Hell, you don’t even know its name, only its location.

Frankie’s silhouette invades your thoughts, the size of him, the shape of him. His broad back, his strong shoulders, the line of his neck. The sensation of his hands grasping your waist. Their precision, their roughness. Their intent.

Is this how it ends?

Fresh tears swell under your eyelids. You quickly clench them close.

You did everything wrong. What an appalling idiot. You should have acknowledged you’d never make it there, not in the state you were in. You should have called the motel to leave a message, explain your absence, and promise you’d be there again the following Friday.

Now you have no means to reach him. You probably have lost him forever. The warm touch of his skin. His unique scent. His taste.

The beeping grows frantic. Heavy wet sobs heap up inside your chest. Your hand flies to cover your eyes. You anchor yourself to the throbbing pain in your skull and the prickling needle in your hand. To the faint clasp of the pulse oximeter on your index finger. Pursing your lips, you exhale.

Whether the phone is connected or not is just a detail. You can always signal someone with that little remote on the nightstand and have the option charged to the room. Ava’s phone number is the one you have memorized, she can come and get you, and when you manage to get out of here and get your phone back, you’ll replace Adrian’s contact info with hers as your ICE.

The point is: you’re not trapped. You’re not a dead butterfly in a glass case.

Your heart rate slows down.

Between the cords and the hospital sheets, you look up at the white ceiling, and do what you do best: you check out, slip back between the cracks, disconnect.

—

The pain from your head injury is overwhelming. You’d ask for painkillers, but that collective we still haunts you.

You expect Adrian to come back on Sunday. He doesn’t. Throughout the day, you fall in and out of sleep, a restless, feverish slumber crowded with violent dreams of flesh-eating monsters licking your bones clean.

On Monday morning, the doctor comes in to see you. A man in his early 60s with a thick mane of gray hair and a carefully trimmed beard, he calls you “sweetheart,” and when he raises his eyes from his tablet, he flashes you a perfunctory smile with blinding white veneers. He introduces himself as the head of the gastroenterology department. And a friend of Richard. He makes sure that you understand that his name on your chart is a favor to your father. His demeanor commands your respect, preferably by way of intimidation.

Whatever he tells you, you’ve already learned from the nurses who waltzed in and out of your room in a brisk and constant ballet throughout the weekend, to check with skilled, professional movements the multiple cords and tubes pinning you to your bed.

You suffered bacterial gastroenteritis, with severe dehydration, necessitating an antibiotic treatment, and, from your fainting spell, a minor concussion and a head injury. A thin split, on the right side of your forehead, perpendicular to your hairline.

You got sick. You fainted. You hurt your head.

After the doctor’s gone, you’re finally allowed to get up. Under the fluorescent ceiling light of the adjacent bathroom, you spend several minutes observing the seven stitches adorning your forehead. The thick black thread tied in neat little knots that look like dollhouse barbed wire. The visible indentation in your flesh underneath them. The kaleidoscopic and psychedelic coloration of your skin, spreading from your brow to your scalp.

One of the nurses assures you the scar will quickly fade and disappear. Just like you.

You find your belongings inside the narrow closet by the bathroom door. The slit of your pencil skirt is torn nearly up to the waist, and the blouse is bloodied. Your jewels are tucked inside your purse. You stand in front of the shelves, staring blankly at the black leather rectangle with the two gold C’s entwined on the front. One of the very first gifts you received from Adrian. You can’t remember if it was for Christmas, or your 30th birthday. Every Friday evening for the past three months, you’ve shoved it unceremoniously under your car seat. You hate that thing. It’s soulless, tacky, it begs for attention, it screams money.

Later in the afternoon, your mother comes to visit. She brings you magazines, In Style, Elle, Southern Homes, Vogue … At first, she doesn’t look at your face, and when she does, she crumbles into tears. You comfort her. You watch her pad the corner of her fake lashes with a tissue she pulls out of her Birkin purse, and reapply lipstick.

Adrian comes back on Tuesday, with a large bouquet of roses, a box of imported Belgian chocolates you’re not allowed to eat, and your phone. He doesn’t stay long. Before he leaves, he presses an open-mouth kiss to your lips. You wait until he’s passed the door to spit into the kidney dish.

Your father calls within minutes of his departure, with an apology for not visiting. Work, he says, the magic word that justifies everything, from the clothes on your back to his shitty behavior. You tell him the doctor has advised to rest for the remainder of the week.

In the evening, you finally text Ava. She calls you back immediately, which, beyond her audible concern, puts a lump in your throat. When she asks you how you’re feeling, it’s a minute before you can even speak.

You’re discharged on Wednesday, with a tube of antibiotics, a short list of food to favor and a much longer one to avoid.

Ava comes to pick you up. She brings you a change of clothes, a pair of baggy, distressed jeans and a white t-shirt that spells PRIDE in rainbow letters. You smile at your reflection in the bathroom mirror, and when you come out, she laughs like a child at her own joke. You laugh with her. It hurts a little, but the pain is worth it.

You’re still smiling when you ask her if you can keep the t-shirt, and her face drops. She hugs you, a bone-crushing hug with closed fists compressing your back, her face slotted into the crook of your neck. Her voice quivers when she answers that everything that is hers, is also yours.

You stuff the pockets of your jeans full of your things and leave your purse in the closet. With a little bit of luck, the person who will find it can get a good price for it.

On Friday morning, you drive back to the hospital to honor a 10:30 am appointment to remove your stitches. You’re led through a sprawling maze of corridors into a windowless room with baby blue walls, and instructed to undress to your underwear, which you don’t. Sitting on the examination couch, legs dangling in the air, palms rubbing on your jeans, you wait for the nurse to come in.

She doesn’t remark on your defiance. In fact, she makes a point of soothing your nervousness, introducing herself as Diane, complimenting the color of your sneakers. She promises that you won’t feel a thing, and you believe her. When she smiles, her irises nearly entirely disappear, and a wide-spanning arch of wrinkles appears at the corner of her eyes, like sunbeams drawn by a happy child.

While she prepares her utensils, she engages you in small talk, skillfully stirring the conversation toward the matter of your mental health and physical well-being. You’re well-trained too. You divert without shame or remorse.

True to her word, she makes quick work of it, and when she’s done, she hands you a mirror framed in a blue, rubbery material.

At first, you refuse to look, but she kindly insists. Her voice is gentle, angelical, her hands are warm when she lays them on your shoulders. She never once pronounces the word “scar.” She calls you “a beautiful and brave young woman.”

So you let her guide your hand upward until you’re faced with your image.

“See? Barely visible. Once the ecchymosis has faded, you won’t even be able to notice it. Just something that happened.”

As she stands behind you, her warmth radiates through your cold bones, and she smiles broadly at your reflection. You blink back your tears. You want to commit her words to memory, uncorrupted by emotions. Just something that happened.

Out in the street, a strong wind blows in gusts from the east, in an overcast sky. The damp smell scrunches up your nose. Even without the sun, the air is too warm for the season. When you get into your car, the first thing you do is crank up the AC.

That rotten hospital smell is still clinging to your skin and hair, you keep having these drops in blood sugar that leave you trembling like a willow tree and drenched in cold sweat. The whiplash from this morning’s anxiety does nothing to level your mood.

You glance at your watch. 11:30. You let your head roll back on the headrest. You can’t remember a time in your life when you were not exhausted.

You consider heading straight to the motel. Originally, you intended to go home first, change your clothes and apply some makeup. Cover up the giant bruise on your forehead, and do your best to look alive. It would be smart to put some food in you, too, and of course, to hydrate.

“Fuck it.”

You start the ignition, and merge into the midday traffic.

The drive is excruciatingly long. A week from Christmas, the traffic is terrible. Getting out of Tampa takes over an hour.

It’s the afternoon when you pull into the motel’s parking lot. Your eyesight’s unfocused, your nerves are raw, your shoulders pulled taut.

Of the three other cars parked in the lot, none look like the one you’ve always assumed to be Raul’s, an ancient white Jeep Wagoneer with a rusty back bumper.

As you try to ponder what to do next, the prickling of your healing tissues riles you up, convoking intrusive thoughts of your scarred reflection. The antibiotics drill a hole into your stomach, the discomfort creases your brow into a constant frown. Your right leg bounces continuously on the car floor.

You’re running on empty. Pure, solid stress is what’s holding you up.

Once again trapped, this time inside the carbon fiber box of your car, while the outside world is defined in movements. The course of the overcast sun across the pearly gray sky, and the ever-changing shades of the clouds chased by the eastern winds. The occasional vehicle driving past the motel on the secondary road. The trembling of tree leaves, birds flying over, lonesome or in flocks.

That decaying smell is everywhere in you, around you, but it might be your festering thoughts.

You’re too much, not enough, a disposable commodity.

Is this how it ends?

Sometimes before 7pm, the white Wagoneer pulls into the parking lot, followed a few minutes later by a red sedan. Raul’s short, bespectacled figure is recognizable through the windshield of his Jeep. Then, it’s the familiar sight of his blue overall as he climbs the flight of stairs to the reception. You slide down on your seat, you don’t need him to see you already stationed here.

Shortly after, a curvy young woman with a straight, blonde ponytail that goes down to her waist comes out and jogs to the red sedan. She gets in on the passenger side, and you wait until the car disappears on the horizon to exit yours.

The short walk from your car to the office should be muscle memory. Only today, the gravel feels steady under the flat soles of your Van’s, and your jeans allow you to take actual, proper strides. Carried by the momentum, you march into the room, opening the door so wide it bangs on the door stopper with an ominous sound of shaking glass panes.

Behind the desk, Raul lifts his head. It’s easy to tell by his puzzled expression that he doesn’t place you. And why would he? You look nothing like you usually do on every other Friday evening. Your clothes are casual, your face is bare, your features pulled taut by mental and physical exhaustion and an array of soreness and pains, your forehead shines in Technicolor, set off by a fresh, inch-long scar.

“Good evening,” you start with a tight smile. “I—“

A whole week. Seven days, and you haven’t thought this through. The liability that is your impractical brain appalls you, exasperation heating your temples. In the silence that ensues, the droning of the AC unit seems to grow louder. You smile again.

“I come in every week?”

Jesus.

“Oh yes,” he nods, his boot-button eyes boring into yours, “Friday nights, room number 2.”

“Yes,” you answer with a strained, cringy little chuckle, “room number 2. Is it–”

You wipe your sweaty palms on the sides of your jeans.

“I was wondering if the room was booked last week?”

“Yes, last week room 2 was booked. But you didn’t come, last week.”

“Yes, no, I was held back,” you hear yourself say. You wince before you add, “And, the— the tall man— the tall man who joins me, did he come, last week?”

“Yes. He came. He waited, two, maybe three hours. You didn’t come, so he left. No refund. Reservations paid in advance are not refundable unless canceled at least 48h—“

“Oh no, that’s fine,” you cut in, relieved he might have thought this embarrassing interaction was about money. “And is the room booked for tonight?”

Raul’s boot-button eyes linger on you for a beat before he lowers them to the computer screen on his left. The mouse clicks a few times, loud and suspenseful, as he operates the thing. You try to catch the reflection of something, anything in his round glasses. There are seven rooms, two cars beside his and yours in that parking, what can possibly take him so long?

If the bacteria hasn't killed you, the wait surely will.

“No,” he eventually declares, looking up at you, “it’s not booked for tonight.”

The answer falls on you like a guillotine. It rings out in your ears and you sway on your feet from the violence of the blow. You don’t know how to breathe.

“Do you want to book it?”

You shake your head slowly.

“No. Thank you.”

Back outside, in the muggy semi-darkness, your wobbling legs find the way to your car on autopilot.

He made no plans to come back. This time, he didn’t leave any note. This is how it ends. Between your lungs, the wild creature is bleeding.

You should turn around, ask if they have his full name, bribe Raul into giving you his contact info. You never thought of memorizing his plates, but you could always drive back to the Hole in the Wall, see if he’s been there, if he came looking for you.

You don’t. You won’t. You’re not entitled to any of it. He was never yours. Never yours to want, to long for, to miss, to hold.

All that’s left now is the abyss and the fear. You’re terrified. Of what lies ahead, the choices you’ll have to make, the answers you’ll have to give. The hollowness in your chest. The gap in your existence. The fracture in your years.

The before and the after him.

He has changed you. You changed yourself. You’ll never know if you changed him.

Stunned, you stand still by your car, cloaked in the velvety night, frozen in space and time. Your hand petrified on the door handle. Unable and unwilling to leave. Eyes riveted to the brass number on the door, glinting with a blurry glow in the soft yellow hues of the porch lights. Moths flutter fuzzy and silent into the light beam, oblivious to the drama of your story.

The rectangular window stands guard over your secret life. Behind the yellow curtains, your lonely silhouette awaits to come to life, poised and silent, seated on the edge of the bed.

That woman, young and brave . Want has made her bold and determined. In just a few moments, her trained ears will pick up the sound of an old truck engine drawing near on the empty road. Her existence will come into focus with thrilled anticipation. She will bloom out of her restraints at the sound of tires on the gravel.

“Oh god,” you whisper, whipping your head around, your grip on the handle white-knuckled as the red truck parks behind your sedan.

His massive silhouette comes out, and you clasp your hand to your mouth to muffle a dry sob.

It’s a trick of your overwrought brain. He’s wearing a pair of worn-out jeans and a suede jacket over a dark t-shirt. The brim of his hat casts a long shadow over his face, but he’s moving fast, and in a couple of strides, he’s standing before you, hands on his hips. He’s smiling, a broad and bright smile. You catch a glimpse of a dimple you’ve never seen. A trick of the mind.

Oh but he’s here, in the flesh, your body knows before your brain comprehends his presence. The instant pull, the humming purr of the creature inside you, the blood level instinct.

“Hey!” he calls. He sounds out of breath. Like he’s been running. Running to you.

“I’m sorry,” you blurt out through your clenched fingers.

“What?”

His smile drops when you take a step back.

“I’m so sorry, I couldn’t make it, I thought I could, but I couldn’t make it, and then I couldn’t—“

Your throat closes around the memory and you swallow hard, eyelids weighed by stubborn tears that refuse to fall.

He takes a step forward, tilting down his head. That scowl. That scowl, you know. You’re only too familiar with it.

“Then it was too late and I couldn’t reach you,” you finish.

“What happened to you?”

The low timbre of his voice reverberates inside your chest. His eyes flicker up to your forehead. Before you can think of anything to say, he cups your face with both hands and turns it to the side, towards the light. The whole sequence happens so fast that you trip on your feet and catch yourself on his forearms.

“Who the fuck did that to you?” he grits, leaning so close his breath fans your forehead.

“I’m sorry,” you repeat in a whisper.

“Did he do that to you?”

“What?”

“Your husband. Did he do that to you?” he asks again, louder, this time. Separating each syllable.

“Oh no! No, I fell.” You bring the tip of your fingers to the sensitive mark. “The nurse said it will fade.”

“How did you fall?” he presses.

He doesn’t believe you. Like you could lie to him if you wanted to.

The tension from his frame resonates through yours, where a week’s worth of suppressed emotions and tears are piled up, waiting for a detonator that will bring down the dam. You push away his hands, your frown mirroring his own.

“I fell, ok? I’m here now, so let’s go inside.”

“I’m not– no,” he huffs, hands back on his hips, shaking his head. His boots scuff over the gravel, the grating sound loud in the empty lot, in the stifling night, and despite the dimness you can make out that scowl, ever present, splitting his gaze.

“You can barely stand.”

However relevant, his rejection burns your cheeks. You raise your chin, leaning against the hood of the car for countenance. For balance.

“I’m fine. The room is free. Let’s go.”

“I said no. I’m not fucking you. Look, I don’t know what happened to you, but you’re clearly not well enough–”

“You don’t fucking tell me what I’m well enough to do,” you snarl with your heartbeat in your throat, pushing away from the car, sustained by your last shred of strength. “Don’t assume you know what I’m capable of.”

He stands in front of you, seemingly unmoved, impossibly tall, infuriatingly silent. Stoic, and you’re thrumming with frustration, standing stubborn and brittle in front of him. He gives you none of the myriad of micro-expressions that usually play across his face, that you read instinctually. You feel ugly, exposed, but you withhold his gaze, jaw clenched, breathing heavy through your nose. You might faint again.

The silence drags on. It’s a minute before he moves again, crossing his arms over his chest. His voice is calm, when he speaks next, low and quiet, almost soothing. You don’t want it to be soothing. You don’t want to be soothed, you’re not done with your anger. He didn’t book the room, and now he doesn’t want to go in. You are a swappable vessel, after all.

“I don’t. I don’t assume anything,” he says, “I don’t want to hurt you, that’s all.”

“I told you already, you cannot hurt me,” you snap, impatient.

“Wanna bet?”

You don’t need to. You know he could. Just not in the way he thinks he would. He’s already marked you permanently, deeper than any injury, any wound ever could.

“Listen,” he begins with a sigh.

“No, I get it, I look like shit and you don’t want to fuck me—“

“Alright, that’s enough!” he silences you with his index finger pointed at you. His voice booms in the dim parking lot, and you avert your eyes. Weariness washes over you, you fall back against the hood of your car.

His shoulders sink just a bit, the slightest drop in the tension pulling them taut. He steps closer to you, leans down, seeking your gaze, searching your face in the semi-darkness.

“Hey, why don’t we go for a drive?” he offers. “We can talk. Or not. We can listen to the radio. Or just drive in silence, if you want. Clear our minds. What do you think?”

Our minds.

He’s so close you can smell the clean scent of his t-shirt and the musk of him underneath it; you can feel your skin reaching out for him in feverish little tendrils you cannot control.

“Ok.”

“Ok?”

“Yes, ok.”

He smiles, a cautious, appraising smile. The light catches at the mahogany depth of his eyes. He reaches for you, placing a large hand in the small of your back, and whispers, “Alright, let’s go.”

—

The cab of the truck feels almost sacred. For months, it’s been your favorite daydream. Picturing him alone in the only private space of his you’ve ever seen, driving to you.

What are his thoughts, then? Are they of you? Are they happy? Are they hopeful?

On any other occasion, you’d relish the opportunity to be in here with him. You’d catalog and store up every tiny detail for future use in your fantasies of him. Instead, you’re sitting tight and rigid on the wide bench seat, pressed against the door, face turned toward the window, seeing absolutely nothing.

You hate yourself for that, too.

After a while, you risk a glance at the dashboard.

Judging by the analog dials, the truck has some mileage, but it’s visibly been well maintained. There’s no visible spots, no dust, no dents, only the patina of time. The vinyl bench seat is upholstered with a soft fabric whose colors have fainted after too many years under the Florida sun. There’s a cassette player and a cigarette lighter. The windows are manual.

The one on Frankie’s side is cracked open. The night air carries his scent over to your side of the cab. Leather, laundry, musk. You can’t escape it.

“Hey. You ok there?”

In the moonless night, you can only make out the sharp lines of his profile against the outside darkness of the country road.

“I’m sorry,” you mumble.

He looks at you, brow pinched, but his expression is soft. Compassionate.

“C’mere.”

The truck slows down to a snail pace, and he unbuckles your seatbelt. You scoot over near him. Without taking his eyes off the road, he reaches to your right and rolls out the middle seat belt across your lap, fastening it between your hip and his.

The truck accelerates to a cruising speed, and he wraps his arm over your shoulders, drawing you closer.

You let him, allow your body to slump against his, embrace his warmth, your cheek pressed against his chest. It’s solid and strong, a match for your skeleton of loneliness. The suede fabric of his jacket is smooth, worn in. You inhale him there. You rest a hand on his thigh, and slide the other under his jacket, to rest on his chest. It rises and falls with his breathing. If you lie real still, you can feel the steady thumping of his heart.

“I’m not married.”

“Ok.”

The word is felt through your cheek as much as you hear it.

“The man I live with. He’s not my husband.”

“Ok.”

The nodding motion of his head nudges you a bit.

“And I really fell.”

He remains silent, adjusting his grip on the steering wheel. The leather lining creaks inside his fist.

“I got sick, last Friday. I get these stomach bugs all the time, but this was a mean one. I tried to make it through the workday, but eventually I passed out. Like a corporate rendition of a Victorian damsel, or something.”

You chuckle, diverting the humiliating memory. Just something that happened.

He tightens his embrace.

“That when you hurt your head?”

“Yes. On the edge of the elevator’s frame. At work”

“Fuck. Did it hurt a lot?”

“Actually it didn’t? I was out. It hurt when I woke up later, in the hospital, though. I had this terrible headache. I didn’t know where I was, or when I was.”

You feel him shake his head as he asks, “Were you scared?”

How to put into words, that the only fear you’ve ever had, is to never see him again?

“I survived,” you answer with a shrug and a little, empty laugh.

If you were brave enough, if you had some strength left, you’d ask. How did he feel, when he got to the motel and found the door to the room closed. Why he didn’t book the room again. Why he still came tonight.

“Does it still hurt?” he asks.

“No,” you lie.

“Mmh. And for real?”

You rub your cheek against the smooth suede, imprinting your soft smile into it. And maybe some of your scent for him to keep. In case, just in case he does care.

“A little. I’ll be fine.”

The truck cruises over the black asphalt, between the straight, stretching yellow lines.

Your next words come in quiet, but not hesitant.

“He wouldn’t hit me.”

“Ok.”

“That’s not what he does.”

He exhales slowly through his nose.

“What does he do?”

You bite your cheeks, already regretting this moment of weakness. The treason.

“He makes me doubt.”

“Him?”

“Myself. And him too.”

Your eyes clench shut. His chest flexes under your cheek as he hardens his grip on the wheel.

The truck drives past a gas station, through a small town. Neatly delimited square lawns, white houses with flags hanging on their porches, Christmas lights blinking through square windows, and you tilt up your head to look at him in the streetlights.

His outlined profile, his steady expression, everything about him feels safe and grounding. The beauty that radiates from him, from within him, sinks to your heart. It races madly, awakening the soreness in your bruised ribcage, and perhaps he can feel it, with the way you’re curled up into his side. Leaning down, he brushes a kiss to your forehead. You bunch up his T-shirt in your fist.

Soon, the yellow lines unwinding endlessly in the truck’s headlights weigh down your eyelids. In the safety of Frankie’s hold, your mind and body slowly drift into a peaceful slumber.

“You ok? Want me to close the window?”

His voice is a distant whisper skirting the edges of your consciousness.

“No, ’m good,” you mumble. “Wanna stay like this forever.”

Under your palm, Frankie's heart thumps loud and heavy.

—

When you wake up, the truck is still and silent. Engine cooled off, windows rolled up. The night is pitch dark. Frankie’s scent, heady, familiar, everywhere around you. Your cheek is resting on his lap, and his hand lies heavy on your waist. His breathing comes in even and slow. Both your seatbelts are unbuckled. Your feet are bare.

Aside from your legs, sore from being crammed into the length of the seat bench, you feel better than you have in a week, with your headache finally gone.

You sit up, take in your surroundings and his sleeping form, seated behind the wheel. He stirs, lifting an eyelid and glancing in your direction, the corner of his mouth tugged up into something that resembles a drowsy grin.

At some point while you were asleep, he drove back to the motel. Parked the truck so that the cabin faces away from the only source of light.

You stretch side by side, sleep-heavy limbs, comfortable silence. You watch him lift his hat and comb his fingers through his hair, a tender smile lifting the corner of your lips. You know the curls he hides there.

Of course, it cannot last forever. Nothing ever does. In a couple of hours, it’ll be daybreak. He’s always gone, by then.

You won’t make this uncomfortable or difficult for him. You slip your socks and shoes back on. You’re reaching for the handle when he stops you with a hand on your thigh.

“Wait. I need to talk to you.”

His voice is low and husky from sleep. You realize you have never woken up next to him. Never slept with him through the night. Probably never will.

You hum quietly, pivoting on the seat bench to face him.

“I can’t come, next week,” he says, searching your eyes.

Emotionless. That’s how you have to be. You know how to do this. Not when it comes to him, but you can try. You try your best, your very hardest.

“I understand.”

“I imagine you can’t be here either.”

No, you can’t. Thanksgiving at your parents’, Christmas with Adrian’s family. Always.

“No, I can’t.”

The following week, either. But you don’t share that.

This is when the two of you should discuss a practical means of communication. The awareness hangs between you, loud and unspoken. The consequences it would have on whatever it is that the two of you share. The shockwave, the shift in nature and intention. The names that exist to describe your situation, crass, overused, sordid. Tainted with lies and deception, secret texting, hushed phone calls, disgusting, undeniable guilt.

Frankie moves first, getting out of the truck and going round the hood to open the door for you. You slide out of the high cab into his arms, and when your feet touch the gravel, you wonder if this could be the last time he will ever hold you.

In the feeble porch lights, his face is a landscape of diffuse shadows. The dip in his collarbone draws you in, a beacon in a dark ocean. You nuzzle into it, inhaling his scent, taking in his fragrant warmth. You tuck your face in the crook of his neck, graze your cheek along his pebbled skin. What if you stayed there? Tucked away forever. Disappeared to the rest of the world. Would it matter? Would he let you?

Your fists bunch the sides of his jacket.

“Kiss me, Frankie, please.”

“Yes.”

His first kiss is tentative, the plush cushion of his lips a soft press over yours, but they return immediately, hungry for a taste, for more, the tip of his tongue brushing against your parted lips.

All that you crave, all that you need is here, in his embrace, between his arms and his hands tugging at your waist, beckoning your body closer to his.

Your arms circle his neck, the tips of your fingers seeking his curls. His hand spans your back, finds your nape. He molds you into his chest, and with the way he’s pressing you against him, firm and commanding, you know this will be one of these moments that feed into your hopes. The delusion you’ve been nurturing since the first time you’ve faced him. The dream that he wants you to be his above anyone else.

His third kiss opens you up, tongue swirling around yours, and you keen, rising to your tiptoes, angling your head to take more, more, more and he gives. Hands gripping, tongue licking, crushed lips and guttural moans, he gives you all that you need like he needs it too.

You’re floating above the gravel, there’s no time, there’s no space, his body has no end and there’s no beginning to yours as he kisses away your fears, your doubts, your darkness.

Together, you stand entwined between night and morning, linked by chance, need and hurt, bonded by will and desire.

There’s no urgent hunger in the spanning of his splayed hands across your body, no rage in his kneading of the soft of your hips, or the swell of your breast. His grip is strong, but studious and thorough. He takes you in, your curves, your dips, the slopes and slants of your figure. Like he’s storing up the feelings and memories of you for when there will be no more, when you’re far and gone, away with your husband who is not your husband. There’s despair in his touch, but most of all, there’s foresight, and intent.

He’s untucked your t-shirt, calloused hand skimming up to cup your breast, thumbing the hardening peak of your nipple.

Once again, you find yourself pressed against the hard, cool metal of the truck, and like the first time, you’re frantic in his hold, but he’s in control. His thick thigh parts your legs, offering friction to the coiling need between your hips, that fire pooling liquid down your core. You squirm against the firm muscles.

“Want me to make you come, baby?”

He’s breathing into your mouth, and you whine in frustration.

“No, I want you inside me.”

“Shit, you sure?”

“I’m not made of glass, you’re not going to break me.”

You push away to look at him, a demonstration of strength. All talk, but you’re that desperate. He pulls you back into him for another kiss, chuckling into your mouth.

“You think I don’t know that?”

So many simple things you had never done with him before tonight, after months of lying bare and naked, to his gaze and his touch, inside and out. Driving, falling asleep, walking, his steadying hand nestled in the small of your back.

Behind the reception desk, Raul seems unfazed by this new development. The drawing pad blackened in charcoal is back.

“Room number 2,” Frankie asks, “for the night.”

It’s so wild to consider that the two men have never interacted, when Raul plays such an important part of your Friday ritual. You’d try to get Frankie’s full name, real name, perhaps, but Raul doesn’t ask. This is not that kind of place.

“I can pay,” you whisper into Frankie’s shoulder, tucking your t-shirt back into your jeans.

“I know you can.”

When he flips open his wallet, a small color picture pops out, next to his driver's license. The photo booth format is easily identifiable. In the snapshot, a bare-headed Frankie is holding a very young child. The picture is that of a moment, seized through movement, the kid holding the Standard Heating Oil hat in her chubby hands, likely mere seconds after having snatched it from Frankie’s head, who’s looking down at her, with a bemused grin, tousled hair.

It’s him, his distinctive, sharp features unmistakable, only he hardly looks like the man you know. There’s no trace of the grief he carries like a cloak when he meets with you. No crease splitting his brow like when he looks at you. Instead, his eyes glint with pride, creasing with a smile that dimples his cheeks, large and genuine. And the child’s round, plump face is brightened by the same irresistible dimpled grin, the same head full of wild curls, the same mahogany eyes.

You quickly avert your gaze, but you’ve seen enough. The guilt is physical, visceral, it squeezes your ribcage harder than the pliers. The pain has you wincing and you grip the reception desk for balance, but Frankie’s arm is already wrapped around your waist and he’s leading you outside.

In a trance, you walk beside him to room number 2. Your room. That picture-perfect image of fatherly love dancing before your eyes.

He’ll never be yours. The wild creature shivers between your lungs. The certitude shatters your heart.

Stepping inside, you’re rooted to the floor. Limbs too heavy to lift. Your blood has turned into lead. The fire in your core is a pile of ashes. You can taste it on the back of your tongue.

Frankie flicks up the toggle switch, and the room lights up in amber hues. It feels too big, the satin quilt, the brown carpet, the yellow curtains, everything is foreign and distant.

Behind you, he sets his hat on the desk, drapes his jacket on the back of the chair.

“You ok?”

His voice jolts you up. You turn around to face him, unshed tears hanging round and heavy from your lashes. After a beat, he takes a step towards you, and you feel that absolute pull tugging from behind your midriff.

His gaze drifts up to your fresh scar, where your flesh is tender, swollen and bruised. Yours travel down along the pebbled skin of neck, to the dip between his collarbone. A firework of freckles springs from the V-shaped collar of his faded blue t-shirt.

Carefully, he slides your t-shirt out of your jeans again. You lift your arms like a docile child, let him undress you. He places a hand, warm and calloused, beneath your sternum. His palm heats your skin, warmth seeping into you. It untangles something, there. Something you didn’t know was still bruised. You lean into it.

He stays like that for a while.

Then his hand skates up to the base of your throat. His cold hard stare finds your soft sad eyes.

“Do you get wet, thinking I could hurt you?”

“I trust you,” you answer, a nod contradicting your words. His gaze hardens.

“Why did you think I wouldn’t come tonight, then?”

You shake your head, blinking fast. You never mentioned that. How would he know your thoughts?

“Don’t you know I would fuck you on my deathbed?” he grits.

But you don’t know. Of course you don’t know, and how could you? Nothing in your life has ever prepared you for him, for this, for the strength of that pull, inescapable, for this obsession that has uprooted your life, your body, your instincts. Nothing has prepared you for the magnetism of his skin, the things you’d do to be in his presence, to breathe the same air, what you’d risk for his touch, what you’d give up for his attention, what you’d destroy for his affection . Your comfort, your safety, your future, your health. Your family and his, nothing fucking matters compared to the insatiable hunger of this wild thing inside your chest and its incessant chant of him, him, him.

Your chest heaves, but his grip is firm. He leans down, lowering his lips to your ear, where he whispers, “What’s your name?”

You close your eyes, the wild creature is gnawing at your chest, eating you raw from within.

“I want you.”

His hand lingers, travelling higher, fingers splayed across the width of your throat in a loose grip. You hope he tightens it. Like he does sometimes when he’s inside you. Tune out your mind, toss you into white-hot pleasure. Into oblivion.

He doesn’t.

He’s never truly been gentle with you before. Tonight, his kisses are languid, his touch soft and slow along your ribs. Delicate, when he reaches the swell of your breasts and slides down the cup of your bra, replacing the fabric with the palms of his hands. When he leans down into you, wrapping his plush lips around your nipple, sucking in the peaked bud ever so lightly, flicking the flat of his hot wet tongue around it, lips pursed, suckling.

Against your belly, you feel him harden. You shiver with arousal and anticipation, with exhaustion. With the weight of this week and the burden of your life. With pain, ache and soreness. With your empty body, and your empty cunt. With that creature in your chest that can’t be tamed or satisfied. Can’t even be named.

You shiver in his hold, for fear that this’ll be the last time. For fear that he’ll never be yours, that he’ll never want you the way you want him, with determination, with madness, without a choice.

“I want you inside me, Frankie please," you breathe out, and he backs you into the bed to lay you down on the quilt.

The fabric is cold under your burning skin, you shudder at the contact. He takes off your shoes, rolls off your socks. He slides your jeans down and off your legs, then your panties.

You sit up to watch him undress, his eyes of mahogany brown never once leaving your face.

He stands before you, naked, erect, filling your vision with this breadth, and you want to rip your beating heart out of your aching chest.

The bed dips and he’s crawling over you. Leaning down, he drags the crown of his head up along your belly, along the valley of your breasts, his hair a soft caress on your quivering skin. Your fingers twine in his curls, you get lost in the sensation. For weeks he has barely let you touch it, kept it out of your reach. Now the abundance feels decadent, your head sinks back into the mattress with a faint exhale.

Cautiously, he parts your folds with two knuckles. You bite down a gasp, tensing up. You can’t shake off that chilling dread, the one that trickles inside you, cold and piercing, when you think you’re losing him. But your body knows better, that sticky wet slick pooled between your hips, the coiling heat at the center of you.

“Stop me,” he breathes into the crook of your neck, “don’t let me hurt you.”

He inches the tip of his length inside you with a strained groan, hooking your legs around his waist. He tries to work you open with a few shallow thrusts, panting against your temple.

“Fuck you’re tight.”

“Please, Frankie–”

His frame tenses up under your palms.

“I’m trying, you’re too— fuck, you’re too tight. Let me eat you open.”

“No!”

That’s not what you want, not tonight when you have no strength to spare, no time to lose, no patience left out.

“I can—“ You trip over your words.

“What?”

“I can sit on it.”

Heat creeps up your neck, setting your cheeks ablaze. He gives you a quiet chuckles.

“Yea. Yea you can.”

He grabs your wrists and lifts you with easy strength. A few swift movements and he’s lying on the bed underneath you, your folded knees a straddle across his lap. You feel dizzy, like your blood can’t course along your veins fast enough, like it’s no match for his strength, for your arousal.

“Spit on it,” he says.

You circle his cock, smooth, heavy. It throbs into your hand. You take it all in, with a trance-like gaze, the coarse curls at his base brushing your skin, the round head, an angry shade of red, the ridges and pumped up veins along the length, the tip of your fingers that don’t meet around it.

“Come on, don’t be shy, spit on it.”

Bending down, you lick a broad stripe along the thick ridge of his underside, from his balls to the fat round tip, where the skin is smooth and his taste heady, and he hisses something you can’t make out. It shoots through you, his sound, his burning skin, his taste. The curled tip of your tongue slides inside the small leaking slit, collecting the pearly drops he gives you. Your eyes flutter shut. His hands grip your thighs above the knees as you take him into your mouth, his fingers digging, a bruising furrow, something desperate.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Your lips slide along him, up and down, tongue wrapped around his girth. With hollowed cheeks, you take him deeper with each stroke until your head is spinning and you slip him out, rueful, glassy-eyed.

His breathing comes in almost as heavy as yours.

“Sit on it, now.”

His voice sounds wrecked, like you must look.

“Yes,” you pant.

Hands braced on Frankie’s chest, you’re not that flimsy, empty shell. You’re that fierce creature inside your chest, the one that claws and purrs and spits and demands. You tap into the bottomless pit of its life force, tap into the rumbling of Frankie’s ragged breathing under your palms, and you take.

Eyes strained on the solid breadth of his chest, on the expanse of his amber skin and the darker circles of his nipples, on the constellation of soft brown freckles that turn your insides into a sticky leaking mess, you slide up his lap, part your folds with his hard cock, rub your clit over it.

“Fuck, you feel good,” he murmurs, not for you, not really. To himself. Like the memory comes back crushing.

The bobbing of his throat, the low rasp of his voice, the wet sound of your slick smearing over his cock, it all builds up hot and prickly right under your navel.

Sweat breaks on your forehead, along your spine, down in the bow shape of your arched back.

You push away from the cradle of his hips, knees sinking into the creaking mattress. Raise yourself from his heat just enough to line him up, with his hands curled around your thighs, a steadying help.

You’re tight, but wanton-wet. He’s a gliding stretch along your walls as you sink down on him with all your weight, your cunt ready to collapse, fluttering frantically.

His thrashes back into the mattress, corded neck, strained muscles. Thick fingers bruising the tender flesh of your legs.

“Fuck wait, don’t move, don’t move. Stop moving, shit!”

You still, not like you can move anyway, the pleasure-pain has you numbed out, limp, blinded. Your head lolls back, your eyes roll shut. Your lower lip twitches with the tension and the stretch. He’s so big you forget how to breathe but this is what you wanted, for him to annihilate all the other pains.

A sound comes out of your parted lips. A grating against your vocal cords, a primitive vibration of the air that’s punched out of your lungs. It’s not you, it’s the creature mewling.

You can feel his cock pulsating hard and angry inside your belly. It’s a tidal ripple that travels up your chest. Your heart skips several beats.

His hands cup roughly around your breasts. You lean forward into his hold, hips swaying, slack mouthed. You keep him inside you, a deep roll, hipbones to hipbones. The coarse black hair at his base a harsh scrape against your swollen clit.

And suddenly, he fucks up into you. A hard shove, filling, merciless, into your cervix. You cry, nearly toppling backward and he sits up with a cinch, arms wrapping around your waist, catching you before you can fall.

“Too much?”

“Oh god yes.”

You’re crying, at last. Big, hot beady tears of salt rolling down your cheeks. Full, fucked out, filled to the brim. Everything that’s not him obliterated. Thoughts, emotions, sensations.

“That’s what you wanted, right? You want too much, baby?”

His voice is quiet and soft like silk, teeth raking along your throat. It’s almost a bite but not quite, tongue tasting your sweat, lips wrapping around your pulse point, barely sucking in. You can’t speak, your nails dig into his arms, forming little pink crescents you’re not allowed to leave behind.

You nod, you breathe out, “Yes, I want too much.”

He straightens up, your breasts are pressed to his chest, sweats mingling. His scent is overwhelming. That musk he exudes, a leathery spice, whenever you’re fucking. The scent of his desire.

His hand tangles in your hair. He makes sure you’re looking at him.

“Take it. Take what you want. Fuck, you’re beautiful, so fucking beautiful, you believe it, right?”

You try to tilt your face down, hide your tears, hide your scar. He doesn’t let you. So you give in. Because, what if you are?

“Say it again, please.”

“Look what you do to me, baby. Can you feel what you do to me?”

His fingers dig into the soft flesh of your ass, and he grinds you onto his cock, a slow, thorough grind, splitting you deeper onto him. It’s coiling fast, hot and heavy, right at the center of you.

“I’m gonna come, Frankie.”

“Do it. Come. Use me, make yourself come on my cock. Make yourself feel good. Take everything you need.”

He talks you through your orgasm as you tremble and crumble in his hold. It’s a high that feels like a free-fall, like you’re unraveling, like you’re never landing. Like your skin’s burning and your mind is the horizon.

You’re sobbing quietly when he carefully eases out of you, still hard. He carries you in his arms and you think you’re floating. You’re drained, boneless, falling asleep already.

He lies you down under the covers, tucks you in. Places a glass of water on the nightstand. Folds your clothes on the desk.

You don’t hear him dress up. You don’t hear him leave.

And in a few hours, when room service wakes you up, barging into the room, you won’t remember his forehead kiss.

****

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thelastharbinger · 1 year

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Tenoch Huerta on why the idea that “hard work always reaps its rewards” isn’t true. Talent and hard work alone doesn’t guarantee entry into certain spaces (you’ll always be sidelined even when you’re included), but it will determine your longevity once you force your way in.

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crescenttm00n · 2 months

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naegiri nation where you at

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theycallmequeenie · 1 year

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Lexie And Happy

Master List

P1, P2, P3, P4, P5, P6, P7, P8, P9, P10, P11, P12

Part 13:

A/N: This is apparently a fluffy angsty foul language filled marathon. Boy once the Muse is awoken, they go on for days at great length, so you all get another part with next to no wait time. Note as always this is not proofread or edited, I’ve tried to catch mistakes as I went. Thank you all and Happy reading. Queenie.

Happy Flies into action thinking Vee had accidentally done something to send Lex into this current emotional meltdown. Getting to Lexie in only a few strides and scoops her up, holding her tightly to him grumbling about not being able to leave Lexie out of his sight. Vee explained to Tig as the little more than half coherent Lex explained to Happy what happened. While Hap yelled his apologies to Venus, he still wouldn’t let go of Lexie despite her asking him to put her down multiple times.

After bribing him with some episodes of Looney Tunes and about the seventh or eighth time asking, he did finally set her back down onto the bed albeit reluctantly claiming he wanted to hold her, so he knew she wasn’t going anywhere. Shaking her head, she snuggled up closer to him telling him he needed to go check on his fur baby and get cleaned up that she wasn’t going anywhere but sleep.

He informed her that he knew that she was going to say that, and it was already done as he turned on the TV and found the classic Looney Tunes. He kissed her forehead and told her she could rest all she wanted after taking her pain meds. He passed over the plate that had the sandwich which was made for her and cut in half in the event she was only able to eat half, which was the case. Happy seemed satisfied with this and gave her the dose of medication with the glass of water which she downed the entire glass as she was a little dehydrated from her ordeal.

Tig had poked his head in the door of the room just to check on his niece, seeing him she offered a soft sad smile as a greeting tig stepped in and spoke with her for a few moments until he noticed her meds were starting to take effect but as they were she had asked if it was possible for her to figure out a way to bathe when she woke since she still felt pretty crummy from what she went through. She had fallen back into that sedated level of sleep before both men could answer but they did agree that it could be done, and Hap stated flat out that he was going to help her if she needed.

Hours passed and this time she woke up around noon she reached for Hap to find he was missing which caused her to panic momentarily but hearing her awake he was with her in seconds calming her down.

“Hey, hey, Little Girl its okay. You’re safe. I here, Tig’s here, even Venus is here. Nobody is going to get you again, My Love. I’m sorry you woke up without me I was walking Sunny Girl and getting things ready for you to get yourself cleaned up better.” He cooed in her ear as he held her in his arms gently rocking her back and forth. “Had to find the duct tape for you to tape the trash bag over that cast to protect it…”

He let out a soft chuckle when she reluctantly conceded that he had a valid point. She never did like telling him he was right. She started to pull away from Happy moving gingerly as she was still very sore, “Alright let’s try to get this over with then. I want to try and resume as close to a normal routine as I possible can. That sorry sack of fecal matter isn’t going to win.”

She looked into Happy’s dark eyes to confirm her statement. She wasn’t running this time because she knew if she did, she’d never stop running from this. He offered a half smile and nodded, receiving the message loud and clear. He released her and strode over to where her robe hug on a small hook over the closet door.

Looking it over he smirked before looking over to her, “Hmm, this looks comfy if nothing else. Where have you been hiding this thing?” he gave her a playful smile as he handed the long black jersey knit robe to Lex.

She shook her head taking the robe from him, “I’ve had it for ages. It was a Christmas gift from Uncle Tig back before the…. car accident.” She paused and shook the memories out of her head, “He said I was going to need one that wasn’t fuzzy. Apparently fuzzy robes are a bit too childish…” She did her best to shrug but with her sore muscles she didn’t succeed.

She began to change into the robe for her trip to the shower. She instinctively turned her back to Happy while she removed the oversized black sleepshirt she wore and as she reached for the robe to replace it, she heard Happy growl in anger she spun on her heels wide eyed with fear as this was a sound, she had never heard him make in all their years together. She hurriedly put the robe on and put space between them as the fear rolled off her.

She stared at Happy as if he were a wild animal she had just startled in the woods. Happy realized he’d momentarily lost control of his emotions on the situation and instantly started to apologize to Lexie telling her he lost himself for a moment seeing the bruises on her body. Telling her it would make any man full of rage seeing that on his ole lady. Knowing how those marks were put on her.

Lexie was starting to tremble; at this point it wasn’t anything she could control. Happy had absolutely terrified her and he could see it and it broke him. She called out for her uncle asking him if he would tape her up so that she could shower without ruining her cast and asked him if Aunt Vee was available to be on standby incase she needed another assist after he said sure, Lex dared to reach close enough to get her clean nightshirt, this one a tydeid one with a v neck that hit just below her knees, and almost bolted out of the room.

Tig felt her trembling as he taped the bag to her arm and making sure there was no holes that would let water sneak in. “Baby Doll, what happened in there?” His blue eyes locked on her green ones scanning them for any tell that she was being anything other than honest.

She sighed and spoke with a frown, “He scared me Tiggy. I was changing out of my night shirt, and he saw the bruises. I never hear him make that sound before and when I turned to look at him, he had this look on his face I’ve never seen, and it terrified me.” Her voice shook as she spoke and Tig knew she was trying not to cry. “Tig… He’s never frightened me before. Not once in all the years we’ve known each other. Not even when we would fight before. He always kept that part reigned in…”

Tig sighed and pulled her into him for a hug, holding her to him to try to stop her trembling. He hated seeing her like this, “Doll Face, you know none of us have delt with this before and we are all trying to learn how to work around what you went through. When Gemma went through this it was different because it was our President’s Ole Lady, and we had no idea it happened right away. Happy and I caught the bastard in the act of doing that to you, we saw what actions did that damage to your body. We are both trying to process this from our side of this. We both feel like we failed you and seeing those bruises probably reminded him of that. Baby, I promise you, Hap is in that room beating himself up for scaring you like that. We handled things last night, but I can’t promise I wouldn’t react the same way if I saw those bruises that my failing to protect you gave to you.”

Tig was never an overly emotional man but this time he was fighting back tears he truly felt like he had failed to keep his niece safe, and it was eating at his resolve. In an effort to hide this he kissed Lexie’s forehead and sighed dramatically, lightly tapping her on the nonbroken arm, “C’mon kiddo, I’ll help you brush your hair before Momma Vee Chases me out of the bathroom to let you shower in peace.”

Nodded she walked with Tig back to the bathroom that held all her things she needed to shower that had already been gathered by Vee and Happy, “You guys didn’t fail me, Uncle Tiggy. None of us knew what was coming or going to follow me home. His dad always backed him off and kept him in check. I’m grateful you guys got to me when you did. I love you Uncle Alex.”

As the words left her mouth he stopped in his tracks. He had only ever been ‘Uncle Alex’ once before and that was when she was 10 and her mom, his little sister, had died and she was legitimately terrified of what would happen next and of how to process what had happened. He turned to her and wrapped her up in his arms again, “Lexie-Lu, I got you, I love you too little one. We will get through this somehow. I promise.” He kissed her forehead again and lead her to sit down on the bathroom counter as he gently brushed out her long hair for her, another thing he hadn’t done for her since she was that scared little girl.

She sat there letting him work the brush through her hair resolving herself to the unfortunate fact that she was going to have to let Happy near her sooner than she had wanted to, she huffed softly, just enough to get her uncles attention, “I’m going to need Hap. I need help washing my hair and I’m a little old for my uncle to help me with that and while Vee and I did bond a bit in the wee hours of the morning, I’d prefer someone who’s already helped me shower before…”

This about caused Tig to choke on air. She was his niece, who he raised from baby up, and while he knew how life and couples worked but it was another thing completely to be told this flat out. “Doll Face, once I’m done with your hair, I’ll send him in. Now let’s never try to traumatize Uncle Tig like that ever again…”

She nodded and held back a giggle, letting him finish brushing out her long wavy hair that until brushed out lays in curls much like his own. One of her better features, that, and her eyes. They were her grandmothers, her mother and Tig’s mother’s. Though Lexie’s always held a sparkle of happiness in them even now after all the hell she had been through. She was strong and tenacious as he raised her to be. He put the brush down and gave her uninjured hand a gentle squeeze. Mentioning that he will give her a few minutes and send Hap into her to help her with her shower as he left closing the bathroom door behind him.

Lexie went about her shower routine as best she could, starting the water and getting the temp just right, gathering her hair out of her face so she could see what she was doing, untied her robe and dropped it to the floor and got in. She soaped up her washcloth and started scrubbing her skin free of that monster’s handprints, or at least she tried. As she continued to scrub her reddening skin, she heard the door open and close and Happy lightly clearing his throat. She peeked out of the shower to see him standing there holding her favorite shampoo, the one she only used for special occasions, the one Happy liked the smell of the most.

Happy stood there looking thoroughly ashamed of himself for his earlier reaction but as he opened his mouth to speak Lex held up her hand to stop him, “Please Happy just help me with my hair. I’m starting to tire out again and will soon need to rest again. I really don’t want to hear some rehearsed apology.” Her tone was flat, her emotions were hidden because if they weren’t she would be on her knees sobbing under the running water.

He nodded with his eyes on the floor he removed his tee shirt and stepped toward her watching her turn so that her hair wasn’t under the direct running water allowing him to wash her hair, something that would prove borderline impossible with one fully functioning hand.

With her his hands were always gentle never what they were when they were doing the work the club required of him that part of him was never shown to her before at least not to the extent he had shown her today. She had every right to be terrified of him, he was a monster. He was no better than the monster he killed for her last night. The monster that put all those cuts and bruises on her gorgeous body and broke her beautiful bones and tried to break that wonderful spirit. He was no better in his mind. Hell, in his mind he was worse because he loved her and scared her like he did only minutes before this moment.

He finished massaging her scalp and directed her as gently as he could and rinsed the shampoo out of her hair, his voice was shaky as he spoke, “Lex, I love you and I never meant…” He trailed off not knowing how to apologize to her.

Lex nodded acknowledging his words as she turned off the water and stepped into the waiting open towel held up by Hap, “I know you didn’t Hap. I love you too. I’ve never seen that side of you before, and I’m still a little twitchy. It takes time to adjust to seeing your club face in the best of situations. I’m a little traumatized at the moment. That face was scarier that it would have normally been. I need time to wrap my head around it, but I also need you with me so that I feel safe…” Lex all but whispered the last part as she tucked the towel around her.

Happy took her hand, “I’m not leaving you, Little Girl. I promise you that on the Club. But seeing the damage done to your body because of my failure to protect and keep you safe. I couldn’t turn that part of me off.” He started to help her dry off, being as gentle as he could as he went. He then helped her into her nightshirt and started to towel dry her hair.

She was grateful he had a softer side, and it warmed her heart to know she was one of very few he showed it to. She gave Hap a sad smile, “I need to rest my body isn’t up to snuff just yet. Those couple of days really took it out of me. Think we can talk Nurse Vee into some Ibuprofen instead of the hardcore stuff? I’m kinda tired of my head swimming…”

She hesitantly reached out to touch Hap’s still bare chest bust stopped herself much to Happy’s displeasure, frowning he put his shirt back on, “It’s okay, Little Girl.” He whispered in her ear as he decided to scoop her up and took her back to her room. “How about we just relax and watch some Gummi Bears? I know that was always one of your favorites.”

She gave him a little smile, “You hate the Gummi Bears. How about some Scooby Doo instead? We both like that one.” She snuggled into his neck taking in his scent and reveling in the safeness of being in his arms. “So how long is Telford letting you play hooky to babysit your Ole Lady? I was hoping to try and go in and at least do paperwork in the next day or so. I know I’m sore, but I stay around here I’m going to go stir crazy…”

Hap let out a little growl, “Lex you need rest and I’m here until I say otherwise, perks of dating the VP’s niece. Besides, what happened to you shook Chibs up more than he wants to admit. Seeing Tig and I would remind him and make him a miserable Scottish bear with a sore ass.”

Lex giggled slightly as Hap set her in her bed, “You know one of you two should really go into the shop tomorrow. I need someone I know is competent working while I’m not able to.”

This angered Happy for some reason and he stood up glaring at Lex, “What the hell Alexandra?! The shit you just went through and your more worried about the shop?! You need to be focused on you not the damn garage!” He glared at her not bothering to hide his emotions this time.

Lex jumped at his sudden change in his demeaner but didn’t back down, “I’m worried about the reason that I was brought back out here! The entire reason I quit the job I had back east, uprooted my entire life and moved back home. I focus on me, and I will go insane especially the shit I just went through because I completely uprooted my life and moved home to help save Teller-Marrow!” Lex was yelling now, and her fight was fully back and on full display.

Upon hearing Lex yelling Tig came running knowing Happy had done something stupid to push her to that point and once getting to the door he immediately removed Happy despite his protests all but shutting the door in his face. Tig looked at Lex seeing her sitting there fuming, “Umm, What the hell was that about?”

To Be Continued…

Part 14

#queenie writes #queenies fanfiction #sons of anarchy #sons of anarchy fanfiction #sons of anarchy imagine #sons of anarchy fandom #happy lowman #happy lowman fanfiction #happy x ofc #happy lowman imagine #HappyxLexie #HappyxOFC #happy reading

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auteurdelabre · 4 months

Text

A Secret Kind of Pain (one-shot) FrankieMorales x f!Reader

Pairings: Frankie Morales x f!reader (no use of y/n) (No descriptions other than hair he can move behind your ear. She’s you, babe!)

Rating: 18+

Words: 7.0k

Summary: A poker night over at Benny’s tests the amazing burgeoning relationship you have been hiding with Frankie Morales.

Warnings: secret relationship, friends to lovers, angst (BUT A HAPPY ENDING), oral (f receiving), unprotected p in v, sweet Spanish nicknames, Frankie is a jealous lil’ thing, miscommunication trope.

a/n: I love Frankie Morales and realized I needed to write him up a honey. Y’all can blame my muses for this. I keep tryin’ to update my other stories and the damn muses keep starting new ones! At leas this is a one-shot!

Also if you like my stuff I'd really love a follow, a reblog, a comment (those especially make me smile!) would be real appreciated!

================================================

"We're gonna be late," you whine, even as your back arches against the springy mattress. Your breathing is shallow, your forehead dotted with perspiration.

"I don't care," he replies breathlessly from between your thighs, dark eyes fixed on yours as his pouty mouth goes back to work.

You've been like this all afternoon, touching, kissing, fucking. You're both covered in a thin sheen of sweat, the fan in the corner of the room no match for the balmy weather.

"Frankie," you whine, feeling his hands on the globes of your ass, pulling your dripping sex more fully against his mouth and tongue. He won't let up. He's eating you out like his life depends on it and has been for the last forty minutes.

Your legs are spread wide over his broad shoulders and his hands move over the crease of your thighs to hold you in place as he devours you. He feels so impossibly good, you can't help but succumb, your hands fisting in his curls, your body quaking with every swipe of his deft tongue.

His mouth begins giving your pussy sloppy kisses, groaning as he does. You don't know who loves this more - you or him. You whimper out his name again, eyes rolling into the back of your head.

"C'mon cariño," he purrs, smiling up at you. "You can give me one more."

And you do. You come crying his name as he gently laves your clit. As you come down you reach blindly for him, sighing contentedly as he crawls up the length of your body, pressing glossy kisses up your naked flesh before he positions his cock at your entrance.

"Don't make me wait," you beg, urging your hips towards him. He smiles down at you before his mouth is on yours, his cock sliding into your slick cunt. It's not long before he's emptying himself into you and moaning into your neck.

You lay tangled in the sheets afterwards, your head on his arm, looking at his hawkish profile. He looks almost angelic with his hat off and his curls on display.

"We're gonna be late," you repeat giving his bristled cheek a swift kiss. You go to move off the mattress and to the shower but he holds tightly to you, his leg lacings between yours.

"Let's not go," he says, nuzzling against your neck. "Let's just stay in."

"How is that going to look?" you counter, not oblivious to his hand which ventures to brush over your chest. "We both don't show up to poker night? The week after we both mysteriously don't make it to the pub for drinks?"

Frankie sighs, knowing that you're right. You're always right. The second that the guys find out you're together it's going to be a nightmare.

They'll have opinions, so many fucking opinions on Frankie dating Tom's cousin. The one that Will had a crush on for years. The one Pope flirted with every time she came back for family visits. The one they all promised Tom they'd never fuck; a pact they reminded themselves of when she moved back to town a year ago for her job.

The one Frankie had fallen for the second he'd met her at one of Benny's shows. The one he'd sat next to, thighs touching as they laughed and talked between rounds as he stole bits of her popcorn. The one he'd told himself he couldn't want, but then found he couldn't stay away from.

So when he'd thrown a memorial party for Tom's birthday months ago and you'd stayed behind to help him clean and you confessed your burgeoning feelings for him it seemed it was inevitable he would take you in his arms telling you he felt the same. It felt fated that he would be kiss you before carrying you to his bedroom and making love to you until the sun came up.

You'd both known it had to remain a secret. Couldn't come out. Not when things were still so new, still so fresh. Not when Tom was gone, the promise his friends had made still very real.

Didn't matter that Frankie hadn't met you before he made that vow because he was always away flying or with his ex when you were visiting Tom. Didn't matter that he didn't just want to fuck you.

Pope hadn't been stupid. He'd known Frankie was seeing someone in the following months. In a panic Frankie had confessed over drinks one day that he was seeing some girl from the coffee shop near his place. This had placated Pope enough to drop it.

But he and the rest of the gang still teased Frankie about it for weeks, insisting he bring his "imaginary girlfriend" to poker night while you sat back in the booth, hiding your grin behind your beer bottle.

And so you snuck around, slipping into Frankie's bed and into his life without hesitation. Nights and weekends were spent making meals together, watching TV, going to try new coffee shops, kissing and fucking everywhere in his house.

He craved you when you weren't around, more than coke, more than flying, more than anything. He loved that his pillows smelled of you, that your variety of shampoos and conditioners lined his shower floor.

"I gotta shower and then we gotta go, Morales."

Frankie finally releases you, but not before pressing a soft kiss to your mouth. You smile before rolling off his bed and towards the shower. Frankie watches your naked body sauntering away and he holds in a grateful sigh.

///

"I'll go in first," you tell him, grabbing the bag of pretzels from the back seat of the truck.

Frankie has parked around the corner from Benny's, knowing you both couldn't show up together at Benny's infamous poker night.

You'd made yourself part of the group soon after moving back. Part of you wonders if it's because you're filling a void left by Tom or if they really like your company. You decide you don't mind when it means more time with Frankie.

"See you in there."

You go to leave, hand on the door before you shoot him a sweet smile. You lean over to give him a peck on the lips. You glance over the t-shirt that strains over his biceps, the jeans that mold over his long thighs and you give a crooked smile.

"Did I tell you how sexy you look tonight, Morales?"

Frankie blushes up his neck, his face growing red as he gives a bashful grin at you from under his baseball hat. The kind of smile that makes his dimple pop out. You give him a wink and then you're gone, heading into Benny's place, carrying a comically large bag of pretzels.

Frankie watches the clock, waiting a whole five minutes before grabbing the shopping bag from the back seat.

He ambles towards Benny's front door, noting the SUV with the space invaders bumper sticker. Will is here already, probably the first to arrive at his brother's event.

By the time Frankie arrives the group is loudly chatting, the kitchen full of food and noise. Benny and Pope are opening beers for their dates and you're nowhere to be seen.

"You didn't bring your girl?" Benny observes with a frown when Frankie enters the kitchen holding the shopping bag of chips and salsa.

"Uh we broke up," Frankie says with a shrug, accepting the coke can his friend passes him. Pope pulls out the chips and salsa, dark eyes trailing inside the bag before he's pouring the chips into a bowl.

"You don't seem too upset about it," Pope says with a quirked brow, his arm going to sling around the shoulders of his date. Frankie is about to reply when you both hear your laugh from the next room.

The two of you glance over to see you and Will on the couch, knees almost touching as Will says something else to make you laugh. You have a great laugh, the kind where you tilt your head back and you just let go. The kind that makes Frankie smile when he hears it.

But he doesn't smile now. In fact it's quite the opposite. He watches as Will's light eyes trace over your face warmly.

"Seems like Will is foregoing the pact," Pope says amused, his eyes on Frankie's face.

Frankie feels his hand curl into a fist. Who the fuck does Will think he is? Will could have any girl he wants; he's handsome and successful. He's not a recovering addict who can't legally fly anymore like Frankie.

Doubt, the ugly insidious snake creeps into his mind. Why are you with him? What could be possibly offer you?

"Hey Fish," Will calls out with a wave to Frankie when he notices the man in the kitchen. "No girl tonight?"

"They broke up," Pope says, coming to rest on the edge of the couch.

"Sorry to hear that," you say airily. Frankie can't look at you. He knows he'll see the amused glint there and he can't risk it.

"He doesn't seem too upset about it," Pope smiles.

Frankie focuses his attention on Benny who claps him on the back before announcing that it's time to start the poker game. Everyone moves to the table that Benny has set up with chips and cards.

Frankie's chest warms when you slide into the chair next to his at the table but he holds in a grimace when Will takes the seat next to yours, smiling at you.

You nudge his thigh under the table and he slips a hand under the table to give your knee a squeeze, watching your lips curl into a subtle smile at the contact.

Frankie feels idiotic for being jealous when you're obviously his girl. But the thing is he hasn't said you're his girl. It's just silently implied. He wonders if he needs to tell you, in words.

"Alright," Benny announces, breaking into Frankie's thoughts. "The game is Omaha and-"

You tune Benny out as he explains the rules for the large group around the table. You throw in your two ten dollar bills along with the rest of the group to the center of the table.

All you can focus on is Frankie's hand still resting on your knee, so wide and warm.

You're so into him it's ridiculous. You love the way he curls around you in bed, the way he makes you coffee to take to work, the way he looks at you when you talk because he's really** listening to what you have to say.

He removes his hand as the game starts and you immediately miss the contact. You look across the table at Pope and Benny and their girlfriends, jealous that they get to flaunt their relationships while you have to keep yours hidden.

But at the same time you don't want anything to spoil this beautiful thing you have with Frankie. It's too precious to you, too beloved. So you'll keep it a secret for as long as you need to.

The game is a long one and considering the entire group is ridiculously competitive the air is tense. Pope and Benny's dates are the first to be knocked out, both shrugging and leaning against their boyfriends, watching them play.

You stand after you fold your latest hand, stretching and announcing that you need a drink.

"Can you grab me a Coke, baby?" Frankie asks without thinking, his focus on his cards. It's an innocuous comment, one he's made to you at home dozens of times before.

Immediately he realizes the fuck up. Your eyes are blown wide, your features contorted into horror as you look down at him. He snaps his attention to the group abruptly, his face blanching and his shoulders rising. The men nearby give puzzled looks in your direction.

"The fuck did you just call her?" Pope laughs, amusement clear in his handsome features.

"He called her baby," Benny says with a grins, taking a swig of his beer.

"He didn't!"

"Asked her to get him a drink!"

"The fuck?" you say forcing a laugh and giving Frankie a look of disdain. "I know your girlfriend dumped you but I'm not throwing you a pity lay, Morales. I'm not really into guys who wear baseball caps past the age of twenty."

The group erupts into drunken laughter that you both join in on. But you don't see the hurt in Frankie's soulful eyes.

"I'm gonna grab that drink," you tell the group, needing some air and a chance to stop the pounding of your heart.

"Can you get me one, baby?" Will teases.

"Of course honey," you tease right back with a wink.

You don't even cast a look in Frankie's direction. His stomach twists when you return to the table with a bottle of beer for yourself and Will and no drink for him.

"When are you gonna bring a guy around for poker night?" Benny slurs from the other end of the table. "You been single too long."

"Maybe that's how I like it."

You swallow nervously, your cards growing slippery in your damp hands. They've never asked you things like this. Why now?

"C'mon," Pope urges, pressing a kiss to his girlfriends' shoulder. "I bet Yovanna can set you up with one of her friends, couldn't you, bonita?."

"Oh yes!" Yovanna nods, smiling.

"I dunno about that," you say, your face heating. You force your attention back to your cards. "I'm pretty busy with work."

"Too busy to date anyone?" Will says, trying to say it lightly but failing miserably. You can feel irritation radiating off of Frankie beside you. A quick glance out the corner of your eyes tells you he's clenching his jaw as he looks at his cards.

You want to squeeze against Frankie, bury your face in his neck and assure him that he's the only man for you. That you think about Frankie more than you think about yourself some days. That you've imagined an entire life with him, a future. That Will is perfectly nice but you're utterly besotted with Frankie.

"Not really into dating right now," you chirp, grin widening. "I'm more into winning all your money. That’s a full house, bitches!"

The group groans as you pull the money towards you, slipping the winnings from this round into your jeans pocket. The game continues on for several more rounds, until it's late and you feel yourself drifting.

"I should head out," Frankie says with a sigh, tossing his cards into the center of the table. "Don't have any more money left to lose tonight."

He stands, moving out the door without a backwards glance at you. You know the drill, you can’t leave at the same time. You stretch after the folding your cards.

"I should head out too," you say forcing a yawn. "Gotta be into work early tomorrow. Night guys."

The group bids you both drunken goodbyes, their focus on the remaining pot of cash in between them. You wave, heading out the door in search of Frankie around the corner. You see him leaning against his truck looking delicious. His broad arms are crossed in front of him, but his customary smile is replaced by a look of sullen displeasure.

When you're safely away from the house inside his truck your hand reaches for his across the bench seat. You're confused when he pulls out of reach, his hand going to the wheel. This confuses you because you’ve never taken a drive with Frankie where his hand wasn’t on your knee.

You pull on your seatbelt, convinced you must have mistaken him pulling away earlier as he starts the car. Maybe he just needs both hands to drive tonight. The weather has taken a turn, raining lightly in the darkness.

"Benny's new girl seems nice," you offer in the quiet of the drive. You glance over at Frankie when he doesn't reply. "You okay?"

"Hated how you looked at me tonight," Frankie finally gets out, his voice rasping. "Like I disgusted you."

Immediately you feel your heart sink.

"You know I didn't mean it," you say, reaching for him and again Frankie shrugs out of your grip, his dark eyes somber as he drives.

"Seemed real easy for you to say that shit," Frankie says tightly. "Pity lay?"

"Frankie we agreed we didn't want anyone to know," you reply, irritation rising in you that he seems to be blaming you. "That we didn't want our relationship under a microscope. I'm only doing what we both agreed was right."

"Yep," Frankie nods sharply, his dark eyes on the road. "Guess I didn't realize that meant flirting with Will all night."

Jealousy coils in him, twisting between his ribs and pulling angrily, causing his temper to flare, his body to tense up.

"I wasn't flirting, Frankie."

"Could've fooled me."

He's at your house now, pulled up to the curb with the engine still running. You swallow the frustration in your chest, turning to Frankie. You really like him and you don't want to fight. You can work this out; you just need to discuss it.

But Frankie still isn't looking at you. His hand is just curled around the steering wheel and his face is partially hidden in shadow. All you can make out is the sharp of his jaw under his scruff.

"You wanna come in so we can talk about this?"

"I'm tired," Frankie replies with a soft shake of his head. "Gonna head home."

"Tomorrow then?"

Frankie shrugs.

This was a fun dream. A sweet illusion. But there's no way it can continue. No way that you're gonna wanna stick with Frankie for the long haul. Not when men like Will want you.

"Right." You give a disgusted scoff, pulling the seatbelt off of you. "I think I'm gonna be tired for the next week or so, so I wouldn't bother calling."

"I won't."

"Good."

You jump out of the still running truck, slamming the door behind you and making your way to your house. You're thankful he can't see the tears that slip down your cheek as he drives off into the darkness.

///

Frankie has a brutal stubborn streak and a temper to match. The problem is so do you. No one is willing to be the first to wave the white flag. Instead you both give each other the silent treatment. It goes on for over a week, neither of you bending. No texts, no calls, no nothing.

But it's Frankie who breaks first when one evening he finds his pillow no longer smells of your shampoo. The panic of knowing that like the faded scent, you're disappearing from his life.

He throws himself into his truck and begun driving over to your place. He doesn't even want to waste time texting or calling. He just wants to see your face, to take it between his hands and kiss it. To apologize to you because he's been a fucking idiot.

How could he have been so pissed off at you for something you both agreed on? Something that he'd fucking suggested? So insecure when you've never given him reason to be?

He drives to your place and when he sees Will's car parked out front he feels like he's going to be sick. He thinks maybe he's made a mistake but then he sees that fucking space invaders bumper sticker.

Will is inside your house, in there with you.

Images of the two of you fucking immediately flood his mind. Will fucking you in the bed Frankie helped you to set up the bed frame for. You making the same noises for Will that you do for Frankie.

It takes all his willpower to keep driving, to swallow the lump that's formed in his throat at the thought you could move on so quickly.

But that dark part in the back of his head insists that this is for the best. That he was never worthy of you anyway. That he needs to let you move on with Will.

Frankie is friends with the group so he doesn't miss a poker night or drinks out or going to the batting cages. When your absence is commented on by the group he pretends to be equally perplexed until Will comments that he thinks you're busy with work. The same kind of shit Frankie used to say to cover up that you were together.

He doesn't let Will see his irritation. He doesn't ask Will about you. He wants you to be happy.

He doesn't let anyone see his heartbreak.

///

When the third week of silence from Frankie ends you feel your resolve dissolving. Yes, he'd been an asshole, but Frankie was also delicate at times. More delicate than you gave him credit for.

He'd been through a lot and perhaps this reaction was out of fear not anger. This is what you told yourself as you sent off the text to him.

Hey. Busy tonight?

Yep. Got a date.

You feel as if you've been punched in the gut. You're breathing sharply when his second text comes through seconds later.

Tell Will I say hi.

You frown at the message, confused. But you don't parse it. You're too upset. Too hurt. He just ... Moved on? One fight and he's fucking met someone else?

You were so fucking stupid to do this. To fall in with one of Tom's friends. He'd warned you off all of them and given you good reasons for why none of them were dating material.

But then you'd met Frankie Morales. The man with the shy smile and dark curls peeking out under a faded ball cap and all warnings had been forgotten.

You allowed yourself to fall head over heels, quickly and without protecting yourself. Like a skydiver jumping eagerly out of the plane without a parachute.

But now you wish you'd listened. Because the pain of losing Frankie is worse than anything you could have anticipated.

Your phone chirrups with a text from Pope.

Where the fuck have u been?

Work is busy.

Not too busy to come have drinks with us tomorrow night.

Sorry can't.

Either you come out or I'll send Will and Frankie in to drag you out of your office in front of everyone.

...

What pub?

///

Frankie watches you walk into the pub from under the brim of his hat. You've obviously just come from work; you have that serious look about you. It dissolves slightly when you see the group calling your name.

It's been weeks since he last saw you and it's like you've only gotten more beautiful. Your smile brighter, your eyes luminous. You give a wave to the group, eyes sweeping over Frankie as if he's just another one of the guys.

He's confused when Will greets you casually, no standing up and kissing when you waltz over.

"We've missed you," Benny says sliding you over a drink as you take the free spot next to Will in the booth.

You feel warmed by the realization that these men are your friends. That you're not just a placeholder for Tom.

"Works been so busy," you explain with a shy shrug. "Tell me what I missed."

"Hmmm well Benny and Carmella have started a couple's pottery class," Will tells you smiling as Benny rolls his eyes, his eyes on his phone as he texts his girlfriend. "Catfish here officially got his license back and Pope here is still annoyingly good looking."

"Obnoxiously so," Pope agrees, tapping his beer bottle against Will's in cheers.

You force a smile to your face as the group laughs but all you can hear is Catfish got his license back.

You'd talked about what you'd both do when that happened. That you'd bake him a cake and you'd go celebrate with the biggest steak at the nicest restaurant. That you'd ride him before he took you for a ride in his friend’s helicopter.

You'd made these plans giggling in bed, warmed by each other's bodies and smiles.

Now it seems like a lifetime ago.

"Congrats," you say to Frankie, looking at his ear and not his eyes. "I'm really happy for you."

He probably doesn't even remember what you'd planned. Or worse he's gonna do it with his new girl.

"Thanks," Frankie replies in a soft voice, no malice left in it. His eyes are on your face, the longing clear in them, not that you're looking at his eyes.

He misses you something terrible. All he wants is to pull you into his arms and cover your face with kisses. He's so fucking furious with himself for letting you get away.

Will leans back in the booth, arms sliding against the back of your seat as he stretches. Frankie's face immediately darkens and he's sullen as the rest of the group laughs and jokes.

A short while later someone suggests darts and you all agree, going to stand around the only free one left at the side of the pub.

You go first, you're usually very good. But you can feel Frankie's eyes on you, burning through your clothes. You falter, your darts barely making it into the circular cork.

"She's lost her edge," Will jokes, slinging an arm around your neck companionably. "Spending too much time at work, not enough time at the pub."

You laugh up at him, eyes disappearing into half moons. Frankie watches this and feels his stomach churn. Its one thing to move on with Will, but it’s quite another to rub it in Frankie’s fucking face.

"Move," he says gruffly to the two of you. You look at him shocked, hurt at how he's spoken to you both.

"Someone's got their panties in a twist," Will says smirking at the rest of the group. "I'm gonna get another round."

Frankie ignores him, tossing his own darts. They don't even hit the outer circle; they just careen off into the nearby wood. He grimaces and turns to see you watching, your face unreadable.

"What?" Frankie challenges, his neck going red. His dark eyes narrow on your face. "Like you did so much better?"

His voice is so dark and spiteful Pope and Benny turn from their conversation at the sound of it.

"Dude, calm down," Benny says looking from you to Frankie.

Pope says something as well but all Frankie can focus on is the way your eyes are filling up with tears. He feels all his frustration and anger leave him, replaced with icy shame as you murmur about going to the bathroom, shouldering past Will as he returns with the drinks.

He barely waits ten seconds before he's following you, not caring how it looks, not caring that you're with Will. He needs to talk to you, to touch you.

He gets to you just before you're heading into the women's bathroom. He grips your wrist.

"We need to talk."

You allow him to tug your limp arm as he pulls you outside the pub along with him. It's drizzling and cars are driving by but neither of you care. You pull back from his grip, eyes on the wet cement. Frankie gazes at you, wishing you would look at him.

"Why are you being so mean?" You suddenly ask in a quiet, hollow voice. "You're a lot of things, Frankie. But mean isn't one of them."

Frankie feels his heart sink at the accusation, mostly because it's true, and also because he never wanted you to think of him as anything less than.

Irritation and hurt flash on his features now, his arms crossing in front of his chest.

"Hard not to be upset when the girl you were seeing moves on with your friend."

Your head raises, eyes narrowing. "What?"

"You and Will," Frankie says, trying to act like it doesn't hurt him just to say the words. "I'm happy for you both but doesn't mean I wanna see it every time we all hang out.”

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

You're really going to act dumb? He sighs, rubbing at the back of his neck, smoothing the curls there.

"I drove by your house a couple weeks ago," Frankie finally says, mouth in a frown. "After the poker night. I was coming to apologize."

Hope blooms behind your rib cage, a bouquet of desire and genuine need for Frankie overtaking the weeds of your previous devastation. He came to see you? To apologize?

"You did?"

"Yeah." Frankie's normally sweet, soft eyes are hard. "Saw Will's car out front."

Your face is confused, your eyes scanning the air as if you're trying to recall. And then suddenly you do. Your hope crumbles to dust. You realize now what all of this was. Possessive male bullshit. The kind of thing you thought Frankie was above.

"He came to borrow my portable BBQ," you tell him flatly. "He mentioned that he needed it for camping and I offered mine since I never use it."

Frankie feels his face slackening in disbelief. He blinks rapidly a few times, his posture going from rigid to loose.

"He wasn't there to-"

"To fuck me?" You shake your head with a sneer. "No, Frankie. You see, I was really into this other guy at the time so fucking someone else never even crossed my mind. But thanks for assuming that I’ll just fall into bed with someone every time we have a fight."

Frankie's heart hammers and shame suffuses him. He feels like a fucking moron. How could he ever have thought you’d do it? How could he have thought so little of both you and Will? He takes a step towards you as you hold out a hand between your bodies, your gaze turned icy.

"Don't even think about it."

You slip past him, heading inside and grabbing your purse. You're flustered and give the group a sharp goodbye, ignoring their questions as you dash from the pub, your second beer untouched.

Frankie returns to the group moments later, his eyes red-rimmed. He's confused when the group just stares at him in disbelief.

Benny is twisting the dart in his fingers, Pope has his arms crossed and Will just looks abashed. They all shoot each other confused looks when Frankie reaches for his dart.

"Aren't you going after your girl, Fish?"

Frankie feels his stomach twisting at Pope's words. "Huh?"

"She just left here looking really upset," Will adds. "I think she was almost crying."

Frankie looks at the concerned faces of all his friends and he leans against the wall in disbelief. There’s a heavy silence there, pitying looks from all of them. No menace, no anger. Just overwhelming sadness for their friend.

"You ... You all knew?"

The men nod, smirks on all their faces.

"And you aren't pissed?"

"Jealous? Yes," Will laughs. "Not angry though. Why would we be?"

"The promise to Tom -"

"Tom isn't here and you're both adults. And I haven’t seen you this happy in a long time," Pope says, looking thoughtful. “Maybe ever.”

Frankie can barely believe what's happening. All the sneaking around, the stress of being caught, all for nothing. He could have been holding you, calling you his girl in public this whole time.

"How long did you know?"

"After the poker night," Pope says. Frankie feels his body deflating.

"How?"

"Saw the receipt for chips, salsa and pretzels. Saw how you were when Will was flirting with her." Pope shrugs. "Put two and two together."

"I never knew until later that night," Will says looking apologetic. "I never would have chatted her up if I knew you were with her, Fish."

"We felt like assholes after talking about setting her up on dates and all that shit," Benny adds.

"Yeah, well, we're not together anymore," Frankie mumbles, hating that he has to tell them this. Hating that he's fumbled the best thing that ever happened to him.

"But you were, right?"

"Yeah."

"How long was it going on?" Pope asks.

"Four months."

"But you and that coffee shop girl-"

"Wasn't real," Frankie sighs, putting his forehead in his hand. "Just didn't want you guys to catch onto us."

The men share an amused look.

"Well your girl sold it," Benny confirms. "You not so much."

His girl. His girl. Frankie is almost elated at the sound of it. Then devastated when he realizes that he’s fucked it all up.

"Every time she came into the damn room you'd stop talking," Pope points out. "You'd get all squirrelly."

"We thought you just didn't like her or something," Will shrugs. "Didn't realize you were in love with her."

"In love?" Frankie says, dark eyes fixed on Will's. He's never said those words aloud in regards to you. Thought them, whispered them at home alone as he thought of you, but never spoken them to you.

"Yeah," Will nods, brows furrowed. "You're in love with her, aren't you?"

///

You decide to make pancakes that night, a comfort food because you are desperately in need of comfort. You've been trying not to cry since you drove home, trying to forget Frankie's face as you left him in the pub.

He thought you were with Will? He thought that your feelings could so easily be swayed?

All you can see is the Frankie’s beautiful eyes of his that you'd fallen in love with first, followed quickly by his laugh, his smile, the way he runs his fingers through his hair when he adjusts his cap. The way he loves fiercely and his first instinct is to protect.

You pull into your driveway with your grocery bag, confused when you see Frankie's truck already there. He's standing on your porch, face eager as he watches you park. Frowning you take your shopping bag from the car and stalk towards your front door, ignoring Frankie entirely.

"Go home Frankie."

He watches you approach, his heart hammering in his chest. You look so fierce, so strong, so fucking beautiful. He hates that he's wasted time not being with you.

"Can we talk?"

"Had three weeks to talk," you bite back as you look for your house key. He watches you search through your purse until you find it.

"I know," Frankie insists, voice low. "I'm so sorry."

The emotion in his voice catches you off guard. You don't glance at him when you unlock the door but you do wait for him when you push it open.

"You've got five minutes."

He walks in after you, watching you head to the kitchen. He closes the door, watching as you take down bowls and bring out the whisk. He can see that you're making pancakes, your comfort meal and this tugs at his heartstrings.

He normally makes you pancakes for dinner on the days you text you're having a tough day. When your boss is on your ass and you want to cry in the ladies room. On those nights Frankie would be there at your place with flowers on your kitchen table and pancakes flipping in the pan.

He watches you measure the dry mix into the bowl, followed by the egg and milk. He knows it's going to taste like shit because Frankie always makes his from scratch with vanilla and a pinch of cinnamon.

"Down to four minutes," you snap at him, breaking him from his trance of watching you mix everything in the bowl. He stands on the outside of the kitchen, framed by the arch leading into it.

He feels awkward, his broad shoulders too-wide for your small space, his body out of place here in the warmth of your home. A place he normally felt so at ease in, suddenly gloomy and foreign.

"The guys know about us."

You stop your mixing to look over at him, your face pinched. "Why would you tell them?"

"They already knew," Frankie says, stepping further into the kitchen, feet soundless against the tiles. "Turns out I'm not so great at being subtle."

You turn back to your batter, mixing with a soft hum.

"Can't say it's one of your strong points," you say with a small curl of your lip. A smirk. That small motion gives Frankie enough encouragement to keep walking towards you.

"Were they upset?"

"No."

"Really?" You've stopped mixing long enough to see Frankie is beside you now, leaning against the counter, his eyes tilted to your face. You don’t dare look at him when you shrug. "Well, guess that doesn't matter now anyway."

Your mixing resumes again as you glance to see that the butter is melted in the pan on the stove. You try to ignore the way Frankie is staring at you.

"They asked me if I was in love with you."

He sees your body tense at this proclamation. He sees the way your eyes dart to his face only to leave once more. Your breathing is increasing, your hands completely stilled over the bowl. From here he can see some of the mix that has dribbled onto your wrist.

"What did you tell them?"

"That I was," Frankie admits almost breathless. "That I'd been a fucking insecure idiot because I was so terrified at how much I loved you."

Your body starts to thrum. He loves you. He loves you. He loves you.

"Terrified?" you ask gently. You turn off the stove, pancakes forgotten for the moment. Frankie’s eyes, those beautiful eyes capture yours and you can’t look away this time. You can only stare up at him as he speaks in that shy, rasping way of his.

"Last woman I cared about got pregnant by another guy and tried to convince me it was mine," Frankie tells you. "Only then I had coke to keep me from falling apart."

You nod, knowing this story of Frankie's past. He knows that you know this, but he has to remind you. It explains the next part, even though he hates bringing it up in front of you. He doesn’t like you to see his weaknesses. But he needs you to and he knows that you’ll accept them.

"But now I'm sober, I don't have any way to escape when I feel... I've never...." Frankie looks concerted, taking off his cap to nervously run his fingers through his hair before replacing it. "I've never felt about someone the way I do about you. Never. It scares the fuck outta me."

You want to leap into his arms. You want to kiss him until you're both breathless. But the text, the girl, all of it flashes into your mind. The relieved smile that had started in your cheeks quickly dies, the light in your eyes dimming. Frankie sees all of this, confused at your sudden withdrawal.

"You liked me so much you decided to start dating someone new a week after we'd had a fight?"

Frankie's cheeks flame and he gives a nervous smirk. "That uh... was kinda because I thought you were with Will."

Your jaw clenches at how amused he seems. "Didn't stop you from going on a date."

"Cariño," Frankie says, his voice low. "She was as real as the coffee shop girl."

"What?"

"I thought you were with Will," Frankie shrugs, neck reddening. "I wanted to look like I'd moved on too."

You blink up at him and then you can't help it, you laugh. A loud, melodic thing that Frankie can't help but join in on.

"You fucking liar," you grin, both amused at the situation and so fucking relieved.

Frankie's eyes are damp, unsure if from laughter or what he's about to tell you. You let him cup your face in his wide hands, nuzzling against the warmth of them.

"I wasn't lying about what I said before," Frankie says, his thumb grazing your cheek. "I love you, querida."

You don't hesitate. You can't. Not when it's been bubbling up within you for weeks.

"I love you too, Morales."

Frankie hears those words and feels his entire body lightening. As if just your voice could soothe every ailment, your mere presence purge every bad feeling from his body. It also scares the shit out of him. To know that what you both have is real. To know that it isn't casual. That both of your hearts are on the line.

He knows he will have to be better for you. To learn to communicate, to bring you close when he's scared instead of trying to push you away. It starts tonight.

He lowers his mouth to yours, kissing softly. You melt into him, warmed by the strong arms that encircle you. By the only man you want warming your arms and your bed. The only man you want for the rest of your life even if its dizzying in its proportion.

"I'm scared."

"Me too."

Frankie is comforted by this. That is not just him that feels the enormity of the shift. He pushes your hair behind one ear, taken entirely by how beautiful you look in the low kitchen light.

"My pillow doesn't smell like you anymore," you tell him and his eyes blow wide.

"Mine doesn't smell like you either," he admits, a small crooked smirk on his face. "That's why I drove over that night."

You make a humming noise, stroking his face, fingernails rasping over his stubbled cheek. He watches your eyes crinkle in amusement.

"I can't believe you thought I'd go for Will."

"He's handsome, smart, has his life together," Frankie shrugs. "What can I offer you compared to him?"

Your face goes serious, your eyes searching his.

"You're everything I want, Frankie."

His mouth finds yours once more, his hands skating down your back until you're arched against him and it isn't long before the kisses turn heated, his hands coming to stroke you through your shirt.

When Frankie begins licking into your mouth you decide that the pancakes can be saved for later. You move your mouth to graze his earlobe.

"Do you remember what we said we'd do when you got your license back, Morales?"

Frankie smiles against your mouth, his voice dropping to a soft purr as his arms bring you tighter against him. "I do."

"Should we go to the bedroom then?" You arch a playful brow. "You get your ride and then I get mine?"

"Anything you want, cariño," Frankie says, kissing you deeply. "Anything you want."

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