She stops chewing and tucks the gum into her cheek. “How long ago was that?”
“I was nine…so twenty years? Roughly.”
Fran pivots toward the garbage can between her and Flo’s desk and spits the gum into it, then grabs the glass of water on the desk, takes a big sip, and spits the water back into the glass. She makes enough of a production about it, that I can’t help it, I laugh.
Fran glares at me before laughing too. Except there’s ahitch in her laugh, before she tucks her chin and wipes at her eyes.
“You okay?”
She shakes her head. “That was really gross.”
“I wasn’t talking about the gum.” I step closer and crane my neck, so I’m at her eye-level.
“I wasn’t either. This whole day has been gross.” She lifts her gaze to mine and smiles softly. “Except for this part with you.”
In the six months I’ve been trying to get closer to her, this is the most encouragement Fran’s given me. It’s time to shoot my shot.
“You wanna find somewhere quieter to go?” I hold out my hand.
Her gaze darts to it, then back to my eyes. She nods, my chest threatens to explode, but then she shakes her head. “I can’t leave Flo without any help besides Pearl.”
I don’t drop my hand, just take a careful step closer. “She’ll call in back up. She probably already has.”
Fran inches forward. “You’ve got work. I don’t want to wreck your whole day.”
I scoff. Suddenly, the thought of spending time with her outside the diner feels like the only thing on my schedule today. I take the hand hanging at her side—the one she’s fighting not to take mine with.
“You’re not wrecking anything. Let’s get out of here.” I open the office door and lead her out. I hold her hand loosely. She follows willingly.
Flo raises an eyebrow but doesn’t say anything when we walk out the back door of Flamingo’s. I instinctively tuck Fran under my arm, keeping an eye out for anyone wanting more pictures or videos of her while I lead her to my truck. She climbs in, and I grab my sunglasses hanging from the visor andhand them to her. She slips them on and slides down in her seat, letting her curly hair curtain her face.
Once we’re past Flamingo’s and off the main road, she sits up straighter. “Are you going to ask me why that woman took my picture?”
I glance at her. Even behind her sunglasses I sense she’s daring me to try to pull her secrets from her. “Google gave me some ideas, but I do have one question I’m hoping you can answer yourself.”
“Alright…shoot.” She sucks in her breath.
“Should I tell Junie to call you Fran or Frankie?”
She exhales on a relieved laugh. “Frankie,”
“What about me? Can I call you Frankie too?” I blurt.
“That’s more than one question.” Her lip quirks. “But, yeah, call me Frankie. It’s the only name that’s ever felt like me.”
“Frankie.” I let the sound roll around in my mouth and my head until it mentally connects with the woman who’s made me laugh nearly every morning since I came back to Serenity. Whether she knows it or not, that’s exactly what I’ve needed—to laugh again. “I like it. It feels right.”
“Good on ya. Gladmy namegets your official seal of approval,” she teases in her usual dry tone, but her eyes simmer with a shade of green I haven’t noticed before.
The truth is, there’s a lot more I’d like to know about the woman sitting next to me than I’ve gleaned from our morning conversations and from Google. Things I wanted to ask her the first time I saw her and that I’ve held back asking every morning since. With permission to call her by her real name, my chest swells with the same satisfaction I get when I’ve solved a complex problem. I’ve filled in an essential part to the million-piece puzzle that is Fran McVey/Frankie Forsythe.
“Now,Frankie,where to?”
Her teasing grin smooths into a soft smile. I press the gas and roll through the green light—the last one before we’re on the outskirts of town. In another half mile we’ll be at the crossroads: the 405 Freeway leading north to San Francisco or south to Los Angeles or the canyon road leading west to Serenity Cove.
I know just enough about Frankie’s past to have an idea what she’ll choose.
“The cove,” she says.
