Page 10 of Love Overdose: St. Louis

I ended the call and lowered the phone to my desk.

For several minutes, I didn’t move. The second hand traveled around the clock while the hospital continued beyond my door. My gaze settled on Frankie’s name in my contacts. I’d saved her number the same night Naomi sent it. I stared at it more times than I cared to admit since our date, always finding a reason to wait.

A difficult surgery, clinic paperwork, a late consultation. Those reasons weren’t excuses. They were real obligations, but they had also become convenient places to hide. Frankie said she wanted to do it again. There was nothing wrong with getting to know her. Dinner wasn’t a promise of forever. One phone call didn’t require me to know how our story ended before it began. It only required enough courage to find out whether there could be another page.

I tapped her name. The phone rang once. Twice. On the third ring, my pulse began to climb as if I were the one stretched across an operating table.

Ridiculous.

The fourth ring cut off.

“Hey, you’ve reached Frankie. I can’t get to the phone right now, which probably means I’m busy minding my business or avoiding yours. Leave me a message, and if I like you, I might call back.”

A laugh slipped from me before the beep.

“Hey, Frankie. It’s Elijah.” I leaned back in my chair, searching for the smoothness I’d carried so easily across the dinner table. “My family is having dinner at Soulful this Friday at seven. I know you’re friends with Naomi, so you’ve probably heard enough about the Valentines to reconsider answering this call.”

I paused, staring out the window.

“But if we haven’t scared you off yet, I’d like you to come with me. You said you wanted to do this again, and so do I.”

The words settled between breaths.

“I should’ve called sooner. I could give you a list of reasons I didn’t, but none of them changes the fact that I wanted to.” I rubbed my thumb against the edge of the phone. “So, if you’re free Friday, have dinner with me.”

I ended the call.

The screen returned to her contact photo. She had chosen it for herself. She stood in a fitness studio with one hand planted on her hip, her smile wide and confident. I set the phone down. Then I picked it up and checked that the call had actually ended.

It had.

“Get yourself together, Valentine,” I muttered.

For the first time in a long time, I found myself hoping someone would give me a reason to stop hiding, and I hoped it was Frankie.

3

frankie

9:06 A.M.

Tuesday

“No, we are not going back to that vegan place.”

I tucked my phone between my ear and shoulder as I stood at the kitchen counter, cutting Malik’s two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches into four uneven squares. He wouldn’t eat a sandwich whole. He wouldn’t eat it sliced down the middle either. It had to be four pieces with the crusts removed, or he would hand it back to me.

“The food wasn’t that bad,” Naomi said.

“The food wasn’t food. They gave me cauliflower covered in barbecue sauce and called it wings.”

Malik clapped his hands from his spot at the table.

“See?” I pointed the butter knife in his direction. “Even Malik knows that shit was disrespectful.”

He clapped again, grinning at me.

“You’re recruiting your child into an argument he knows nothing about.”