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Ever.
Coop
At the Pit,I was out of the SUV before Jake even threw it in park. The agitation had been like an itch between my shoulder blades since I left Frankie with Archie to get ready and go out to dinner with their parents. The whole week had been a mess really. From the genuine worry in her voice over the idea her mom would get rid of the cats to the fact people had trashed her car to that damn red mark on her face that morning.
It wasn’t the first time Ms. Curtis hit Frankie. In fact, I was pretty sure she’d done it a few times before. I’d seen it—once. We’d been ten, or maybe it was eleven. Frankie and I had been in and out of the apartments all day, sometimes at my place and sometimes at hers. We’d played video games, watched movies, and raided the ice cream in my freezer—cookies and cream, damn, that had been good. It had been hot as hell outside, and neither of us had actually wanted to go swimming.
When Frankie’s mom got home though, she found out Frankie had forgotten to take something out of the freezer. I couldn’t even remember what it was Frankie was supposed to have taken out, but her mom just unloaded on her.
It had been an ugly thing, and when Frankie tried to stand up for herself, Ms. Curtis had slapped her so hard, it had echoed in the kitchen. I must have made a noise because then, Ms. Curtis ordered me out of the house. I didn’t see Frankie for four days after that, even though I went by every day and knocked.
When she did come out next, she didn’t mention it at all, pretended it hadn’t happened. I let it go. What did I know? I was just glad to have my buddy back. But seeing that red mark on her face, it reminded me of it all over again.
It wasn’t busy inside the Pit. I picked out Frankie and the guys easily enough; they were sacked away in the big circle booth in the back corner. Frankie had a giant banana split in front of her. So that meant it had definitely gone bad.
Ice cream was her go to comfort food.
I swung through the line and ordered a double dip cone in a bowl and paid for it. Jake was right behind me, and he ordered pretty much the same thing. Ice cream in hand, I headed for the booth. Frankie’s green eyes were shadowed and tired, but her smile was real.
“Hey,” she said, and even her voice sounded tired. Why couldn’t her mom just give her a break? I felt for Archie, too, but he acted like this was no big deal to him. All his focus was on Frankie, too.
“Hey, you look like crap,” I told her cheerfully, and her grin grew warmer as Bubba glared at me.
“I look better than you,” she retorted. There was my girl.
“Alas, that’s not hard,” Archie said. “Everyone looks better than Coop. The question is, does she look better than me?”
I snorted, and Frankie laughed. It was worth it, particularly when Bubba and Jake chorused a “Yes” right along with me.
Frankie’s eyes warmed, and something in my gut unlocked. Okay. That was better. She dug a spoonful of chocolate ice cream, what looked like caramel syrup, some whip cream and more nuts than should be legal on something like that up to eat, and I sighed a little.
She always made little orgasm faces when she ate ice cream, and I was pretty sure she had no idea. Having now seen her orgasm face though, I could say with certainty that shereallyliked ice cream.
“See,” Archie said, as he glanced at Frankie. “They like you better than me.”
“Obviously,” she retorted. “Apparently, you like me better than them, but I’m not falling into this trap of who do I like better.”
No, she would never do that to us. “No one’s asking you to,” I said before Archie could make another smart-ass comment, but all he did was point to me.
“What he said.”
“Thanks,” she said with a sigh, then took another bite. She was decimating that banana split. My ice cream was good, but the fact she was so singularly focused worried me.
“How was the game?” she asked abruptly.
“We won,” Bubba told her. “Barely. Guy they have subbing in for Jake isn’t that good.”
“He was fine,” Jake said. “And Bubba did a nice save in the last quarter, don’t let him play you. We won, and he helped set that play up.”
Bubba shrugged. “It was the team, we had a good play,wemade it.”
“But winning is good, you’re 4 and 1, right?”
“Technically,” Jake said.
“That makes you second in the division.” The fact she even knew that earned more than one pair of raised eyebrows. “Don’t look so impressed, I do follow the wins and losses, and Archie told me earlier.”
Jake laughed and Bubba grinned. “Fair enough,” I said. “But the minute you start knowing stats, I start worrying the world has gone upside down.”
