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“Hmm?” I cut a look at her.
“Could…could I have a hug?”
The remote fell out of my fingers, and I twisted to ease an arm around her immediately. She shouldn’t have had to ask. “Tell me if I hurt you.” With care, I tugged her over. The cats scrambled away as she leaned into me.
“You’re not,” she whispered, and rubbed her undamaged cheek against my shirt. Cradling the back of her head, I rested my cheek against her hair.
“I’m sorry, baby girl,” I whispered. “I should have done more.”
“You’re here,” she told me. “You guys came.”
Eyes closed, I held her. “Always,” I promised. “We’re always going to be there.”
Nothing like this was going to happen to her again.
Ever.
“Now, we can watch something blow up.”
“You got it.”
Coop
Coffee and pizza helped. The shower helped. Frankie smiling, maybe not huge smiles, but little ones, those helped, too. Everyone was on edge. Archie, Jake, even Bubba, though Bubba kept tabs via text message. Rachel and Cheryl had both called. We’d intercepted those and kept them at a distance for now. I didn’t doubt Frankie could use a visit from her friends, Rachel especially. But she’d want to look after a devastated Cheryl. When I mentioned that to Rachel, she told me she was already on it without even an ounce of bitchiness.
What do you know, miracles did happen.
“No,” I told him on the phone. I’d walked over to my apartment to grab the things my mom had made and to check on Sis. It felt like an eternity since I’d been home. “Get off your ass, and come and see her.”
“Coop…she doesn’t want to see me.”
“You don’t know that,” I told him. Swallowing back the urge to yell, I headed in to our kitchen. There were two trays of lasagna. Mom had cooked them that morning and left them out to cool. “Seriously, you don’t. You were there, you actually got that ass off of her, and you put him on the ground. You say you care, Iknowyou care. She needs to see it.”
His sigh echoed over the phone.
“Bubba…you want to be here, don’t you?”
“Yes.” Fervent. No hesitation. “I love her.”
Yeah. I knew that.
“Then I’m not the person you need to be telling. She needs to see you. She needs to see all of us. That’s our job right now. We’re the rocks. She’s always been there for us, now we’re there for her.”
The sigh he let out resonated with me. “I wanted to kill him. I still want to kill him.”
That, I understood perfectly. “Then channel that into being there for her. Jake’s managed to make her laugh once. Archie’s doing a great job of distraction. Come be her teddy bear.”
His snort made me smile. “That sounds sexy.”
“It’s not, but we’re all in boyfriend territory. You may not like it, but being her friend right now might be the best thing for her. She needs to know we don’t see her any differently, and that starts with you.”
Quiet. Then. “How do you know all this?”
“Turns out studying psych is useful,” I told him. I’d also been doing a lot of reading on my phone, and I had a long conversation with Denitra. She’d given me her number and some other resources. “Frankie’s gonna need to talk to people, right now it’s us, eventually, she’s going to need others. Real help. Real therapy.”
“You sound like my dad.”
“Well, your dad wasn’t all wrong.” I stared at the ceiling. “And while I want to sound like I know what I’m doing…I really don’t. I just don’t want to screw this up. We can’t afford to—she really can’t afford it. Her mother’s a no show useless bitch. That means it’s us. We’re the family. So get in or get out. But choose, Bubba.”
