AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Six
Clive
The numbers on the screen blurred in front of me, and even a few furious blinks couldn’t help me make sense of them. I sagged back into my chair with a sigh and pulled off my glasses to rub at my dry, tired eyes.
Fuck. Fuck.
When I got back to Minneapolis a couple of weeks ago, I threw myself into my work. With the new building in Seattle and my existing responsibilities, I had a lot to do, and the tidal wave of work kept my mind off of the worst of my loneliness.
It was harder at night, though—when my overworked eyeballs couldn’t take one more spreadsheet and my tired brain stopped cooperating. Then I had to ditch my desk—whether I was at my regular office or holed up in my home office—and face the painful emptiness of my house.
The emptiness of my life.
Every day, I woke up early, worked until I was ready to drop, went to bed and repeated everything the next day, a punishing schedule that I only interrupted for equally punishing workouts.
I picked up my phone and flicked through my text messages. Frankie and I texted back and forth—not much, but I lingered over everything she sent me. Simple greetings and goodnights, pictures of her meals and cat, a mirror shot of herself in a brand new dress—a silky red thing that made her legs look a mile long.
You like?the message said when she sent the picture.
Yeah, I liked. I stared at the curve of her thighs and shadowed weight of her breasts for about a fucking hour, dick hard as a rock as I remembered the way those legs felt when she wrapped them around me, along with the soft press of her breasts against my chest.
I missed her so damn much that if I stopped my frenetic pace at work, I thought I might drown in the loneliness. I wanted to call Frankie, text her—whatever it took to get her attention—and spill all the feelings that bubbled inside me, but I held firm on what I said in the hotel room. We needed time to think about this. She needed the time to think about what it really meant to commit to me—twenty years plus older than her and her best friend’s father.
But when I gave myself the time and space to consider what it might entail to get involved, the age difference—which seemed like a yawning gulf just a few weeks before—mattered a little bit less to me, too. And the feelings that bloomed inside me for Frankie—stunning, vivacious, larger-than-life Frankie—mattered more with every day we spent apart.
When did I get married? Twenty-five years ago? I was still a senior in college, crazy in love with a beautiful girl I met in English class. So in love that I couldn’t wait, and by the time I was twenty-two, I had a daughter. A family to support.
And by thirty-eight? I was a widower and a single father, with no time to nurture my own feelings. To explore a life after my marriage or love with someone else.
And when Frankie touched me, kissed me, shared her body with me—I didn’t remember my heart ever beating quite so hard in my chest, or the painful excitement that overwhelmed me at her nearness.
Not with my wife.
Not with any woman.
Just Frankie.
A loud buzz interrupted my brooding thoughts. Something tightened in my chest as I picked up my phone, flipping it up so I could see the screen. Even though I knew that it almost certainly wasn’t the woman who occupied my thoughts.
Except it was.
Hey you,she said. Busy?
My fingers flew madly over the keyboard. Nope. Wanna video chat?
I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until a few seconds later, when a clattering melody sounded from my tablet. I tossed the phone to the side and grabbed the tablet as I jogged out into my living room, flicking the lights on before I settled into my couch and accepted the call.
“Frankie,” I breathed as her beautiful face appeared. She had pulled her wild hair back into a ponytail, leaving the gentle planes of her face exposed in the soft lamplight. My eyes drank in all the angles and soft skin as her lips curved in an uncharacteristically tentative smile. “It’s so good to see you.”
She looked away for a second. “It’s good to see you too, Clive. I…I missed you.” The last few words, delivered without her usual bravado, came out fast and quiet, like she had to work up the courage to say them. To show that tiny bit of vulnerability to me.
I smiled back. “I missed you too, gorgeous. What have you been up to?”
Frankie sighed heavily. “Work, mainly, and then I just go home to crash. We’re so busy right now that Kresley and I are trying to convince Marcie that it’s time to hire another person, but she’s nervous about it.”
Her graceful fingers, tipped with black-painted nails, crept up to toy with an escaped curl while she talked about everything on her plate. And I just listened, so grateful to see her face again, to hear her sweet voice, curiously absent of the razor edge of sarcasm that she so often wielded. This was the private Frankie, the woman who curled up in her bed at the end of a long day and reached out to a person she cared about.
“Frankie,” I finally said gently. “Do you really want to talk about work?”
