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“Yes.” I took the shirt and stepped around him, flipping through my keyring as he followed me down the hall.
“What did I say to you that first night at the bar?”
“Nothing I’m interested in repeating, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
One of my neighbors walked off the elevator, greeting us before disappearing inside her apartment.
Alone again, Cole returned to the reason for his visit. “No one can—”
“Your secret’s safe with me, Cole,” I said with a tight smile, eager to get this over with. I inserted my key into the lock, halting at his hushed thank you. It said more than it should have, meant more than him being appreciative of my discretion. It said he thought I was a good guy. It said that he could use one of those in his life right now.
I faced him, wholly unprepared to be hit with the hemorrhaging of his pain. Franky would’ve never given just anyone the pleasure of seeing him come apart. My armor suffered a crack, because as much as I wanted to put fifty feet of security between myself and Cole, I couldn’t help feeling sympathetic.
At twenty-four, Cole was still young, we both were. But I understood his pain. I knew what his heartache felt like. I knew the texture of it, the stench it gave off, and I knew how impossible it was to navigate its constant fluctuations, the unpredictable agony of it all.
We’d both been abandoned by a Kincaid. In his case there were three; Selene, Jasper, and his father.
Losing my hold on Noon had been part of the reason I’d been drawn to Franky, so I could relate to Cole’s need to latch on to something as he fell from his cliff. It just couldn’t be me.
With his good looks and wealth, Cole could’ve had a whole mob of friends if he wanted to. What the hell made me so damn appealing?
“You must think I’m pathetic,” he said.
“You lost your mother and stepbrother, who you also happen to be in love with, all in the same week. No, Cole. I don’t think you’re pathetic. I think you’re justified. But we don’t know each other, yet you stare at me like you want something from me.”Like I even have anything to give.
He fidgeted with his misbuttoned shirt, and he was in bad need of a shave. “I have nothing,” he whispered.
“Yeah,” I whispered back. “Welcome to the club.”
***
I showed up to work Monday after taking a rare but much-needed day off. I’d been pushing my body to its limit—in more ways than one. I’d just clocked in and been about to take my first order when my gaze smacked up against the back of Cole’s head. He sat at his preferred table again, fighting to hold his head up. I gripped the edge of the bar as my blood ran hot.
“Molly,” I called out as she settled her purse over her shoulder. Her shift ended when I showed up to relieve her. “Cover me for a couple hours. I’ll pay you double.”
***
There were houses, and then there were estates, and Franky’s home fell under the second category.
The wrought iron gates parted for me and Betty to enter, and I rocketed down the cedar-lined driveway, vaguely catching a glimpse of a pond and what looked to be horse stables in the distance.
After what felt like miles, a palatial home surrounded by rose bushes appeared out of thin air. Franky waited at the front door for me, hands deep in his pockets.
The house was beautiful but overstated. It wasn’t Franky’s style. There was no ocean here. Where did he go to think?
I was too jittery to still be upset about Cole. Too overcome with an emotion I thought I’d fucked and drank out of my system.
Circling the fountain, I came to a stop, cutting the engine and getting out before I lost my nerve too. “Are you normally the welcoming committee?”
“When the person at my door is you? Yes,” he said, eyes sunken but as keen and appraising as ever. “Come in.”
The contemporary living room had a woman’s touch and lacked any of Franky’s creations. I wondered if that would change with time or if he’d continue to live in a shrine to Selene, much like he’d admitted to doing when Annabeth died.
Franky stopped at the open french doors overlooking the side garden, which offered an immaculate view of the setting sun. I took advantage of having his back to me, noting how every posterior muscle that had once expanded outward, now appeared concave. He was grieving, and I needed to check some of my righteousness at the door before proceeding.
“It’s good to see you,” he said hesitantly, so unlike himself. “Hard but good.” He turned to me, and those rich, obsidian eyes that had been unreadable on his doorstep now screamed at me, sending me back a step.
They brushed over me as if they were hungry for the sight of me. They begged for me to understandeverything, and although bone dry, they cried out for something I couldn’t give. For something I knew to my marrow he wouldn’t have accepted anyway. He was alone, and if he’d given in to his nature of making a home for his guilt, that meant he wanted it that way.
