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"Knock, knock, can we come in?"
"Yes. Quietly though. He's had a rough morning, being born and all, and he's dozing." Sofia smiled at Frankie, and something shifted in her chest. A new love for this baby, a deeper love for her amazing sister, a fuller love for all of the people in this room who had gathered to welcome their newest member… Her heart filled up her chest as it found new ways to expand.
Frankie looked at the tiny swollen face, red and shiny, and thought he was the most beautiful baby she'd ever seen. "So much hair!" She gently touched the dark black shock of hair peeking out from under the knit cap that refused to stay on his big head. "Hello there, little man. I'm your Aunt Frankie. I'm going to teach you all the best jokes and be your favorite partner in crime. So when you want to get messy, or go a little nuts, or play chase with Buster, come on over. My door will always be open for you." Frankie stopped talking and looked up at her sister, surprised to see tears streaming down Sofia's cheeks. "What? What's wrong?"
"Nothing. Everything is perfectly right."
"Does little man here have a name?"
"He does." Sofia cleared the tears from her throat and addressed the whole room. "His name is Gabriel Luis Valenti Villanueva."
Both grandmothers burst into tears at hearing their beloved's names honored with new life. He would carry the legacy of his maternal uncle and his paternal grandfather into the next generation. This little boy had big shoes to fill. Frankie would make sure he knew he only had to fill them in the way that felt right to him.
"You named him for your papá?" Graciela reached a hand to her son.
Adrian squeezed it and nodded. "And Sofia's brother. They were both men we'd be proud for our son to take after," he said.
Jo gasped out a sob and proceeded to drench Dom's shirt with happy tears. Her tears sparked everyone else's, and by the time the nurse showed up to shoo them all out there wasn't a dry eye in the house.
It was a good day. For the first time in years, Frankie felt like their family circle was complete. She looked at all the beaming faces on the way out, leaving Fi and Adrian to settle into this new adventure of parenthood, and noticed one missing. Jake had left without her noticing. Where had he gone?
CHAPTER12
It had been three weeks,two days, and maybe an hour sinceThe Kiss. Italicized because it still made her cheeks flush hot. Capitalized because she couldn’t stop thinking about it. Singular. Because it hadn’t happened again. Frankie sighed.
What had gone wrong? After how sweet Jake had been at the hospital, she'd gone in to work the next day expecting that same camaraderie. Instead, she'd gotten perfunctory requests and terse replies. They weren't even bickering anymore. This deep freeze didn't make sense. Icicles dripped from his lips as he relayed the bare facts of the day’s schedule. She hated it.
She wanted to rage at him, melt his icy control, and release the heat she knew he had inside. Just the memory of that kiss turned her bloodstream molten gold. She wanted that sparkling rich burn again.
But she couldn’t. She was being “professional” about it and coolly ignoring her pants feelings at work. At home, she wasn't sleeping well, tormented by dreams of kissing him (and more) under the mistletoe. It was completely out of place in late April, but so vivid that she woke up hot and bothered. In another obnoxious twist, her ability to self-pleasure had hit a dry spell. All of that pent-up energy was making her itchy. Adulting sucked.
Not like she didn’t have enough to worry about with the build going off the rails. It seemed like every time she made a little progress, something new and disastrous would happen. There must have been something in the air at the hospital, because less than a week after Sofia, Natalie had delivered her twins three weeks early. This meant that all of the new parents were out of commission at once. So Frankie was now running point for Enzo's projects on the build, while Zio Tony pitched in to manage the outside crews. She and Dom were also juggling crews for Adrian's active builds, which were thankfully few just then. Then came all the issues with her own work.
When they’d assessed the barn for structural stability and readiness for Sofia’s stucco dreams, they’d gotten their first bad news. The rustic interior they’d wanted to keep couldn’t support the added weight of the stucco on the existing foundation. But they didn’t have the time or money to pour a new foundation, so the country barn exterior had stayed. She knew Sofia had her heart set on it, and she hated disappointing her sister. But the change meant less work for Frankie, although the days they’d lost in the process still pissed her off.
Sofia would still get her indoor/outdoor entertainment space. It would just be whitewashed pine instead of Tuscan stucco.
Then there’d been the trouble with the landscaping. Enzo's team was excavating and building the gardens and the terraced patio for outdoor ceremonies. Despite having gone through all of the city documents and getting the all clear from PG&E to dig, they still ran into a nasty surprise. No old septic field showed on the plans. But it sure showed up when they'd started digging into it with a backhoe. That had left them with a stinky, muddy swamp for a week while they cleaned up and relocated the septic field. Thankfully, the main house had sewer access so only the outbuildings had been impacted.
Even the simple concrete foundation for the wine cellar a few weeks prior had nearly been a disaster. The truck had gotten delayed which left them with only an hour to unload and pour the entire batch. If the concrete had stayed in much longer it would have set up in the truck, costing her thousands of dollars in removal fines.
Luckily, they’d managed to pull it off by dumping the side-wall concrete into a series of wheelbarrows so if it set too soon, they’d only be out a few barrows.
Mismeasured floor joists, misordered tiles, unreliable subcontractors… Everything that could go wrong had. And all of it was caught on camera.
Frankie was still within her expected time frames and budget overages, but each day was a battle to stay there. She hustled to keep up with everything and pick up any slack, but she was exhausted. Something had to give.
In a fitting turn of events, installing the bar was the project that nearly drove her to drink. She sat down on the floor of what would one day be the public tasting room and leaned against the bottom cabinetry for the back bar. The tiny hammers were pounding in her head. She had pulled all of her strings to get the bar done today but had still come up short.
She’d been counting on Seth and Nick to get the custom bar top here before the union rules capped out the film crew. But a poorly timed flat tire had delayed them. The weight of the bar made putting the truck up on a jack precarious, not to mention the likelihood of blowing the donut. So the crew had left for the day, and her bar remained incomplete, her time slowly slipping away.
Fuck. My. Life.
She was so tired of going full speed on all fronts just to stand still. It would be years before this room would even be put to use. Why did it fucking matter if the bar got installed today or tomorrow?
Because Jake Fucking Ryland, of the lush lips he was keeping to himself, said it mattered. Selfish bastard.
She closed her eyes and dropped her head against the cabinet with a heavy thunk, hoping it would jar the repeating memories of his lips against hers from her mind. His hot and cold routine was getting real old. She wished the bar was already finished so she could pour herself a full glass of wine.
