He looked down at his watch. “I’m going to be late, but one more thing before I go.” He placed both of his hands around my face. “If you do determine that I’m the one, I’ve decided that I want to go all in. Because there is no halfway with how I feel about you, my love. And I’m not sure I realized it until losing you became a very real threat. I want to marry you. I want to have babies with you. I want to love you for the rest of my life and do nothing but make you happy. You just need to decide which road you want to take. If the journey is with me, I promise, you won’t regret it.”
Tears began to fill my eyes. Victor had never said anything quite like that to me before. “I love you, Vic. I do.”
“I love you, too, Francesca. Take care of yourself this week, okay?”
“Okay.”
Then, he was gone.
My head was pretty much in the clouds as I attempted to teach that morning. I couldn’t stop thinking about Victor. He’d never bared his soul to me like that. It made me truly realize how much I stood to lose if I let my feelings for Mack get in the way of my relationship with the only man who’d ever claimed to love me.
Later in the day, my mood would change and not for the better. I was correcting papers while the students were completing a spelling test.
Lorelai came up behind me and spoke low. “I was talking to Clarissa this morning. She mentioned that Mack was at her house yesterday.”
My stomach churned.
“What?”
“According to her, they spent the whole day together.”
My blood was boiling. Here I was, putting my entire life on the line due to unresolved feelings for him, and he was canoodling with that whore?
I was angry.
I was confused.
I was missing Victor.
“Did she say anything else?”
“She just kept going on and on about him, how hot he is, how sweet he is, what a great dad he is. She has got her sights set on him hard, Francesca. I just thought you should know what she’s been saying.”
“Thank you.”
I feigned calmness that entire afternoon, but as soon as the class was dismissed, the emotions I’d been harboring were about to explode. I had no right to even feel jealous or angry. But that didn’t seem to make a difference.
Taking out my phone, I took a deep breath before texting him.
Francesca: Heard you had a nice time with Clarissa.
The three dots signaling that he was responding appeared almost immediately.
Mack: It was a playdate for Jonah. I wasn’t going to entertain it, but he actually asked me for it. I couldn’t say no. I wasn’t going to just drop him off at a strange house, especially with his freakout tendencies.
Francesca: I don’t think Clarissa saw it as just a playdate. She wants you.
Mack: It doesn’t matter what she wants.
Francesca: Maybe you should go for it.
Mack: Where are you right now?
Francesca: I’m still at school.
Mack: Stay there. I’m coming to pick you up.
Francesca: I have a car.
Mack: Meet me out front in twenty minutes.
My heart was racing as I waited just inside the front door to the school. When I saw Mack’s truck pull up, I looked behind my shoulders to make sure no one was around before heading toward him.
I opened the door and got in, slamming it shut.
Mack looked angry when he said, “Hi.”
“Hi.”
Letting out a deep breath, he put the vehicle in drive and took off. We must have driven in silence for the better part of a half-hour down Route Nine.
He suddenly drove onto a tree-lined, residential street. It seemed like a nice, middle-class neighborhood.
“Where are we going?”
“My house.”
I swallowed, nervous at the prospect of being alone there with him. “Why?”
“We need to talk. I don’t want to do it in front of people.”
Mack pulled into what I assumed was his driveway and waved to an older woman who was outside getting her mail.
“Shit,” he muttered.
“What?”
“That’s Mrs. Migillicutty, my neighbor. I was hoping she wouldn’t see me with you.”
“Why?”
“She knows about you. This might get a little weird, okay?” Before I could respond, he opened his door then came around to let me out.
Mack nodded his head. “Hey, Mrs. M.”
The woman placed her hand over her eyes to block out the sun as she approached, dragging her slippers along the concrete. “You must be Frankie.”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“The red hair.”
“Well, it’s really nice to meet you,” I said.
She winked at Mack.
“I’ll talk to you later, Mrs. M.”
“I fully expect that.” She snickered. “Wonderful meeting you, Frankie Jane.”
Frankie Jane? She knew about that name, too? What the hell?
“What was that all about?”
Mack looked amused. “She’s sort of like my neighbor-slash-bartender-slash-psychologist.”
“She knows everything?”
“Pretty much. Talking to her keeps me sane.”
As weird as it was, I found Mack’s friendship with the old lady quite endearing.
Mack lived in a large, split-level home. Just inside the front door, there was a small set of stairs leading up to his living area and another set of stairs off to the left leading down to the finished basement.
He threw his keys on a small table in the living room. “This is it…the house I bought for Jonah and me. It’s definitely a lot of space for just the two of us, but I wanted to give him a real home.”
It reminded me of the types of houses my friends’ families had growing up. While my mother and I always lived in apartments just outside of Boston, many of my friends lived in houses on quiet streets with big backyards.
I walked around quietly, running my fingertips along the surprisingly homey furniture. Mack was always two steps behind me as he followed my path.
“Did you decorate this yourself?”
I could practically feel his voice vibrating against the skin of my back. “It was already furnished. The couple who sold me the house had just gotten a divorce. They went their separate ways and left everything here. They had a couple of kids. So, I’m basically living in the memory of someone else’s shattered life. It’s pretty ironic,” he joked.
“That’s kind of sad,” I said, making my way to the large, bay window that was just behind the couch. As I gazed out of it, Mack stood behind me. The closeness of his body gave me goosebumps. He wasn’t touching me, but I could still feel him as if he were.
The sound of his low voice gave me the shivers. “Did he leave this morning?”
“Yes. How did you remember?”
“I’ve had it marked on my calendar ever since we went to Castle Island.”
I turned around to find his stare was burning into me. He leaned in, causing my heart to start beating rapidly. “What was up with that text from you, huh?
“What about it?”
“Do you really think I came to Boston to hurt you all over again?”
“I don’t have a right to tell you who to fuck. I’m with someone.”
“Do you have any clue what hearing you even say the word fuck does to me?” He moved in closer, causing my nipples to stand at attention. “I would never do anything to hurt you. Do you understand? I have no interest in that woman. Would she have let me fuck her in the pantry while the boys were playing? Yes. You don’t think I know that? But do you really think I’m here to fucking hook up with the mothers at the school? Is that the kind of person you think I am? Because if it is, then I have a much bigger fight on my hands than I originally thought.”
Closing my eyes to fend off my body’s reaction to him, I whispered, “What do you want, Mack?”
“I wa
nt this week,” he said without hesitation.
“This week…”
“I want you to give me this week. Every day after school, I pick you up. We spend time together, talk, work through what happened with us, maybe have a little fun in the process. We use this opportunity to get to know each other again. No expectations, except getting a little bit of the time we lost back. It’s all I’ll ever ask of you. Just give me this week.”
Mack stopped speaking, but his eyes were still pleading with me.
My boyfriend’s words from this morning rang through my head. Victor was giving me a one-time opportunity to figure things out, and Mack was offering me essentially the same. I needed to do this.
“Okay, Mack.”
His eyes widened. “Yes?”
“Yes.”
He let out a relieved breath that I felt against my lips. I couldn’t deny that I wanted to taste him probably more than I craved anything. I’d never gotten a chance to do that. We came close to kissing once from what I could remember—the last evening we were together. We’d gotten drunk that night, so my memory of it was hazy.
Mack’s voice interrupted my chain of thought. “There were days, Frankie, when I might have temporarily forgotten about some of the many conversations we’ve had. I might have even had trouble remembering exactly what you looked like at times. But not for one second, have I ever forgotten how you made me feel—that connection that we had. It’s a feeling I have never been able to replicate. I miss it. I miss you. So fucking much.”
Shutting my eyes again, I let those words sink in. “Where do we start?”
“We get the hard part over with. We start by talking about what happened the last night we were together. And what happened after.”
PAST
The last few days of the end of the semester came way too quickly.
It was Friday, and my flight back to D.C. for the summer was scheduled for Saturday afternoon. Frankie and I had decided to blow off work, since it would be my last full day in Boston before we wouldn’t see each other until fall. Even though we weren’t talking about our impending separation, there was a certain melancholy in the air. We were both being fairly quiet during breakfast.
Moses had already left earlier in the morning to head back to Ohio for the summer. Tonight would be the first night that he’d ever left Frankie and me completely alone. I felt anxious, like we really needed to get the fuck out of the apartment before I said or did something stupid.
“I think we should go out and enjoy the city, stay out until late. Fuck everything we’re supposed to be doing. It’s my last day, and my flight isn’t until mid-afternoon tomorrow.”
“What did you want to do?”
“We could go down to Newbury Street, get something to eat, look around. Maybe we could hit one of the clubs on Lansdowne later.”
“You’re usually more of a homebody. I’m surprised you want to go clubbing.”
“I used to go out all the freaking time until I started hanging out with my homebody roommate.”
She threw her napkin at me. “Don’t blame me for your lameness.”
“Remember when you first moved in? I don’t think I’d ever eaten a meal at the apartment until you started cooking for me.”
“Is my cooking that good?”
“It’s good, but I stick around for the company.”
Frankie blushed like she often did whenever I complimented her. “Well, the economy will love you again someday when I’m not around anymore.”
Things suddenly got quiet. When I’m not around anymore. Frankie’s assumption was valid. I’d never given her any indication that I would leave Torrie. But a lot had changed recently, and honestly, I could no longer envision a scenario where Frankie ever disappeared altogether from my life. I couldn’t stomach the thought of her dating other guys anymore, either. I’d lucked out that after Emmett disappeared, there hadn’t been anyone else. If I could barely hide my jealousy then, it would have been impossible now.
I banged my mug down on the table. “Come on…it’s my last day. I don’t want to waste it at home. I feel like doing something crazy.”
Her face perked up. “You know what I’ve wanted to do for a very long time?”
“What?”
“I want to get a tattoo.”
I laughed. “You want a tat? Where?”
“Well, it would be small and something I could easily hide. I was thinking either my ankle or my lower back.”
Fuck. Her lower back. The thought of that was so sexy to me that I could feel myself getting hard just thinking about it. She looked so innocent, but Frankie definitely had a wild side.
“Your lower back?”
“Yeah. Why?”
Biting my bottom lip, I grinned. “You’re gonna get a tramp stamp, Frankie Jane?”
“You think it’s slutty to get one there?”
“I think it’s hot, actually. I think something subtle would look nice against your skin.”
“Maybe I’ll get one while we’re out. I’m feeling oddly impulsive today.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“Maybe because you’re leaving,” she said. “It’s putting me in a weird mood.”
“Me, too. I’ve been in a funk all week.”
She looked hesitant to say something else.
“What, Frankie?”
“It’s gonna be really weird not having you here.”
“I know.”
“It’s so strange when I think back to when I first moved in. I used to prefer living alone. Now, I’m not sure how I’m going to go back to that.”
“It’s only a couple of months. It’ll fly by,” I said, even though I was probably even more freaked out about my leaving than she was.
“A lot can happen in a couple of months,” she said.
She was right. An unwelcome thought entered my mind. What if Frankie met someone this summer? She didn’t want to be alone; she’d likely seek out company so she didn’t have to be. What if I came back and had to see her with some guy? What if nothing was ever the same again? A summer was only two months, but two months could change the course of an entire lifetime. What if today was the last day that things would be like this between us? My pulse was starting to race.
We ended up heading down to Newbury Street that afternoon and planting ourselves at an outdoor bar. The sun was hitting Frankie’s hair just right, making it look more like the color of fire than normal. I didn’t know what it was about that moment, but something told me I would remember it forever, just sitting here watching the sunlight hit her hair.
Frankie was working through her burger and fries, seemingly unaware that I was staring at her. I was feeling happy to be out with her, but sad at the same time, because I still couldn’t stop thinking about having to leave her for the summer. The fact that she’d be totally alone worried me, especially knowing she’d be doing laundry by herself down in that dingy basement.
Oblivious to the thoughts circulating around in my head, she looked at me. “I’m tipsy. Maybe now would be a good time for me to go get that tattoo before I change my mind.”
I scratched my chin. “Are you sure you want to do it?”
“Yes.”
Nudging my head toward the street, I said, “Let’s go, then.”
A few blocks down, we came across a place that doubled as a tattoo shop and bar. It was aptly named, DrINK. Frankie had to put her name on a waitlist, which was just as well, since she still had no freaking clue what she was getting.
I went and got us a couple of drinks while she looked through a catalog of designs. When I returned with two Long Island Iced Teas, she still seemed unsure of which tattoo to choose.
She handed me the book. “You pick one for me. Surprise me.”
“Are you serious? You trust me enough to let me do that? What if I pick something you hate, and you’re stuck with it for the rest of your life?”
“You won’t.”
“What if I decide that you shoul
d have a big hairy ass on your back? How can you be so sure I wouldn’t do that?”
She sipped her drink and smiled from behind the straw. “Because in all of the time I’ve known you, you’ve never said or done anything intentionally hurtful to me. I don’t think you would randomly start tonight. You come across as a tough guy at first, but, in reality, you’re very considerate and protective. You care about my happiness. And I think you know branding me with a hairy ass would not make me happy.”
“You’re no fun,” I teased.
“Pick something I can be proud of, Morrison.”
I came across a section on meaningful tattoos; one of the tats resonated with me. I decided that was the one because its supposed significance reminded me of her. And I was pretty sure she was going to love it. Not only because it couldn’t have been further from a hairy ass but because it was really beautiful.
Like she was.
There was no denying how I felt anymore.
A heavily inked dude dressed in all black led us into a back room that smelled of incense. Frankie maintained that she wanted to be surprised, so I discreetly showed the tattoo artist the design I had selected from the book. She looked at me curiously and smiled.
My breath caught for a moment when she began to undo her jeans in order to lower them slightly off her hips. I felt my dick stiffen. One look at her creamy skin and the slope of her back that lead down to her taut little ass was all it took.
Lying flat on her stomach, Frankie cringed as the needle began to dig into her. Her skin was like porcelain. I couldn’t even recall ever seeing her lower back bare before. If her pants had been a half-inch lower, her ass would have been showing. It was really easy to imagine what it looked like naked.
The tattoo artist rested the hand he wasn’t using on her hip. I was getting palpitations. Flexing my fingers, I squelched the urge to knock his hand off of her body. What the fuck was wrong with me? I was getting jealous that he was touching her; he was only doing his job. My reaction to this was really telling.
Well over an hour later, he finally finished. “All set. Wanna take a look?”