Chapter 139

Anxiety wells in me because – I mean, he can’t be saying what I think he’s saying, right? No – I’m just thinking that because I’m impossibly vain and selfish.

When really – there is another part of Frankie’s history that I’m willfully ignoring – one that apparently went much deeper than just a simple kiss in a storage closet.

“Yeah,” I say, mastering myself and raising my eyes to look into Frankie’s face. “What did happen with Lucy, Frank?”

Frank stares at me for a second and then blinks rapidly, surprise clear on his face. My blush deepens, but I force myself to ignore it as Frank collects himself. As he exhales a long breath and looks away from me for a second. “Lucy,” he murmurs, a sad little smirk coming to his face. “Yeah, Lucy.”

I go still and quiet, letting him pull his thoughts back together. When he turns back to me, though, I can tell that he has several layers of shields up now – that he’s not nearly as open to me as he was a few moments ago.

“What do you want to know?” he asks, lifting the glass of whiskey by his side to his lips and taking a casual sip.

I shrug, not sure anymore. “Just…I don’t know, Frankie, everyone in the room seems to know the details except for me. It’s clear by this point that you and Lucy had…something going on between you, and more than just a fling. So? What was it?”

He laughs a little, dropping his eyes to his glass. “More than just a fling,” he murmurs, shaking his head. “I’m not so sure.”

“What does that mean?” I press, leaning forward, wanting to see his face.

“Well, for me it was more,” Frankie says, breathing in sharply through his nose and squaring his shoulders a bit. “I fell hard for Lucy. We met at one of these…bizarre youth-of-the-mafia things that these mafia moms put together – wanting their daughters to meet the powerful sons of other families.”

Frankie rolls his eyes, letting me know that it’s precisely as ridiculous as it sounds. I grin, wanting him to continue, and he does.

“I was already Christian’s bodyguard at that point,” he says. “It wasn’t…that long ago, if I think about it, even though it feels like ages. And Lucy was in…” he frowns, picking the right words, “a rebellious moment in her life. I found her in a back alley, smoking a cigarette. She was in this sort of…goth phase,” he says, a fond, nostalgic smirk forming on his lips, “where she was in all black, and had this dark eyeliner, and these blunt bangs low over her forehead.”

Frankie traces his own hand over his forehead sharply, letting me see where they hung.

I smile, enjoying the story. “And you were a gonner?”

“Oh, god, at first sight,” Frank says, laughing a little and meeting my eyes. “I tried to play it cool and failed miserably – she knew from the moment that I leaned against the wall next to her that I would have followed her to the ends of the earth and jumped right off the edge if she told me to.”

I laugh with Frankie at this, but my heart breaks too – because for him to have given his allegiance away like that, the moment he saw her?

God, Frankie – he’s even more tenderhearted than I thought.

And considering how this ends…

“And did she like you back?” I ask quietly.

“She did,” he replies, shrugging a little. “But…she made me work for it. In the end it was all worth it. We dated for a couple of months and I was…so fucking in love, Iris. She was pretty, and funny, and irreverent. All the stereotypes were true – I’d have killed for her, died for her. Carried her children…”

I laugh, a little swept away by the idea of romantic Frankie.

His face falls, though, and I go quiet. Because I know what’s coming next, and I know it’s not easy for him to tell it.

“She got in trouble though,” he says, looking down at his glass again, his voice softer. “With her parents when they found out she was dating…the help. And not the Romano boy they wanted her to date.”

I sit up a little, my spine stiffening as my heart leaps right to Frankie’s defense. Lucy – she gave all of that up? Because her parents were mad?

“How did she meet Tony?” I ask quietly.

“Her parents set it up,” he replies, lifting his eyes to meet mine. “And – I mean, it was the right move by her parents. Gave them the connections they wanted, ensured their daughter would have the life and privileges they wanted for her, and hooked her up with the least-violent of the Romano brothers.”

“But what about her?” I ask, frowning, not caring about the politics of it.

“She was…” he sighs, biting his lip a bit. “Swept away by him, I think – on their first date he took her to an Adele concert – front row tickets. On their second date he took her to Rome.”

My eyebrows shoot up because…well, because that does sound amazing.

“I couldn’t compete,” Frankie says, shrugging.

“That’s such bullshit,” I say quietly, shaking my head, not really liking Lucy as much as I did before. I just…can’t believe she’d give up something so good for a little bit of flash.

But Frankie surprises me by immediately coming to her defense. “It’s not bullshit,” he says, his voice snapping a bit in a way that makes me lift my head, look at him evenly. “Iris, what I offer – it’s not really a life. Christian’s bodyguard, sworn to throw myself in front of every bullet that comes his way? And I don’t have…money…”

“They pay you!” I protest, casting a hand out in front of me. I mean, I don’t know how much, but it can’t be completely ungenerous.

Frankie just laughs. “Not the kind of money necessary to give a girl like Lucy the life she wants,” he says with a sigh, looking away to the action on the screen to my right.

I sigh too and study his handsome profile, the sadness in the shape of his eye, his mouth. My heart breaks for him, to have lost the love of his life in that way.

“Maybe you can get her back,” I say softly, musing.

Frankie laughs and looks at me with surprise.

“Come on,” I say, letting my eyes go half-lidded with derision. “Tickets to Rome aside, Tony is…not very impressive.”

Frankie bursts out laughing. “Handsome, tall –“

“You’re tall!”

“Rich!” he interrupts, leaning forward to grin at me. “Connected! Not…unkind. Come on, Iris, you’re being too generous because we’re friends. Tony has everything I have and then some.”

“He doesn’t have your good heart,” I say quietly, and despite myself I reach forward and cup his cheek in my palm. Frankie goes still for a moment and then leans into it, letting his eyes drift shut.

We stay like that in silence, connected, through a series of long, peaceful breaths.

But then Frankie opens his eyes and lifts his head, looking at me evenly. I drop my hand to the sofa, studying him. “Even if she did want me back,” he says softly, shaking his head. “I wouldn’t take her.”

“What?” I ask, a little gasp in my voice. “Why not? She was the love of your life –“

“Was,” Frankie says, heavily emphasizing the word. “And…she showed her cards, Iris. She made her choice. She had me on the table, and she had Tony, and she picked Tony. I can…never be someone’s second-place choice. Even if I am just a sad, scrappy little racoon of a human,” he smirks here, trying hard for a joke, even though I see the grief in his eyes, “I can’t be someone’s second-place choice. I just…can’t do it.”

He stares at me evenly as he says it and a well of guilt and shame opens within me.

Because even though Frankie and I were nowhere near as close as he and Lucy…I was presented with almost precisely the same dilemma.

And I made the same choice that Lucy did.

I stare at him, my heart breaking a little.

“No, Bambi,” Frankie murmurs, reaching out and stroking a hand over my hair, just once. “It’s not like that. It’s not at all the same.”