Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 154525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 773(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 773(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
“If I’m not back before they throw the caps—”
“I’ll let her know where you are,” Nico assured.
Salvatore nodded. “All right. I heard you and Frankie have plans later?”
“I thought she should celebrate in a way that makes her happy. You know, before she has to do it the way everyone else wants to.”
“Well, you know the rules in the meantime.”
“Yeah, about that.” Nico peered down at the graduates, seeking Frankie out while he said, “I packed my shit up at the guesthouse this morning. I have a place in Vauxhall. Big Mike’s signing over the deed next week. I won’t be coming back at three like usual. I just thought you should know. You did give me the okay to look for a place. One just happened to find me first.”
Salvatore chuckled. “And I suppose that’ll make it far easier for you to spend your entire nights in bed with my daughter now, instead of just the wee hours, won’t it?”
Nico turned back on the man, meeting his gaze blatantly and unashamed. “I’m sure you’ll be the first to know if, or when, she doesn’t want me to be in her bed, too.”
•••
Frankie played with the red tassel on the graduation cap, observing the passing streets in silence as Nico navigated the Mercedes from behind the wheel.
“Do you think she’s gonna keep the baby?” she asked suddenly.
He knew exactly who she meant.
“I think it’s not our business, babe.”
She rubbed her lips together, shaking her head subtly but he didn’t miss the annoyance in the action either. Especially with how she kept staring out the window instead of at him, even when he reached over to grab her hand and weave their fingers together.
“Hey,” he murmured.
“My father said the same thing. It’s her choice. Her body, whatever.”
“You can just say you want her to have the baby,” Nico said, squeezing her fingers with his own. “You can voice that to me. It’s just me here. Say it, if that’s what you think and feel.”
“I don’t know what I feel or think.”
He seriously doubted that. “Frankie—”
“Shouldn’t I be jealous or something?” she interrupted, looking his way then.
He laughed. “Jealous, really? Over a fetus?”
“I’m being serious. I mean, I’ve been an only child my whole life. I’m eighteen, so what am I even going to do with a sibling that’s basically two decades younger than me, right? I don’t get why it matters to me at all.”
“You know what you’ll get to be?”
“What?”
He smiled. “The best fucking big sister a kid could have. The coolest sister ever. Imagine showing up to a soccer game with you. Or getting dropped off to school in the cars you drive. And you get to give them something you didn’t have. Another person who gets it. You understand what it’s like to live in that house with those people, even if those people are doing better than they used to.”
Not that her father and Carina were, but...it wasn’t the point.
“You get to be their person,” he added. “Maybe you had a person in a way. Your dad. Sissy. I’m telling you, it’s not the same. You can’t understand right now because the baby is not really here, and kinda, sorta there. When it’s real, you’ll start to get it, Frankie. I’m telling you.”
“Is that how you feel about your little sister?”
“You had to go right for the gut punch, huh?”
She just shrugged.
Nico kept his attention on the road, needing the distraction to talk about Carmen, given his feelings about her safety and place in the world had been shifted recently. “It’s not the same with me and her. Well, it is...but it also isn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because up until recently, it really felt like that little girl was the only person in my whole world who gave a shit about me. Who loved me regardless of the rest. Like she would care if I fell off the face of the planet.”
“Recently, huh?” Frankie whispered.
His gaze darted her way.
She stared back, teeth pulling at her bottom lip.
“Stop it,” he said, grinning, “you look at me like that, and it makes me want to—”
“What? Love me?”
Love her. Fuck her. Keep her.
All three, on repeat, each second of every day, for the rest of his life. He didn’t know how to how to cope with such intense emotions when they warred for attention, time, and space in his mind and body every time he had this girl within arms reach.
She couldn’t possibly know what she did to him. She couldn’t feel the same way he did. She was so much better and beautiful and everything that he just wasn’t. She didn’t even have to try.
Frankie couldn’t possibly—
“You’re hurting my hand,” she told him.
Instantly, Nico loosened the grip he hadn’t realized was too tight. “Sorry.”
“Where’d you go just then? Your eyes stayed straight ahead, but your face...”