Chapter 35
Chapter
Thirty-Five
FRANKIE
W hat do you want to do?
“That’s kind of the ten-thousand-dollar question, isn’t it?” I followed him back to the living room and sat on the arm of the chair. Tiddles immediately jumped up to get attention. He even gave Coop a look and a very irritated meow .
“Sorry, Your Highness,” Coop responded. “I haven’t paid the tithe yet.” He added a long, slow stroke to the cat which had Tiddles purring on my lap and then turning in circles to keep rubbing against Coop’s hand and mine.
“Demanding little thing,” I murmured, but I also appreciated the company.
“I’d think you’d like to have at least one guy in your life who can ask for exactly what he wants.” The dry comment had me meeting Coop’s gaze as he looked down at me.
“From what you’ve all said, it’s not that you haven’t been asking, I’ve just not been hearing.” That was a sore point. I didn’t want to be the problem.
“I think it was a little from column A, a little from column B, and probably a whole lot from column C.”
“C?” I tilted my head. “What was in column C?”
“We’ll wait and see,” he said, continuing to pay homage to the little purr engine that could, that was Tiddles.
“I always thought it would be you and me. That you just needed the time. So maybe not freshman year, then not sophomore, then you know—junior was out. So maybe not high school at all. But there was always college, and after college.”
I frowned.
“Frankie, you and me? We’re cradle to grave, you have to know that.
Hell, even if we end up going to different colleges, I am so going to show up regularly, call you, and see you on breaks.
” He made a face. “Not that I’m planning different schools.
Who is going to be your best friend if I’m not there? ”
The thought alone was enough to make my heart sink. “Who would be yours if I wasn’t?”
“See.” He grinned then scooped Tiddles off my lap to give him another loving pat before he set him on the sofa. Then Coop caught my hand and tugged me up from the chair. “You and me. We’re forever.”
“It sounds really good.” Really, really good.
“But?”
At his prompt, I shrugged. “Do you know how small the percentage of high school friendships that last into adulthood really are?”
“Nope,” he said with a wink, even as he threaded his fingers through mine. “Don’t care about statistics either. We’re not just not a number, Frankie.”
“I want you to be right.” I could admit that, then pressed my forehead against Coop’s shoulder.
“It’s going to be alright,” Coop said, shifting so he could slide his arms around me. When he wrapped me up in that hug, I gripped him back. “I mean it,” he promised me against my hair. “When have I ever led you astray?”
“Third grade,” I said against his shirt. “You said if we caught the ice cream truck just as he left the apartment complex, we’d get a buy one get one free.” I’d gone up to wait near the sign that sat next to the turn-in while Coop “tracked” the truck inside.
“You got free ice cream,” he reminded me.
“Cause you paid him,” I muttered.
“Lies,” Coop said lightly. “That all you got?”
A half-snort of laughter escaped me. “Sixth grade. Lia Baker.”
“Who?” Genuine confusion filled his voice and he pulled back to squint at me.
“Lia Baker,” I repeated. “Reddish-brown hair, always in braids, had a huge crush on you.”
“Nope,” he said, his mystified expression firmly in place as he shook his head. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Really?” I met him stare for stare, not backing down. “You don’t remember telling her that she couldn’t crush on you because I had rules and the only person I allowed to crush on you was me?”
“Frankie, does that sound like me?” A light gleamed in his eyes. “If you had a crush on me in sixth grade, and I?—”
I pinched him and he laughed.
“Hey, party foul!”
“You’re an ass.”
“But you’re smiling. So, I did something right.”
I opened my mouth to respond but then he kissed me.
It wasn’t hesitant. It wasn’t careful. It was like he’d been waiting to do it for years and now that the door had cracked open, he wasn't wasting a second. His hands slid up my back and into my hair, anchoring me as his lips found mine—warm, sure, and just a little breathless.
For a heartbeat, I froze. Then I kissed him back.
Everything else—the apartment, the years of friendship, the ridiculous stories we kept locked away like treasure—fell quiet.
His mouth moved with a kind of familiarity that startled me, like he already knew how I kissed, like part of him had always known.
It was soft, then firmer, a question and an answer all at once.
I gripped the front of his shirt and let myself lean into him, into this, into everything that had always been just under the surface.
When we finally broke apart, I didn’t move far—just enough to stare up at him.
“That was…” I whispered.
“About damn time,” he murmured back, voice low and rough with something new. Something real.
And this time, I didn’t argue.
When he swooped back down to kiss me again, I knew I should stop us but…
I didn’t want to.
There were a hundred reasons why this was a bad idea—reasons I tried to grasp onto but every single one popped like a soap bubble as soon as I landed on it.
We were best friends. He knew all my worst moments.
We’d seen each other at our absolute lowest. This was the kind of line that once crossed didn’t have a return path.
But none of that mattered when his lips found mine again.
This kiss was different. Slower. Like he was savoring it, like we had time to unfold everything we’d never said.
His hand slipped to the side of my face, his thumb brushing just under my cheekbone, grounding me as my heart went chaotic in my chest. I felt like I was falling, but not in a panicked way—more like gravity had finally given up the fight and let me drift into the space I’d been orbiting for years.
My fingers curled into the back of his neck, and I leaned into him, into the weight of him, the warmth, the history.
He knew how I took my coffee. He’d sat with me through fights with my mom, bad haircuts, and the death of my first cat.
And now he was kissing me like he’d been waiting for me to catch up.
When we finally pulled apart again, it was slower this time, like neither of us really wanted to let go.
He looked at me—really looked—and his voice was quiet but steady. “You okay?”
I nodded, breath still shaky. “Yeah. Just… recalibrating.”
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Good. ’Cause I’m not planning on pretending that didn’t happen.”
“I don’t think I could if I tried.”
He brushed a strand of hair behind my ear, his hand lingering. “Then don’t.”
And for the first time in a long time, the knot in my chest loosened.
“We still have to go to Archie’s,” I reminded him.
“Yeah, we still need to ‘talk’?” He canted his head. “I mean, unless you’ve changed your mind on that.”
Had I?
Running my tongue over my lower lip, I shook my head. “No, I haven’t.” As clarifying as that kiss had been, it also added a whole new layer of confusion. “Coop?—”
“I’m right here, beautiful,” he said, tugging me forward for another hug. Eyes closing, I firmed my grip.
“We’re going to be late.”
“Trust me,” he said, amusement trickling into his voice. “They’ll wait.”
Both of our phones buzzed at the same time. The simultaneous vibrations had me biting my lip even as a snort of laughter escaped me. “Not patiently,” I pointed out and Coop let out an aggrieved sigh.
“Have I ever mentioned how much simpler my life was when it was just you and me?”
Leaning back, I met the teasing light in his eyes. “No, but then—you’d miss the guys if they weren’t around.”
He held his thumb and forefinger together until there was barely any space between them. “Maybe this much.”
“Coop?”
Our phones buzzed again and he rolled his eyes. With a groan, he kept one arm around me as he leaned away and dragged out his phone.
“Bets?” he said, pressing the phone against his chest.
“Archie.” Not a doubt existed in my mind. “You?”
He tilted his head from side to side as if debating it even as I hooked my fingers around the phone in my pocket. “I’m going with Jake.”
I frowned. “Because of the fight?”
“Because he was an ass and he’s struggling with how to make it up to you.” The directness there was not a surprise. “I told him he needed to grovel more.”
“What are we betting on?” The Jake thing still stung and I wasn’t even one hundred percent sure how I felt about it.
“I’m easy,” he murmured. “If I win, I want more kisses.”
“So, if I win, you don’t get more kisses?”
“Not really a win,” he said slowly. “I think you win, you get more kisses.”
“Oh—so we’re not kissing each oth?—”
He pinched me this time but it just made me laugh. “You win, I kiss you.” Firm, almost authoritative . “I win, you kiss me.”
“Deal,” I said, and we shook on it. Then because I couldn’t help it, I added, “You didn’t say when the kissing would occur, so I hope you take markers.”
He let out a little growl that he only made when I really got him and delight unfurled in me.
“It’s a good thing I like you,” he muttered. It was. It really was. “At the same time?”
“One, two,” I said, counting it down. “Three.” We turned our phones at the same time and the name that popped up on mine and the name that popped up on his was “Bubba.”
“Huh.” Coop made a face. “Neither of us wins.”
Then our phones buzzed again and it was Archie this time.
“Ha! Spoke to soon.”
He dipped his head as if to kiss me and as tempting as that was, I pressed two fingers to his lips.
“We need to go.” My heart did a fast little fist bump with my ribs when he pressed a kiss to my fingers. “Raincheck?”
“Definitely.”
Retreating a step, I tried to get my breathing under control then opened the messages so I could let them know we were leaving now. Coop darted out to grab his shoes and said he’d meet me at the car. Though he did steal another fast kiss before he left.
Archie messaged again before I even made it to the back door.
Archie : You okay?
That was a loaded question, but I went with the only answer I had at the moment.
Me: Working on it.
Archie : Get over here so I can help.
That made me smile.
Me: On the way.