Chapter 7
Chapter seven
Frankie
Mason.
Mason fucking Fletcher.
I don’t even hear the rest of the conversation around me. Their voices are all a blur, drowned out by the roaring in my ears, apart from Fireboy’s—Mason’s—voice.
I’d know that voice in a blackout. My body knows that voice. Hell, my vibrator knows that voice.
God, who even has orgasms that good from a voice alone?
Me. I do.
Or did.
Now that voice is here, standing in my family’s living room. Attached to a very inconveniently attractive, dark haired firefighter.
With his winter jacket unzipped just enough to show the outline of a T-shirt stretched over his chest. And a mustache just slutty enough to make a nun reconsider her vows.
His eyes land on me as he chats. Not in recognition, more a polite, friendly glance. But then they drift. Linger a little too long on my hair. My red hair.
Oh, fuck. He told me once he has a thing for redheads, and I coyly told him I might be one.
I grip the arm of the loveseat while Lulu and Tamara glance between each other, then me, but they don’t piece it together. They just think I’m being socially inept, which I am, but for profoundly worse reasons.
“Frankie is Tam’s sister,” Lulu says, noticing the beat of silence. “She just got in from Toronto.”
“Nice to meet you, Frankie,” he says.
It’s so much worse hearing him say my government name.
My jaw opens then closes, voice dying in my throat, because what the fuck am I meant to do? Speak and have the most outrageously awkward experience of my life?
Tamara elbows me. “Frankie.”
“She’s not normally mute,” Lulu adds cheerfully. “Unless you bring up Christmas decorations or joy in general.”
“I’m fine,” I whisper in a tone purposefully high pitched. But I’m not. I am so far from fine I might need medical intervention, because fuck me—he’s so hot.
Tall. Broad. Holding a bouquet of fucking flowers and a box of chocolate truffles, like some kind of firefighter wet dream turned Christmas guest.
“Brought these for Leah,” he says, holding out the flowers just as she walks in from the kitchen.
“Oh, Mason, they’re beautiful,” she gushes, taking them. “I’ll put them in water. You didn’t need to do that!”
“Tell that to my mother,” he chuckles, holding out the box. “Some truffles too. Nearly ate them in the car—needed a sugar hit after Hazel almost clawed my face off.”
Hazel.
Hazel.
I die. I’m dead. Here lies Francesca Monroe.
“Who’s Hazel?” Tamara asks.
“My cat,” he replies. “Rescue. Bit of a diva.”
Herb chuckles. “Still feeding her that imported kibble?”
“Yeah, don’t judge me. It’s the only thing she’ll eat.”
He keeps talking, and I silently scream into the void. Every husky syllable drops like a match into a puddle of lighter fluid. I want to run. I want to scream. I want to—
“Let’s eat, team!” Leah calls from the kitchen doorway.
Everyone starts migrating to the dining room, and I slowly tag along behind them as the metaphorical lamb to the slaughter.
Leah’s gone full Pinterest board again. Gold charger plates, flickering candles nestled in garlands of pine and cranberries. She’s even folded the damn napkins into little trees.
I would normally be teasing her, but instead, I’m busy calculating how many sips of wine it’ll take before I can fake a stomach bug and flee.
Tamara nudges me toward the chair directly opposite Mason—because the universe is cruel and my sister is, apparently, an unintentional sadist.
“There you go, Franks. This one’s for you.”
My eyes dart to his, and I hover a second too long.
“You okay?” Lulu murmurs behind me.
I smile and nod quickly, sinking down onto my chair.
Mason sits with his shoulders relaxed, chatting to Herb as if this isn’t the most cursed table arrangement in the history of Christmases.
He’s got one hand wrapped around his glass, the other resting on the table, his thick fingers slightly curled. It’s the exact way I’d imagine they’d curl around my—
No, Francesca. Stop it.
He laughs at something Herb says. Meanwhile, I snatch up the name tag at my place setting, pretending to read it and hoping it’ll provide the exact instructions on how to escape this shit show.
“And what does the graphic designer think of my name tags?” Leah asks, nodding at the card in my hand. “Is our redheaded firecracker about to riot at the font?”
Everyone, including Mason, turns toward me, but it’s Mason who double-takes. His eyes narrow for a heartbeat, as if some of those words Leah just uttered snagged on a memory he didn’t know he’d kept.
My stomach drops through the damn floorboards. I choke on air, grasping for some sort of answer that won’t require me to speak, when Logan—now my own patron saint of Christmas—hums loudly.
“Smells amazing, Leah,” he says, flopping into the seat beside Eli. “What is that, rosemary on the potatoes?”
“Yup.” Leah beams. “And a little holiday magic.”
“Can’t wait to try ‘em.” Logan smiles, then turns to Mason. “So, do you get to drive the firetruck?”
Mason nods. “Yeah, most days.”
“How fast does it go?”
Eli doesn’t even look up from passing the bread rolls. “It’s not a Ferrari, Miller.”
“Still wanna know,” Logan mutters.
“Fast enough to get to your place if you accidentally set your Christmas lights on fire,” Mason replies.
“Oh, I don't do the lights. Lulu does the lights. I do the ladder-holding and the watching.”
Lulu grins. “He’s good at both.”
“Somehow,” Eli says dryly, “those are his only festive skills.”
“I have plenty of festive skills,” Logan says. “I just keep them under wraps. Like my hose.”
Eli sets his fork down and closes his eyes. “God, why.”
Laughter erupts around the table, and even Leah chuckles into her wine. Mason looks vaguely entertained, completely unaware that I am dying—dying—in real time.
I haven’t said a single word. Not one. I’m nodding and smiling like a malfunctioning Sims character while avoiding eye contact with the man who knows the sound I make when I’m touching myself.
“So, Frankie,” Herb says, glancing down the table. “How’s work been anyway?”
My brain short-circuits, and I open my mouth to reply just as Leah leans across me with the green beans. I reach to clear a space, but with a loud clink, our hands collide and my red wine goes flying.
It pours across the table, soaking the edge of the tablecloth, splashing onto the charger plate, and finally, with great gusto, sloshing directly onto Mason’s lap.
“Shit—” Logan jerks back.
“Oh my god!” Leah gasps.
Tamara jumps to her feet, rushing to grab a towel.
I freeze, mortified. Absolutely unqualified to be living this moment. Chaos erupts, and I spring into the world’s worst apology.
“It’s okay,” Mason says calmly, standing to blot his jeans. “No harm done.”
“No harm done?” I blurt, lunging for a napkin. “I just baptized your dick in Pinot Noir!”
Silence. Absolute silence.
“I mean—not your dick. Well, technically your dick. But not—God. Fuck. I didn’t mean to—”
Lulu starts choking and Rory slides under the table. Eli puts his head in his hands.
“I spilled,” I say, still spiraling. “The wine. I didn’t—fuck Mason—I mean no, I absolutely did not mean fuck Mason…
oh God.” I’m out of my chair now, reaching helplessly across the table like I can vacuum this moment out of existence.
“I wasn’t trying! I mean, I was, in the sense I meant to drink it, obviously, because that’s what people do with wine—drink it, not hurl it across the table like some kind of deranged sommelier—”
“Frankie,” Tamara says gently, towel in hand.
“—but it wasn’t like a targeted thing, even though now it looks targeted because it went straight to your—fuck—I swear I wasn’t thinking about your—your lap! Or your legs, or what’s between your—”
The sound of Logan’s wheeze distracts me.
His face is turned to the wall as he cries tears of laughter into his napkin, while Eli is stock-still, gaping at me. Leah fusses with towels, while Herb and the girls re-set the table.
But Mason is perfectly, utterly still.
He hasn’t moved since the wine hit and I started babbling the world’s most unhinged apology into existence. His eyes are locked on mine, as if every single puzzle piece from my weird display since he arrived just clicked into place.
“I’m so sorry. I’m just gonna…” I motion toward the hallway, ready to start a new life in the woods. “Uhh, go freshen up.”
And then I move toward the bathroom faster than a firetruck.