Chapter 12
Liam cleared his throat as Lucy led the way, trotting in front of them proudly, her pink leash swaying behind her, and he tried to shake off the moment they’d just shared.
That was the thing with Frankie. One minute they could be arguing, or laughing, or silent, and with one look, one gesture, one question, it could flip on a dime, and the atmosphere would change, becoming supercharged with words and feelings unspoken.
Within seconds of stepping onto the grass, a tornado of small humans swarmed them, climbing Liam like a jungle gym. Finley was their leader, but Frankie chimed in with encouragement.
“Get Uncle Liam!” his niece chanted over and over as he pretended to fight them off, carefully removing each child by flipping them onto the grass.
“Get him!” Frankie cheered and laughed.
He was just starting to get out of breath when reinforcements arrived.
“Okay, girls, there’s a magic button in the bouncy house!” Phoebe shouted. “The first person who finds it gets a prize.”
The girls all dismounted and raced to the house in the blink of an eye.
He turned to his sister, who was balancing Bristol on her hip while covertly sizing Frankie up. On his periphery he spotted Lina, Teresa, Pippa, and Kerri all heading their way from different directions to converge on the new arrivals.
“Magic button?” he questioned.
She shrugged. “It’ll keep ‘em busy.”
“Thank you.” He straightened his shirt and ran his fingers through his hair.
“No worries.” She turned to Frankie. “Hi, I’m—”
“Phoebe, and this is Bristol.” Frankie scrunched her nose and tickled Bristol’s belly. “I'm Frankie, nice to meet you.”
Phoebe tilted her head to the side. “Poppy’s Frankie?”
Frankie looked up at Liam, clearly not knowing how he wanted her to respond.
“No,” Liam corrected her. “She’s not Poppy’s Frankie.”
“Oh, good,” Phoebe sighed in obvious relief.
Frankie looked as confused by his sister’s reaction as he was.
“Where is Poppy?” Frankie asked as she scanned the party.
“She came down with something and didn’t want to get anyone sick,” Phoebe explained as she shifted Bristol up on her hip.
Before Liam could ask a follow-up question, they were surrounded by four more Davies ladies. He glanced down at Frankie to see if he noted even an ounce of nerves or stress, if he did, they were out of there. He didn’t. If anything, she looked happy.
When he looked up, he saw his dad’s widow and Poppy’s mom,, Teresa and Kerri, through new eyes.
Maybe how she saw them. Teresa and Kerri were both attractive, petite brunettes with blue eyes, which was exactly how someone would have described his own mom.
The three women could have been sisters themselves.
In fact, Teresa and Kerri often got mistaken for sisters. His father definitely had a type.
Paulina and his youngest sister Phoebe’s hair was dark brunette and, in the sun, had red highlights.
They both had almond-shaped blue eyes and square faces, like their father.
Pippa, his middle sister, and Poppy both had brown hair, but it wasn’t as dark as his other sisters, they had large, round green eyes and diamond-shaped faces like their mom’s and his mom.
“Frankie, this is—” Phoebe began to make introductions, but Frankie took over again.
“Pippa, Kerri, Paulina, and Teresa, right?” Frankie smiled brightly as she addressed both his sisters, Teresa and Poppy’s mom.
“You can call me Lina, but yes, that’s correct.” Lina smiled, clearly impressed.
Liam nudged Frankie’s arm. “Now you’re just showing off.”
Frankie’s smile widened as she touched her chest and introduced herself, “Frankie, nice to meet you all.”
Lina’s brows knitted. “Wait, are you Poppy’s Frankie?”
“Nope.” Phoebe raised her hand. “I already asked,”
Liam was lost. Why were his sisters so caught up on this Poppy’s Frankie thing? He knew he was missing something.
Lina’s eyes narrowed. “But you were at JT’s with her on Friday night, right?” She pointed at Liam. “And Poppy asked you to take Frankie home.”
“She did?” Frankie looked up at him, clearly it was the first time she’d heard any of that information.
“She asked me to take care of you, but you know I would have anyway.” Liam turned to his sisters. “Why are all of you asking so many questions about Poppy?”
The three women immediately clammed up and shook their heads back and forth. He’d never seen his sisters behaving so strangely. Teresa and Kerri, who had both been silent up until then, exchanged a knowing look and then greeted Frankie warmly, the way he would have expected his sisters to.
“It’s so nice to meet you.” Kerri gave her a hug.
“Don’t mind us, this group takes some getting used to,” Teresa remarked as she too gave her a hug.
“What is going—” he started to ask.
Phoebe’s phone rang, cutting off Liam’s question. She handed Bristol to her mom and answered the call, “Hello. What? I can’t hear you.” She plugged her other ear and stepped away from the group.
“So Frankie, Poppy said that you are an artist.” Teresa bounced his niece on her hip.
“Oh, um…yeah, well…” Frankie’s eyes darted to him and then back to Teresa almost sheepishly. He didn’t know why, she was an amazing artist. “I was. It’s been a while. If I’m being honest, I haven’t touched a paint brush in years.”
“Oh, that’s—” Teresa began but stopped when Liam spoke at the same time.
“You haven’t?” Liam’s question came out sounding like a defamatory accusation. He hadn’t meant it to. He just couldn’t imagine a world where Frankie Costas didn’t paint.
Frankie’s face flushed, which only happened when she was nervous or embarrassed, two things she rarely was. He immediately wanted to kick his own ass for making her feel either way.
He was thinking of how to apologize without drawing more attention or making the situation worse when Phoebe rejoined the group. “Fucking, motherfucking, fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“Mommy has a potty mouth," Teresa stage-whispered to Bristol before sweetly asking her daughter, “Everything okay, dear?”
“No. That was Fairytale Entertainment. Elsa and the face painter are both no-shows. Apparently, they were dating, and they broke up. So, because they didn’t want to see the other one, neither of them showed up for work.”
“Can they send someone else?” Kerri suggested.
“The only other characters they have are Shrek and Donkey, and—”
“Freddie’s scared of Shrek,” Pippa finished. “It’s fine. I can take him home.”
“No.” Phoebe shook her head. “Finley wanted Elsa and a face painter. If Shrek and Donkey show up with swamp slime, I don’t think it’s going to have the same vibe.”
“Um, I don’t know if this helps, but I worked as a party princess during college.
” Frankie raised her hand, then listed off characters on her fingers.
“Every weekend for four years I was Elsa, Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora (aka Sleeping Beauty), Ariel, or Belle. And I have painted literally thousands of kids’ faces. I don’t have any costumes or supplies—”
“I was Elsa for Halloween, so that’s covered, and just tell me what you need as far as paint supplies, and Duane or one of the guys will get it for you,” Phoebe’s words sprang out of her mouth like the water from a popped hydrant. “I will pay you double, triple, whatever your rate is!”
“I’m not going to charge you.” Frankie shook her head, her expression making it clear even the suggestion was out of the question. “You’re family.”
Hearing Frankie say that—family—did something to Liam. A warmth spread through his chest. He wanted to say it was a good feeling, but it was tight, and constricting, and he wasn’t sure if he could actually take a breath.
“You are a lifesaver!” Phoebe threaded her arm through Frankie’s as Pippa and Lina surrounded them on both sides. Teresa followed behind with Bristol, leaving Liam alone with Kerri.
“She’s great,” Kerri observed as they watched the women walk away.
“She is,” Liam agreed. “What’s going on with Poppy? Phoebe said she came down with something.”
Kerri hesitated, just enough for a trained eye to catch.
Her lips pinched together before she forced a cheerful shrug.
“Yeah, she figured better safe than sorry. Didn’t want to risk being a super-spreader,” she said brightly, a little too brightly.
“I better go check and make sure the inmates aren’t running the asylum.
” She offered him a motherly pat on the hand, then made a beeline to the bouncy house, calling out for Freddie not to pull hair.
Liam watched her go, mind spinning with the ease of someone who’d spent a career reading vital signs and micro-expressions. Something was off with Poppy, and he didn’t think it had anything to do with a virus or CDC guidelines.
The swirl of the birthday party faded to a blur as he pulled out his phone and scrolled to Poppy’s contact.
He dialed, half-expecting to hear her answer or at least ring, but it went straight to voicemail.
He kept his tone casual after the beep, “Hey, call me back when you get this.” He hung up, but the unease lingered, clinging to him like static.
Liam stayed posted in the same spot, thumbing at his phone and watching the deck, waiting for Frankie to emerge.
The balloon arch swayed in the breeze, a kaleidoscope of colors.
The scent of grilling meat hovered over everything, making his stomach rumble even as adrenaline knotted in his gut.
His mind tried to put all the context clues he had together to create a picture of what was going on with Poppy, but he just couldn’t figure it out.
She lied about being at the hospital and ditched a coffee date with Phoebe.
She got hammered on a ‘fun girls’ night,’ which was completely out of character for her.
She skipped her niece’s birthday party, when her family meant everything to her.