Chapter 20 #2
“Tell me what?” Frankie’s mom asked as she walked out in a form-fitting, strapless trumpet gown with lace overlay.
“Nothing, it was just a text from Zee.” Frankie quickly pulled up Zion’s last text and flashed it at her mom. “He said to have fun shopping and to send him pics.”
“Oh, good! I’d love to know what he thinks. He has such great fashion sense!”
“Well, he’s in India, so I don’t know if we’ll get real-time feedback, but he did say to tell you, ‘You could wear a plastic bag and look beautiful.’”
Her mom smiled shyly as she stepped up onto the platform, and she and Brandi started discussing fit and possibly adding straps.
Frankie took two photos and attached them to the message as Yaya leaned over to her and whispered, “You need extinguisher for pants.”
Now she was quiet?
“What?” Frankie asked.
“For pants, they are on fire because you are liar, liar.” She sipped her mimosa, clearly proud of herself for her creative dig.
Zee would think that was hilarious, he was endlessly amused by Yaya. Frankie included the exchange with the photos of her mom in the dress and pressed send.
After it went through, she opened Liam’s text once more, just to scroll their exchanges. It wasn’t anything romantic or sexy. But just being in constant contact with him made her feel…special, good, happy.
Just a few more days. She just had to get through a few more days of this, whatever this was. Despite Yaya wanting to blow the whole thing up, she knew she was doing the right thing. Or at least, she really thought she was because this week wasn’t about her.
“Frankie?”
She lifted her head and saw her mom now wearing a veil. She never looked more beautiful.
“What do you think?” Her mom looked so wide-eyed and vulnerable. “Too much?”
“No. It’s perfect.” Frankie saw her mom starting to well up and she knew she was doing the right thing.
Just three more days. That’s all she had to get through. What could possibly happen in three days?
Liam could barely keep his eyes open as he drove through the winding mountain roads on his way to the tux fitting.
He was running on fumes. In the past seventy-two hours, he’d gotten a grand total of ten hours of sleep.
The last thing he wanted to do was try on penguin suits with his dad and brother.
He’d been so tempted to blow it off, especially after the stunt his dad pulled yesterday showing up at the hospital, but Cora sent him a text that morning asking, as a personal favor to her, if he’d go.
That was the only reason he’d left work to come and do it.
He had to go back as soon as he finished.
Because of his work schedule, he still hadn’t seen Frankie since the invasion, which is what he was referring to it as.
When he got home the night before, everyone was already in bed.
He’d walked by the room that she and Tristan were staying in, but the light was off.
He’d wanted to text her, ask her to come downstairs, but it was two in the morning, so he hadn’t.
He missed her. It was an emotion he wasn’t familiar with. Sure, over the time they hadn’t been in each other’s lives, he’d missed her, but it wasn’t this feeling. This feeling was so much worse than that one.
Having her so close, literally upstairs, after being so close to her, literally inside of her, was making him feel insane.
His body ached like he was coming down with the flu, despite getting vaccinated for it.
He’d run a panel on himself to make sure that he hadn’t caught anything, it was all clear.
His blood was clean. All of his aches were heart-related.
As he pulled off the highway, following the directions on his navigation system, he picked up his phone to check and see if Frankie had responded to his last text. She had. She’d even attached a photo of her and Yaya drinking mimosas. He smiled and got a jolt of adrenaline.
He felt like a teenage girl, constantly checking his phone, seeking any sort of assurance or sign that she was thinking about him. Anytime she did send him a message, he would get flooded with endorphins. It was pathetic, but he couldn’t help it.
Unfortunately, the hits didn’t last long.
By the time Liam arrived at the men’s formalwear shop, in a part of town he wasn’t familiar with, he was ready to pull over and take a nap.
He got out and rolled his neck as a yawn claimed him.
He stretched and took in the surrounding area, which was known as Old Town Hope Falls.
There was a large field with a sign that said King’s Farm Ice Skating $5.
He assumed there must be some sort of lake or something that people ice skated on in the winter.
Down the road a half mile or so was a large dragon with flames blowing out of its mouth wrapped around a sign reading Putt N Stuff Mini Golf and Arcade.
Across the road was The Watering Can Nursery, which looked like a botanist’s wet dream.
Next to that was Hope Falls Twin Cinemas, which had an old-fashioned marquee sign.
Beside the building he was entering was Lone Pine Lanes Bowling Alley.
If Northern Exposure taught him anything, then Poppy was right about integrating himself into the community.
He was going to have to learn about the town, and its history.
He wouldn’t be able to stay as removed and distant as he had as an emergency room physician.
He still wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
His talk with Arthur was still bouncing around his head.
Normally he never gave a second thought to conversations with virtual strangers, but he hadn’t been able to shake it.
Maybe the town really was already rubbing off on him.
He pressed his FOB and his locks clicking into place as he pushed open the glass door entrance.
The building looked like a two-story brick relic from the turn of the century, with arches and hand-milled timber beams that could outlast a nuclear strike.
The sign overhead read “Gunnarson Haberdashery, Est. 1918” in gold-leafed letters, flanked by two crossed axes.
The interior was an explosion of wood and leather as well as cologne.
There was a sharp, not unpleasant tang of cedar in the air, and on every surface, display cases glowed with cufflinks and pocket squares, or rows of glossy shoes lined up like soldiers.
The left wall was lined with heavy wool jackets and tuxedos, arranged by color as if they were rare books.
A long counter stretched across the back, cluttered with measuring tapes and swatches of fabric.
Behind the counter, a man in a crisp gray vest and checkered shirt was explaining the difference between a bowtie and an ascot to a teenage boy.
He wore the name tag Gunnarson, couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, but held himself like he was built for battle.
He was also almost perfectly square, with a shock of white-blond hair and a bristling ice-blond mustache.
The accent that rolled off him was Scandinavian, but not specifically from one region, more like a cocktail of Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, and maybe a hint of Minnesotan.
Gunnarson turned at the sound of the door.
“Ah! Dr. Davies. You have come just in time, I just finished fitting your father, another doctor, so proud to run in the family, and am now working on the mayor and your brother, the lawyer.” He grinned, teeth perfectly even and bright, and slapped the counter with a meaty palm. “You like espresso? I make for you.”
Before Liam could respond, a chorus of laughter from the side room rose and fell in a wave of masculine chaos.
He rounded the corner to find Henry Walker, the mayor, who he’d known from frequent visits to the hospital to visit Hope Falls residents, his dad, and Tristan.
His father was the only person in his own clothes, the mayor, who typically dressed in jeans, cowboy boots, and a belt buckle the size of a small pancake, was in slacks with pins in them, and so was his brother.
The wedding was in two days’ time, Liam didn’t understand why they couldn’t just wear clothes that they already had. Especially considering Niko and AJ weren’t even in town until Saturday and were giving their measurements over the phone. But whatever Cora wanted, he would do.
Gunnarson shuffled over, moving with surprising quickness for someone built like SpongeBob SquarePants. He plucked a tape measure from behind his ear, and called out numbers in rapid staccato, “Shoulders, forty-two! Inseam, thirty-three! Mayor, you are shrinking again, I told you last year!”
After being shown into a fitting room by the teen boy who introduced himself as Drew, Liam began the fitting process, which was a marvel of efficiency and mild discomfort.
The mayor was arguing with Gunnarson about the relative merits of French cuffs versus standard and whether or not his cowboy boots would be appropriate with his tux.
His father was on his phone, not paying attention to anything going on around him, as per usual.
His brother finished before the mayor or himself.
Customers came in and out of the store, some were able to be assisted by Drew, while some required Gunnarson’s expertise.
Liam endured it all, arms outstretched, feet apart, while the shopkeeper muttered measurements and adjusted lapels with surgical precision.
He felt the familiar ache in his left shoulder, a souvenir from his high school football days, but Gunnarson simply nodded at the slight asymmetry and made a note.
There was something oddly comforting in the process: controlled, contained, and easy to understand.
Liam tried to keep his focus on the task at hand, but even there, in the supposed sanctuary of men’s formalwear, his mind drifted back to Frankie.
He wondered if she’d ever had a reason to visit.
If her grandfather had brought her there.
If so, she’d love the place. She’d be best friends with Gunnarson in four seconds flat, try on every top hat, and probably have left with a stack of business cards and a six-month supply of those little lavender-scented garment sachets he’d seen on the counter. He grinned just imagining it.
“Where’s your brother?” his father asked when he came up for air from his screen.
The question immediately caused defensive walls to go up in Liam, like he was a child again.
He’d always been responsible for Tristan, who was the most irresponsible person on the planet.
And why wouldn’t he be? It’s not as if his brother faced any consequences for his actions.
It was Liam who’d been held accountable, because he was the older, more mature one who ‘knew better.’
Refusing to let the past control him, Liam shook off the dark cloud of negativity. He reminded himself he was a grown man now. Whatever his dumbass brother did now was on him. It had nothing to do with Liam. It didn’t affect him in any way.
“I don’t know.” Liam hadn’t even noticed he’d gone. He glanced out in front of the shop, thinking maybe he’d stepped out to get some fresh air. He didn’t see him.
He walked down the hallway past the fitting rooms, continuing through the stockroom and out the back door, following his brother’s voice.
When he stepped out of the back of the shop, he saw that his brother was on FaceTime, and the face was of a certain supermodel he’d promised he was no longer speaking to.
One week. He couldn’t go a week without lying to Frankie? Was it that hard to show her that minimum baseline of respect?
“Dad’s looking for you.” Liam spoke in a flat tone.
His brother clearly had no clue anyone was behind him because when he heard Liam’s voice, he dropped his phone and jumped about an inch off the ground. Tristan fumbled to try and catch his electronic cheating enabler before it hit the pavement. He managed, although barely, to save the device.
“Holy shit, bro, you scared the shit out of me.”
Liam stared at him long enough to let him know he knew what he’d been doing and who he’d been talking to. Then, without so much as a word, he turned and walked back inside.
This week couldn’t go by fast enough.