Chapter Eight
FRANKIE
Well, damn.
The boy I’d loved all my life had just given me an incredible orgasm. Two, in total.
Was it bad that I wanted to throw my arms up in the air and do a victory lap around the room?
It probably was. It felt like a setback. Like being thrown back in time, to that younger version of myself that would have spun in circles at the prospect of Turner Reece putting his mouth on hers.
Because Turner Reece had kissed me. Besides giving me two orgasms. He’d pressed me against a wall. Manhandled me on a bed. Let me manhandle him. Called me beautiful.
Beautiful.
I had a mirror, and two eyes with which I could see my reflection, so I knew I was no ugly duckling. I had my flaws, like everybody, but I knew I was objectively pretty. Turner had never acknowledged that out loud, though. I would have remembered.
I don’t want to be your friend. Unless we can be friends who do this.
How had this happened? When I spotted Turner in the lobby, I would have never anticipated us falling into bed together. Never in a million years would I have imagined that I’d be kissing him—to silence him or otherwise.
My body was lax, spent with the echo of those orgasms. But my heart was thrumming. My mind racing with questions. I’d managed to distract Turner—and myself—twice now, and push that conversation we should definitely be having a step further. It seemed vital that we did now.
It also seemed vital that I acknowledge reality.
Not just inside this room, but out of it, too.
Orgasms were a nice way not to think about the stalker situation, or the fact that last night’s blizzard might keep people away from the convention.
And I think … I think a part of me was well aware of that.
A part of me let go of all things last night and this morning, just so I could live in the moment.
Just so I could feel happy or cared for—wanted—like I hadn’t in a long time.
I’m pretty sure Turner saw that. It’s very likely that he allowed it to happen and didn’t push for those words I didn’t want to hear, or give him, because of it.
My heart squeezed with a loud, booming question: What does this mean, though?
Turner, ever so perceptive Turner, brushed his nose across my cheek, demanding attention.
“Mmmh?” I murmured, smiling and sprawled all over his chest regardless of the turmoil in my head.
We hadn’t left the bed. We hadn’t showered, or brushed our teeth, or moved, except for when he reached for his t-shirt and cleaned me first, then himself.
“Ready for words now?” Turner asked, softly.
I parted my lips, then thought better off it. I was a chicken, and my heart could suck it. “Not really.”
“We don’t need to talk about us, as much as I’d love to,” he offered. “But you promised me we’d re-assess the whole other situation in the morning.”
“I don’t remember doing such a thing. In fact, I recall you telling me it was my decision.”
“I changed my mind.”
I rolled off him, propped myself on an elbow. He was almost pouting. It was so cute to see an adult man with a moustache and a mullet pouting. It was so cute that it was Turner. “About what, exactly?” I asked, pretending I didn’t already know.
“About us staying,” he said, seriously. “I don’t want to stay. And if it has been snowing, I think we should leave before the weather gets worse and we get stuck here. I—” He stopped himself with a huff.
“You …” I pushed with a smile, teasing.
Turner frowned. “I can’t allow for you to get hurt, Frankie. Not ever, but especially not now that I’ve had you.”
Shit.
Ah, crap.
If it hadn’t been obvious, based on my reaction to those words, it was alarmingly clear that I still loved Turner Reece now.
I never stopped.
I wished it felt like a revelation. But it didn’t. It felt like a weight from the past was getting twice as heavy.
Why now, Turner? How could you not see me at any point before this weekend?
Why couldn’t I allow myself to just go with it, now that it was sinking in that he saw me differently?
Had I hurt for so long that I didn’t know how to do anything else?
Was I so bitter about the state of my career that I couldn’t just take this wonderful thing and run with it?
Was I so … embarrassed about the whole stalker situation that I couldn’t even properly address how it made me feel out loud?
Could I come second to the man I’d always loved first?
With an exhale, I let myself plop on my back. Tears rushed to the back of my eyes. Again. God, I couldn’t believe I was going to cry in front of Turner for the second time in just a few hours. I really wasn’t a crier.
“Frankie, baby,” Turner said immediately. It was so strange to hear him call me that, and at the same time it was like … second nature. Like it just felt right. Like it should have been already happening. “What’s wrong? Tell me.”
“Everything,” I answered, pushing down the ball of overwhelming emotion. I blinked at the ceiling, giving myself a moment, then turned my head so I could glance back at him. He looked devastated. I hated it. “I’m terrified, Turner.”
He nodded, that set of chocolate eyes focused on me. He was letting me speak.
“Everything’s wrong with me,” I expelled in one single breath.
“Because I should have let you take me out of here, last night. I should have asked you myself, honestly. Or stayed in Boston. But I didn’t.
Just like I don’t want to open those drapes and see how the weather is this morning.
Just like I don’t want to talk about that man that is haunting me, because I’m just so … lost out here.”
He chewed on my words before speaking. “What are those reasons?” He finally asked. “The ones that are so important, that had you coming to the convention and not wanting you to leave.”
I’d said that. Last night. Almost verbatim. He remembered. Because he listened. He cared. He might not have loved me, but he’d always cared for me. And I’d missed that part of our friendship so, so badly. I’d missed having someone to talk to, unload to.
“I’m not doing well,” I told him a little weakly. I felt so embarrassed. This was a man I still wanted to impress. “I’m doing horrible, in fact. Sales-wise. I’ve been basically fighting for my life out there. And I needed this convention to prove a point.”
Turner’s whole expression filled first with shock, and then with concern. “Black Honey?”
That was my last book. The last installment in my no longer bestselling series, Wolves at Night. “Dead in the water. A flop. Complete failure.”
“Frankie,” he started, reaching for me. That beautiful moth I loved so much fell on my stomach softly. “That—”
“You should have seen it,” I cut him off, curling my fingers around his wrist. Holding onto it, like I wished I’d have something—someone—to tether myself to these past few months.
“There were so many empty chairs at the launch of that book, Turner. I don’t even know how I got through it, I can’t remember anything I said.
All I can recall is me barely keeping it together for the few people who had showed up.
Trying not to embarrass myself in front of my publicist, editor and agent.
Not to embarrass myself in front of the small audience.
What kind of cry-baby loses it for empty chairs? ”
His palm rose to my cheek, and he tilted my head back, looked into my eyes and kissed me. It was the fiercest kiss I’d ever been given. “You’re not a cry-baby. Not even if you cry because something’s upsetting you.”
A strange laugh left me. “Maybe you’re right. Or maybe you aren’t, and I’m softer than you think I am.”
“So what if you’re soft,” he said, thumb brushing my bottom lip before letting his arm fall. “Don’t say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“It is, though. It means I let things bruise me. It means I let things affect me. Like being embarrassed over putting out a bad book, even after I poured so fucking much into it. It means it hurts when those who once loved me are disappointed.”
He shook his head. “No. It means you’re brave, Frankie. It means you’re the bravest person I know for doing what you do, even when you’re aware you might get hurt in the process.”
“That’s …” That was a beautiful way to put it.
“That’s an idealization. Of me. Of writing.
I’m not brave. It’s just books. I shouldn’t feel miserable over someone saying ‘I gave them nothing,’ or ‘I’m a one hit wonder,’ or that they’ve never wanted a book to be over the way they wanted Black Honey to be over.
I should be strong enough to not let that hurt me. ”
“You have no idea, do you?” Turner asked, shaking his head.
“Do you remember when you decided to pursue writing? That day you knew. For good. You barged into the house after school and made every single person in it stop what they were doing to hear you proclaim you were going to write the best book ever.”
“I was fifteen,” I murmured with a sigh. “And Ric said I needed to learn how to spell my name in order to do that. It made me so mad I went upstairs and started a novel where the villain was named Alaric. He had a corrosive personality and a mole on his nose.” I snorted. “I was a child.”
Turner’s mouth bent at the corners, as if he liked hearing the part he didn’t get to see by remaining downstairs with my brothers.
“Wanna hear what I should have said? Before Ric opened his mouth and fucked it all up?” He didn’t wait for my answer.
“I thought, damn. She’s as fearless as she is pretty. ”
My mouth went dry, whatever nostalgic buzz vanishing. I would have dropped dead if he’d said that. I would have confessed that I loved him. Asked him to marry me. “Why didn’t you?”
“Because unlike you, I’m a coward.”
I swallowed. “You’re not. You chased a dream, too. Just like I did.”