14. Frankie
FOURTEEN
Frankie
“I’m bored,” I whined, my head draped over the arm of the chair, hair splayed out and brushing the wood floor. I had no interviews scheduled today, Oliver was busy with lessons, and for once I wasn’t working at Marie’s tonight. I was completely restless.
My sister sighed with contentment. “And isn’t that a lovely feeling?”
I turned my head so that I could make out her right-side-up figure, curled up on the couch, pouring over a book.
My phone vibrated on the coffee table and I scrambled to a seated position, almost toppling over, before snatching it and opening the notification. I sighed in defeat when I saw that it was my mom checking in. “It’s just Mom,” I groaned.
“I’m sure she would be thrilled to know that’s how you react when you receive her messages.”
I ignored Mattie, firing off a quick response.
“We should really plan a trip down to Florida to visit them. It’s been forever since we were all down there other than for Christmas,” she said .
“I think the last time was when you moved out of that apartment with your shitty ex after the epic cheating scandal and stayed with them for a few weeks.”
Mattie threw a pillow at my head, hitting me square in the face.
“Hey!” I yelled, tossing it back at her. She caught it.
“I can’t believe you’d bring up the most humiliating time in my life.” She glared at me.
I held up my hands. “What? It was literally the last time we were there together aside from Christmas. That’s just a fact.”
“A depressing one. And all the more reason to visit them.”
“It’s already April, and it’s too hot in the summer,” I protested. “And who knows what the vacation time will look like when I get another job.”
Mattie didn’t bother hiding her look of disapproval. “Fine. Good to know where your priorities are at. Hypothetical new job, number one. Quality time with family, number two.”
I was about to protest, but my phone went off again. I held it up to my face without thinking. Mom again.
“You need to go put that in another room or something,” Mattie said, shaking her head.
“And miss an email?” I said it as if that were the most preposterous idea she could have come up with.
I’d done a few more phone screenings this week and was waiting to hear back to see if I’d moved on. Some of the jobs I was even remotely excited about, which was an improvement from my first interview.
“The email will still be there whether you see it immediately or in a few hours.”
“If I get another interview, I want to schedule it as soon as possible,” I said, pulling up my email app in case I’d somehow missed a notification .
She didn’t get it. She had her dream life with her dream guy. Her life was completely put together, not shattered like mine was. I was in limbo, and I was desperate to get out.
Mattie rolled her eyes. “Whatever. God forbid you relax.”
“Relax? We’re sitting around doing nothing. I’m crawling out of my skin.”
Mattie closed her book. “It’s called a day off, Frankie. I know that’s a new concept for you, but most people find them enjoyable.”
I sighed dramatically.
My phone dinged again, and I brought it to my face.
It wasn’t an email, it was Oliver. He’d sent me a video of someone snowboarding, going off a huge jump before tumbling and sliding down the mountain. Oliver had written, Basically you on the bunny hill.
A smile spread over my face.
“You get an email?” Mattie asked. When I glanced up, she was staring at me.
“Oliver sent me some dumb video.”
“Oh, Oliver, huh?” she asked in a knowing tone, which irritated me. Of course, I’d already debriefed her on the breakfast and the kiss we’d shared. Which I never should have done because now she was reading way too much into it.
Oliver wasn’t helping her assumptions. Since then, I’d only seen him twice in passing at the lodge. Both times, he had been extremely flirty, even going so far as to walk right up to me and plant a kiss on me in front of Bev and Mattie. I had blinked at him in shock, but he’d acted like it was the most natural thing in the world. I truly did not understand the guy. He was living life by his own rule book, not caring for a moment what the typical or normal thing to do was.
“You like him. I know you do.”
“He’s fun,” I said noncommittedly .
“I love him for you.”
“He’s not for me.”
She waved off my flippant response. “You know what I mean. He’s such a free spirit. So not the kind of guy I pictured you with.”
“Because he’s not the type of guy I’ll end up with,” I insisted, sitting up in the chair. “He’s about to go live some vagabond lifestyle or something, and I’m trying—no going to land a job soon and I’ll likely be starting over somewhere. Nothing about us is a recipe for romance. A fling, maybe, but definitely not a romance.”
Mattie pouted. “Can you engage in my rom-com fantasies for once in your life?”
“No, because they’re far-fetched, and that much daydreaming will get your head stuck in the clouds.”
“You’re no fun.”
“Now you sound like Oliver,” I muttered. “Look, just because you had the perfect movie ending where you get the guy and move to the small town, doesn’t mean that’s a realistic expectation to have.”
“I disagree.”
I made a point to turn and look out the window, informing my sister with my body language that I was no longer entertaining this conversation.
Oliver was cute, fun, and easy to be around. But he also did not take life seriously and was completely closed off. Despite constantly asking me questions and making sweeping judgments about my own life, he refused to let me in even the tiniest bit. Maybe it was a defense mechanism, but he so clearly wasn’t ready for anything more than something casual and short-lived.
But maybe a fling was exactly what I needed right now. With the ski season coming to an end, and him potentially leaving soon, I’d come to the stark realization that I would be extremely disappointed if we never took things between us further. Other than trying to find a job, Oliver had infiltrated all of my free thoughts.
If he moved away or I found a job elsewhere, and we never let our flirty situationship evolve beyond a kiss, I knew deep down that I’d regret it. Now I had to figure out a way to make that clear to him without outright throwing myself at him…
A truck pulled into the driveway.
“Your husband’s home,” I said, my chin resting on the back of the chair.
But it wasn’t just Giles that got out of the car. A figure slid out of the passenger side as well. I sat straight up when I realized that it was Oliver.
“Oliver’s here,” I hissed. I tried to straighten out my sweatshirt, but I knew without checking a mirror that I had the appearance of someone who had been rotting away on the couch all day.
“Do I look okay?” I asked.
She studied me. “You look like a mess, but I doubt he’ll care in the slightest.”
The door opened and Giles walked in first, stomping his boots on the mat before tugging them off.
“Hey, babe.” Mattie beamed, and he walked straight toward her to plant a kiss on her forehead.
“Hiya.” Oliver stood in the doorway, grinning.
“Oliver, what a surprise.” Mattie’s gaze shifted between the two of us.
“Hey,” I said as nonchalantly as possible.
“Frankie, can I talk to you really quick?” He pointed outside to the porch .
“Oh, uh, yeah sure.” I peeled myself from the armchair and smoothed out my sweats.
I didn’t bother grabbing a coat off the front hook. The sun was beating pretty heavily down and people weren’t kidding when they said it was stronger in Colorado. I barely even caught a chill in its rays.
Oliver let me go first and then stepped out onto the porch next to me, closing the door behind him.
“What’s up?—”
He cut off my words by dipping his head to meet mine and stealing a kiss, catching me completely off guard.
“What was that for?” I breathed when he pulled away.
His eyebrows drew together but his smile remained. “Because I wanted to.”
I brushed my lips with my fingertips. They still tingled.
“Was I not supposed to do that?” he asked, tilting his head. I loved the way his dark eyes almost gleamed when they were focused on me.
“It’s just—” I sucked in a breath, completely flustered. “Aren’t we still in that weird phase were we’re stepping on eggshells around each other? Like all awkward and uncomfortable because we’re unsure of how to act because we don’t know what the other is thinking and we haven’t talked about anything?”
He put his hand to his chin and stroked it. “I don’t feel that way around you,” he said, as if it was the simplest answer in the world.
I feel that way around you , I wanted to yell. But I bit my tongue. Hadn’t I been thinking a fling was exactly what I wanted? Who was I to try and dictate on what terms they happened. Just because every other guy would have been playing games right now, didn’t mean that Oliver had to. He was different in every possible way, so it made sense that he wouldn’t act how I expected.
“Do you feel that way around me ?” he asked, his gaze carefully studying my face.
The question caused a slightly chaotic giggle to burst out of me. “What? Me? Uncomfortable? No, not at all.”
He laughed, and I thought for the millionth time how jealous I was of his confidence.
“Well good, because I wanted to ask you something.”
“What?” I asked hesitantly. “You have some new crazy adventure planned for us or something?”
“Kind of.” He stared down at me. “I wanted to see if you were free tomorrow night.”
“For some more fun therapy, or whatever it is you’re calling it?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Kind of. I was just going to call it a date this time.”
Heat pricked my skin. “A date,” I repeated, convinced I’d misheard him, even though there was no possible way.
“Yep.” He nodded slowly, raising his eyebrows.
“But, we’re—but you’re leaving soon. And I’m, like—” I was sputtering, unable to form a coherent sentence.
Oliver didn’t seem fazed in the slightest. “I like you,” he said, matter-of-factly. “And I want to take you on a real date. Sure, I could invite you on another excursion with the thinly veiled motive of spending more time with you, but I’d rather just ask you out.”
“But—”
He held up his hand. “I know, I know. I’m leaving soon, you’re job hunting. We have no future. Whatever. Who cares? I like you, and I know you like me. What’s more fun than following through on how we feel? Not everything has to be this carefully laid-out plan with a guaranteed future. We can just have fun, Frankie. Forget about everything else.”
A fling. Basically exactly what I had wanted. Every instinct I had itched to ask for rules and set guidelines on what this was. Where was this going physically? How long would we have? How deep were we getting? I forced myself to let it go, though. Those types of thoughts had no place in what he was asking.
“S-sure.”
He grinned, leaning in for another kiss. It felt natural.
Which kind of freaked me out if I was being honest.