21. Frankie
TWENTY-ONE
Frankie
“No way!” My sides hurt from laughing as Oliver held up a neon-green and yellow tunic.
“I think it’s your color,” he insisted, holding it up to my small frame. It was about ten sizes too big.
“Put it back,” I demanded, pointing at the rack of eclectic thrifted pieces. It was Key Ridge’s first farmers market of the season. Main Street was closed down, and it was packed. Tents lined the streets selling fresh produce, homemade goods, and more. It was small-town charm at its best, and Oliver and I were having more than a little fun wandering into the tents.
“I think you’re making a mistake,” Oliver said, shaking the hanger. “Maximalism is in right now.”
“Are you a fashion expert now?”
“Please, Frankie. It wants to go with you. It might never find a home if you don’t take pity on it.”
“Probably for the best,” I said.
Oliver gasped, returning the tunic to the rack. “How could you say that in front of him?”
“Oh, it’s a him now? ”
“What about this?” Oliver produced a light-gray crewneck sweatshirt with Harvard stitched in burgundy writing across the front. “It reminds me of you.” He held it up to my frame.
“Why? I didn’t go to Harvard,” I said, pushing it away.
He shrugged. “But you’re smart. I bet you could’ve.”
“I appreciate your faith in me, but I highly doubt that.”
“Whatever.” Oliver tossed the sweatshirt over his shoulder and walked over to the table where an older woman was taking payments.
I trailed behind him. “What are you doing?”
“Getting it for you. I like it.”
Another laugh fizzed to the surface. “Fine,” I said, secretly loving the idea that every time I’d wear that sweatshirt, it would make me think of Oliver. He had that way about him. Finding little inside jokes in everyday life.
He finished paying and took the brown bag. “I’ll carry it for you,” he said.
I tugged him over to the next stall that sold candles. I picked one up to smell it. Scents of lavender and vanilla curled around my nose.
“Here.” Oliver pointed to a giant candle on display. It was bigger than my head and I doubted I could lift it. “This is perfect for Mattie and Giles. You should get it for them.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re not being very helpful.”
“You’re the one getting distracted,” he said. “Aren’t we here to buy stuff to cook dinner?”
“And have fun,” I added. “Who are you to hurry along my window-shopping?”
“Tent-shopping,” he corrected, picking up a pine candle and sniffing it. “There are no windows.”
“Semantics,” I said.
We strolled down the street, my hand in his. I never imagined it could feel this natural with someone. Affection with Oliver flowed so easily, and I never grew tired of it.
“Do we need this?” he asked, pointing to a green pepper as we stopped by a produce stand.
“I don’t know,” I examined it. “What are we making?”
He shrugged. “Aren’t they in everything?”
I tossed my head back, giggling. “This is like the blind leading the blind.”
He grinned. “I’d let you lead me anywhere.”
We picked out a few things, hoping some sort of tacos would be an idiot-proof enough attempt. We walked through the rest of the tents, Oliver continuing to pick up random item after random item and trying to convince me to purchase it.
After finishing up at the farmers market, we headed straight to Giles and Mattie’s house.
“How was the market?” Mattie asked, peeking around from the dining room to see who was walking in. She slipped off a blazer, signaling she must have just gotten home from working at the lodge.
“Great. We got loads of stuff.” I held up my paper bags in triumph. “You and Giles are in for a treat. Oliver and I are making you dinner.”
“Bon appétit,” Oliver said with a grin.
Mattie’s face fell as she looked between the two of us in concern.
We pushed past my sister and started unpacking the groceries in the kitchen.
Mattie stood in the doorway, watching us. “Um, you really don’t have to do this.”
“What’s going on here?” Giles asked, walking in and standing behind his wife. He wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin in the crook of her neck .
“Oliver and Frankie are making us dinner,” Mattie said through a wide fake smile. “Isn’t that nice?”
Oliver and I smiled at each other, taking pleasure in my sister’s obvious unease.
“We aren’t going to poison you,” I said, taking out the bell peppers from the bag and pulling open drawers in search of a cutting board.
Giles stepped around Mattie into the kitchen and pulled open a drawer by the stove. He produced a wooden cutting board and handed it to me.
“I wanted to do something to show my appreciation for you both letting me stay here for the past month.”
“I think taking us out to dinner would suffice,” Mattie grumbled, looking over my shoulder to see what I had procured.
“Frankie and I are naturals in the kitchen,” Oliver added, pulling out some more items from the bags.
“You’re going to wash that, right?” Mattie squeaked when I set the peppers on the cutting board.
Oliver and I glanced at each other.
“Of course. I was about to do that,” I lied, moving to the sink and rinsing off all the produce we’d picked up.
“What brought on this sudden domestication urge?” Mattie asked.
Giles had grabbed her arm, forcing her to take a few steps back from the kitchen. She still eyed us warily as if dying to intervene. As if she had any sort of culinary skills to speak of. I think I’d seen her boil water once since I’d arrived here.
“Oliver wanted to learn how to cook,” I said, chopping the peppers into uneven squares.
Oliver placed a pan on the stove and turned on the gas before dropping the beef we’d purchased into the pan. “We figured it’d be fun,” he said .
“So fun.” Mattie looked desperate to interfere but Giles chuckled.
“It’ll be fine, babe. Let them cook.”
“Yeah, listen to your husband,” I said, waving my knife. “Let us cook.”
“I guess…I guess we’ll wait in the living room?” It came out like a question.
“You two go relax,” I said, shooing them away with my other hand. “We’ll let you know if we need anything.”
Oliver snickered next to me as he attempted to break up the ground beef with a spoon. He’d pulled up a recipe for tacos on his phone. We both peered over it to reference it. Lines formed between his eyebrows as he studied the recipe, his concentration making him look endearingly adorable.
“Do you think we’ll be better at this or bartending?” he asked.
“I resent that question. I’m an excellent bartender.”
He smirked, eyeing me.
Just then, the meat sizzled aggressively and he jerked away from the stove.
“Shit,” he muttered before turning the heat down.
I giggled. “Off to a solid start.”
“Hey, the stove is sensitive,” he complained.
“Is it? You better be nice to it, then.”
Oliver shook his head with laughter, and I smiled to myself as I continued chopping the rest of the produce.
“Those have to be the messiest cuts I’ve ever seen,” he said, abandoning the meat for a moment to lean over my shoulder and examine my work.
“They’re rustic cuts,” I said.
“That’s one way to market it.”
Us moving around each other in the kitchen was borderline comical. Everything was cooking faster than we expected, and I let out a little squeal of panic whenever I walked away from something only for it to start sizzling violently.
“Everything okay in there?” Mattie called.
“Great!” we both yelled back in unison before dying in a fit of laughter.
Being with Oliver felt good.
That was the only way to describe it. He made me feel happy in a way no one else did. To think, when I’d first met him, all I could think about was how unstable he was. Now, he was basically my rock. He was becoming the person I leaned on, even more than Mattie. I genuinely loved every second we spent together, and whenever we were apart, I only thought about seeing him again
“Crap,” Oliver said, eyeing the cooked meat in the pan.
“What?” I questioned as I turned off the burner for the peppers.
“The recipe said a quarter teaspoon of cayenne but I put in a quarter cup.” He held up the almost empty bottle of seasoning.
I shrugged. “I’m sure it’s fine.”
It was not fine.
After we’d set the table and sat down to dinner, Giles had taken one bite of his taco before going into a coughing fit and reaching for his water.
“Spicy,” Giles gasped.
Mattie slowly lowered the taco she had been about to take a bite of back to her plate, looking alarmed.
I eyed mine nervously. “It can’t be that bad.”
Oliver, being the only brave one, brought the taco to his mouth and took a small bite. His eyes immediately bulged before he reached for his own glass of water. “Shit,” he choked out. “That’s not edible.”
“Oh no,” I groaned, tossing my head back .
Oliver and Giles both had red faces as they continued to chug their waters. Mattie and I made eye contact before bursting out laughing.
“I think my throat has third-degree burns,” Giles said.
Oliver had tears in his eyes but one look at me and Mattie and his eyes pinched together as he lost it too.
Soon, we were all cracking up over the completely ruined dinner.
“Shit, I guess you can scratch learning to cook off my goals,” Oliver said, after we finally calmed down.
“Yeah, I think you might hurt someone, Ol.” Giles got up and took the plates, patting him on the back as he walked them straight to the trash.
“I still had fun,” I said, wiping my eye. “That was the point, right?”
“I think the point was to actually be able to eat what you made,” Mattie said.
“Oh, right.”
We went into another fit of giggles.
Oliver slipped his arm behind my chair, and a sense of comfort settled over me.
The four of us ended up calling out for Chinese takeout and we ate it on the floor of the living room, talking animatedly the entire time.
After dinner, Mattie switched on a movie—some horror-comedy that I would have typically never picked but Oliver was excited to watch. We sat squished together on the armchair, me in his lap and his arms wrapped around me. I dozed off halfway through, my cheeks sore from smiling.