Chapter 14
FRANKIE
After shadowing Dr. Chen in her outpatient clinic all day, I race upstairs to check on the post-op patients I started following yesterday. The hip replacement patient’s pain is much better today, and she has no sign of infection.
“Dr. Hashemi says I’ll probably go home in the morning,” she tells me.
“That’s great news.” I move out of the way as her dinner is delivered. “Hopefully you sleep as well as you can tonight, then, and we’ll say goodbye in the morning.”
My own stomach is growling, too. I’m so glad to be heading home, and I text my roommates as I hop on my bike.
Frankie
I’m in the mood to demolish a pot of pasta, if anyone else is game for Frankie’s One Pot Magnificence
Sloane
We need cheese
Liz
To the store we go!
As I turn the corner onto our street, my brain is spinning with a full day of cases, so I don’t notice the car slowing to a stop in front of our house. Not until I’m right behind it, and a big, male body emerges from the back seat.
A big, male, scowling body.
I brake hard and hop off my bike, yanking at my helmet as Logan Granger turns around and pins me down with a furious look.
The easy warmth from New Year’s Eve is gone. His bearded jaw is tight, his eyes are hard, and there’s a tension radiating off him that takes my breath away.
Of course he’s angry. I’m not surprised he tracked me down, although I didn’t think it would be before the end of the hockey season. I knew this was coming, I knew there would be consequences, but I’m still not ready.
I grip my bike helmet tighter, using it like a shield to protect my foolish heart. “Logan. Hi.”
“Hi?” He takes a step toward me. “That’s all you’ve got?”
My palms are slick and my mouth is dry. I need to get ahead of this, need to make it clear that I know exactly what this is and that he doesn’t need to waste his breath explaining why our marriage was a mistake. I can be mature about this. Professional.
“Look, I know why you’re here,” I say quickly, lifting my chin. “And you don’t need to worry. I already have a plan to—”
“You left,” he growls roughly.
I blink. “I... yes. I had to.”
“No you didn’t.”
I frown. That’s not what I was expecting him to say. “I didn’t want to have this conversation when my father was down the hall. I don’t want to ever have this conversation, to be honest, but I understand—”
“You made that choice for both of us. I wanted to talk. I tried to talk and you left me standing there in a towel.”
“You had morning skate. I was on a floor full of hockey players. I didn’t know where my father was. And…I thought that would be easier for both of us.”
“Easier?” His laugh is sharp and humorless. “You thought sneaking out before I woke up and stealing our marriage license would be easier?”
“I didn’t steal it, I just—” I cut myself off. This is not the argument I should be making. “It doesn’t matter. The point is, I understand the situation we’re in, and I agree it needs to be cleaned up. You don’t need to be here.”
He stares at me like I’ve grown a second head. “I don’t need to be here?”
“I’m happy to handle everything with the lawyers. You can just... go back to your life and pretend this never happened.”
Something flashes across his face—hurt? anger?—but it’s gone too quickly for me to identify. “Is that what you think I want?”
“Isn’t it?” My voice comes out sharper than I intended, defensive. And I have nothing to be defensive about, because I didn’t know who he was until it was too late. “I know how this story goes.”
His expression shutters completely as Sloane’s voice cuts through the tension. “Frankie? You okay?”
I turn to see both my roommates standing on the front porch, clearly having heard raised voices.
Liz looks ready to physically remove Logan if necessary, even though she’s just as short as I am, while Sloane is studying him with undisguised curiosity.
Recognition will surely follow, because I texted them his photo just a few nights ago.
“I’m fine. We’re fine here.”
Logan pulls on a mask of easy charm that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to cause a scene. I’m Logan. A friend of Francesca’s.”
“From Vegas.” There it is, the trap of my own making. “You’re the birthday boy.”
“That’s me.” His smile is perfectly pleasant and completely fake.
The silence stretches uncomfortably.
We should move inside, probably, to avoid making a further scene. But inviting Logan Granger into my home feels dangerous. Not for my safety, but for my fragile sense of self.
“We were just going to the store,” Liz says when I don’t fill the silence. “We need a few things for dinner.”
There’s my out. I could tell him I need to go with them.
Leave him standing on the curb. But something about the hard, unyielding pose he’s taken tells me that when we return, he’ll probably still be standing here, waiting for me to finish the lecture about how I handled the aftermath of our ill-advised wedding night all wrong.
At some point, I’m going to have to make it very clear that I don’t need any more lectures in my life. Especially not from hockey players.
And if they’re going to the store, now is a chance to do this in private, which is better than with an audience.
Logan’s gaze swings back to me, challenging. Waiting to see what I’ll do.
“We can talk while they’re at the store,” I hear myself saying. And then I add, just so he doesn’t get any ideas about this conversation being long, “it’s just at the end of the street, and they’ll be right back.”
As we trade spaces with my roommates on the porch, some really intense silent eye contact passes between me and my friends.
You okay? Liz asks.
He’s HOT, Sloane adds.
I glare at them both. Get out of here but come back quickly.
Because I need to be alone with Logan to hash out whatever he’s come here to talk about, but my heart can only handle so much.
Inside, he takes up all the available space in the little bungalow’s entry way. In Vegas, everything was oversized. Here in the normal-width hallway of Sloane’s little Culver City house, he looks almost absurdly large.
And I’m at a loss for words.
“Nice place,” he says, raking his gaze across our eclectic mix of thrift store furniture, DIY art, and lucky vintage finds.
“It’s Sloane’s,” I hear myself explaining. “Liz and I just rent rooms.”
“Ah.” He picks up a framed photo from the bookshelf—the three of us at our white coat ceremony. “Are they both in fourth year as well?”
My heart squeezes at the fact that he remembers I’m a medical student. “Yes.”
He puts the photo down and turns around, giving me his full attention. The force of it rocks me back on my heels. “Will they do residencies here?”
“Sloane will for sure. Her parents are both doctors in Beverly Hills. Liz might match—” I cut myself off. “We don’t need to make small talk.”
“Of course we do,” he says casually, but his next lines are anything but. “How was the game in San Jose, Logan? Thanks for asking, it was terrible. We lost. And once we got on the plane, all I could think about was touching down, then talking my way out of a team dinner so I could come find you.”
The implications of him skipping a team event because of me make my stomach twist.
I dump my backpack at the dining room table that serves as our communal study office. Sloane’s laptop and a pile of notes are scattered at one end. “How did you, um, find me so quickly?”
He shrugs. “Those Granger resources came in very conveniently over the last few days.”
I wince, remembering how I threw that word salad at him as I bolted that morning.
And then he rolls his eyes. “We put our home addresses on the wedding license, Francesca. Which is why I think you took it—”
“I panicked.”
“I gathered.” His tone is clipped. “Once I was wearing more than a towel, I followed you, by the way. But I didn’t know what last name to give at your hotel.”
The image of him racing after me, barely dressed, makes my chest tight with guilt. I puff out my cheeks, trying to find words. “But you found me anyway.”
“They were happy to give me another copy for a small administrative fee. Convenient that I have a game here, isn’t it?”
“Depends how you look at it,” I say faintly.
“Oh? Is this inconvenient for you, then?”
Sarcasm drips from his words, but yes, it is. I feel so painfully vulnerable right now. If anything, it’s terrible luck that he was able to immediately come to my adopted city. “I just think it would be better if we do this through lawyers.”
“Do what?”
I know what I have to say, but I can’t make myself say it out loud—get an annulment, undo the marriage, pretend it never happened.
This is a nightmare. An absolute nightmare. And I don’t want—no, I cannot let it be a nightmare. What I want has nothing to do with what I need to do here.
“I’m going to get some water,” I mutter.
He follows me to the little kitchen at the back of the house. “Your roommates seem fun.”
I yank a glass off the shelf, my hand shaking. “They’re my best friends.”
“Did you tell them that you got married?”
“Of course not. That’s not real,” I say sharply. “It was a mistake. A drunken, impulsive mistake that we’re going to fix, and then we can both move on with our lives.”
I cross to the fridge and focus on filling the glass with water.
When he doesn’t respond, I’m forced to turn around.
He’s leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching me with an expression I can’t read. The anger from earlier has banked into something else. Something that looks almost like... hurt?
No. I’m imagining things.
“Is that really what you think?” he asks softly. “This was a mistake we need to fix?”
“I know it was a mistake. I know we need to fix it.” I cross my arms to mirror his posture, defensive. “But it doesn’t need to be adversarial. You show up at my house, clearly angry—”
“I’m not angry that we got married, Francesca.”
Oh.
“I was angry that you left.” He pushes off the doorframe, taking a step closer. “And I don’t love you assuming I want an annulment without even talking to me first.”
He cuts himself off as we hear the front door swing open.
They must have sprinted to the store and back.
“We’re back,” Sloane calls out, a little too loudly, as if she thinks that she might find us half naked.
Which is ridiculous.
“In the kitchen,” I call back.
My voice shakes, too, and Logan’s gaze snaps to my face.
“I’m not angry with you,” he says softly. “It’s going to be okay.”
That doesn’t do anything to ease my inner turmoil as my roommates come in, Liz carrying a brown paper bag, Sloane waving a six-pack of beer.
“We’re back with supplies.” Liz sets the bag down and wiggles her fingers at Sloane, asking for a beer.
Both of them immediately hunker down.
“So, Logan,” Liz asks. “What brings you to LA?”