Chapter 21
Chapter
Twenty-One
FRANKIE
T he air outside still held onto the day's heat like a grudge. Somewhere, someone was mowing a lawn too late, and the scent of cut grass mixed with the smell of whatever was burning on someone else’s grill.
Mathieu’s host family’s garage always smelled like gasoline, old pine from the shelves, and the faint lemony cleaner someone used to clean up the mess. Somehow, despite the scent cocktail, it had become one of the few places that felt neutral.
Safe. The overhead fan clicked with every rotation, blades wobbling just enough to make me glance up every so often to see if it was about to fall.
Mathieu was cross-legged on the concrete, wearing one of my old band tees and a pair of jeans with paint flecks on the knee.
I didn’t ask if the shirt was deliberate.
He had spent the night at the apartment a couple of times when Mom was gone.
Once he really needed a shirt to borrow and he’d left me one of his. That should mean something, right?
“You're thinking too loud,” he said, breaking the quiet with his soft, accented voice that had a way of making everything sound like a lyric.
“Not possible,” I muttered, tugging at a loose thread on my cuff. “I barely think at all.”
He smiled, dark lashes dipping low as he leaned back on his hands. “Then I’m listening too hard.”
I snorted. “That I believe.”
The silence between us wasn’t bad. Not yet. But it was weighted. Tense. Like the kind of quiet that comes before a question you don’t want to answer. Or one you’re not sure how to.
Despite ditching with Archie, the day before, I’d managed to scoot out of the apartment after I fed the cats and head over here to meet Mathieu without the guys snagging me. It was hardly my first trip here, but it was the first time I felt like I was actually sneaking off to see him.
“So.” I licked my lips. “Archie’s party is tomorrow.” If he hadn’t mentioned it that morning, the text messages he’d sent over the last hour made it clear. Saturday afternoon, his place, pool party, pizza, music, and fun.
Mathieu’s head tilted slightly, just enough to make a piece of dark hair fall into his eyes. “Yes. You want to go?”
I hesitated. “Do you want to go?” What did I want his answer to be? The fact that I had zero idea worried me more than the question.
He shrugged, which on anyone else might have seemed indifferent. But with him, it was thoughtful. “It is the senior party. It would be a good thing to do, no? Meet more people. See what this big American school experience is all about.”
I sighed, staring at the oil stain near the door that looked suspiciously like a bear paw. “It’s not just a party.”
“I gathered.”
He didn’t press. That was the thing about Mathieu. He never demanded. Never pushed. He waited. And that, somehow, was worse. Because the pressure wasn’t on me, it was in me.
“I’m not sure if going means I'm walking straight into a fire... or if not going is its own kind of disaster.”
His brow furrowed, and he leaned forward. “Why would it be a fire?”
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Bit the inside of my cheek.
“Because... everyone will be there. Coop, Jake, Bubba. Archie.” I glanced at him. Half the damn school. “And you.”
Mathieu’s smile was slow, but there was something guarded behind it. “That is a problem?”
I dropped my head back against the garage wall, exhaling hard. “You ever feel like no matter what choice you make, you’re still going to screw it up?”
“Yes,” he said instantly. “But that’s just being human.”
I gave him a look. “Well, right now, being human really sucks.”
“Why?” he asked gently.
“Because...” I pulled my knees to my chest. “I care about them. All of them. In different ways. And they care about me, too. But this—this thing with you—it’s real. It's new. It’s mine. And still... I feel like I’m constantly waiting for someone to call me a traitor.”
Jake had. At least, he’d reacted like I was one. That was bad enough. Archie didn’t want Mathieu around and Bubba wanted me to not limit my dating options. Coop? Right now, I had no idea what Coop wanted.
If I were honest, I was half-terrified of even asking Coop. I hated that feeling more than anything.
Mathieu’s jaw tightened subtly, but his voice stayed calm. “They had their chance.”
It wasn’t angry. Not quite. But it wasn’t neutral either.
“They didn’t know they needed to take it,” I said quietly.
If I’d learned nothing else over the past few days, I’d learned that.
“Apparently—they had taken it and I didn’t notice.
” Which was embarrassing enough. “Now everything feels... like walking across a glass floor. I keep waiting for the crack.”
Mathieu stood slowly, brushing off his hands, and came to sit next to me on the old couch pushed against the wall. Our knees bumped. He didn’t pull away. He never did.
“You are not glass, Frankie. You’re not going to break.”
“No?” I whispered, testing the answer. He believed in me a lot more than I did. “They might.” Jake had been so angry Thursday morning. Not seeing him that afternoon had given me breathing room, but he hadn’t been that friendly earlier today. If anything, he was distant as hell.
Mathieu studied me a long beat, then reached over and took my hand. His fingers were warm and strong and steady in a way that made my chest ache.
“You don’t have to pick a side just to survive.”
“But I might have to pick one to stop everyone else from bleeding.”
He was silent for a beat, then said, “If I asked you to come to the party with me... as my date... would you say yes?”
My heart stuttered.
“I—” My mouth went dry. “It’s not that simple.”
“I didn’t say it was,” he replied. “But it is a question.”
The empathy in his gaze that made me pause. Not the performative kind, not the kind people use when they’re trying to look like they care. His eyes held something deeper. Understanding without judgment. Like he saw the pieces of me fraying at the edges and wasn’t afraid to look directly at them.
“You okay?” he asked gently.
My instinct was to lie. Or dodge. Or laugh it off with something stupid.
But his eyes…
The way he looked at me like he meant it. Like my answer mattered more than the time or place or how I tried to pretend I was fine.
I didn’t have the energy to pretend tonight.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I feel like no matter what I do, I’m going to mess it up.” I looked down at our hands. “I want to go. But I also want to hide under my bed and pretend none of this is happening.”
“Ah,” he said, his voice dipping with something like amusement. “So you are like every other teenage girl in the movies, then.”
“Rude.”
“But true.”
I elbowed him lightly. He didn’t let go of my hand.
“Frankie,” he said softly, “they are not your responsibility. How they feel, what they want—that is not yours to carry.”
“But I still feel it.” I swallowed hard. “Every look. Every question. Every time I get a rose on my windshield or someone calls and says ‘you home yet?’ I feel like I’m about to fail someone.”
“Then fail them.”
I blinked at him. “What?”
“If they put you in a position where your happiness depends on them not hurting—then let them hurt. Because that is not love. That is guilt dressed up in affection.”
I looked away, jaw tight. “You don’t know them.” It felt disloyal as hell to talk about them now. Earlier in the summer, when I’d been so angry with them, I managed to avoid it. But now?
“No,” he said. “But I know you .”
Fuck, that was worse.
I let my head drop onto his shoulder, the only safe place I’d found in days. “If I—we go, it’s going to be a mess.”
“If you don’t go, it will still be a mess,” he said, light. “But you’ll miss the pizza and I’ve heard American pizza is a reason to live.”
I let out a weak laugh.
“I’ll go,” I said eventually, heart twisting. “But I’m not promising I’ll survive it.”
Mathieu kissed the top of my head—soft, careful, like a promise he hadn’t said out loud yet.
“You will,” he murmured, his voice all quiet certainty. “Even if you don’t want to.”
I huffed a laugh, because of course he thought he knew better than me. “I like your confidence.”
He slid an arm around my shoulders, pulling me in until I was tucked into his side like I’d always belonged there. When I tilted my head back, I found his gaze waiting for me—steady, unshaken. Like he was already imagining the version of me that didn’t flinch from the spotlight.
“It’s a pool party though,” I said, trying for casual, even though my heart had started kicking like it was trying to outrun the moment. “So that means... bathing suits.”
A slow, wicked smile crept across his face. There it was—that spark. That Mathieu mischief that always made my stomach flip in dangerous directions.
“Could I persuade you,” he said, drawing the words out like a dare, “to wear the bikini you had on when we first met?”
Oh, hell.
My face went warm instantly. “Maybe?” It came out like a question I didn’t know how to answer. That bikini had been a whole situation—and I’d only worn it because Schlitterbahn was two hundred miles away and no one there knew my name.
“I don’t usually dress like that here,” I added, like that might protect me from whatever reaction he’d give.
Mathieu didn’t miss a beat. “Then all the more reason to wear it.”
His voice dropped, and so did my defenses.
He brushed his lips over mine—light, teasing, like he was testing the limits of what I’d allow. Then he pulled back just enough to meet my eyes again.
“Tell me what I have to do to convince you,” he whispered, like it was a secret only meant for us.
The way he said it wasn’t about clothes or skin or poolside gossip. It was about shedding the weight I kept carrying around—expectations, fear, the version of myself I thought I had to be to survive high school.
Because he wasn’t the safe option. Not really.
Safe didn’t look at you like they knew exactly where you were most afraid and still wanted to stand there with you. Safe didn’t ask you to be seen.
Mathieu wasn’t safe.
He was real.
And maybe that was what scared me most.
The garage, with its familiar smells and the hum of the old fan, suddenly felt too small.
I wanted more of him, more of this feeling.
I reached up, tangling my fingers in his hair, and pulled him closer.
His lips met mine again, this time with more urgency, more need.
The kiss deepened, and I felt myself melting into him, the tension of the day fading away.
Mathieu’s hands found their way to my waist, pulling me onto his lap.
I straddled him, feeling the heat of his body through his jeans.
His hands roamed over my back, tracing the curve of my spine, sending shivers down my neck.
I could feel his heartbeat, steady and strong, matching the rhythm of my own.
When he broke the kiss just long enough to whisper, “Let’s go inside,” I nodded.
We stood up, our hands still entwined, and made our way to his bedroom.
The house was quiet, the host family out for the evening.
His bedroom was over the garage. It gave him privacy, and a door that locked.
Right now, it was dimly lit, the soft glow of a bedside lamp casting long shadows across the walls.
Once locked behind that door, he slid his hand up to my ponytail and loosened the tie. When my hair fell free, he finger combed it. “You know you are so beautiful to me.”
It wasn’t a question, but I shuddered as his words seemed to caress that part of me that needed the acknowledgment. Needed to feel wanted. I never felt like I was competing with anything when it came to Mathieu. His eyes were dark with desire. Desire for me and that thrill ran through me.
“I wish I had your gift with words,” I murmured. Because I did. Mathieu just always seemed to know the right thing to say. When I slid my hands beneath his shirt, he pulled it up and off.
Then he was lifting my shirt. Between us, we toed off our shoes, stripped each other naked and I shuddered when he dragged me closer for another kiss.
The air conditioner, the older unit that kept this room comfortable kicked on and that rush of cold air over my overheated skin made my nipples pebble.
Wrapping an arm around my waist, he lifted me up and carried me over to his bed. Once he set me down, he straightened to look down at me. His eyes roamed over my body and I felt touched everywhere he gazed.
My heart accelerated at the open want on his face. Then he shoved down his boxers. The jut of his cock always surprised me. Even as he dropped down to cover me, I was rising up to meet him. Our mouths fused and Mathieu’s hands were everywhere.
He stroked my skin, cupped my breasts, then teased the nipples with his fingers. When he kissed a path from my mouth to my chest, I sucked in a deeper breath. His breathing was ragged and a thin line of moisture dribbled over my leg as his cock dragged over it.
“Frankie…” The harsh whisper had me clenching, then he cupped my pussy, before he pushed two fingers into me. For the first time, I was more than wet enough. We wouldn’t need the lube. Still, he pumped his fingers as he licked and sucked at my nipples like they were his favorite treat.
Right when I was so close, he dragged his fingers away and I dug my hands into his shoulders.
Frustration welled up, but he stole another kiss, then grabbed for a condom from the drawer of his nightstand.
Between us, we rolled it on him. I loved how velvety soft the skin of his shaft was, but we always used condoms.
“Ready?” He asked, returning to the cradle of my legs and at my nod, he positioned himself at my entrance.
The first push was still a bit of a sting.
Not the sharp pain of the first time or the ache of the second.
Just the pressure of the stretch, the soreness of not being used to it.
Still, I craved this, wanted this… wanted him.
He was almost too slow as he eased himself inside, and when I moaned, he drew back and thrust in again. He caught his rhythm swiftly, increasing his pace and then he moved up to his knees, hands on my hips as he dragged me forward and up.
At this angle, I felt him everywhere as he pulled out and then it almost hurt every time he slammed back inside. The tension was right there, coiling tighter as he rocked his hips to mine. But his pace increased, he was so close.
When he pulled my hand to between my legs, I let his fingers guide me. Right, I needed to rub my clit. Between us, the coiled tension exploded into electric sensation. The first clench of my inner muscles had Mathieu shouting.
His was always so much more intense than my own, but there was still a hazy drift of pleasure that came from being with him. We lay there, wrapped around each other for a long time. I’d have to go home soon, but right now, I wanted to be right where I was.