Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
FRANKIE
As he poured a bowl of cereal for Elodie, Frankie found himself feeling a bit like a shitty parent.
He was pretty sure Lucas hadn’t been trying to shame him the night before about tragic casseroles and cereal, but it put a spotlight on the fact that he wasn’t a normal dad.
He didn’t know how to cook. He spot cleaned as best he could to make sure that Elodie could move around the house without falling on her face, but he wasn’t one of those parents on Instagram who had pristine counters and mopped every single day and turned out meals that looked like they belonged in five-star restaurants.
He was lucky if he managed not to burn her chicken nuggets and sweet potato fries.
He’d tried to do all of that once, but he failed miserably.
And now, he didn’t know if he was doing entirely wrong by her.
And maybe by himself.
God, he was all twisted up inside. There was something fundamentally wrong with him that the first time his dick had stirred since his ex left was when Lucas was mouthing off to him. He wasn’t usually a man who wanted conflict in his life, but something about Lucas was different.
The man was probably half his age though, so he had no fucking business at all looking at him the way he had.
He didn’t know if it made him a monster, either, that he was glad Lucas couldn’t see it.
But there was every chance he’d heard something in Frankie’s tone, which was probably the reason he was so acerbic.
He needed to let this go.
“Daddeeee?”
Frankie peered around the corner and found Elodie crawling toward him. She was wearing her glasses, which was the first time she’d kept them on all week. Her big eyes were bright behind the thick lenses.
“Hey, Bugs. You want me to help you stand up?”
“No. I just…can. I can do it.” Her little hand reached for the wall and propped herself up, shuffling from side to side until her legs were straight. The braces helped a bit, but it was always a bit of a gut punch to watch her struggle with something that he had never thought twice about.
Sometimes he was angry at his mother for this.
That she’d been irresponsible again. That she hadn’t made something better of her life.
That her poor decisions that led to Elodie’s birth trauma and injury made the girl’s life harder.
He understood what his mom had was a disease—that she needed more than anyone could give her in order to help.
But it didn’t erase the long, aching childhood trauma that had carved away at him and scarred his bones. Even if she did get better in prison, he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to forgive her. Not entirely.
Not all the way.
“I want the bus.”
Frankie walked over and swept her into his arms, putting her in her booster chair and strapped her in. “The bus isn’t coming today. You had another seizure last night, so you’re gonna go with Fallon today.”
“Noooo! I want…just…” She sniffed loudly, and it was only in that moment that he realized she was smelling something. And so was he.
Cinnamon?
“At the mall!”
The mall. The…oh my god. It was cinnamon buns.
“You want a cinnamon bun?”
Her big eyes locked on his face, and she blinked behind her glasses. “Yeah. I wan’ it.”
Biting his lip, he sighed and pressed his hand over hers, guiding it to her bowl of cereal. “Start this breakfast, and I’ll see what I can do.” He shuffled toward the door, one eye on her as the scent got stronger.
Fuck, it was probably Lucas tormenting him. The man was a chef—and while he hadn’t made anything gourmet, the grilled PB and J was the best thing Frankie’d had in a long, long time. Lucas seemed to have a talent for making something mundane into something much more.
He reached for the knob and opened the door, preparing a small speech in case he could find the courage to head to Lucas’s when he almost stepped in something. He glanced down. It was a plate with cling film, and under it, three very large, frosted cinnamon buns.
His hands shook as he reached down and picked them up. On the bottom of the plate, he felt something like thick paper—sort of like a business card. Pulling it off, he shut the door behind him and realized that it was blank.
Except no. It wasn’t.
There were bumps along the front, and he couldn’t help but smile. “It’s in fucking braille.”
“Wha’s fuh-king braille?” Elodie asked.
Of course, the one word she’d say the most clearly was the f-word. “Never mind, Bugs. That’s a bad word.”
“Braille? I has some.”
“Just eat your cereal,” he said tiredly before pulling up the app on his phone to decipher the text Lucas had left him.
He identified all the dot patterns, then closed his eyes and touched each one with the tip of his finger.
He couldn’t tell the individual dots from one another, and it boggled his mind how anyone could.
Lucas had written it in contracted braille, so it took him another minute on the app to figure out what words were what—but eventually, he had the note scribbled out on the back of his electric bill envelope.
F- Thanks for the A plus. Hope you like cinnamon. It’s one of my favorite spices. -L
Something about the way he’d written that—the way he put the words together like that—made him feel warm all over.
Like it wasn’t entirely friendly, but it also wasn’t meant to be cruel.
He had no business feeling this way, but it wasn’t like anyone else was able to crawl into his mind and see his thoughts.
“Hello?”
He jolted at the sound of his brother’s voice and collected himself before turning to smile at Fallon, who was hovering in the doorway wearing his usual T-shirt, jeans, and holding his camera strap over his shoulder. Frankie hadn’t heard the front door open, which was not a good sign.
“Be careful with your camera,” Frankie warned. “She’s been a lot today, and I don’t have the cash to replace anything she breaks.”
Fallon rolled his eyes and walked over, laying a kiss on Elodie’s temple. “She knows to be gentle, right?”
“I can be gentle,” she parroted dutifully.
Fallon smiled and leaned against the counter, turning to face Frankie. “You look weird today.” Frankie absently touched the side of his face, and Fallon shook his head. “Weird vibes. Why are you weird?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s a weird answer to my question,” Fallon insisted. “What happened?”
“It’s been a bad couple of days at work. I’m trying to adjust back to normal.” Not a total lie. But he wasn’t about to tell his twenty-three-year-old brother that he was lusting after his neighbor who was probably the same age as him.
Fallon gave him a look that said he didn’t entirely believe him, but that was fine. Frankie could work with that. “What is on Bugs’s agenda?”
“PT and OT. They’ll be by around twelve thirty, but if you want to help her with her tactile shapes box, that would be great.
” He pulled up the planner on his phone.
“She has an eye appointment next Wednesday. She has a retina scan, and they’re hoping to get some idea about what her brain is processing. ”
Fallon wrinkled his nose, though Frankie knew well that wasn’t his brother’s annoyed face. It was his thinking face. “Do I need to be there for that? I have two photoshoots that day—”
“No, bud. I was mostly just reminding myself out loud. Thank you for taking her today.”
“She’s my favorite bug apart from the Sphynx moth,” Fallon said seriously.
“I don’t like it,” Elodie said. She was not a fan of bugs. She couldn’t see them well, and the creepy-crawly sensation on her skin made her upset.
“It’s okay. No bugs here,” Fallon promised. He glanced at the wall clock. “I think you’re going to be late.”
“Shit.”
“Shit!” Elodie parroted.
Frankie slapped a hand over his face. “She’s also been repeating swear words. It’s been a morning.”
Fallon reached over and squeezed Frankie’s wrist. “You should go.”
“I—yeah.” He glanced at the cinnamon rolls. “Help yourself to those if you’re into cinnamon these days, but save me one. Elodie can have a quarter piece.”
“Did you bake?” Fallon asked with wide eyes.
Frankie bowed his head and felt even more shame. “No. They’re from the neighbor. Call me if you need me. Have a good day.”
He grabbed his keys and laptop bag, then slipped his feet into his shoes and headed out, locking the door behind him. He was three steps down the hall when suddenly Lucas’s door opened up, and he opened his mouth to speak but froze.
Lucas turned his head slightly toward Frankie, brow furrowed. “Hello?”
Frankie swallowed, but still no sound came out.
Lucas stood there another minute, and while Frankie was pretty sure he now had the courage to say something, he didn’t.
He didn’t want to even think about what Lucas might say if he thought Frankie was standing there just staring at him the whole time.
So he held his breath and watched as Lucas set his cane in front of him and made his way to the doors.
It was only when they closed that Frankie hurried after and felt like a complete tool as he hung back and walked slowly so Lucas was getting in his Uber before he made it to the curb. Why was he such a jackass? He was too damn old to be behaving like this.
Like a lust-struck moron who couldn’t unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth.
He watched Lucas sit in the back seat of the black car, settling in. He almost lifted his hand and waved before he remembered that while he didn’t know how much Lucas could see, it wasn’t enough to recognize him in the hall.
He wouldn’t see him wave.
He curled his fingers into fists instead, then hurried to his car the moment the Uber was out of sight.
“Stellar work there,” he told his eyes in the rearview mirror. “What a goddamn catch. Jackass.”
No one was harder on him than he was. But in this moment, he was pretty sure it was well deserved.