Chapter 11
Frankie
My stomach churned with nausea as I drove home. Gray’s truck wasn’t that much bigger than the Tahoe, but all the controls were different, and when it started to rain, I’d accidentally turned on the blinker before I could find the windshield wipers. I couldn’t believe he’d set up some daily attack on Scott. He’d planned it perfectly, knowing that he’d be clear of it, and I wouldn’t have any idea it was happening until we got back.
It was a sour end to our sweet trip, and that really pissed me off. I should’ve been curling up on the couch with one of Gray’s books while he grilled the steaks, but instead, I was trying not to cry as I drove away without him.
“I thought you weren’t coming home until tomorrow?” Lou called, jumping up from the couch as I let myself into the house.
“Yeah, well, plans changed,” I growled, dropping my backpack and fanny pack just inside the door.
“You look so good,” she said, rushing in to give me a hug. “Tan. Did you have fun?”
“My tan lines are a nightmare,” I griped, pulling off my jacket. “But hey, at least I slept. That’s a bonus.”
“Why’d you come home early?”
“Because Gray is a fucking asshole.”
“Do tell.”
I paused for a moment. Oh, well, it’s not like he was keeping his mouth shut. “Guess who reported to the police that Gray’s been attacking him every day this week?” I asked sarcastically, grabbing my bag by one of the straps and dragging it toward my room.
Lou’s eyes widened with glee. “No.” She followed me down the hall.
“Oh, yes,” I replied dryly. “There were cops at Gray’s place when we got there. Of course Gray has been out of town with me all week, and he has the fucking receipts to prove it.”
Lou laughed.
“It’s not fucking funny.”
“It’s a little funny,” she said, her lips twitching. “So, who was it?”
“I have no fucking clue. He wouldn’t answer me when I asked.”
“I mean…” She plopped down on my bed. “There are so many options.”
“Yeah, I’m aware,” I gritted out. I unzipped my bag and upended it, so everything dumped onto the floor.
“And you’re…mad?”
“No,” I replied, shooting her a deranged smile. “I’m fucking livid.”
“I’m sure his heart was in the right place,” she called as I stomped toward my closet.
I poked my head back out. “No, it was not,” I sang, my heart pounding. “Or he wouldn’t have fucking hidden it!”
Where the fuck was my big sweatshirt? I always hung it up so it didn’t take up half a drawer in my dresser. I slapped through the clothes, the hangers making awful screeching noises as they slid across the rod. I just wanted to put on my big sweatshirt and some pajama pants and fucking wallow.
“He was pretty worried about you,” Lou said gently as she stood in the doorway.
“Worried does not translate to beating up my old boyfriend,” I countered. “Worried doesn’t translate to telling everyone about it and lying.”
“I don’t think he told everyone ,” Lou replied hesitantly as I ripped my big sweatshirt off a hanger in the back of my closet and yanked it over my head. She shifted to the side as I stormed back out to the bedroom. “No one has said anything to me about it.”
“That doesn’t fill me with comfort,” I snapped, jerking open my pajama drawer.
“Well, what did he say about it?”
“He said that I was handling it by curling up like a kicked dog,” I replied flatly, dropping my jeans to the floor. “So, that was cool.”
“He did not,” she gasped angrily.
“He absolutely did. The asshole.”
“He didn’t try to explain himself?” she asked, following me back out of my room.
“He basically said that Scott deserved it.”
“He’s not wrong there,” she mumbled.
“It wasn’t his place to step in!”
“You’re also not wrong,” Lou replied, lifting her hands in surrender.
“And what the fuck am I supposed to do now? I have to go back there and give notice. Actually, I have to check my email first because if Scott’s been running his mouth, they’ve probably already fired me!” Reaching into the fridge, I pulled out a beer. The opener wasn’t on the fridge where it should have been. Cursing, I jerked open the junk drawer and ran my hand through it.
“Here,” Lou said, handing me the missing opener. “I can’t believe you didn’t just use the countertop.”
“I’m not an animal,” I scoffed with the beer held to my lips.
“Go out on the porch,” Lou ordered. “I’ll grab some junk food and meet you out there.”
“I have to grab my laptop first.”
“That can wait,” she soothed. “Go enjoy the rain.”
She’d already started going through the cupboards when I walked out onto the sunporch. We’d barely beat the rain on our ride home. I guess that was a silver lining. Laying out on the wicker couch, I hung my feet off the side and listened to it splatter on the roof.
I couldn’t believe Gray. The whole time he’d been saying how he didn’t want me to lie or keep anything from him, he’d known that back in Eugene the boys were roughing up Scott. What a fucking hypocrite.
“I brought reinforcements,” Lou announced a few minutes later as she stepped out the back door. Myla was right behind her.
“Your cousin is a fucking dick,” I announced.
“Tell me everything,” Myla ordered.
We tore open a bag of potato chips and some candy that Lou had found in the back of a cupboard before I spewed it all. I didn’t leave anything out. I was too pissed to be embarrassed about what Scott had been doing to me. The week away had given me perspective on the entire ordeal, and while I regretted letting it go on for so long—I knew that none of it had been my fault. It didn’t matter that I’d dated him when I’d known it wasn’t a good idea. A normal person would’ve left me alone when I made it clear I wasn’t interested any longer.
Myla’s eyebrows rose when I got to the point when we’d found the police outside Gray’s camper. I practically spit out the rest of the story, my words coming so fast that I had to backtrack a couple times to clarify.
When I finally snapped my mouth shut, Myla just looked at me.
“Can you believe that shit?” I asked as Lou handed me a new beer.
“Yeah, I can,” she said with a grimace.
“He lied all week,” I reminded her. “He didn’t say a word.”
She shrugged.
“Where is your outrage?” I asked suspiciously, pointing my beer at her.
“Okay, so I’m not sure if you want my real answer or the answer that will agree with you,” she replied slowly. “Which one do you want?”
“The real one.” I narrowed my eyes at her as I sat up.
“Gray did what any other man in my family would’ve done.” She winced. “I know that’s probably not what you want to hear. Cian would’ve done that, too.”
“Seriously? He didn’t even tell me.”
“From what Cian said, Gray was really worried about you—”
I looked at Lou. “I told you people were talking about it.”
“To be fair,” Myla interrupted. “Cian had a huge bruise on his jaw where Gray punched him—”
“Oh, this just keeps getting better and better,” I bitched. I waved at her. “Go on.”
“Cian had to tell me because I wouldn’t let it go. He said Gray was really upset that the boys had told him everything was fine when it wasn’t.”
“Who else did he hit?”
“Cian wouldn’t say. I had to pry that much out of him.”
“Fucking fantastic.”
“Bringing it back around to my original point,” Myla said dryly. “He probably didn’t tell you because he didn’t want to worry you.”
“Not good enough.”
“Okay, but beyond all this,” Lou said carefully. “How is Gray otherwise?”
I set my beer on the porch and fell back onto the couch. “Awesome,” I mumbled.
“What was that?” Myla said with a chuckle.
“He’s great,” I sighed. “I think I’m in love with the asshole.”
“That was fast,” Lou muttered in surprise.
“Not really,” I hedged. “Remember that night that Myla got caught in Cian’s tent?”
“Hard to forget,” Myla grumbled.
“We hooked up that night.”
“No, you did not!” Lou screeched.
“Yup. It was a wham-bam situation, but I was sprung for sure—he just wasn’t interested in anything more than that.”
“He is now.”
“Yeah.”
“He has been for a while,” Lou added. “I mean, a guy doesn’t look at you like that if he’s not into you.”
“Oh, you’re an expert on longing looks now?” Myla teased.
“Shut up,” Lou shot back.
“Gray set up this whole thing to beat the crap out of Scott behind my back,” I reminded them before they could really bicker. “I don’t even know who he told or who he asked to do it. I kept it private for a reason, and he just spread the news all over.”
“It wasn’t Cian,” Myla said with a shrug. “He’s been home every night this week.”
“I trusted him.” I blew out a frustrated breath.
“You’ve heard a lot of the stories,” Myla said, stretching out on the daybed. “But there’s so much family lore that you’ve missed. Shit that no one really talks about anymore.”
“Like what?”
“Well, one of the old timers was married to a man who beat her. The guy disappeared, if you know what I mean. Another one was abused by her stepfather, and I think you can guess what happened to him. Those aren’t the only stories, just a couple off the top of my head. And don’t ask me who they are because it’s not my place to tell you.”
“Jesus,” I muttered.
“We take care of our own,” Myla told me gently. “Gray’s the one who realized what was going on, but if it had been any of my brothers? My dad? Bas? The outcome would’ve been the same, Frank. You know that.”
“I’m not done being angry,” I replied stubbornly.
“Cool,” she said with a shrug. “I like angry Francesca better than depressed Francesca—which is who we’ve been dealing with for a while.”
“I wasn’t depressed,” I argued dully. “Just stressed the fuck out and backed into a corner.”
“You’re really going to quit?” Myla asked. “For sure, for sure?”
“I’m really going to quit,” I confirmed. “Just thinking about going back there makes my skin crawl.”
“Okay, well just a second,” she mumbled, pulling out her phone. She put it up to her ear.
“Hey, go ahead and ask her.” She paused. “I know what I said…yeah, yeah…okay, bye.”
Seconds later, my phone rang.
“Frank,” Myla’s dad Tommy boomed in my ear. “You’re comin’ to work for me.”
“I’m what?” I asked, glaring at Myla.
“Want you to come do for me what you’ve been doin’,” he explained. “My daughter wouldn’t let me offer because she said you’d feel like you had to say yes. Fuckin’ bullshit, since you’ve never listened to me before. I’ll pay ya the same you’re makin’—”
“Can you afford that?” I asked, making him laugh.
“Don’t worry, doll, I can afford it. You’ve got the contacts, and you’ve been managin’ vendors for jobs much bigger than ours so it’ll be easy to settle in. I’m a fuckin’ fantastic boss—just ask my daughter-in-law. You can make your own hours. Work from home. I don’t give a shit as long as you’re gettin’ it done.”
“Are you serious?” I stared at the rain pouring off the gutters.
“Come by the house one night this week,” he replied. “We’ll feed ya and do the paperwork.”
“What if I’m terrible at my job?” I asked. “How would you ever fire me?”
Tommy was quiet for a moment. “You’re terrible at it, you’ll train until you aren’t,” he said, his voice more serious than it had been before. “Won’t need to fire you. I know you, kid. It’ll be good.”
“Thank you,” I sputtered.
“Set up dinner with my wife,” he ordered before hanging up.
Myla’s smile was all teeth. “Did I fuck up?”
“Your dad just offered me a fucking job.”
“I know.”
“Oh, cool,” Lou said happily.
“If I’d known he was looking, I could’ve quit a month ago.”
“Whoops,” Myla murmured knowingly. “Maybe if you’d said something.”
“Shit,” I breathed, dropping my phone to the floor.
We stayed outside bitching and talking until we passed out one by one. I woke up to footsteps on the floorboards. When I opened my eyes, I nearly shit myself before I realized that I knew the men on the sunporch well.
“I’m still pissed at you,” I snapped as Gray bent over me.
“Cool,” he said unconcernedly. “You still can’t sleep on the fuckin’ sunporch.”
“I put Lou in bed,” Cian told Gray. “I’m gonna bring Myla home.”
“Thanks for lettin’ me in.”
“Anytime,” Cian replied.
I pushed myself up onto my elbow. “No, not anytime . You shouldn’t even have a key to my house.”
“Used Myla’s,” he replied, disappearing into the house.
“She’s lost key privileges,” I muttered under my breath.
“If I pick you up, are you going to punch me?” Gray asked.
“There’s a really good chance of that, yes,” I replied, getting up myself. “Why are you even here?”
Gray followed me inside and locked the door behind him. “Because I didn’t want to sleep without you.”
Throwing up my hands, I turned to face him. “You don’t get to be sweet to me.”
“Why not?”
“You called me a kicked dog .”
“Poor choice of words.”
“You think?” I snapped.
“Put yourself in my shoes,” he replied. I both loved and hated that he was so calm when I was so angry.
“Oh, this should be good.”
He scowled. “I’m with you on a couple of bad days—I think, no matter how you want to describe ’em, they’d be considered not good. And I’m thinkin’, man, I’m fuckin’ gone for this woman, but she’s been through some shit. I don’t want to make things harder for you, so I back off for a while. Then I see you a month later, and you’re a goddamn shadow. Bags under your eyes, lost weight, fake laugh, just worn the fuck out. Turns out I shouldn’t have given you that time, what I should’ve been doin’ was keepin’ an eye on you.”
“I didn’t need you to babysit me,” I cut in stubbornly.
“No,” he barked. “You needed me to be there for you because you sure as shit weren’t letting anyone else, and I knew that.”
“You think that justifies you going behind my back—”
“I think that justifies everything ,” he yelled. I was pretty sure it surprised both of us. “I think I got you out of a bad situation and made sure that you wouldn’t be comin’ straight back to it.”
“You had no right.”
“I have every fuckin’ right. What kind of man would I be if I saw you drownin’ and didn’t step in?”
“Oh, I don’t know. One that respects me?”
“You think I don’t respect you?”
“Sure doesn’t seem like it.”
Gray let out a huff of disbelief.
“You made decisions—”
“No,” he barked, cutting me off. “No. I’m done.”
My breath caught in my chest, and everything inside me stilled.
“I protect your soft bits,” he growled, pointing to himself. “You remember that? I protect your soft bits.”
Clenching my teeth, I blinked hard as my eyes started to water.
“I will always do that. You might not like how I do it, that’s fine. We’ll deal. I’m not arguin’ about this anymore. It happened. It’s done. I’m sorry you found out the way you did.”
“You should’ve told me,” I rasped.
“I was just tryin’ to get that beaten look out of your eyes, baby,” he said, lifting his hands and dropping them to his sides again. “Didn’t want to worry you with anythin’ else.”
We stared at each other. I wasn’t mad anymore, but I couldn’t make myself break the silence.
“I’m not leavin’,” he said finally. “Don’t wanna be away from you, and even if you’re pissed, you know you don’t want me gone. So, am I sleepin’ on the couch or in your bed?”
“Come on,” I murmured, walking back toward my room.
I took my time getting ready for bed, and when I came out of the bathroom, Gray was already between the sheets, his clothes folded on top of my dresser. After turning off the light, I crawled in beside him and lay staring at the ceiling. I still couldn’t believe he’d made some plan to terrorize Scott while we were gone and decided it was a good idea to keep me in the dark.
“He deserved worse,” Gray said quietly. “And not just for harrassin’ you at work. You didn’t see what I saw when you walked out of that clinic the first time, shell-shocked and scared.”
“I just wish you would have told me,” I whispered back.
“I didn’t want you to worry about what was happenin’ back here. That’s the whole reason I took you away, baby.”
“Okay.” I still thought he’d fucked up, but I couldn’t really fault his logic. If the roles were reversed, I wasn’t sure what I would’ve done. Just the thought of someone making Gray feel the way I’d felt for the past couple of months made me angry enough to run the hypothetical person over with the Tahoe.
“I never wanna see that look on your face again,” he murmured.
The memory of him tucking me into bed that day, holding my hand until I’d fallen asleep, made my eyes water. He hadn’t thought twice about driving me home and making sure I was okay, just stepped in because he’d seen that I needed someone , and he stepped into that role.
We were quiet for a while as all of our interactions played on a loop in my head. No one would’ve believed me if I told them how unbelievably considerate he was. He’d cared for me long before I’d even known.
He’d never even given a hint of judgment as he’d swooped in to save the day.
“I do want kids, you know,” I said after a while, rolling to face him. “I just don’t want them yet. I didn’t want one with him.”
“I understand.”
“Do you want kids?”
“With you?” Gray asked, reaching for me. He pulled me against his side. “Just tell me when.”
“I want like four,” I warned, making him chuckle. “I want a full, messy house and sports practices and dance recitals and noise and all of it.”
“Sounds nice.”
“It sounds hard,” I corrected. “But I want it.”
“I can give you that.” He kissed my temple. “You wanna have what you didn’t have as a kid.”
“I guess so, yeah.” I’d never thought about it that way before, but he wasn’t wrong.
“You gonna stay home or work?”