21. Chapter 19
FRANKIE
“ I can have Dominic and Noah leave the room if you want to write it,” Dr. Mike offered.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Noah interrupted before she could let Dr. Mike know what she wanted. “I am responsible for her. I’m not leaving the room. I need to know what’s going on.”
He had a point, but Frankie never agreed to him taking charge of her.
“I also need to know because she lied to me at the interview. I told her if she had anything medical I needed to know. I knew she’d lied, but I didn’t push. Whatever this is revolves around your lie, right?” Noah looked at her.
Frankie nodded. He knew she had lied, and now there was no going back.
“Everyone has noticed,” Dominic said. “We are all worried about you. Trent said he saw you taking some medicine once and was worried about you. It seems to get worse when you are exhausted and looked stressed, but that is just an observation.”
They really had been paying more attention to her than she thought. How did she think she would ever get away with hiding what she had? Frankie should have known she wouldn’t be able to do it for long. She was surprised it had already been a month without them asking.
“Frankie?” Dr. Mike looked at her expectantly.
Sighing, she nodded. She wasn’t sure about Noah taking care of her, but he was her boss, and he should know what she was going through in case he wanted to get fire her. But she hoped he wouldn’t, since she hadn’t done anything bad at work yet. No broken glasses or anything.
She shook her head. Frankie didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t want to discuss her condition and see their faces because she hadn’t said anything to them in the beginning. She didn’t want to see Noah get mad because she lied. But would he have hired her if she’d told him in the beginning?
Frankie hadn’t wanted to take the chance, but now she was paying the consequences. She loved working at Behind the Scenes. She loved being around people who understood her and what she wanted, even if they didn’t know she was a Little.
“It’s okay,” Noah gently said. “I’m not going to be angry at you, no matter what you have. I know you lied because you wanted the job, and I let it happen. I know how badly you needed the job, and I kept a close eye on you in the beginning. I was going to come to you this week and ask about it.”
It still didn’t make her feel better that he knew.
“I promise I won’t fire you for lying. Everyone loves having you at the club.” Noah gave her knee a squeeze. “I want you to keep that in mind when you write down your answers. You will have a job after this at the club if you still want it, which everyone is hoping you will.”
“Everyone really is, Little bit,” Dominic chimed in. “Everyone is going to be super upset if you leave. We all love hearing your little hums as you clean. We don’t want you to go anywhere.”
That made her feel a little better, but she still felt bad for lying. The guilt inside of her was eating at her and weighing her down at the same time. It had been this way since she’d told the lie a month ago, and it hasn’t gone away.
Frankie placed one hand on her stomach and started to rub, trying to ease the anguish inside. Why did she have to feel so guilty about this? She had done it once before and never felt this bad, but with Noah it was different.
Everything was different with Noah.
“You feel guilty, don’t you?” Noah gently asked.
She looked at him briefly before taking her hand away. She should have tried to keep it a secret so they didn’t have a card to play against her later.
“It’s natural to feel guilty. When you are done answering and talking to Dr. Mike, we will talk about punishments and what we can do to get rid of the icky feeling,” Noah suggested.
Frankie didn’t want to get punished. She didn’t want to get punished by Noah because she knew that once she did it, it would be over. Just like when he gave her a hug.
Now she desperately wanted more hugs and couldn’t get them.
Not without asking, and she thought he might find it weird that one of his employees wanted that from him all the time.
Maybe she could find a way to make it mandatory for workers who are Little and don’t have a caregiver to get a hug before and after their shift.
But then she would have to share him with other people, and she didn’t want them.
She didn’t want to share Noah.
Frankie wanted him all to herself.
“Can you tell me about what you have?” Dr. Mike asked again.
Frankie took a deep breath and nodded. It was now or never. Grabbing the piece of paper in front of her, she started to write before handing it to Noah.
“She has something called Essential Tremor.” Noah looked at Dr. Mike.
“I don’t know much about ET, but it’s a neurological disorder that causes rhythmic shaking.
You see it in her hands most of the time, but every once in a while, you can see her head move a little.
It can also affect the voice, arms, and legs,” Dr. Mike explained.
“Normally, being exhausted and stressed can make the tremors worse or when someone is overworking yourself. And there are some medicines that can help reduce the tremors, but there isn’t any cure for it. ”
For someone who didn’t specialize in ET, he really knew a lot about it.
“How long have you had it for?” Dr. Mike asked. “Have you been taking medicine for a long time or have you just started?”
Now she was going to look irresponsible, but she wasn’t really. Before, she’d kept up on things and had a well-paid job to make sure she could afford her old apartment and food and her medicine. Now… now she was stuck in an apartment on the bad side of town and could hardly afford her medicine.
She really couldn’t afford it until she got paid from the club and her insurance kicked in. Frankie was running out of medicine quickly. She tried not to take them all the time, but it was exhausting when she didn’t.
“Frankie?” Noah gently spoke. “Can you answer Dr. Mike?”
On the piece of paper, she explained how often she took the medicine, when she got diagnosed with ET, and how her condition was going. It wasn’t pretty, but Dr. Mike wanted to know, and she needed to tell someone since she couldn’t go see her doctor right now.
“I’m going to prescribe you some more medicine so you can take them more often and not have to figure out if the day is bad enough to warrant one of the few you have left.
” Dr. Mike brought out a pad from his bag.
“Your insurance should have kicked in by now, and I know the club insurance will cover it.”
How was he so sure about that? Frankie didn’t know when the insurance was going to kick in.
“It kicked in today,” Noah told her. “I was going to call you into my office to let you know, in case you had forgotten about it. I always give people a reminder in case they were waiting to get something checked.”
Noah was too nice. He knew the only reason she’d taken the job was for the money and insurance. Sure, it had worked out to be a really good place to work, one she wanted to work for the rest of her life, but that wasn’t how it started.
“It’s settled. You can go pick it up or I can pick it up for you,” Dr. Mike offered, handing Noah a piece of paper. “I have this prescription refillable twice. If something changes and you need more, come see me and I’ll talk to your specialist doctor.”
Her eyebrows pinched together.
“While I’m allowed to prescribe things, I don’t make it a habit.
Especially not outside of the hospital, but I am allowed.
I’ll talk to your doctor after this visit as well to bring him up to speed,” Dr. Mike explained.
“Don’t worry about anything. I want you to focus on getting enough rest, eating well, and trying not to be too stressed. Can you do that?”
Could she? Her life was a big ball of stress, not sleeping or eating properly. She didn’t have the luxury of not worrying about every little thing in her life right now. She lived in the worst part of town, and Frankie had just been strangled by a man who broke into her apartment.
Her life was nothing but stress.
“Since she’ll be staying with me, I’ll make sure she gets enough sleep, eats well, and doesn’t have a lot of stress in her life.” Noah spoke for her.
Her mouth dropped open as she looked at him. He’d said that he would move her in with him, but she figured he was just saying that for appearances. But she should have known better.
“There won’t be any arguments.” Noah turned to Frankie. “I told you in the very beginning that I wouldn’t move you until something bad happened. Something bad did happen and now you are getting moved into my place.”
“Oooo Papa Noah is not here to play.” Dominic whistled before turning to her. “You better listen to him. Papa Noah can get pretty strict. What am I saying? He is super strict when his Daddy side comes out, but he will protect and love you like you’ve never felt before.”
And that was what she was afraid of. She was afraid that she would fall in love with him even more, and once she had enough money to find an apartment, he would tell her to leave.
Frankie didn’t want her heart broken, but it seemed like it was going to happen anyway.
How was she going to survive living with him, him taking care of her, and not get hurt in the end?
“Everything is going to be okay,” Noah gently calmed her. “Dominic, can you go grab the prescription from the pharmacy in a couple of minutes? Frankie and I need to have a talk about her punishment, and then we are going to get her stuff from her apartment.”
“The prescription won’t be ready for at least an hour and a half.
I need to call it in, and then they’ll have to have time to fill it before you go in,” Dr. Mike informed them all as he packed up his bag.
“If you have any questions or need anything, I’m only a phone call away.
It was nice meeting you, Frankie, and I hope you can live a stress-free life to the best of your ability. ”
Frankie waved as he walked out of the room.
“I can pack up her apartment if you want. That way, you guys can be here and not have to worry about anything. I can grab Trent on my way to help, so it won’t take that long,” Dominic suggested.
Frankie opened her mouth to speak, but quickly closed it when Noah gave her a firm look. Right. She wasn’t allowed to talk right now.
“You can either let Dominic and Trent do it, or you and I can go later, but you won’t touch a thing,” Noah said. “You aren’t going to pack a thing if it’s just us two.”
Her shoulders sagged. At that point, it would just be better for Dominic and Trent to go and do it.
It’s not like anything in her apartment was private.
She had Lita with her. Everything else was a few clothes, her toiletries, and a couple of kitchen appliances.
That was it. That was what her life boiled down to right now.
Frankie pointed at Dominic.
“You can pick up Trent on the way. When you are coming back, you can grab the medicine from the pharmacy. I’ll pay you.” Noah softly spoke before turning to her. “Thank you for letting me take care of you. If you need anything, let me know and I’ll do my best.”
Nodding, she relaxed into the couch and took a deep breath. Everything around her was changing, and she didn’t know how she was going to cope with it all. She figured Noah would do his best to help ease her into everything.
Dominic left, and it was only the two of them staring at each other for several minutes.
“Let’s talk about your punishment,” Noah finally said, breaking the silence.