8. Chapter 8 #2
“It’s all right.”
“It’s not.”
Sammy sighed. “You’re right—it’s not. But I forgave you a long time ago for that night. Unfortunately for me, the panic attacks stayed. Couldn’t shake the spin, I guess.”
“You still get ’em?”
“Sometimes.”
Frankie’s hand gripped the steering wheel. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want to worry you.”
He nodded, an unexpected anger filtering through his veins.
Sammy knew everything about his life. Had gone to every match Frankie had ever fought, ridden in every car he had built from the ground up.
He had been there for his highs and his lows, and he thought he’d done the same for Sammy.
But he was quickly finding out over the past few months that he hadn’t.
“You’re mad,” Sammy stated.
“I’m not,” he said, dismissing it with another nod.
“You nod when you’re about to break something.”
He stopped nodding and shot him a hard look. “You should’ve told me.”
“You’re right,” he replied slowly. “I should’ve.”
“You can’t control me caring about you, Sammy. You gotta let me worry and get mad and do what I need to fuckin’ do when it comes to you, do you understand?”
Sammy’s jaw clenched, and Frankie reached across the space between them, cradling his chin and forcing him to look at him. “The next time you have another attack, you call me. All right?”
He hesitated, and Frankie’s grip on his chin tightened.
“Okay,” Sammy relented.
“Okay?”
The tension in Sammy’s face bothered him, and he sighed, knowing that he couldn’t force him to open up—couldn’t force him to be honest about his life.
“You’re still my emergency contact, just so you know,” Frankie drawled, releasing him and attempting to lighten the situation. “I prefer having you, someone thousands of miles away, over my own fuckin’ family.”
The lines around Sammy’s lips broke, and he snorted. “You’re on my list, too.”
“List? Number one, yeah?”
“Maybe.”
He huffed, “I’m stealin’ your phone later.
I better be fuckin’ number one.” He reached for the steering wheel and drove out of the vacant lot to the Charles River, parking in a spot he had found a few months back on a ride that offered a gorgeous view of the river, the Longfellow Bridge, and the sprawling, sparkling city beyond.
He had packed a six-pack of beer in the ice chest in the trunk. Popping two of the cans, they leaned against the hood of the car, watching the sunset.
“This is nice,” Sammy hummed. “I needed this.”
He licked the beer off his lips. “Me too. How’s your mom?”
Frankie had wondered if he was gonna say anything about seeing her. Because the ground he stood on next to Sammy felt shaky at best. But he knew how hard it was for him to visit her.
He hesitated, “She doesn’t look good. She’s so…”
“Fuckin’ mean?” he finished.
Sammy sighed heavily, pushing his fingers into his eyes.
His chest tightened, and he couldn’t stop himself from reaching for him, squeezing the back of his neck. “Sorry.”
“I think I gotta get social services to come back out. Have someone check in on her regularly.”
He nodded, “It’s probably for the best.”
“Frankie…” Sammy cleared his throat, finally looking at him.
His eyes were so much greener than he realized.
A bright, swirling green that reminded him of the stained glass windows he’d seen in church as a kid that would shine when the light hit it.
His thumb grazed the underside of Sammy’s jaw as he slowly slid his hand away, realizing that his usual demonstrations of affection should probably stop, at least until they talk about last night.
His hand tingled in awareness of how warm Sammy’s skin had been.
He took another long drink of his beer, masking his unexpected nervousness.
“She told me you’ve been visiting her.”
He shrugged carelessly. “It’s not a big deal.”
“It is,” he replied firmly, holding his gaze. “Thank you. You don’t have to.”
“It’s what family—”
He stopped himself.
They weren’t brothers. They weren’t friends, according to Sammy.
Frankie wasn’t sure what they were. He knew that what had happened last night meant they couldn’t go back.
And he couldn’t forget how incredible Sammy looked as he broke apart, surrendering completely.
Something about seeing it, after all these years, with his armor stripped off was…
Exhilarating.
That man was looking at him right now, and his stomach fell as though he were standing at the edge of a cliff—at the edge of something bigger than him.
Frankie’s phone buzzed in his back pocket. He glanced at the text and cursed. “Shit, Ryan’s stoppin’ by droppin’ off tickets for his fight tonight. I told him I’d pick it up at the gym. He’s probably a nervous wreck and needs something to do before the fight.”
Sammy arched both eyebrows, “Ryan? Like, as in…”
He smiled proudly, “Yeah. Bastard grew like five feet overnight and has the reach of fuckin’ Abraham Lincoln. I’ve been workin’ with him for a while. His first fight is tonight.”
Ryan had been too young to run with them in college and a bit of a runt. But he always managed to find a way to the bar or get into trouble with them when he wasn’t supposed to.
Sammy shot him a surprised smile, “Coaching, huh?”
He busily shoved his empty beer can into the cooler. “It’s better than sittin’ on my ass, complainin’.”
“Good for you, Frankie.”
He glanced up at him, and he saw something there.
Frankie always loved standing out in a crowd—making a show of himself, getting all the attention.
It’s why he supposed he had such a big personality because it drew people in.
Attention mattered to him because his father never cared to give him any.
It wasn’t until he met Sammy that he stopped caring about others' reactions to him.
He just wanted his best friend's approval.
His eyes on him in the arena, at the bar, in the garage…
Smiling for him, proud of him, looking at him like he was right fuckin’ now.
Mind whirling, heart racing, Frankie quickly snapped the cooler lid shut. “We should, uh… get goin’. Gotta meet up with Ryan.”
Sammy nodded, finishing the rest of his beer and adding it to the cooler before climbing into the car.
A strange awareness of how close they were settled over him the entire way back to the house.
The faint smell of leather polish, beer, and Sammy—who smelled clean like basic bar soap.
He didn’t wear fancy cologne or obnoxious deodorants, which meant he barely had a scent at all.
He wondered how close he would have to get to smell the real Sammy.
He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, exhaling a little too loudly.
“What’s wrong?” Sammy asked quietly.
“Nothin’.”
“You’re quiet.”
He nodded, still not answering.
“Is it about last night?” Sammy finally asked the question that had been pulsating between them since they locked eyes today.
“Yeah,” he admitted gruffly.
Sammy nodded, silent.
He sucked in a breath. “I ain’t gay, Sammy.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He snapped his gaze to his. “What do you mean?”
“You said it in a judgy tone.”
“I didn’t!” Frankie caught himself and straightened. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
“Then explain to the gay man, who feels offended, what you actually fucking meant,” Sammy said irritably.
“I’m just sayin’, I ain’t gay,” he said, softer now, not understanding why his pulse was racing so quickly.
Sammy scrubbed his hand over his temple. “You could be bi.”
“I don’t believe in that.”
“You don’t believe in bisexuality?”
“I believe you either like a man or a woman, can’t be both. On or off. That’s it. End of story. It’s impossible to like both.”
“Jesus Christ, Frankie. You sound like your dad.” Sammy's tone wasn’t harsh or angry. He sounded disappointed, and that stung a hell of a lot more.
He had always been sensitive around the topic of his father—both of them were.
Sammy’s dad had abandoned him with his crazy, drunk mother. Frankie’s father had neglected him to the point of abandonment, but whenever his father did finally show up, it was with a hard fuckin’ slap and a talking-to on how life really was, and that real men weren’t fuckin’ pussies.
And pussies, in his father’s eyes, were faggots.
“You’re being defensive because last night freaked you out,” Sammy explained logically, without an ounce of emotion. “You run when you get scared. Then double down and defend. That’s what you do. But you never once made a gay joke, never once made me feel ashamed or judged—until now.”
Frankie opened his mouth to reply and shut it, unsure of what to say.
He pulled into his driveway and opened the garage, and the second he put it into park, Sammy’s hand was on the door handle, ready to run again.
Frankie reached across him and slammed the door shut.
“Wait a goddamned minute, we need to talk about this,” he insisted, sitting back, angling his body toward Sammy.
“We already have.”
“No, we fuckin’ haven’t.”
He refused to let this go—refused to let Sammy leave, believing he was anything like his father. “I’m sorry, all right? Maybe I shouldn’t have an opinion on something I don’t fuckin’ know anything about.”
Sammy hitched his chin to the side, staring at him in open curiosity. “But you do know something about it, Frankie.”
“What—?”
Sammy reached between the space between them, capturing the back of his neck, fingers roughly spreading upward into his hairline. His thumb slipped behind his ear, swirling slowly, almost seductively. An unexpected shiver raced down his back, and he couldn’t fucking breathe with him this close.
“Have you ever wondered why I never touched you? Have you even noticed?” Sammy asked quietly.
He frowned, trying to think despite the muddle in his brain and the razor-sharp focus he had on the thumb that grazed the pulse on his neck. He suddenly realized with a jolt that Sammy had never once initiated the touch, certainly not like this, but not even in a playful way.
Frankie stared, eyes narrowed and searching, wondering why he had never noticed before.