Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
FRANKIE
I did not have a good night’s sleep. Didn’t get to bed too late, because Shelby was shattered, but I lay awake for ages trying to arrange the thoughts churning away in my brain into some kind of order. Trying to figure out my next steps – “Actions for Frankie”, as if I was holding a meeting with myself.
Here’s where I got to: I made a list of the most important subjects and divided each into my two typical assessment categories – what I ought to do, and what I want to do – to see whether there’s any common ground.
Subject 1: Mom .
Situation: Cam’s picking her up from the airport tomorrow afternoon and bringing her straight here.
What I ought to do: be happy to see her.
What I want to do: avoid her as much as I can. Her attention will be on Shelby, anyway, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to stay out of her way.
Subject 2: Danny.
Situation: I might be in love with him.
What I ought to do: sit down with him and talk about what next. What happens after Shelby and Nate’s baby is born and we need to go back home, him to L.A. and me to San Diego? Or wherever my law firm wants to post me?
What I want to do: have fun and a lot more sex with him and ignore the subject as long as humanly possible.
Subject 3: Me.
Situation: my emotional blender is on its highest setting. I could make a smoothie out of golf balls.
What I ought to do: confront my darkest fears, of being vulnerable, and rejected, and forced to compromise. Throw a bucket of water on them and hope they melt.
What I want to do: have even more sex with Danny, watch TV with Shelby, feed the pigs, get super busy organizing the crush party, and basically utilize every distraction technique I can think of.
So that’s it. There is no common ground between what I ought to do and what I want to do. I’ll have to pick a path. And soon.
Right now, however, I’m carrying a mug of coffee over to Danny in the winery office. He texted me to say he’d slept in and could I be an angel? I’m no angel but I can tote a beverage. Even one that could burn right through to the earth’s core.
I open the office door to find Danny slumped over the desk, head resting on his arms.
“Hit the hard stuff last night, did you?”
He sits up and widens his eyes hugely, like he’s trying to force them to stay open.
“I had two beers,” he says. “I also had a brother who needed to get a lot off his chest. This is an emotional hangover, not an alcohol one.”
I set the steaming mug in front of him. He gazes at it reverentially and whispers, “Bless you.” Hard to tell if he means me or the coffee. I wait until he’s drunk it. Never get between a man and his caffeine.
Thanks to Nate, the office is nowhere near as messy as it used to be, but it’s still cramped. Danny’s sitting behind the desk, and I’ve positioned a chair in front. I brought a legal notepad and Danny has his laptop. There isn’t room for both on the desk at the same time.
“We could work at the kitchen table?” Danny suggests.
“Things were still a little … um, tender between Nate and Shelby this morning,” I say. “I ate my breakfast on the back porch with the dogs to give them some space.”
“Tender but improving?” says Danny.
I wonder what Nate offloaded on him last night. Much the same as Shelby offloaded on me, I’d imagine. With luck, they’ll start sharing with each other now. I know exactly what Danny means about having an emotional hangover.
“Tender as in both stepping very carefully around each other,” I say. “Hard to say if that’s an improvement or not.”
Danny gazes at me for a moment beyond my personal comfort.
“What?”
I sound abrupt but Danny doesn’t take offense.
“I wonder what would have happened if you and I had met under different circumstances?” he says.
“Such as?”
He shrugs. “I lost a bet and signed up for Lindy Hop lessons? You wanted to sell your car and needed the best broker in the country?”
“Uh huh.” I refuse to encourage him.
Danny grins. “I mean, what would it have been like if we had met with no family around us? If we’d been free to go out and have fun, get to know each other without all this extra pressure.”
“Maybe it’s good that we are being tested?” I suggest. “If we can survive this, we can survive anything?”
It happens again. That jolt. That sudden shifting of the ground beneath us.
Danny and I stare at each other, our expressions, I’m guessing, identical. A mixture of alarm and anticipation and hope, like we’re both clinging to a rope, preparing to swing for our lives across a raging crocodile-infested river.
“I want this so bad,” he says. “But I also don’t want to put any pressure on you.”
Don’t look down, Frankie. Don’t let those crocodile fears psych you out.
“I want it, too,” I tell him. “But … I need time to figure out some stuff.”
“We’ve got time,” he says. “So long as our families don’t implode.”
“If that happens, we could always go on a very long hike,” I say. “Hide out in a cabin somewhere. You know, until the National Guard sounds the all clear.”
“I like how you think.” Danny grins. “I like you . More than anyone ever.”
Damn it, he knows exactly how to win me over.
“I like you, too,” I say. “A lot. Now, let’s focus. We have shit to do.”
“Don’t suppose we can organize the crush another day?” he says.
“Sooner we get the plan done, sooner we’re free to?—”
“Don’t say it,” he warns. “If you say it, I’ll have no choice but to ravish you right here on this very small desk.”
“Ravish?” I raise an eyebrow. “My, my. Fancy.”
“Damn,” he says. “I’d hoped Lil Danny wouldn’t understand that word, but it seems he has.”
“Lil Danny would understand it if you spelled it out in semaphore.”
Danny makes what I assume he thinks is an endearing puppy face. “Quickie on the filing cabinet?”
“No!” I say. “Work now. Ravish later. Threaten Lil Danny with a stapler if you have to.”
“Ouch.” Danny winces.
Then he takes a breath and fires up his laptop.
“Okay, hit me. What exactly have we let ourselves in for?”