6. — the only one on time.
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Staten Island, New York
Nico, Gallo Estate
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Frankie had pink kitten ear headphones on and danced a circle next to the opened driver’s door of a rose-gold Supra.
Nico cut the engine on his Ducati, walking the black bike closer to the girl whose golden-brown hair made her look like a fairy fluttering back and forth.
Without the noise of his bike, he could make out the unmistakeable beat of a popular song.
It took him back to raves and molly, sex on drugs, and a handful of years in his life when he thought he was happy.
Hiding, more like it.
He blinked the memories away at the same time he put the kickstand down on his bike and pulled the helmet from his head. Frankie still hadn’t noticed him watching her while his black hair fell in thick strands around his field of vision.
He could almost sing the song in his head while her chin bobbed along to the loud music pumping out of her headphones. Nico even found himself instinctively rocking his upper body back and forth along with the beat and the roll of her delicate shoulders covered in baggy blue cashmere.
Placing the helmet in front of him where his hands could rest on top, he made himself stop dancing. He might even get a laugh when she finally realized he waited there.
“Kiss me, kiss me,” she sang, spinning on the spot.
Nico smirked and waved two fingers.
“Shit!”
Frankie’s expression threw venom at him as she pulled the headphones off and dipped inside the Supra. Two seconds later, the music changed to blasting through the car’s speakers before cutting off altogether.
“It looks unreal washed up,” he said of the car.
His comment softened Frankie enough to earn him a smile when she popped back out of the vehicle. Sans the headphones.
“Those were cute,” he said. “Where’d they go?”
Her grin widened. “You don’t even let someone think to speak, do you?”
Nico shrugged. “Sometimes. That song sounded way better coming out of the car, though.”
“You’re right, but Daddy still has headaches in the mornings.”
“Is he good right now? I’m supposed to—”
“Oh, he’s been up since five. The routine hasn’t changed; it’s just the bonus. You know?”
Fuck.
“Yeah, I get it.” Nico noted the soccer ball thirty feet away and the huge mess of cleaning products scattered about her Supra. “Don’t you have a big game tomorrow?”
“One of three finals,” she replied, suddenly far more interested in picking up the discarded bunches of paper towel.
“You nervous?”
“Practically dying. But hey, the accident got me out of two weeks of school and practice, like that was going to help with the games.”
Nico didn’t even try to hide his smile. “You’ve already got the grades to graduate, don’t you?”
“I opted for the last six months to keep playing soccer,” she told him. “Crazy, huh?”
“No. Just fucking say you love it, I mean, come on. Do you want me to tell you how I know you’re going to win?”
She froze mid-grab for an empty spray bottle. Her gaze slammed into his at the same time. “You can’t know—”
“What, you think your dad paid for it?”
Frankie laughed. “That was mean.”
He could see how, but no. “Nah, it’s bullshit. You’re going to win because you’re unquestionably the star. You rarely try for a shot you don’t make into the net, and your follow through is like ninety-six percent a shot. I did the numbers while you practiced and scrimmaged, and I watched.”
“Seriously?”
“What? I needed something to also do. I have ADHD.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, okay. But seriously, you just do numbers like that in your head?”
Nico couldn’t help but laugh. “That’s impressive to you?”
“I need paper, and sometimes calculators. Numbers are hard...er.”
“You’re derailing this conversation entirely.” Nico gestured at her dismissively as he stepped off the bike. It became his leaning post as he said, “This is about why you’re going to win, not me. You’re the star.”
“You said,” she deadpanned.
“Mmhmm, nice attitude. No, on the team, I mean. You’re the star.
All the coach cares about is winning the trophy that’ll sit at your school for another year.
And my guess is, it’s sat there every year you’ve been on the team.
This is his last year with you. That’s why the girls who give you shit physically on the field always end up getting extra laps or he rages at them for ten minutes. ”
Frankie’s arms folded across her chest, her almond-shaped, soft pink manicure tapping a beat to her arm. “Keep going.”
Nico chuckled. “A handful of these girls are also leaving him this year. Someday, there will be another you on that team, and she might even already be a freshman who just watched the person who inspired her to do it. Teamwork makes the dream work, or some shit like that. You’re gonna find that everybody on the team has their own reasons for wanting to win the tournament. And then there’s you.”
“Me,” she echoed.
“You,” Nico murmured softly back. “Already focused in. You love it. Shoot and score. They just gotta get you the ball. That’s the deal. They know the job, trust me.”
She seemed to take a moment to digest what he said, suppressing a smile and avoiding his stare by checking the ground around her car once more. “You know, you’re probably going to make me late for school this morning.”
“First day back?”
“Yeah, and it’s all crap for the last couple of weeks. For me anyway. Like I said, already basically done. Why are you up here, anyway?”
“Eight-thirty sharp. I just do what I’m told.”
Frankie huh’d under her breath, glancing over her shoulder up at the large windows into her father’s study. “Guess he’s got more than one guest today.”
Nico cocked an eyebrow in question.
She rolled her eyes. “Carina came. Her car is in the garage, which is where that bike needs to go if you’re staying longer than a few minutes.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know the rules.”
He put up the kickstand on the bike and started walking it to the garage. Salvatore had been quiet since he came out of the hospital, as far as calling on Nico went, anyway. He figured he shouldn’t make the man wait a second beyond what he asked when he finally did.
She followed carrying a full trash bag.
“So, what’s after?” he asked her.
Frankie shot him a look. “What do you mean?”
“High school.”
“Oh, I’m taking a year. One of three graduation gifts I asked for included my own penthouse in Manhattan.
So, maybe an internship, or I start posting my photography stuff.
I get time to figure that part out, which I wanted.
After that...” Her words trailed off, and she looked up at the house again. “That’s complicated.”
“Uncomplicate it,” he replied.
Frankie used her fob to open one of the garage doors for him. “I thought I wanted to study relations. Maybe people. Maybe be a psychologist. Or something else entirely. People do things, and I want to understand why.”
“Why is that complicated?”
It kind of sounded...human.
“Do you know how many days a year I get to see my father?” she asked.
Nico cleared his throat. “I don’t, no.”
“A good year? Half and half. A normal one, though, please. A third, if that. From eleven to thirteen it really didn’t matter because he took me with him anyway, and Sissy minded me wherever we were.”
“But high school...”
She shrugged, sadness lowering her lashes. “I thought if I said I wanted to feel like a normal teenager for a few years, he’d want to see that happen. I only recently figured out he probably didn’t have a choice being gone so much. I mean I always knew it, I just—”
“Something showed it.”
“Yeah,” Frankie whispered.
He pushed his bike into the garage while she shut the door behind him. Walking the Ducati down to its spot beside his Mercedes and vintage Mustang, cars he still couldn’t drive, Nico left it behind to get back to something more important at hand.
“And let me guess,” he told Frankie who had just opened a trash can to toss the bag inside, “you’re also realizing that trying to figure out what it is you want to be and who you really are is also going to conflict with time spent with your father. Am I right?”
“Don’t rub it in. I feel like it’s obvious.”
He snorted. “God, these are the problems I wish I could have, I’m telling you.”
She shot him a dirty look. “Be nice.”
“Hey, I didn’t say they weren’t valid. Just...less problematic and painful.”
“Not to me.”
“Fair point. Sorry. You better get going, or you’re going to be late.”
She already beelined it to the door.
Nico headed the opposite way.
“Hey,” she called his way.
He peered back over his shoulder. “Yeah?”
“Ask my dad for game details. You should come.”
A smile found him. “You want me to come?”
“I just want some people there.”
His head tilted further.
“My people,” she clarified.
···
Once again, it seemed Nico would unintentionally interrupt someone else’s private moment for a second time that morning. He truly was on a roll.
“Thank you for agreeing to do that for her,” he heard Salvatore tell someone down the hall. Nico made it a point not to hide his oncoming footsteps, taking them a little harder with each step. “And for what she doesn’t know quite yet.”
“That’s the one I’m excited for,” came the second voice.
Fuck.
For two whole seconds, Nico forgot about his older sister. The almost two decades between them couldn’t possibly begin to explain how large the gap was where they were concerned.
“You know, we could—”
“Nope, not doing that, darling,” Salvatore suddenly muttered, a chair squeaking.
“I knew you wanted it,” Carina returned scathingly. “The opiates always do it for you.”
“Nope. We’re not doing that, either. I don’t know why you’ve always got to be looking like that whenever you bring up the worst time in my life, woman.”
Nico cleared his throat about five feet from the doorway. Something moved fast inside the office, enough to cause things to fall to the floor. A quiet shriek followed.
Salvatore simply uttered, “Come in, Nico.”
Nico walked into the office, replying, “Morning.”