18. — a better day. #2
“No, you do. Because when you go to college next year, or whenever you pick the school from your hat of choices to go to, those kids are going to be using all around you. Maybe you’re at a party and someone has an OD.
Or maybe you have a roommate that brings someone home who does.
Shit happens. Maybe you don’t want to party, but you don’t get the choice if others do. You can help somebody, if you need to.”
“I haven’t decided about college or uni—”
“Not the point,” Nico interjected, giving her a look. “People overdose in alleys. In bathroom stalls at restaurants and coffee shops. They OD behind the wheel. It happens everyday. That’s the nature of the market today.”
Finishing his second smoke, he tossed it into the to-go coffee cup. The sizzle of the coal extinguishing came with the scent of a makeshift ashtray. He then went about opening both packs of medicine and explaining how to use each one, what an early OD could look like, and where to get more Narcan.
“You should have some in your bag,” he said. “Not these, I opened them.”
As he finished, and went to light his third cigarette, Frankie spoke up.
“I need you to quit smoking, too,” she told him.
Nico froze, the lighter held up to his face as he stared down the length of the white tube and past his hands to stare at her. “Excuse me?”
“That’s your third in a half hour, and I get it’s because you’re trying to do something for your nerves, but I’m not going to be taking you to chemo appointments when we’re like fifty because you have lung cancer. Or whatever. Just stop, okay? For me?”
He pulled his hand, and the lighter away, only hearing part of her statement. “We’re gonna be together when we’re fifty, huh?”
“Not if you keep smoking.”
A snort escaped him. “If that were the case, Giorgio should be long dead by now. You’ve never smelled the cigar smoke that permeates his office. It’s fucking offensive.”
“Are you going to quit, or not?” Frankie demanded.
“Is that a deal-breaker, or what?”
“No, but...you only have one kidney, too. So, what if we have a kid someday and they need a kidney or something, but you’re the only match and now you can’t donate?”
That had nothing to do with smoking.
He didn’t point that out.
He heard something better.
“First of all, they’d get the fucking kidney. Mine or someone else’s.”
“Second?” she asked.
“Second,” Nico continued, winking and grinning, “now we’re having kids?”
Her own smile turned shy. “Yeah, someday. Don’t you think?”
“Someday,” he echoed, heart aching a little.
“Do you think you’re going to be in trouble?” she asked him.
“With my father, or yours?”
She shrugged under his black hoodie. “Both.”
“My actions have consequences; severity always depends on my choices after the actions. I choose to accept them regardless of who hands it out. I brought you home a day early. I’m hoping that helps on your father’s side of things. As for mine...whatever.”
Her stare caught him slipping the cigarette back into the pack. He tossed the lighter into the middle console, as those were good to have for certain things. The pack of smokes, he handed over to her.
“Here, shove it in that Birkin I know Carina paid way too much fucking money for, and toss ‘em the first chance you get.”
“Really?” she asked.
“Yeah, babe. Really. I’ll figure it out.
” He tried cracking his neck, willing himself to ignore the nicotine craving that hit practically the moment he decided he would quit.
What a bitch. “Besides, fuck me. It’s not good for you.
I bet you’d feel it in your lungs after sitting next to me smoking for a year and then you try to run twenty laps on a field or something. Screw it.”
“You seem pretty convinced I’m heading somewhere to play soccer.”
“Aren’t you, after the gap year?”
“I’ve had a lot of offers.”
“Since when?” he asked, honestly curious.
“Scouts came in grade eleven.”
“Seriously?”
Frankie nodded while playing with items in her bag that he couldn’t see.
“I kinda do have my pick, even if I preferred one place over the other. What freaked me out a lot was that the Olympic team kept getting mentioned, like that was a real possibility if I could show up and show out like I already had.”
Nico jerked to turn sideways in the seat, in awe of her all over again, as he repeated, “Seriously?”
“A couple years playing college first and attending Team USA training camps.”
“Why haven’t you told me?” he demanded.
“I don’t know I want to go forward and do that, Nico.”
“Because it’s not amazing enough for you, or what?”
She shot him a dirty look. “No, but I don’t want to be doing amazing things all alone, either.”
“You wouldn’t be. And I’ll be hollering the loudest from the sidelines, trust me.”
“Yeah, you say that, but then work comes up, and some cute bitch you let ride on the back of your bike.”
He picked up and threw the brown paper bag, plus the contents, at her. It stopped her from going down that ridiculous path any further and earned him the sweet sound of her laughter filling his car. Pretty soon, silence would take its place because they were running out of time here.
“Didn’t you just say we were gonna be together in fifty years with kids, and you think I’m letting somebody else play backpack for me? Frankie, you don’t even play backpack for me.”
“Kid,” she corrected.
Nico rolled his eyes. “Get real, the moment I have you barefoot and pregnant the first time, I’m keeping you that way until I have half a baseball team out of you. At least.”
The way her nails became interesting, and her smile deepened told him she liked that idea, too.
“You want to be a dad?”
“Not right now, but someday.”
This time, she echoed it. “Yeah, someday.”
The idea scared the crap out of him, too, but he wouldn’t admit that to Frankie. Him being frightened of fatherhood came down to his own insecurity and lack of a proper father himself growing up. Parenthood didn’t look so fucking entirely terrifying with her beside him.
“I bet you’d be the best mom,” he murmured.
Her smile inched higher on one side. “You think?”
“Do you wanna be one?”
“Ever since I was little.”
“Why?”
“That’s a sad answer, Nico.”
“I’m a sad guy,” he returned.
Frankie shook her head, playing with the hardware of her purse as a distraction to avoid looking at him, no doubt.
“I wanted something to love, like my cat and dog. Something that was mine. Someone that would love me back. Like my dad. I used to play mommy to my dolls, too. It was a whole thing. They had bedtimes and feedings. Sissy played along a lot.”
“That’s cute.”
Her cheeks heated all over again. “You’re being a smartass.”
“No, it is. And it really sucks what I’m about to do, given this fucking conversation.”
She glanced his way, clearly confused. “What?”
“Open that bag,” he said, offering nothing else.
Nico gestured at the paper bag in her lap that he’d just tossed at her not very long ago.
Frankie’s brow furrowed, but she went about peeling open the top to get better access to whatever remained inside.
As her hand froze pulling the item out, he could tell by how her expression saddened that she found the Plan B.
“That’s why you stopped at the pharmacy on the way here?” she asked.
Nico just cleared his throat. She threw the Plan B at him, but Nico just picked it up and held it back out to her. “Take it, babe.”
He kept it outstretched until she finally took it with a huff.
“Aren’t you going to ask me if I want to?”
“No, because you should want to. It shouldn’t be a discussion.
That was on me that we weren’t safe in Chicago, and I promise it won’t happen again after today until we’re married and you want to get started on that team of mine.
Right now, though, you’re eighteen. I’m nineteen.
Neither of us is in a place to have a kid.
You’ve got huge things coming up in your life, and I want you to do them.
Without a distraction like kids or the responsibility that comes along with it.
I still have a lot of shit to figure out on my end, too.
No, it shouldn’t be a question of whether you want to take it, I think. ”
“Except it’s my body, not yours.”
Nico blinked. “A baby is a choice we should be making together, don’t you think?”
“You had your say in the matter when you came inside me.”
Nico couldn’t argue with her point, being it had validity. It didn’t mean he couldn’t try. “Frankie...”
She gave him a disgusted glance and ripped open the Plan B box. “Do you at least have fucking water?”
“Don’t be mad at me, babe.”
He said that as he reached into the backseat for the other bag of shit he got from the pharmacy. Waters, his pretzel chips, and a pack of gum, which now he would really need given his lack of cigarettes. Back in the front, he handed her the bottle to crack open.
She did and promptly threw back the first of two pills in the Plan B package.
“The other one needs to be taken—”
“Yeah, I know,” Frankie snapped. “I took sex-ed, too. You know, I haven’t even had my period in like eight months.”
Nico took that in. “That’s concerning.”
“No, it means I’m not ovulating, since you want to tell me what to do with my body. You might as well learn how my reproductive system w—”
“Whoa,” Nico interrupted, “don’t even start with that. First, you could be ovulating right now. The period comes after the egg, Frankie. You wouldn’t know if you were gonna get your period this month if you were ovulating today.”
She chugged more water, saying nothing.
“I’m sorry, I know you’re mad at me,” he murmured.
“You think?”
“I don’t want to fuck up your life.”
She gave him a look from the side, all that anger bleeding into something he couldn’t recognize. “You know how you could fuck up my life?”
“I can list a few ways, starting with making you a mother before you turned nineteen.”
She rolled her eyes. “Right, you’re ridiculous. Never mind, I don’t even want to have this conversation with you.”
“No, let’s have it. The hard ones are probably the ones we need to have the most.”