18. — a better day. #3
“Fine,” she spat, tossing the water bottle into her bag as well right along with the Plan B package, “let’s have it.”
Nico waited. “Well? You go first. I said what I had to.”
“I just think it’s funny—”
Oh, here we go, Nico thought. Whenever a woman started a fight with that statement, absolutely nothing would be funny that followed.
“—how you had no problem telling me to mind my own business about Carina’s choices,” Frankie said, not holding back her biting tone in the slightest, “but when it comes to me and mine, you want a say.”
He just stared at her, saying nothing.
“A little two-sided, don’t you think?” she asked.
“That I don’t want a child between us to be a regret of yours in ten years when you finally have the foresight and understanding of what it made you miss out on?
” he asked back. “And it’s not even a thing right now, Frankie.
It can take days for sperm to get to the egg, and days for the egg to get fertilized and implant.
Despite popular belief, the learning part of school was not where I fucking struggled.
I picked up everything. So, we’re sitting here talking about a hypothetical baby that isn’t even a thing right now. It’s nothing.”
“Even if it’s a clump of cells, it’s not nothing.”
He couldn’t wrap his mind around that. “Why, because it’s yours?”
“And yours,” she shot back hotly. “It would be yours, too. That means something.”
“Yeah, that I should have a say.”
“No, that’s not what it means. It means something to me that it’s yours, but it makes no difference on whether you get to tell me what to do about it.”
“And yet,” he returned quietly, “you took the pill.”
Frankie sniffled hard and wiped at her cheek with the back of her hand. No tears came, but he could tell she fought them back. “Because you’re right, and I hate that.”
He chewed on his inner cheek. “I am sorry.”
“This is the one time you get a say,” she whispered.
Nico nodded. “All right, and there won’t be another. There will never be a reason we need to do this again together, okay? I promise.”
Frankie scoffed. “Come on, Nico. Condoms break; pills get missed.”
“Are you on the pill?”
“No. Not for two years. Kinda pointless when you have three periods a year that are spotty at best.”
“If we’re fucking, it’s not pointless. Get back on it. I’ll always have rubbers. And I want you to go see somebody about the period thing.”
“Stop it, I get enough of that from my dad and Carina.”
“Good thing. I’m joining the annoying chorus, too. Go to a doctor, Frankie.”
Her pretty eyes rolled. “Been to doctors, thanks, that’s why I know what it is and that it’ll come back once I’m up to weight, and things are normal,” she muttered. “Like stress. Which you are not helping right now.”
“That’s unfair.”
She sniffled again. “Yeah, that was kinda mean. I’m sorry.”
“But we won’t have to do this again, I mean it.”
“Shouldn’t have needed to this time,” she argued. “You can’t sit there and tell me you wanna be together in fifty years, and have kids, and marry me, and then follow it up by shoving Plan B in my face, Nico. It’s a slap in the face. That probably would have felt better, honestly.”
“You’re eighteen, Frankie.”
“So what?”
She said that now, but life didn’t see reason. It didn’t care like she did.
“All right, whatever. Second pill is your choice. We don’t gotta talk about it. I said my peace; you took the first one. Follow up with me or don’t on the other. Okay?”
“Okay,” she said softly, but she wouldn’t look at him.
Nico sighed heavily. “Look at me.”
She did.
“The first thing I’m gonna do if you get pregnant before we’re married is fly you to Vegas. No questions asked. If your father doesn’t hate me now, he sure fucking will when I walk you down some tacky aisle and make you my wife.”
“Should go do that now,” she joked.
Nico shook his head. “You don’t mean that, and even if you do a little, that’s not what you really want.”
“Will you text me later?” she asked as he silently started the car and put it in drive.
“I’ll be around tonight, if you want me there.”
“You’re not too freaked out about the dinner, are you?”
“I’ve got the upper hand,” he muttered regarding Giorgio. “He wanted me for dinner on Monday, and I’m gonna show up a day early with his favorite cigars to ease the pain. Plus, I’m hoping Marco won’t be there in the meantime if he doesn’t know I will.”
“Are you going to talk about me and you?”
“As little as possible,” he admitted, navigating the car through the streets. “It’s better that way, trust me. The less he’s involved in a person’s private life, the less ammo he has to make you pay when you don’t act the way he wants or do what he tells you to do.”
She frowned. “What if your brother does end up being there?”
“A little girl sitting at the table will keep him in line. She usually does.”
“Your voice changes when you speak about him.”
Nico’s throat scratched with his next words. “Does it?”
“More than when you talk about your dad, even. Why?”
“He did awful fucking things to me, Frankie.”
“Like—”
“The kinds of things I haven’t even told God.”
That quieted her, and Nico was grateful. Soon enough, the gates of the Gallo estate came into view. At the gate’s speaker, Nico gave his name and Frankie’s before they informed him that he couldn’t drive beyond the main house.
After parking the Mustang, it didn’t take long for Salvatore to exit the main house from the front door as Frankie leaned across the middle to steal a burning kiss from Nico. She only pulled away when her father came to stand twenty feet in front of Nico’s car.
“Hey,” he said, before she closed the door.
Frankie leaned back in. “Yeah?”
“I love you.”
Her smile killed him in the best way.
“I love you, too, Nico.”
Nico went to reverse after Frankie slammed the door closed, but Salvatore gestured to him with one finger before he could.
He rolled down his window in just enough time to hear the sharp words passed between father and daughter.
Salvatore, scared and angry, felt he was owed an explanation from his daughter.
Frankie, defiant, repeating that she could make her own choices as an adult to go and do what she wanted to do, didn’t budge an inch in the conversation.
It ended a lot like the way it began.
Sal demanded she behave like an adult, if she wanted to actually be one. Take responsibility for the choices she made which affected other people. Frankie also told him that she would be returning to her penthouse.
Probably for the best. Those were Salvatore’s words. At least, Nico didn’t make her cry this time. That was all her dad.
Stomping up the steps, Frankie never looked back.
Good thing, because she would’ve hated to see the way her father glared at Nico as he came up alongside the Mustang with murder in his eyes.
“Nico,” Salvatore greeted.
“Sal,” he returned.
“Chicago didn’t treat you well enough to stay until tomorrow, or what?”
“I think we got our fill.”
“Mmhmm.” Salvatore drew in a deep breath and then exhaled slowly. Control; he sought it. “Three things. I have three things to say.”
“All right.”
“Did you notice the changes at the gate when you checked in?”
“I did,” Nico confirmed.
“It’ll remain that way until you’ve earned otherwise. You broke a few rules here, more than once. And as far as my daughter goes, any other boy interested in her doesn’t even get let inside the houses, so you already started way past the go-line, son.”
Nico drummed his fingers against the wheel. “What does that mean, exactly?”
“Well, it means you’re not staying in my guesthouse, as frankly, you don’t need to.
You’re not welcome inside the main house unless I specifically invite you in.
And as far as you’re allowed on the property without permission is this driveway.
Your things, your vehicles, and whatever else, is yours the moment you ask for them, however you request them.
Larkin will make it happen. Otherwise, like I said, you earn the right to have access to my home and property back by proving why I should allow it. ”
“So, that’s one,” Nico mumbled, taking his consequences as he should. “What’s two?”
“Where the hell is your money?”
He glanced sideways at Sal through the opened window. “I don’t—”
“Your bank account? Drained. Where is it?”
“Like ten-k is in another bank. I used five to open a credit card because they wanted the security. I have thirty in cash to give to a contractor for work I want done at the Vauxhall house and the security system getting installed.”
“And the rest?” Salvatore asked.
Nico cleared his throat. “I uh, gave it to a buddy who paid for a painting of your dead wife’s for Frankie’s birthday present. He knew the guy who owned it from an old café. He wanted a lot to part with it, and to me, it was worth every penny.”
Salvatore blinked. And then he did it again. “What?”
Nico just shrugged. “Yeah. So, that’s where the money is. I’d appreciate it if you stayed the fuck out of my bank accounts, though. And my phone records, if you were looking at those lately.”
“I needed to know where my child was.”
“If she’s with me, she’s safe.”
“No, she’s not. Because you’re young, and you’re self-seeking and self-interested. Selfish. I know, because I was you once, Nico. And finally, the last thing,” the man uttered, glancing back at the house, “is about your father.”
Nico’s gaze locked in somewhere over the edge of his steering wheel, beyond the hood of the car. “What about him?”
“I don’t give a fuck how you deal with that man, but you keep him far away from my daughter. Whichever way you have to do it—lie, placate him, do anything he asks other than bring her over for dinner. I don’t care, Nico, you do it.”
“You’re terrified of him.”
“So are you,” Salvatore returned.
“Bet we both have good reasons, huh?” Nico asked.