21. — her choice. #3
She didn’t answer, just stood straight with Frankie’s bag hugged against her middle. Her own Birkin sat forgotten on the seat.
Nico reached for the bag. “What’s in it?”
Carina jerked the bag out of his reach, giving him a look that stung. “Don’t you ever go inside her bags, especially her purse, without asking or being told to. Do you hear me?”
He didn’t have the first clue how to handle the situation, but Frankie jogged under their sideline tent to pick up where he left off.
“What are you doing with my stuff?” she asked Carina.
Carina’s gaze dropped down Frankie’s body and then back up to meet her eyes. “I’m going to ask you something, okay?”
“What were you doing in my bags, Carina?”
“I’m going to ask you something,” Carina repeated, “and I need you to be honest with me, Frankie. It’s important. And before I ask it, I want to tell you a couple of things, so please listen. What I’m going to tell you is important, too. Just in a different way.”
Arms folded, Frankie’s suddenly wary gaze darted between Nico and Carina. He still didn’t understand what the hell was going on.
“Can somebody fill me in here?” he asked. “On whatever this is?”
Neither looked at him again. They just stared at one another.
Frankie’s knee began bouncing with the tap of her foot against the green turf. Carina started talking, as if it were just the two of them behind a closed door in private.
“I know what’s it like to find yourself in a situation where you don’t know where to begin to deal with it,” Carina told Frankie, taking a moment to wet her lips after she spoke.
“And I know what it’s like to do what you have to do until you figure out what you’re going to do—you lie about it, even to people you care about, and you do everything you can to hide it.
But most importantly, I know what it’s like to be eighteen and want that thing so badly that you would do anything—absolutely anything—to keep it. I know. I understand, okay?”
A tear tracked a line down Frankie’s cheek. Her leg kept bouncing, but now, she’d started chewing on her lip.
Nico started to think he had missed something here. Something big.
And maybe, so had Frankie.
“So, now I’m going to ask you what I need to ask you,” Carina continued, not even noticing Nico’s panicked restlessness that had him flexing his hands at his sides.
“And before you answer, just know, now is the time we need to be told. Not in two months, or three. Now. Because your father is trying to do something, but he can’t focus on you and that, at the same time.
Now would be the time for us to know. Okay? ”
“Okay,” Frankie whispered.
“Can I ask now?”
Frankie nodded jerkily.
“Are you pregnant?”
Frankie didn’t answer right away.
Nico moved closer, leaning around her to make her look at him as he asked the same question. “Are you pregnant?”
Another tear escaped after sliding off her long lashes as she held his gaze from the side. She tilted her head down like it made looking him in the face easier as her lips pressed together in a thin line. Still, she nodded.
Nodded.
“You’re fucking pregnant?” he asked again.
“Nico—”
His face found his hands as he took two big steps backwards and mumbled, “Holy shit.”
“I couldn’t do it,” she snarled at him.
He knew exactly what she meant.
Fuck his whole life.
“You said it was my choice!”
Nico nodded behind his hands, but his whole body had gone numb. “And you couldn’t even be bothered to tell me that you didn’t take the second one?”
“You said—”
“I know what I said!” he roared back.
If people on the field and sidelines of the training camp hadn’t noticed their scene before, they certainly did after that.
Frankie’s tears came in droves, now, her chin trembling. “Don’t yell at me, Nico.”
That’s all he wanted to do. He’d really fucked up this time.
“How long did you know?” Carina asked. “How many weeks along are you?”
“I found out when we went to the gyno.”
Nico flinched, remembering the morning Carina interrupted them. “How many weeks?” he asked, repeating the only question she didn’t answer.
“They estimated eight to twelve, but that didn’t even make sense at the time. We weren’t even having sex that far back, so...I don’t know.”
“Oh, no, we do know,” Nico returned, trying to keep his tone level, “because the only time it could have happened was in Chicago. So how many weeks today?”
“Like twelve to fourteen. Depending on if you’re saying from conception or the last missed period, which didn’t even happen.”
“Jesus Christ, Frankie,” he breathed against the tips of his fingers.
“Okay, now we know,” Carina said quietly, the only calm one between the two teenagers, “and now we can handle it.”
Right. Handle it.
Nico had to handle it—at least, one part of it. That was on him to do as a man. In his soul, he knew it. And he couldn’t wait another minute to do it.
Spinning on his heel, he beelined it for the aisle between the seats, needing to leave. Behind him, Frankie called after him.
“Nico, wait! Where are you going?”
He didn’t answer. He couldn’t.
She made her choice. He had to make his.