23. — all that is left.
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Staten Island, New York
Frankie, Gallo Estate Guesthouse
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The sight of the guesthouse’s white curtains backlit from dim light told Frankie two things as her gaze cleared of sleep. Morning arrived and she had fallen asleep again.
The gentle shift of the body she cuddled against, and the low exhale somewhere above her head followed the sensation of soft fingertips stroking circles along the top of her shoulder.
“It’s almost six-thirty,” Nico murmured softly. “Go back to bed.”
“Wasn’t supposed to sleep, anyway. Not if you weren’t.”
“If one of us can sleep, one of us should,” he returned.
Using the middle of his chest as a pillow, she couldn’t bear to look at him. His lack of sleep only meant one thing to Frankie. Even if he bent down to cup the side of her head before kissing her hair.
“You’re still mad at me,” she whispered.
“No.”
“Yes.”
Nico sighed hard. “Frankie—”
“You’ve been up all night. Why else would you stay up all night, if you weren’t mad at me?”
“You don’t know that I didn’t sleep.”
Finally, she lifted her head. His face told the story.
“You didn’t sleep,” she said, the truth final.
“Okay, I didn’t, but you did. That’s what matters. Between us, you’re the only one who really needs the rest.”
“You—”
“Stop,” he murmured, but not sharply. “I’m not mad,” Nico said after she laid her head back down on him. She traced lines along his chest, watching how his breathing steadied at her touch. “What did we say last night, Frankie?”
“It’s over. It’s done.”
His fingers left her shoulder to comb through the hair that had fallen alongside her face, brushing it back behind her ear. “What’s over—done?”
Pressing her lips together to suppress a smile, she failed miserably. “The fighting.”
“Why?”
“You’re insufferable.”
“No, just making sure you didn’t wake up with a different opinion than the one we settled on last night.”
“That’s unfair.”
“It’s not. You can change your mind. Hell, you already did.”
“So much for not fighting,” she muttered, instantly sitting up.
The soft cream duvet fell down her naked body just long enough for Nico to yank her right back to him. Now, she splayed on her stomach across his, those tired green eyes of his burning brighter than ever as they nailed into hers.
“We’re not fighting,” he told her, “we’re talking.”
“Feels like it.”
“No, you’re just scared that we can’t talk about things we disagree on without a fight starting.”
She tried to move again, but he grabbed her arms and pulled her closer until he could hold onto her face and kiss her still and silent. As if she needed another reason to stay there in bed with him when she wanted to be mad.
Except she couldn’t be mad. He wasn’t mad at her, after all.
Lips trembling against his, he asked her, “So, why aren’t we fighting anymore?”
“Bad for the baby.”
Nico nodded. “And what else did we say?”
A tear dared to escape the corner of her eye, but his thumb swept it away fast.
“None of that,” he told her.
“I’m sorry.”
“Come on, Frankie, this is important. I know you’re sorry, babe, but I need to know that the you who woke up this morning is the same one I fucked to sleep last night. Please.”
She was so ashamed. She couldn’t believe the things she’d said to him in that study, never mind the way she treated him. She bet the way it hurt her to even think about it couldn’t compare in the slightest to the way it felt for him.
“No more being purposely mean,” she said.
“What else?”
“No more lying or hiding things.”
“At all,” he said pointedly. “Ever. For anything, about nothing.”
Frankie nodded jerkily. “Yeah, I know. But I just didn’t know how to tell you. I knew you were going to be so pissed off, and you’d want me to abort.”
“You assumed. You never asked once it was reality. You didn’t give me the chance to say or think anything.”
“You said it last night while we fought for like two hours. My father said it to you in his office. My life? The future everyone wants for me? Over, right? Done. I’m lucky there’s one week left at the training camp, because I can’t continue at the level I’m at.
I can’t be six-months pregnant scrimmaging and getting knocked around the turf.
It’s literally in the fucking contract I have to sign to attend.
I have to piss in a cup to prove a negative pregnancy test, if you can believe that. Oh, and NYU?”
She laughed scornfully.
“That’s a joke now, too,” she said, all bitter and a little mad.
Just at herself. “Let’s not forget how I probably won’t be able to keep up with classes, soccer, and a baby.
Trust me, I know exactly what you would’ve told me to do, and what my father probably wants me to do even if he won’t tell me to, and I can’t do that, Nico. ”
“Hey—”
“No,” she said firmly, putting a hand up between them. “I won’t do that.”
Nico’s eyes rolled upward, but not in annoyance.
Just...resignation. He let her slide off to the side so she could snuggle in alongside him.
There, tucked against him, face to face, he pulled the duvet up to her hips.
All she smelled was him, and their sex lingering in the sheets. The rest of the world disappeared.
Her fears? Gone. The anxiety was chilled. Her? Happy.
He rolled slightly to the side, readjusting them so he had better access to drag his palm from the curve in her waist down to the swell of her hip.
Using his bent arm against the pillow as a place to rest his head, he just kept stroking her in that tender way until she finally lifted her stare to find his.
“Why are you like this with me?” she asked him.
Nico shrugged. “I don’t know what you mean. How do you want me to be with you? I love you.”
“Yeah, when I’m fucking terrible and awful to you.”
“I’ll have my moments, too. I always do.” Her chin trembled as his fingers found her cheek to stroke, but she kept more tears at bay. “I love you,” he repeated, making sure she heard every word that time.
“I love you, too.”
“Let it go, Frankie. I did.”
Then, his hand dropped to her stomach. He didn’t rub the same way, but for the slow sweep of his thumb against a barely-there swell that had started to show itself over the last week.
She tried to keep it hidden with baggy hoodies and keeping his shirts on in bed.
He liked that, anyway, so he barely even made a comment on it.
Practice at the training camp had been a little more worrisome when the uniforms were skin-tight and her morning sickness made itself known a couple of times a day.
“Can’t believe I didn’t notice this,” he uttered, eyeing her stomach.
Like he could read her thoughts.
“I clock everything about you, every second I fucking can, and I didn’t even see what was happening right in front of my face.”
“I know it’s not what anyone else wants me to do,” she whispered, “but I want it, Nico.”
“I know, babe.”
“And why can’t I still do the things I want to do? Who says I can’t play soccer with my baby on the sidelines? Who says I can’t attend NYU and play for them? Who says I can’t?”
“No one.”
She stilled, then. “W-what?”
Nico shook his head, grabbing her face again to stroke her cheek with swipes of his shaking fingers while she stared up at him. “No one says that. No one thinks that. No one will make you do anything, but exactly what you want to do and can handle. Just so that’s clear, okay?”
“But—”
“No buts. I know you heard things your father said last night, but here’s the thing.
He was mad, and we say shit we don’t mean when we’re mad because we’re just trying to get all the stuff that scares us out of our heads so we can think clearly and get back to what’s most important.
I know what you heard, but that’s not what he meant to say.
I know it, because I felt like that, too, standing there while you admitted what you’d done to Carina.
I felt the same way, but I just didn’t say it to you until later.
And I didn’t mean it, anyway. Just because I’m scared how life is gonna look for me and you in a few years doesn’t mean that’s what’ll happen. ”
She remained silent.
Nico continued, “If you want to go to school next fall and be a mom, okay. We’ll make it work.
If you want to go to the training camp for Team USA next winter, then you’ll go.
Who cares if you miss it this year? If they want you now, they’ll want you in a year.
Or two. Fuck, I will have a jet on standby to be there every weekend with the baby, so you don’t even have to travel back and forth if you don’t want to. ”
“That’s what, a hundred grand a flight every week? Where’s your money, babe?”
Nico smirked. “Oh, don’t worry. I can always make money. I always am. That’s never been a problem for me.”
“You’re wild.”
“For you.”
“I don’t think I could leave the baby for that long,” she admitted.
“Okay, then we get a nanny. And she goes with you and the baby. You will do everything you want to do, and more, and I will make sure of it. Your father? Carina? Everybody on this fucking property? Frankie, they will make it happen, too. I’m telling you.”
“What about you?” she asked. “What do you want? Where are you in this whole plan, Nico?”
“I told you last night. I got what I want.”
She rolled her eyes that time. He tickled her in response.
“Stop,” she gasped.
He did. The moment she said so.
Dropping down to dot kisses across her closed eyelids and along the bridge of her nose, he murmured, “I’ve got you—you’re mine.
That baby’s mine. I meant what I said when you woke up, I’m just trying to figure out if the woman who screamed at me that she would marry me is still the same one here with me right now. That’s all I care about.”
“Your dad won’t react like mine,” she whispered back, keeping her eyes closed. She didn’t want to see his face after saying that.
“Until I’m told otherwise, I’m not bringing the news to my father.”
So much for closed eyes. Frankie opened wide. “What?”
“I’m not telling him.”
“Ever?”