CHAPTER 25
Special K
We sit in silence for a long while. The fire crackles. I hear an owl hoot from high in a tree at least a hundred feet beyond our little circle of firelight. Pussy purrs loudly in my lap. She sounds like the motor on Finn’s expensive sailboat.
Frankie—beautiful Frankie—is a complete mystery to me, and it’s obvious she wants to stay that way.
I understand. No one wants to spill their secrets to someone they’ve just met.
I barely want to share anything with anyone other than my family.
I don’t like to answer the most routine questions about myself.
Like my name. Whether I come here often. Or if I want fries with that.
But it’s obvious that in Frankie’s company, the standard rules don’t apply.
For whatever bizarre reason, I need her to know me, and I’m sure my story is safe with her.
I get the sense that whatever she’s been through—whatever baggage she carries on that lovely back of hers—has made her the one person I can open up to.
The one who won’t judge me or put a label on me.
Yeah, it’s crazy. It’s never happened to me before, but I know I’m right. There’s no doubt in my mind.
I recognized her the second I laid eyes on her.
I seem to have stopped my jabbering for the time being, so I enjoy the feeling of the quiet night falling around us. Whatever happens, happens. I’ve got no plan for Frankie tonight, no goal.
Once we get her bed set up, I’ll ask if she’s okay with me staying.
If she is, I’ll put down a pallet and sleep out here by the fire.
If she prefers that I go, I’ll take the ATV down the mountain a bit, at least get as far as I can before I hit the most dangerous section of switchbacks, and I’ll sleep there.
I don’t allow my imagination to go any further. I stop myself from having expectations.
But if I’m honest with myself, I’m holding onto a fair amount of wishful thinking. I imagine what it would be like to hold her in my arms. Inhale the sweet floral scent of her hair. Feel her silky skin beneath my fingertips.
Get my lips and tongue all over her. Get my dick inside her.
I exhale loudly. She looks over at me, curious. Then she gives me a soft smile.
I can sense she feels comfortable with me, too, and she’s tempted to tell me more about herself. But something’s holding her back. I don’t push her. Because I don’t want her to put an end to our campfire conversation. I want this to last a good long time.
“So,” she says, changing the subject. “Before your brothers got married, did you all live together, like in a fraternity house or something?”
“Hell, no. We’d have killed each other. We have our own homes.”
She nods. “All five of you came back at the same time?”
“Yes. We left the Navy over three years ago and one of the first things we did was build our own homes, each according to our own preferences.”
She sticks her index finger in the air and closes her eyes.
“Hold on. Let me guess. You live in a one-story no-frills cabin with a Great Pyrenees, who sleeps on your bed while you curl up on the bare floor. You have no kitchen because you’ve never cooked, and your bathroom has a shower and tub huge enough for you to fit into.
” She opens her eyes, again. “How’d I do? ”
“Not bad,” I say. And then out of nowhere, I laugh. It’s a hearty belly laugh, too. I’ve so rarely laughed like this lately that I don’t recognize the boom of my own voice as it echoes through the trees.
She playfully slaps my arm. “Come on. Fess up. Tell me about your cabin. I’m curious.”
My laughter fades. Pussy has raised her head and is peering at me through one green eye. I think my laughter surprised her as much as it did me. “Well, you’re right that it’s one story. The rest, not so much.”
“Details, please.”
“I have three bedrooms.”
“Just like my house—my old house, I mean. The one in Las Vegas.”
I nod. “With three bathrooms.”
“I only had one-and-a-half.”
“And yes, all of them have tubs and showers that I can fit in. The bill for all that tile was astronomical.”
“I bet.”
“And there’s an office and a game room… but with a pool table, since I prefer pool over video games. That’s more Finn’s speed.”
Her eyes widen.
“And a media room with my own popcorn maker. I like old black-and-white movies, believe it or not.”
“Okay.” She looks shocked.
I continue. “And then the other rooms… a living room, a den, a regular kitchen and a butler’s kitchen. That’s what Emma told me it’s called, anyway. She says it’s for entertaining, like that will ever happen.”
Frankie snorts with laughter and then looks embarrassed for her outburst. I find myself grinning at her.
“And no, I don’t cook in those two kitchens. But I love to eat, so I either go out, get prepared meals delivered, or I mooch off of Dad and Aunt Phyllis or Emma and Finn. I’ll even go to Cal and Victoria’s if I’m in a serious bind.”
She raises one eyebrow.
“The good thing about not cooking is that my kitchens are always spotless.”
Her mouth opens, but then she snaps it shut. “Sounds dope,” Frankie says.
“Out back, there’s a pool I don’t use and a Jacuzzi that I do use. And a guest house with a kitchen and bath, which has never been used because, like the butler’s kitchen, it’s meant for the guests I’ve never had and probably never will.”
She raises her hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. I get it. No sleeping on the floor in a cabin. I should have gone into the Wagyu business, obviously. Do you have a dog, at least?”
“No. Cal and Victoria have two Golden Retrievers, though, Ripley and Sarah Connor.”
“Those are great names.”
“However, I’ve recently been adopted by a cat.”
Frankie starts to smile but it morphs into a frown. She looks away, staring at her feet and then at the fire. Shit. Maybe that sounded like I was making assumptions, taking ownership of her cat, forcing my way into her world.
Maybe it’s been so long since I told a joke of any kind that I’ve forgotten what’s funny and what’s just cringey.
I clear my throat. “Wagyu didn’t pay for my house, though.
My brothers and I started a company.” I proceed to tell her about StellaR Tech without going into any of the details.
I don’t even mention the firm’s name. Our work is so secretive—and buried under so many layers of op sec, infosec, and need-to-know—that even members of our family don’t have a picture of what we do. And it has to stay that way.
But I do tell her how it all got started.
How Declan and Finn met up for a beer one night at a bar near Coronado.
And how they started bullshitting each other about how they’d make millions once they were out of the Navy.
The joking around turned into brainstorming.
And before the bar closed, they’d sketched out a new approach to cybersecurity that formed the basis of our shamefully successful military contracting enterprise.
When I finally come up for air, I see that she’s sitting ramrod straight in the camp chair, her mouth hanging open. “Let me get this straight,” she says. “Your brothers scribbled some shit on a bar napkin, and you’ve managed to turn it into a successful tech startup?”
“Yeah. Cal’s in the C-suite. Finn and Declan are the brainiacs. And Evander takes care of contract negotiations.”
“And what does cereal man do?”
The cat rolls over in my lap, sound asleep with her paws sticking straight up, still purring like a gas generator. “Oh, you know. Ranching operations manager. Pussy wrangler. Squatter supervisor.”
Frankie shakes her head, trying unsuccessfully not to laugh. She gives me a side-eye with a smile. “You’re sort of funny, Special K.”
“You may be the first person to ever accuse me of that.”
Our eyes lock. We simply look at one another. I know I’ve talked way too much as it is but there are so many things I want to ask her.
Why are you so lovely?
Will you let me take you into my arms and search your face until I’ve memorized every gentle curve and soft plane?
What the fuck are you doing here?
But she breaks our eye contact, and the moment passes.