Frankie
My little cabin in the woods is mocking me. My once peaceful and secluded haven is now painfully silent. A week ago, I loved the solitude. Now, I think I hate it.
Frankie: I’m home.
Jane: Thought you were coming home tomorrow.
Frankie: Changed my mind.
Jane: Everything OK?
Frankie: Everything’s fine.
Jane: How was date night?
Frankie: It wasn’t a date. He got tied up. Couldn’t make it.
Jane: Did you go?
Frankie: Yeah, it was awesome.
Jane: You sure you’re OK?
Frankie: Jane…
I ditch my duffel on the kitchen table and pad through my lifeless living room. Everything is still. Too still. Even the dust caught in the midmorning sunlight is unaffected by my return.
Welcome home, Frankie.
I collect the mail scattered on the floor by my front door, flipping through it as a courtesy before tossing it in the waste bin on my way to the bathroom. The notion of a long, hot bath reels me in like a fish on a hook. The headache I woke with is getting angrier by the second and my chest burns like someone punched me.
The hotel had a perfectly good bed, Frankie. You should have used it.
I turn on the faucet in my claw-foot tub, toss back a couple ibuprofen, and peel out of my clothes. The temperature is just north of scalding. I carefully sit down, watching my skin go from white to pink as the tub fills around me. I pour in a few drops of honeysuckle oil and rest my head against the porcelain, but just as I begin to relax, the air thickens to a sugary-sweet fog so rich it turns my stomach.
Ugh!
I’m an achy, nauseated, miserable mess and it’s all Darian’s fault…except it isn’t.
God, how could I have been so stupid?
I spent the entire ride home trying to come to terms with whatever the hell it is I’m feeling. I survived two breakups—however minor—without so much as a bowl of Rocky Road. So why am I so hung up on a guy I don’t know? A guy who doesn’t live here? A guy I knew I’d never see again?
You’ll be fine, Frankie. You just have a bruised ego.
This feels a little worse than a bruise.
With my shoulders underwater, my saturated hair pulls at my scalp, making my already throbbing head that much worse. I wring it out and twist it in a knot behind me. Then I close my eyes and focus on the water rushing out of the faucet.
You’re in a Costa Rican rain forest, floating in a pool of blue beneath a thundering waterfall. The sun is directly overhead, its warm rays shining down on you. And you’re naked.
With Darian.
My eyes snap open. “No, not naked. And not with Darian.”
Wow, Frankie. What the hell is wrong with you?
I miss him. I know it’s crazy. It’s been, what? Five days? I’ve had zits last longer than that. But those five days made me feel alive. Now I just feel…blah. Maybe it isn’t him.
Of course it isn’t him.
I’m just missing…something. I just want…something.
I extend my leg toward the faucet and toe it off. My small box of a bathroom is swallowed by the same silence that greeted me when I walked inside my cabin. I slide deeper into the water until my head is completely submerged and blow out a breath, transfixed on the bubbles rising to the surface.
I want something…more.
Loud knocks at my front door jerk me from my thoughts. I sit up and pull my knees to my chest, tucking my face in the hollow of my folded arms.
Go away.
The knocking stops, only to be replaced by the sound of heavy footsteps on creaking floorboards, back and forth across my small porch.
Silence. Then the knocking resumes, louder this time. Determined.
Seriously?
I get out of the tub and slip into my robe, not bothering with the sash or a towel. I trudge through the house, soaking wet, leaving a trail of water behind me.
“Be nice, Frankie,” I whisper to myself before yanking the door open. “Can I help—Darian? What are you…”
The words die on my lips at the sight of him. I take in his wild hair, the bags under his eyes, and the Misfits T-shirt he quite possibly slept in. He’s a mess, and he still looks like a Rolling Stone centerfold.
I tighten my grip on my robe. “What are you doing here?”
“Francesca…” My name crawls off his tongue in a sultry, breathy growl.
He takes a step toward me and my thoughts become fuzzy.
Stay strong, Frankie. Resist! Re—
I jump at the sound of the door closing behind him.
He pins me against the wall, his darkening olive eyes boring into mine. “I needed to see you,” he says as he works his fingers through my soaking wet hair.
Water rains down my body, awakening every nerve ending in its path.
I open my mouth to speak, but he covers it with his lips, fills it with his tongue. He kisses me as if last night never happened, and I do nothing to stop him. If anything, I encourage him by stretching as tall as I can to give him a better angle.
My pulse races out of control, and I wonder if he can feel it as his fingers trail down my face and neck. He slips them just inside the opening of my robe and continues down my chest, between my breasts, until our hands touch. He pries the terry cloth from my grip and pushes the fabric off my body. The cold air bites my skin, but I only notice it for a second before my attention is drawn to his T-shirt as he tugs it over his head. My gaze moves from his eyes to his chest and rolls down his stomach to the low-hanging waistband of his jeans. I unfasten the button and pull down the zipper. My name, a chant on his lips, almost inaudible over my thundering heart and spastic breathing, stops abruptly when I slip my hand inside his boxers and wrap my fingers around him.
“Hold on. Wait…wait. Fuck,” he says, cupping my jaw. He blinks slowly and breathes a long sigh, fanning the loose strands of hair away from my face. “I don’t have a condom.”
“Oh God.” I close my eyes and press my forehead against his chest while I catch my breath.
His cock shifts in my hand.
Time to let go of his dick, Frankie.
“This is awkward,” I say, removing my hand from his shorts. “And a little embarrassing.”
“Please don’t be embarrassed. This was all me. I swear to you, I had a whole speech planned, and none of it involved getting you naked.”
“Oh shit, I’m naked.”
A nervous laugh echoes above me. Darian touches his lips to the top of my head before turning around and refastening his jeans. “Sorry. I thought you knew.”
“I was a little distracted,” I say, picking up my robe and sliding into it. This time, I tie the sash. “What are you doing here, Darian?”
He grabs his T-shirt off the console table and paces several strides with it before pulling it on. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly, interlocking his fingers behind his head and turning away from me.
“It’s not like I was resisting. I practically—”
“No, I mean, I’m sorry about last night. Not showing up.” He hesitates. “Not calling.”
Oh yeah. That.
My body tenses at the reminder.
We step around the corner and into my living room. Darian sits on the sofa and I sit across from him on the edge of the coffee table. Our knees touch, and I swear a thousand volts of electricity pass between us. It’s like some unexplainable pull that’s always there. I felt it in the Four Seasons lobby, and I feel it now. I stand up from the table and move to the other side.
“I’m sorry,” Darian says again.
“What happened? Were you working?”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“Oh.” I busy myself with my robe, pulling the sash tighter, knotting it.
“I just…I couldn’t. I don’t want you to…I mean…dammit. None of this is coming out right,” he says, raking a hand through his hair. His voice softens. “I fucked up.”
“You fucked me,” I say, my eyes hard on him, “and then you disappeared. We had seats on the stage, in front of everyone, and you never showed. Do you have any idea how embarrassing that was?”
Darian flinches. “They put us on the stage?”
“No, they put me on the stage.”
“Jesus, Francesca, I didn’t know.” He drags his hand down his face. “We were supposed to be in the front row with everyone else. I had no idea they’d moved us.”
“You should have called me, Darian. If I’d known you weren’t coming…you should have called.”
“I shouldn’t have needed to call,” he says. “I should have been there.”
“Why weren’t you?”
“It’s…complicated. I can’t even begin to answer that question.” He stands up, takes a step toward me, and stops. “I’m asking you to give me the benefit of the doubt,” he says. “I’m asking you to forgive me anyway.”
I lean back against the fireplace with my arms crossed. “Why do you even care? After today, we’ll never see each other again. Aren’t you going back to Miami tomorrow?”
“Yes, but…I don’t know.” His gaze falls to his feet. “None of this makes sense to me. In less than a week, you’ve gotten under my skin, and I can’t imagine not knowing you anymore.”
I can’t imagine that either.
“I’m in Austin a few times a year,” he says, looking up. “I’d like to see you.”
I laugh. “You want me to be your Texas booty call?”
“No, that’s not…shit.”
“Darian, I’m kidding.”
“Good because that’s not what this is. I just…I like you. I like knowing you,” he says. “But I can’t get involved. Not romantically. I can’t commit.”
“I’m not looking for a commitment,” I say, my voice low. “I think I might have mentioned that.”
He nods. “You did. I just need to be clear. I don’t want to let you down. Again.”
“We’re both adults. You don’t have to worry about me; I won’t break.” I push off the fireplace and walk toward him. “But that can’t happen again.”
“It won’t,” he says. “I swear.”
“Then I forgive you.”
Darian extends his hand, and I take it.
A shy smile spreads across his lips. “Friends?”
“Friends,” I say, smiling back at him. My gaze slides past him to the front door. “With benefits. I need that to be clear.”
A laugh tears from his throat. “You’re such a surprise,” he says. His grin fades, and he brings his free hand to my cheek. “You already know I’m attracted to you, but please don’t think that’s what I’m after. It’s not. If you decide you’d rather keep this thing one hundred percent platonic, that’s what we’ll do.”
I ignore the flutter in my stomach.
“With benefits,” I say again.
Despite my stipulation, we spend the day stretched out on layers of blankets on my living room floor, fully clothed and talking. The exchange is light, mostly playful banter, but it takes a somber turn when Darian asks about my mom.
“I was eleven when she died,” I say as casually as I can. “Car accident. But my dad was amazing.”
“That must have been tough—a single dad raising a little girl all by himself.” He leans back against the hearth, his knees bent, his spine bowed. “You said you guys were close?”
I swallow hard. “Yes, we were.”
“That’s good,” Darian says, his eyes aimed at the floor.
He seems distracted, and even though he brought it up, I think talking about family is hard for him.
I glance down at the pieces of fringe I pulled from the pillow I’m holding. I guess talking about family is hard for me too. “So…”
“So…” Darian says, a smile touching his lips. He leans to the side, slides his hand in his pocket, and pulls out his phone. He pecks at it with his index finger and then turns it to face me. “Tell me about Party in a Box,” he says, referring to my website loaded on the screen.
I’m grateful for the subject change, but my face heats from the attention. I always feel a little self-conscious talking about my company. My gaze shifts to my skirt bunched around my thighs. “It started as a class project in college and evolved into a one-size-fits-all party-planning business,” I say, pulling the fabric taut. “I sell boxed party kits through online retailers.”
Darian rubs his chin. “Can’t you already buy prepackaged party supplies?”
“If you’re throwing a birthday party for a five-year-old but not if you’re planning a wedding for a hundred people in your backyard.” I lift my head and my eyes are met with a mix of curiosity and amusement. “Not everyone can afford a pricey wedding with a personal planner. Think of it like high-end boxed wine. It fits a niche.”
A grin pulls at his lips, and my blush returns.
“I sound like a commercial, don’t I?”
“No,” he says, shaking his head. “You’re passionate; it’s nice.” He turns his attention back to my website. “So just weddings then?”
“I do a bit of everything—milestone birthdays, office Christmas parties, graduations. I used to do one-on-one consulting too, but not so much anymore.”
I confess the name was Jane’s idea.
It’s from the Saturday Night Live skit “Dick in a Box.” She fell off the couch in fits of laughter when it came to her. “That’s it!” she screamed.
“I’m also a waitress,” I blurt out. “Before you get all impressed by my mad business skills, I figured you should know that.”
Darian straightens his legs. “I know nothing of your mad business skills,” he says, “but I’m impressed you’re a waitress.”
My eyes narrow. “Why?”
“Francesca, you’re twenty-one.”
I hold up two fingers. “Almost twenty-two.”
“Almost twenty-two.” He grins. “You run your own company, which I assume doesn’t turn a sustainable profit yet, so you hold a second job to compensate. Did I get that right?”
I shrug.
“That’s some serious dedication.” He darkens the display on his phone and sets it on the hearth behind him. “Not all businesses turn a profit right away. It took the label years.”
“It turns a profit…usually,” I say, stretching my toes toward Darian’s. “Just not a comfortable one.”
He laughs. “So you’re saying you run a successful business and you work a second job…just because? That says a lot about your character.”
My chest swells. “I’ve never thought of it like that. I’m just—I’m on my own, you know? Some months are great, but some really suck. I wait tables to give myself peace of mind. I guess I don’t feel successful because I still have a day job.”
“My guess is you’re successful because of your day job and the fact that you’re committed to keeping it. I don’t mean to keep harping on your age, but, damn, Francesca, it’s impressive.” He smiles shyly. “And it’s really fucking hot.”
Blood rushes my cheeks. It’s hot all right. I swear the temperature just climbed twenty degrees.
I pull my hair off the back of my neck and wrap it around my fist. “So what about you? What’s it like to run your own label? Give me a typical day in your office.”
“There are no typical days in the music industry,” he says, “and because we’re indie, everything falls on my shoulders.”
“You don’t have people?”
“I do. Great people actually. One of whom is in Austin right now picking up my slack.” His toes press against mine. “Have I mentioned Riley?”
I think for a minute. “Yes, at the Stoli party. Your assistant?”
Darian nods. “I’m grooming him to take over the managing side for our bigger acts. That’s the part of my job I hate the most—dealing with the arrogant assholes.”
“They can’t all be arrogant assholes,” I say. You’re not. “Come on, you never get star-struck?”
He rests his elbows on the hearth behind him and crosses his ankles. “Obviously not with anyone we’ve signed, but I did meet Jimmy Buffett several years ago in Key West,” he says, pausing as if he’s replaying the memory. “That was pretty fucking cool.” His face lights in amusement, and then his eyes widen and flick to mine. “Oh shit, and Paul McCartney. How could I forget meeting a Beatle?”
“Jesus.”
“Not quite, but close.”
“I recently met Cross to Bear,” I say. “That was exciting.” I crawl across the six feet of blue flannel bedding we’re lounging on and kiss Darian’s cheek before settling in next to him.
“Cross to Bear, huh? How did you ever manage that?”
“I have people too.”
He drapes his arm over my shoulder, pulling me closer. “I’m really glad I’m here.”
Yeah, about that…
“Me too.”
He smells incredible—a dizzying blend of earthy male and my honeysuckle bath oil. It’s almost enough to wreck my train of thought. Almost.
I remove myself from the distraction of his embrace and return to my previous location, opposite him. “So how exactly did you find me?”
His head pitches forward, his smile wide. “I saw your driver’s license, remember? Francesca lives at One Francesca Lane.” He shrugs. “Pretty hard to forget.”
“We’ve had this place forever. Dad named the street.” I lean back against my hands. “We lived in San Antonio, but we were here almost every weekend.”
“Your mom too?”
“No. This wasn’t her thing. She was always…busy.”
“That’s a shame,” he says. “I love it.”
I love it too. Rustic and cozy with two fireplaces and a creek that runs through three acres of backyard. But I’ve never made it my own—a fact made evident by the giant wild boar head glaring at us from above the mantel.
Darian looks around him, his eyes lingering on the antique gun case in the corner, the fishing poles hanging over the windows, the antlers…everywhere. “You are aware this is every guy’s dream, right?”
“Guys are simple creatures,” I say, pointing to the taxidermy above him.
His gaze follows the line of my finger.
“All it takes are a few dead animals and a creek stocked with bass.”
He whips his head back around. “There’s a creek?”
“With bass. I’d show you”—I glance at the make-believe watch on my wrist—“but you probably need to get back to the festival.”
Please say you don’t. Please say you don’t.
“What festival?” he says, his lips curling into a grin. He’s silent for a moment and then, “She lives in a cabin in the woods.”
“She does,” I say, smiling.
“I’m surprised you don’t get scared…all by yourself…so isolated.”
His attempt to act menacing makes me laugh. “You know you’re about as threatening as a kitten?”
“A kitten? A kitten?” He shifts to his knees and crawls toward me, prowling up my body. “Maybe a lion.”
My arms fail me, and I fall back against the blankets. “Okay, a lion,” I say, giggling as he hovers over me, his nose poking at my collar.
He makes an unsuccessful attempt at unbuttoning the front of my dress with his teeth and opts for his fingers instead. “A very dexterous lion.”