by Natalie Dean
“It’s fine,” she answered quickly. Except it wasn’t fine. She was beginning to feel things that she wasn’t supposed to feel. Think things that she shouldn’t think about. In her situation it was dangerous to want things outside of the most basic needed for survival, and even that was tricky.
“Right, well, this way then.”
She nodded and followed along after him, doing her usual two and a half steps to his one long stride, and soon they came across a pretty little mock cabin.
“Wait, is this seriously where the chickens live?”
“You know, all of you use this same tone when questioning my life, and it’s going to give me a complex.”
“Well, we can’t help it that your life is a little ridiculous.” She looked at the structure in front of her. It was taller than her, but mostly because it was raised, with a set of three long steps going up to the front that was a chicken-wire covered gate. “This is the size of some people’s apartments.”
“What, no it isn’t.”
Frenchie fixed him with her most serious stare. “Yes, Solomon, it absolutely is.”
He shook his head, undoing the latch and holding it open for her. She skipped past him, slowing down once she was fully inside.
“Wow, these chickens are pretty! And… kinda weird looking.”
“Yeah, designer chickens can be a little bizarre.”
She stopped again and gave him a look. “Are you telling me that you guys are so rich that even your chickens are designer? They’re birds.”
“You know, I never used to think about how many of the things I take for granted are rich people things, but now I wonder if anything about my life is normal.”
She laughed at that. He was taking everything remarkably well. “Well, I’m sure y’all drink water from the tap just like the rest of us.”
A strange expression crossed his face, followed by a sharp, short laugh. “Actually, we have a filtering system in our fridge and it comes out of the door.”
“Oh my gosh, really? That’s… I don’t know, do you at least put on your own underwear? That’s the only other thing that I can think of.”
“Well you can rest assured that I have been putting on my own briefs since I was young enough to know what they were.”
“There you go. That’s the one common unifier. We all put on our underwear. Such a strong connection.”
“Well, it’s a good start.”
She looked around at the chickens and back to him. “So, you’re saying we’re connected then?”
He got that serious look in his eyes again, the one that made her shiver and wonder if maybe those strange thoughts weren’t completely ludicrous. “I think we’ve been connected for a little while, haven’t we?”
Frenchie thought back to that first night they had met, when he had chased her like some sort of serial killer. Then how he’d found her again in the park and chased her again.
She had been so sure that was the end of her life and the start of something truly horrendous, but it had been the opposite. She’d gotten a gym membership for protection, basically a vacation for two weeks, help for her friend, and several delicious meals. All in all, he was the best thing that had happened to her in years.
Which was a lot to think about as well.
“I guess you’re right.”
“I’ve been known to be occasionally.”
“Did you ever think that some homeless vagrant defacing your family’s property would ever become kinda your friend?”
“Kinda?” he repeated incredulously. “There’s no kinda about it. You’re my friend and that’s that.”
“Oh.”
“Oh? Your tone implies you didn’t know.”
“Well, I just… I don’t know. I guess, once I decided to trust you, I assumed I was more of a charity case than anything else. You know, someone helping you right a wrong, but not… not something so intimate as a friend.”
He turned to her fully and his expression was even more intense. Whew! What gave him the right to look at her like that? It made her knees wobble a bit, which was so unlike her and a bit unsettling to say the least.
“You’ve been doing that this past couple of days. Why?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“This weird, putting yourself down thing. You’ve always been so fearlessly you, so what’s going on?”
She flushed at the praise, because it certainly felt like praise. “I don’t know. I guess sometimes I get self-conscious because you’ve turned into this great guy who’s nice and examines his biases and is willing to go to bat for a bunch of us hooligans, and I’m just… well, I’m a twenty-three-year-old woman with a sixteen-year-old’s education. I’m trying to put the pieces together, but I really should have been out of this cycle by now, and I don’t really have any excuses for why I’m not. It just seems like every time I get close to getting back on my feet, something knocks me down again.”
She risked a look at him even though her cheeks were burning, and she felt nauseous. Showing vulnerability was so unlike her. She preferred her constant wit and sarcasm, fortifiers of the enormous wall that she had built around herself. But Solomon deserved the truth, or at least a little bit of it.
“Sometimes, it’s hard to look at someone as successful as you and not feel like a loser.”
“Frenchie…”
She hadn’t known what to expect from her comment, but it wasn’t for him to stride forward and envelop her in another hug.
It was a bit different than the first hug. For one, he held her tighter; secondly, she felt his lips press into the top of her head.
Oh.
Oh.
She knew it was most likely meant to be a sweet gesture, something paternal even, but it made her whole-body rush and her toes curl inside of her ratty shoes. It was something she hadn’t felt since she was in high school, and boy, it certainly was powerful.
She had it even worse than she thought.
Yikes.
She pulled away slowly, looking up at his face, and she wished that she could be anybody else. But she wasn’t. She was her, and that was all she had.
“Do you want to know my real name?”
19
Solomon
Frenchie looked up at him, so beautiful, so wounded, and then her full lips were moving, and low, raspy words were escaping her mouth.
“Do you want to know my real name?”
Her real name? He hadn’t realized that he didn’t, she was just so much Frenchie in his head. It summed up her wry wit, her mischievousness, and so much more. But then again, hadn’t she been surprised that he had told her his real name when they had first met? Yeah, he distinctly remembered her saying something along those lines.
“I want to know anything about you that you’re willing to share with me.”
She was so small in his hands. Even after two weeks of eating regularly and resting, he could still see that she could stand to gain a bit more weight. He felt a desire to protect her that was so strong it nearly stole his breath away, and he was surprised he didn’t say something stupid right then and there.
“It’s nothing too surprising, just Francesca. Francesca Lopez.”
“Francesca,” he repeated. It was beautiful, just like her. He wished he could trace the slope of her face with his fingers, commit all of her to memory.
Because eventually she was going to disappear, right? He was just a visitor in her world, a temporary ally while he helped her punish the man who had hurt her and her friends. He wasn’t a permanent fixture, and he needed to come to terms with that before he hurt himself.
Except he kind of had a feeling he was going to hurt no matter what when she slipped away.
“I like it,” he murmured, his hands coming up to stroke her arms. He wasn’t really thinking about what he was doing. He wanted to hug her again, to comfort her and make whatever was influencing her to doubt herself go away. Sure, it was nice to hear that she thought such nice things about him,
but none of them were really true.
Okay, yeah, from an outside view he was successful, but he had been born with so many advantages. If he had to deal with any of the issues the young ones had to deal with, he didn’t know if that would be the case. Because, as much as he liked to think that he was ambitious, intelligent, and capable, he’d never really been tested in his entire life. He’d never known what it was like to be hungry with no hope of a meal. He’d always had two parents, a nice roof over his head and no worries about where his clothes or food would come from.
If he had been an immigrant, or poor, or abused, he likely wouldn’t be in the same position he was in. So what kind of success was that? No, something that he actually felt proud of was helping Frenchie lock that man away, and he would feel even prouder if they managed to keep him there.
“Well, at least one of us likes my name. Always felt too fancy to me,” Frenchie said.
“Does it?”
She nodded, her breath brushing against his face. It would be so easy to kiss her, to press her against him and feel her heartbeat through her ribs. The image of her without her shirt flared into his mind. and he scolded himself. The memory of what had caused that particular misunderstanding made him take a step back.
He wasn’t going to be like all those people who had tried to use her. He wasn’t going to be like the man from the food pantry who preyed on those who were weaker than him. Yes, he was drawn to the woman in a way that he couldn’t describe, but that didn’t mean he had the right to paw at her. And what if she thought she couldn’t refuse him without endangering her relationship with the lawyers and everything else?
Ugh, the thought gave him chills. No, she was off-limits, and that was the long and the short of it.
“Well, shall we go inside? I can make us some coffee before we wake up the others and head back to the city.”
“Coffee?” she said, her face breaking into a wide smile. “Now you’re speaking my language. Let’s go.”
“All right then.” Although he knew better, he still offered her his arm. She took it, wrapping her much smaller one around his. He could see the beginning of a bicep forming on her arm, and it looked so natural there. Healthy, like she finally had the fuel for her body to do what it wanted. “Let’s head inside.”
It was almost like she curled into his side as they walked along, her warm form reminding him of the things he was trying not to think about. Once they were inside, he went about fixing her a cup of coffee, pleased to see that the house staff had already cleaned everything up and packed the leftovers up for Frenchie. He needed to look into their pay again, make sure that they were being compensated appropriately. He had always assumed that they were, considering his family paid above minimum wage, but he was quickly learning that often that just wasn’t enough.
Frenchie, because she would always be Frenchie to him, hopped up on a stool and quickly changed the subject onto something about horses. He was only catching about two-thirds of what she was saying, his mind too distracted by everything that had happened.
She noticed, of course, because nothing got by Frenchie, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she just kept up the conversation for both of them while he sipped his coffee and observed her. She really was a force of nature. What would have become of his life if he had never stepped into her path?
He didn’t know, and he couldn’t help but feel like God had put him there for a reason. But he couldn’t figure out what that reason could be if they were going to eventually move apart to their separate worlds again. That seemed far too cruel.
“Do I have something in my teeth?” she asked.
“Huh, no. Just thinking.”
“I could tell by all the steam coming out of your ears. You okay over there?”
He laughed and poured himself another cup of the dark roast. It was a special kind, one that Sal ordered from Europe because of the unique flavor. “You want more?”
“Um, yes. Not to be a broken record, but rich-people coffee is great.”
He chuckled at that. He thought he would be a bit annoyed or sheepish that they kept pointing out every single thing as being insane, especially the little things that he never thought of, but it was making him take better inventory of everything around him. Made him more grateful, appreciative. But it also made him kind of sad. He didn’t like that these kids were amazed at soft sheets or multiple beds. It just didn’t seem right for his family to have so much while they didn’t even have family.
“Let’s go wake up the others. It’s been about an hour and a half. That should be enough for a good lie down,” Solomon said.
“I don’t know about you, but given that they’re all on really comfy beds, they could probably sleep for a few hours.”
“Oh, should we let them then? You and I could watch a movie,” he said.
Then again, that might not be the best idea. Sitting alone with her in their dark home theater, reclined in their comfortable chairs, right next to each other… that probably was a temptation he would do better without.
Frenchie shook her head. “Hmm, I’m afraid if I do that, that I won’t want to get up again. And, no offense, but I don’t really want to run into your father. I assume you brought us all over here this afternoon because he’s out.”
“Yeah, at a golfing tournament. Probably won’t be back until late.”
“Really? Isn’t it difficult to golf in the dark?”
“Oh, they finish at a good time but usually end up drinking around the bar for hours and schmoozing. You know, comparing stories about the good old days.”
Frenchie nodded. “They mean the days that were good to them. I mean, I’m willing to bet that things are still pretty good for them.”
“You’re not wrong.”
“I’m usually not,” she gave him a wink then started to flounce upstairs. It was borderline indescribably nice to see her relax around him, begin to trust him. He never would have thought he would be on the list of people she allowed to see the real version of herself.
It was a pretty big honor, and he wasn’t going to take that for granted.
* * *
Waking them up, driving the lot home, and coming back ended up taking about three hours in total. But that might have been because he insisted on stopping at a fast food place and loading then up with more food. True, they still had the leftovers from lunch, but he figured some of them were teenagers and, therefore, bottomless pits.
He was right too, because they sucked the junk food down within seconds. It made him want to get more vegetables in them, but he understood that those weren’t as filling as straight-up carbs and protein.
And it also didn’t help that he and Frenchie lingered at the door, talking, joking. He didn’t want to say goodbye, and eventually it was her that ended up having to end the conversation, saying she needed to get more applications in while she still had access to the internet and the hotel phone.
“You know, it’s going to be really hard to keep tracking all of you down after this week ends, and the lawyers said they still want to meet with you a couple more times. You should stay here until that’s all settled.”
A strange look crossed her face. “Solomon… you can’t keep paying for this place forever.”
“Actually, I definitely can.” She didn’t smile at his joke. “Look, I just really want this guy to pay for what he’s done. Being able to connect with you easily will be a huge help.”
“I… all right. But I can’t keep staying in this bubble forever. It’s going to spoil me.”
Maybe she deserved to be a little spoiled.
But he’d kept that thought to himself and headed back home, more tired than he thought he would be and with his head full of thoughts.
* * *
“Hey there, stranger. Haven’t seen you around as much lately.”
Solomon looked around, recognizing the voice of his brother but not seeing him. A sharp rap caught his attention, and he glanced out of the window of the garage to
see Silas on his horse.
“Hey,” he answered, sliding the glass up. “You hit the stables?”
“Yeah, I caught sight of you doing it last week, and I was reminded that it’s been a right long time since I visited my old girl.” He patted his horse’s neck, an unusually large mare with the prettiest black and grey dappling.
“Where’s Sterling? He go to the stables too?”
“Nah, Father hauled him to the tournament. I went the last time, so it’s his turn. Besides, it’s not like most of those people can tell us apart. They’re so busy trying to get into our pockets that it really doesn’t matter which one we are.”
“That’s a mood,” Solomon said before cracking a smile. He was picking up on some of the teenager’s lingo. He didn’t know if that was a good thing or not, but it still made a strange sort of warmth spread through his chest.
“But hey, my twin’s suffering aside, I’ve been meaning to ask you, is something going on?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I know you pretty much run things around here, but I’m a part of the structure too.” That was true. While none of his brothers worked full time for the McLintoc Miller LLC, Silas liked to spend his time in acquisitions and real estate. He had a real knack for spotting good properties and had been the one to originally hear about the megachurch needing repairs after the last tornado and had gotten that ball rolling. “And I couldn’t help but notice that you yoinked a couple of my favorite lawyers and even hired on some criminal justice folks from the city. Kinda weird, you know?”
Solomon didn’t like lying, and as easy as it would be to make up some reason to his next-youngest brother, Silas deserved the truth.
“The food pantry connected to that church was being used by a predator to target young women who went there. Dad wanted to make the victims go away with hush money and shuffle the man off where he could do less harm.”
Just like Solomon, Silas was quiet for a moment, his eyes flashing wide before returning to neutral. He always did have a great poker face. “And you’re absolutely certain this happened?”