by Heather Long
Challenge accepted.
“All right then,” I said, and settled the guitar as she adjusted her feet. When she would have pulled them away, I caught one. “You can leave them there.” At the flicker of doubt, I added, “Trust me?”
Though she didn’t say anything, she left her feet to press against my leg, and awareness of her sizzled over me as I double-checked the tuning. It took me a few chords to warm up my hand, but when I started to play, Frankie never once looked back at the page.
Maybe I should feel bad about interrupting her homework, but I enjoyed her attention way too much.
And maybe I could tell her with music what I couldn’t in just words.
Maybe.
Chapter Fourteen
Dangerous Curve Ahead
Frankie
Something smothered me. Even as I fought against it, the pressure bore down and I couldn’t get air into my lungs. They burned, and my eyes teared as I flailed.
“Frankie.”
No. I had to get away. I had to…
“Frankie.”
Eyes snapping open, I jerked back against the pillows as I stared into the darkness. Then a light shone from Ian’s phone, and he had hold of my left hand in his right. There was a red mark on his jaw, and all of a sudden, my wrist hurt like hell.
A groan escaped, and I closed my eyes.
“It’s okay,” he said gently. “It’s really okay. You awake now?”
“Yeah?” I tugged my fingers from his grasp to scrub at my face. Terror churned in my stomach. Unease slid along my spine. Adrenaline pounded in my veins.
“You don’t sound too certain,” Ian murmured, the bed depressing under his weight as he sat next to me. It was the first night since I’d come home that I slept alone.
I sighed and dropped my hand back to his. When he cradled my hand and then closed his fingers around it, I held on a little tighter. “I’m not.” My heart raced, and even though I tried to calm my breathing, it was still coming in fierce pants.
The light from his phone cut out and plunged us back into darkness. “Can I help?”
Archie had texted that something had come up and he might be late getting back over if he made it at all. But he promised to see me first thing in the morning. Jake and Coop hadn’t come back either, though they’d texted as well. If I’d asked, they’d have come. But I got it. They were trying to give me and Ian time together.
“Will you lie up here for a little while?” I didn’t want to ask. Hell, I didn’t want to push, but I didn’t want to be alone either.
He shifted without letting go of my hand and put his phone beside the bed, and then he stood. For a second, I thought he would retreat back to his pallet on the floor. Then he lifted the comforter and slid in next to me. For that, he had to let go of my hand.
“How do you want to…?” he started to ask, but I rolled onto my side as he extended his arm, and then I curled up and put my cheek against his chest as he curved his arm around me. I hadn’t really been this close to Ian in a while. Not even in the days when he was here day in and day out. The others had let me curl up with them, but he hadn’t.
Eyes closed, I burrowed my nose against his shirt as he brushed some of the hair away from my face. His heart beat a steady tattoo. Curled up on my left, I rested my right wrist against his mid-section.
“If that’s too heavy…”
“Shh,” he said. “Nothing about you is too heavy.” Then he pressed a kiss to my forehead. “I should have been right here to chase that dream away before it got to you.”
“It’s okay,” I told him. In the dark, it was just easier. “I don’t even know what I’m dreaming about. It’s always shadows and running. Sometimes I can’t breathe. Most of the time, I’m just afraid.”
He sighed.
“It stopped for a couple of nights.” So maybe not every night anymore.
“But tonight you were alone.” Self-recrimination darkened his tone.
“Not alone.” He smelled like Ian. Like sunshine and hot days. Like grass and play. There was always this clean warmth to him. I rubbed my cheek against him. “You’re here.”
When he pressed his lips to the top of my head, I held my breath for a minute. A few weeks earlier, I’d understood what those little gestures meant. I craved them. Now…
“I’m here,” he murmured in agreement. “Think you can go back to sleep?”
I had no idea. “What time is it?”
He shifted, barely, then there was a flash of the light from his phone but I kept my eyes closed. The gentle cadence of his heart soothed some of the jagged edges left by the dream. I could almost see the shadows reaching out, smothering me.
Had Mitch done that? Had he tried to smother me during that time I couldn’t remember? My brain kept spinning off little what if and had he questions. Had he chased me down that hallway? The guys told me I was in a little event room not far from where we’d been having the dance. But I couldn’t picture it in my head.
I couldn’t picture anything. I could barely remember the bathroom. Had there been other girls in there? Where had I run into Mitch? In the bathroom?
“It’s a little after three,” he murmured, and the light clicked off again. “Plenty of time to get more sleep.”
As tired as I was, sleep was the furthest thing from my mind. Maybe I could just lie here and rest while Ian slept. That would keep the nightmares at bay, right?
I don’t know how long we lay there, Ian stroking my hair and my head tucked against him, before he said, “You’re not going back to sleep are you?”
“I want to,” I lied. Well, not lied really. I would like to go back to sleep if I was sure I wouldn’t have another bad dream. Even if my pulse had slowed and my breathing deepened, I couldn’t shake the claustrophobic notion of being smothered.
“Want to talk about it?” The offer was there, a gentle olive branch. Would I take it?
Did I want to take it?
“Not to much to talk about,” I admitted. “It’s all shadows, like I said.”
“Shadows and running,” he said. “Do you remember anything else about it?”
“I can’t breathe.” Was it a hand over my mouth? Something else? “Not through my nose or my mouth. I’m fighting, but I can’t get it to stop. Then I’m running again.”
He flexed his arm around me, and then he cupped my face with his free hand. “No one is smothering you, I promise.”
I laughed. “You make that sound like a metaphor.”
“Eh.” The grimace in his tone echoed loudly. “I’m not going to try and psychoanalyze anything. Doing that before got me into trouble.”
“Before?” Okay, I was going to keep digging into this apparently. It was better than digging into my dreams. I hated horror movies, and those nightmares were like living through my own personal one.
Ian went quiet. When I shifted a little closer, he pressed his lips to my forehead again. “You asked me why now.”
“I did.”
“I said a lot of things.”
“You did.”
“I really suck at this.”
I smiled. “No you don’t.”
“I do,” he admitted. “I suck at it where you’re concerned. I want to say all the right things. I want…I want to make it easier for you. Better. I want you to have everything. I want…”
I bit my lower lip and waited him out.
“I want to take back asking my dad for advice and then listening to him. He pointed things out to me, and maybe they were true, maybe they weren’t. But I made the mistake of trusting what I was afraid of instead of trusting you.”
Lifting my head, I tried to stare at him in the dark, but I couldn’t really make out anything other than the outline of his nose. The cats were wandering back onto the bed. Tiddles had settled by my lower back, and Tabby moved her way up onto my pillow, but since I was more lying on Ian than it, I didn’t care.
“It isn’t just now,” he continued, and even though I couldn’t see h
is eyes, I could feel the weight of his gaze. “I was pushing you away because I thought it was the right thing to do, but I never wanted to push you away. When you walked away, you were right to do it. I wanted to undo what I’d done, but I didn’t know how.”
“Okay,” I said, blowing out a breath and settling my cheek against his chest again.
“Okay?”
“Yeah. You suck at this.” There was a beat of silence, then his chest began to rumble as he chuckled.
“I do,” he said, still chuckling. “I really do.”
“I’m not much better though.”
“You are far better than me,” he whispered. “You didn’t shy away from telling me what you wanted.”
“What do you want?”
“You.”
Simple question.
Simple answer.
“That’s what you thought you wanted before,” I reminded him.
“Not just thought. It’s what I’ve always wanted. But I gotta earn that right again.”
“You have to earn the right to want?” I frowned. That didn’t even make sense.
“No, I have to earn the right to pursue you,” he said. “I still want you. It isn’t just now. I wanted you before Homecoming. I wanted you at Homecoming. I was ready to take any scrap of attention I could get that night, as long as you were having a good time.”
“I did have fun,” I said slowly, sucking in a deep breath of him. “Until I wasn’t.”
“I’m glad for the first part.” But regretted the second. Well, we all kind of did.
“How is your hand?” I hadn’t really asked. I should have asked more.
“It’s fine,” he said, then stroked my cheek with his thumb. “Barely notice it right now, and I can still play.”
“You sounded great last night.”
“Thanks for letting me interrupt your homework.”
Tiddles began to purr, and my eyes were actually getting heavier, so I closed them and tucked my cheek a little closer to Ian. “Thanks for playing for me.”
“My pleasure, Angel.” He whispered that last bit.
“Ian…”
“I know, you said I shouldn’t call you that anymore.”
No, that wasn’t what I said exactly. “I was mad.”
“I know. I’ll stop if it really bothers you.” But he didn’t want to. That much was clear.
I wanted to trust him. I wanted to believe him. A part of me did.
But another part of me still reeled from having that rug yanked out from under me. “Nothing’s changed,” I reminded him. “All those things you said—all the stuff that happened. It’s all still there, and I’m still dating the other guys.”
“I know.”
“So maybe…”
“If you want me to stop, just say the word, Frankie.”
Stop being my friend? Stop chasing me? Stop calling me Angel? There were a lot of ways to interpret that. But I didn’t want to parse it out or pull it apart.
Instead, I said, “Can we pretend?”
“Pretend what?”
“That it’s a few weeks ago, and we’re still okay.”
“We can pretend it’s now and we’re okay, too.” The suggestion made me smile a little. “We can pretend it’s now and we’re going to be okay, and even if we’re not, I’m not going anywhere. I’m here for you.”
Tears burned in my eyes. “Okay.”
“Then we’re pretending it’s now or then?” Was that a hint of laughter in his voice?
“Now,” I whispered, and he tightened his arms around me. “And we’re going to be okay.”
“You got it.” A sigh escaped alongside the words. Still petting my hair, he began to hum. It was soft at first, but I recognized it. It was one of the songs he recorded for me the night everything went sideways and bad meatloaf were in the house. Songs I’d listened to on repeat until I went to sleep.
Gradually, the adrenaline and the tension drained away as his humming turned into singing. He was on his third song, I thought, when I dropped off. Good to his word, he was still there when I woke up a few hours later.
So was Coop, who leaned in the doorway smiling at us. He mouthed the word ‘coffee’ and motioned with a thumb behind him.
He could look smug since he’d made coffee. Coop helped me shower and then blow dry my hair while Ian showered. We didn’t revisit our middle of the night conversation, but things were a little easier.
It wasn’t until we were getting ready to leave that I found out Ian was riding with Coop and me. And I found out what happened to his bike.
“So what happened to his bike?” Rachel asked me after we found a table at the fish place and settled in—me with my beer-battered fish planks and fries while she had her chicken fingers and equally large stack of fries.
“Apparently, someone slashed the tires, broke the kickstand, and dropped it while also breaking the side mirrors on it.” They hurt his bike. That pissed me off.
“That sucks,” Rachel muttered with a shake of her head. “And sounds expensive to fix.”
I nodded. “It’s at the bike shop now. Ian’s taking it really well, almost philosophical.” He took it better than I had. I was incensed on his behalf. While he hadn’t said anything about why it happened—they were acting like it was just a random act—I had my suspicions. The swift change of subject when I asked about it suggested I was right.
“Could be karma,” Rachel suggested, but at my scowl, she raised both her hands. “Or not.”
“Sorry,” I muttered, and added some malt vinegar to my fish. The nice thing about this stuff was I could eat most of it with my fingers so the broken wrist didn’t get in the way. I used a plastic fork to break up the fish though.
“Hey,” Rachel said, nudging my foot with hers. “It’s fine. I just like to give them shit. Hell, I’m stunned they let you come out to eat with me by yourself. I mean, I did promise to have you home before dark, but still.”
Another difficulty you don’t consider with a broken wrist. The fact you have to put your fork down to flip someone off. “They aren’t that bad.”
“Didn’t say they were bad.” Pointing one of her chicken fingers at me, she added, “You don’t have to be so defensive. You like them. They have been less asshat-ish of late, and they’ve been looking after you. I’m the critical one, remember?”
I met her gaze across the table and sighed. “I didn’t think I was being defensive.” Normally, Rachel’s attitude about the guys made me laugh. “It’s just been…a really long couple of weeks.”
“I can imagine. Or maybe I can’t. But I’m here, if you want to talk or to mock. I’m very good at mocking.”
Despite the hint of bite in her words, all I found was concern in her eyes.
“I haven’t really talked to anyone else…the guys have been really protective, which is nice. Maria’s not avoiding me exactly. I’ve seen her a few times, but she always keeps her distance.” I snorted. “Even Sharon has kept her distance.” I’d run into her a half-dozen times easily, but she changed course.
“Good,” Rachel said. “Maria’s worried about you, too. I don’t talk to the troll queen, but I do talk to Maria. She wants to reach out, but she doesn’t know if you want to hear from her.” She took a bite of her chicken finger as I reached for my soda. “Kind of like Cheryl.” The last bit came out quieter than the rest. “This is me, by the way, not pushing. But Cheryl’s a wreck.”
I paused mid-bite.
“And I got the impression you don’t want to talk to her.” She took another bite of her French fries, but the weight of her stare was a tangible thing. “So, tell me what you need, and I’ll make sure it happens.”
“I don’t… I don’t really know,” I admitted. “Cheryl…makes me uncomfortable.”
“She wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Rachel countered.
“She gave me the drugged water.” That fact had been swirling around in my head since I woke up in the hospital. Cheryl gave me that water. Not Mitch. Not some rando
m guy. Not some stranger I didn’t know. Cheryl. “She gave it to me when I was talking to you and Skylar.”
Rachel’s expression tightened.
“I haven’t even asked you about Skylar. Sorry.”
“Sky’s fine,” Rachel assured me. “Seriously. She’s great. And…yes, she gave you the water, but Mitch gave it to her.” The care with which she made that statement had me studying her this time. There was a marked hesitation there.
“Why would he need to drug his own girlfriend?” The thought made my stomach lurch and just killed what was left of my appetite. The couple of times this had come up with the guys, there’d been a near killing rage in Jake’s eyes, and even Coop had vibrated with hostility. They were even more adamant that she stay away from me than I was.
“I don’t know,” Rachel admitted. “I have no idea why he would or if he has in the past.”
Or if he was the one who drugged Maria. “Did Maria talk to you?”
“About what happened to her?” Rachel nodded once. “It came up. She got really trashed after Homecoming and after what went down. Skylar and I made sure she got home. She confessed a lot of stuff.”
Chills skated over my skin. “Does she think it was Mitch?”
“She doesn’t know. I think that’s probably what freaks her out even more. Fuck.” She exhaled the last word with the same kind of vehemence rolling through me. “Maria said she tried to warn you—that she thought it might have been your guys for a while, but after the thing with Mitch…”
“It was never my guys.” The possessiveness that surged through me had me glaring. “Never.”
“I know.” Reaching across the table, Rachel took my hand. “I’m on your side. Which—even if it makes me throw up in my mouth a little—means I’m on their side, too.”
Tears burned in my eyes a little as a laugh escaped. “Don’t make yourself sick.”
“Oh I’m made of stronger stuff than that,” she teased. “I might even say one whole nice thing to them next week.”
“Not tonight?” After all, Rachel had picked me up at my apartment to go out to eat. Jake and Ian weren’t there because they had to get ready for the game. Archie had to go back to his place right after school, and I’d told Coop if Archie wasn’t back by the time Rachel and I were done, I was going to ask her to take me over there.