by Sarah Morgan
“I haven’t started counting this year.”
He glanced at her. “You love Christmas. You start planning Christmas in January.”
“I know. But it’s—” She broke off. “Last year, my first Christmas without Grams—it was awful. I’m dreading it, to be honest. Christmas is for families, and I don’t have family. I’m alone. Alone, alone, alone. I hate that word.”
“You’re not alone. You have us. We’re your family. Mom would love to see you for Thanksgiving if you’re free, and my parents are thinking of coming to New York for Christmas. We’ll probably spend the day with Maria, Jake and Paige.”
“That sounds good.” She was silent for a moment. “I’ll come if I’m not busy.”
“You have plans?”
“Yes. I plan not to spend another Christmas missing Gram and feeling sorry for myself. She’d be so ashamed of me.” She straightened her shoulders. “If Frankie can face everyone on Puffin Island, I can face Christmas. I’m staying in New York City and I’m going to party.”
“Are you planning on partying with anyone in particular?”
“Yes. I will be partying with the hot guy that Santa is delivering for Christmas.”
“Will he be coming down the chimney? Because that might be a challenge.”
“I don’t care how he comes, or where he comes, as long as he comes.”
Matt grinned. “You’re a bad girl, Ev.”
“Not in a while, but I’m going to be.”
“You’d better not tell Santa that until after he has delivered your hot man. Bad girls don’t get gifts from Santa.”
“I’ll keep wearing my good girl disguise until the moment I get my man naked.”
“You’d better write to Santa pretty soon, then.”
“Already done. I thought it might take him a while to find the perfect guy.”
“With abs.”
“And shoulders.” She stretched out her legs and tilted her face to the sun. “He is going to sweep me off my feet and that will be that.”
“That will be what?”
“My happy ending. Right there.”
“Tied with a big red bow?”
“I prefer pink, but red would do.”
Frankie watched from the gate in the park feeling as if she was alone on a desert island, watching a ship sail away into the distance.
Matt and Eva sat close together talking. She saw the moment Matt put his arm around Eva, and saw her lean her head on his shoulder.
Her throat felt thick and her eyes stung. Inside she felt raw and vulnerable.
She should be the one sitting with her head on Matt’s shoulder. And she would have been, if she wasn’t so stupid.
“Walk with me.” Paige’s voice came from behind her and Frankie turned to see her friend dressed in workout gear, her hair pulled into a ponytail.
“What are you doing here? I thought you were at Jake’s.” She’d been relying on the fact she could stay in Paige’s room. Roxy was in her apartment. Staying at Matt’s wasn’t an option after what had just happened. Where would she go?
“I was there last night but he has to work today so I came back for my spin class.”
Frankie noticed the bottle of water in her hand. “So you’d better go. You don’t want to be late.”
“I’m not in the mood for a spin class. I’d rather talk to you.” Paige glanced across the park to where Eva and Matt were sitting.
Frankie rubbed her fingers over her forehead, scared by how close she was to crying. “I’m not good at talking.” Maybe if she was better at talking and sharing her feelings, she wouldn’t be in this mess.
“So I’ll do some of the talking.” Paige slipped her arm through Frankie’s and started to walk, giving Frankie no choice but to walk with her. “You know there’s nothing going on there, don’t you?”
“What? Oh, yes. She’s giving him a shoulder to cry on. Being a good friend, because he’s upset.” And that was her fault. Her fault. She wanted to talk to Paige, but as usual the words wouldn’t come. The only person she’d found it easy to talk to was Matt. What did you do when the problem you wanted to talk about was with the only person you could talk to? “I hurt your brother. I’m sorry.” Sorry was a pathetically pale apology for the guilt and regret she was feeling right now.
“He’s tough. He’ll survive. Right now I’m more worried about you.” It was typical of Paige. Her loyalty to her friends was unshakeable.
Frankie stopped. “Mom came to the apartment this morning.”
Paige nodded. “Ev texted me.”
“Is that why you’re here?”
“I was coming, anyway,” Paige hedged. “What did she say? Another boyfriend? She’s moved on from that guy we met in the flower market?”
“He dumped her. But this time she cared. She really cared. She was crying.” Frankie wiped her hand over her forehead, feeling her tension levels rise. “It reminded me of before.”
“Those were bad times.” Paige’s gaze was sympathetic. “I’m starting to understand why you freaked out.”
“She told me that finally she agreed with me that avoiding relationships was a good thing.”
Paige twisted the top off her water. “And since when did you ever find yourself in agreement with your mother?”
Frankie felt even more foolish. But she knew that it wasn’t enough to know intellectually that she was being stupid. She needed to feel it. She needed to believe it.
“How do I stop feeling this way? I don’t want to feel this way.” She was desperate and Paige gave her a searching look.
“I presume I’m right in thinking that you’re in love with Matt?”
It was the same question Matt himself had asked, and she hadn’t been able to answer him.
It was as if the words and feelings were jammed up behind everything in her past.
“I don’t know.” But she did know, didn’t she? That was the problem. She knew, and that was why she was so scared. Of all the situations she’d faced in her life, she’d never faced this one. She sent her friend an agonized glance. “All right, yes! I’m in love with Matt. I’m crazy about Matt. And it’s the most terrifying thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Paige’s gaze softened. “Have you told him?”
“No. And he hadn’t said anything to me, either, until this morning. It came out as part of this weird conversation about my mother.”
Paige’s eyebrows rose. “Matt told you he loved you in front of your mother?”
“It was after she left.”
“Bad timing.” Paige took a sip of water. “Now I understand why you’re terrified. But you’re not your mother, Frankie. You’ve never lived your life the way she lives hers. You make your own choices, and you always have. If she told you to give up your work, would you do it?”
“Of course not.”
“If she told you to move out of your apartment, would you do that?”
“No!” Frankie frowned. “What are you—”
“So why are you letting her dictate your love life? Why are you letting anything she says influence the decisions you make about your life?”
Frankie moved to one side so a couple with a stroller could walk past. “Because she pushed all my buttons. It was like being transported in a time machine. I was right back there, to the time my dad moved out.”
“Answer me one more question.” Paige looked thoughtful. “Before your mother showed up, were you and Matt happy?”
“We were half-asleep. And yes, we were happy. We were going to spend the day together. We had it all planned. I was going to cook breakfast, play with my plants for a while and then we were both going to take a long walk in Central Park.” Her eyes filled. “I hurt him. I hurt Matt. How can I hurt someone I love so much?”
“Because you were scared and panicking. But now you need to fix it, Frankie.”
“How?”
Paige rubbed her shoulder. “You’re the one who knows my brother. You’ll find the right way.”
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br /> Chapter Nineteen
Love isn’t something you see, it’s something you feel.
—Eva
“Someone’s dogwood has mildew. I presume that’s a plant, not an animal.” Paige scanned the requests they’d received overnight. “What is a dogwood?”
Frankie stirred. “Email me the details. I’ll deal with it.”
She felt listless and unmotivated, as if someone had drained all the life out of her.
She missed Matt horribly. She missed being snuggled next to his warm strength; she missed sharing those intimate thoughts and details she never shared with anyone else and she missed the sex.
She wanted to talk to him, but she didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know how to prove to him that she trusted what they had.
And in the meantime, she was sharing an apartment with Eva.
“I used the last of your shampoo this morning.”
Eva glanced up. “The expensive one that is supposed to make me look like a Greek goddess?”
“Is that what they promised you?” Her friend had said nothing about her exchange with Matt, but Frankie knew she hated any kind of tension. “Are you mad at me?”
“Of course I’m not mad at you.”
“You hate having me live with you.”
Eva sighed. “I love having you live with me. The only thing I hate is the reason for it. You should be upstairs with Matt. I hate seeing two people I love upset. I want you both to be together.”
“I want that, too,” she admitted. “And don’t tell me to fix it, because if I knew how to do it, I would. I’m not like you. I don’t know how to be in a relationship.”
And yet being with Matt was the easiest thing she’d ever done. It hadn’t felt hard, or stressful or even complicated. It had felt fun, safe, exhilarating and—perfect. It had felt perfect.
“You don’t have to flirt. Matt loves you,” Eva said gently. “All you have to do is show him you love him back. That’s it, Frankie. You have to trust him with your feelings. Is that really so hard? Can’t you do that?”
She’d already trusted him with things she’d never shared with anyone else. Her body, her secrets, those inner parts of herself she’d kept hidden for almost all her life.
Could she trust him with her heart, too?
Yes. Yes, she could.
But how did she tell him that? How did she show him in a way that he’d believe?
Without saying a word she stood up suddenly, knocking a pile of papers to the floor. She reached for the can of diet cola that was sitting on her desk, slid the tip of her finger into the pull tab and opened the can.
She stared at it for a moment.
“Are you having second thoughts about drinking that stuff?” Eva gave her a reproving look. “Because you should. If you’re going to be living with me, you’re going to have to accept that I pay as much attention to what I put into my body as I do to what I pour over my hair. I won’t have that stuff in my fridge.”
Frankie ignored her and stared at the can, her mind working. “Where’s Matt today?”
“I think he’s working at home,” Paige said. “We had a conversation about Thanksgiving plans earlier. Why?”
She had to talk to him. She had to talk to him right now.
Frankie grabbed her purse. She’d never felt such a sense of desperate urgency. “I need to take the rest of the day off. Is that okay?”
“This is your company, too. You do what you need to do.” Paige gave her a quizzical look. “Are you going to see Matt?”
“Yes.” She fumbled with the strap of her bag. “But first I need to talk to my mother.”
She knew she had to do that before she could take the step she needed to take and say the things she needed to say.
Eva looked alarmed. “Are you sure? You and Matt were doing great until your mother showed up.”
“Exactly. Before I talk to Matt, I need to talk to her. I have to fix this. It’s time I was honest with her. It’s time I told her how I really feel.” She strode to the door. “And while we’re on that topic, there’s something I want to say to you, too.”
“You’re resigning from Urban Genie so that you can work with Matt?”
“Are you kidding? Resign from a job where I get to work with my two closest friends every day? No way.” She shook her head and forced the words through the barrier that always prevented her from expressing her feelings. “I just wanted to say that I’m lucky to have you.”
Eva’s gaze softened. “Oh, Frankie—”
“I’m not done yet. I—” She could feel the barrier weakening. “I love you both. Very much.”
There was silence.
Paige was the first to speak. “Well—” Her voice cracked. “Was that a practice run for the real thing?”
“No. This was the real thing, too. I meant every word. You’re the best friends any woman could have, or want in her life.”
Eva’s eyes filled. “Group hug?”
Frankie gave a wobbly smile and pulled open the door. “Don’t push your luck.”
Her mother was already at the coffee shop. “I came as soon as I got your text. What’s wrong? You normally refuse to meet me in the middle of your working day.”
“I need to talk to you, Mom.”
“Of course. That’s why I’m here. I came right away. I ordered you a diet cola. That’s what you like, isn’t it?”
“I mean really talk.” Frankie slid into the booth opposite her mother. “About stuff we probably should have talked about a long time ago.”
“You mean about what happened with your father? I know it affected you. How could it not? Him walking out like that with no warning—”
“I knew, Mom.”
The silence that followed stretched on for so long she wondered if her mother had heard her.
“Knew?” Her mother looked shocked. “You mean about the affairs?”
“Affairs?” It was Frankie’s turn to be shocked. “He had more than one?”
“Oh—I—” Her mother looked thrown. Then she lifted her chin. “Yes. Yes, he did.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you worshipped the ground your father walked on, and I didn’t want to be the one to kill your feelings. But it seems that happened, anyway.” Her mother looked tired. “But if you knew about the last one, why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because he made me promise not to. He told me it was the first time he’d done it, and that he was never going to do it again. I didn’t know he was still seeing her until the day he walked out. And I didn’t know how to handle it. I knew you loved him and I didn’t want to hurt you. I lived with it, stored it inside me like some toxic virus that isn’t allowed to meet with the air in case it combusts. And I always wondered whether if I’d told you the moment I’d found out, if I hadn’t kept my silence, you might have been able to fix it.”
There was a long, pulsing silence.
“Oh, Frankie. Oh, sweetheart.” Her mother reached across the table and took her hand. “Nothing you did or didn’t do would have made a difference. He was playing you, just as he played me. His first affair was when I was expecting you. I found out because I went into labor early and no one could find him. It turned out the reason they couldn’t find him was because he was having a very intimate meeting with a coworker. After that things went quiet for a couple of years, but then it started again.”
Her mother talked, outlining a catalog of infidelity that Frankie struggled to comprehend. She’d thought she was the one with secrets, but it turned out that her mother had plenty of her own. Deep, painful secrets that she’d never shared.
“Why did you stay?”
“Because I loved him. And because of you.” Her mother poked at the foam on her coffee. “I thought that staying together was best for you. I didn’t realize that what I was doing was damaging you.”
Frankie’s chest ached. “Because of what I saw as a child, I grew up believing there was no relationship that couldn’t be
destroyed. And I saw what Dad’s leaving did to you. I’ve lived my life trying to avoid that sort of pain happening to me.”
“I know. And you’ve been so much more sensible than I ever was. You’ve made your own life and made great choices. Look at you, Frankie—” her mother waved her hand “—you’re so independent. You have a great apartment, a fabulous job, friends who love you and no romantic attachments.”
“I’m in love with Matt.”
“I—” Her mother gaped at her. “What did you just say?”
“I’m in love with Matt.” Saying it felt so easy. So real. So right.
There was nothing holding her back now. Nothing.
Her mother’s eyes widened. “The Matt? Sexy Matt?”
“Yes, sexy Matt, but I’d appreciate it from now on if you’d just call him Matt. No innuendos. No squeezing his butt. No behaving in an inappropriate fashion. I want to see you, Mom. I want to start fresh, but I don’t want to dread every visit in case you embarrass me.”
Her mother was still gaping. “But—I thought you were living in his apartment because that girl—”
“Roxy.”
“Because Roxy needed a place to stay and had moved into your home.”
“I’m living there because I want to be with Matt. My home is wherever he is.”
“It’s that serious?”
“Couldn’t be more serious.” Except that she felt like smiling. Never before had something so serious made her want to smile so much.
“Has he proposed to you?”
“The details are my business.”
“That means he hasn’t.” Her mother’s eyes lit with anxiety. “It might just be sex, Frankie. He might hurt you. He might not want—”
“It isn’t just sex, Mom, and I know what he wants because I want the same thing. And Matt would never intentionally hurt me.” But she’d hurt him. Badly. She felt a flicker of trepidation. What if she’d hurt him so badly he wouldn’t want to take a risk on her? No. That wouldn’t happen. She trusted what they had and no one, especially not her mother, was going to put doubt in her mind. “I don’t need your help with my relationships. I don’t want it. It’s time to take my own risks and make my own mistakes. But this isn’t one of them. Nothing I do with Matt could ever be a mistake. I’m going to find him to tell him, but first I wanted to talk to you.”