by Cara North
“I eat here all the time. I live nearby.” She shrugged. “If you guys tell me what you want, I’ll go place the order and bring it out for you.”
“Don’t they have a waitress to do that, Frankie?” Jonas asked as he took his seat. He looked around at the old buildings and wondered how this gem had been right under his nose his entire life and he never knew about it.
“No.” She smiled. “I have to order at the counter, then they hand me a buzzer, and I go get it when it’s done.”
That’s how he never knew about it. No one he knew would go through all of that hassle.
“So, what’s good here, Frankie?” Buddy looked at her and smiled.
Buddy had been a regular guy working at a hometown comedy club before becoming an actor. Jonas wondered what life would have been like if he was not born to industry parents. He had never known real hardships except when he had to endure them for a role. He felt compassion for people, he read, he studied, he thought of himself as a nice guy, but some things he just didn’t get, because he was never a part of them. His jealousy at the connection between Frankie and Buddy alarmed him. He had no reason to feel the sting of emotions, but he could not deny they were there, burning his throat, building in his stomach.
Frankie replied, “I like the burger and fries when I am really hungry, the house salad with grilled chicken when I want something light, and tomato bisque and grilled cheese when I want some comfort food. Oh, and the cannoli are fabulous.”
Buddy nodded, “Okay then, I want the chicken salad.”
Jonas nodded, “Make that two.”
Frankie looked them both over for a moment and then headed inside to the counter. As soon as she was out of earshot, Buddy leaned in and quietly said, “What are you doing? You have to present an award tonight. You will need to get there early and you have to go to at least one of the after parties. You should be taking a nap or something.”
“I forgot.”
“You never forget those things. You get an assistant and now you forget?” Buddy frowned at him. “She is supposed to make things better for you, not worse. What kind of assistant doesn’t remind her boss he has obligations?”
“Well.” Jonas thought back to the dog park. “I didn’t really give her a chance. Between the meeting with my agent this morning and watching her chase Ish I just…”
Buddy shook his head with a smile of pity plain of his face. “This is a mess.”
“I know what I’m doing,” he lied.
Frankie returned a few moments later with two plates in her hand. She sat the salads in front of them and headed back into the restaurant. Jonas sat, waiting expectantly, but when she came out with two drinks in her hands he wondered, “Hey, are you eating?”
“Oh yeah. I have my order in.” She turned and walked away from them. The customers inside probably noticed them because Frankie was waiting on them like she was a waitress. They didn’t seem to pick up phones or pull out cameras. As Frankie entered the restaurant they turned their heads to look at her rather than the two celebrities at the table.
When Frankie got to the door a little girl ran up to her and Frankie stopped. She listened to the child as she pointed at them.
Buddy laughed, “You’ve been spotted.”
“How many kids still watch a bunch of puppets teaching words and numbers? That one episode must play every week. I am getting noticed more by kids than by chicks these days,” Jonas groaned.
Frankie smiled at the child, said a few things he could not hear. The child ran back to her parents at the table and climbed back into her seat to finish eating.
Frankie stood in front of Jonas and said, “I told her you would give her an autograph if she finished eating, including her vegetables, because those are your favorite.”
Jonas smiled. She had bought him time to eat, and he suspected, made some parents happy.
Frankie turned and took a seat at the table behind them. She was at his back, facing away from him. He knew this because he had practically turned around in his seat. “What are you doing?”
“Giving you some privacy.” She didn’t bother to look at him.
Buddy laughed. Jonas turned enough to glare at him in warning.
“Frankie, come sit with us. It…it’s weird for you to sit there alone.” He frowned at her beautiful auburn hair, almost brown in some light, but in this light, the sun lit up all of the red highlights. He wanted to touch it, feel how soft the texture might be. He wanted her long locks to tickle his chest, his thighs. “Dammit, Frankie, stop being difficult. Just come sit with us.”
He didn’t mean to lose his temper but his mind was torturing him. In hopes to smooth the tension he could see as her shoulders pulled back and her spine straightened all in a quick snap, he added, “Please, Frankie. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I’m just tired.”
She got up, stiff as a board and moved to sit at their table. She didn’t say anything, she didn’t look at them. Buddy looked at Frankie, looked at Jonas, and then shook his head. Jonas glared at him. Frankie took a bite of her burger. Jonas picked at his salad. The paradigm not lost on him.
Buddy suddenly smiled and said, “We’re having another one, in case she hasn’t told you.”
“Another what?” Jonas stared at Frankie. She was there, but she wasn’t. She kept her focus on the food in front of her, not looking up, not involved in the conversation.
“Another baby, you goof.” Buddy laughed. “You need a nap, man. When did you get up this morning?”
“Four.” Jonas finally looked away from her to Buddy. “A baby? That’s great man. Congratulations.”
“No one knows about it. Maybe Jed if she got ahold of him. I thought she might have told you, but I wasn’t sure. She wants to wait until after the premiere before telling anyone. You know how it goes. The press will be about the pregnancy not the work.” Buddy didn’t even look at Frankie. He somehow trusted that she would not be the one to leak such information. Valuable information. Family secrets.
Jonas realized, among the other things he had learned in such a short time, why she might want to sit away from them. She was privy to more information than any girlfriend he had ever had. It was not news to anyone he had his reputation crushed more than once by women he let in his life. One of the reasons he didn’t want a female assistant to begin with. Frankie had been on the job less than a day and he had given her an all access pass.
The little girl from inside the restaurant came running out with a huge smile on her little face. She was a cute kid with blonde ringlets, big blue eyes, a summer dress, and patent leather shoes. She held a grey colored plastic doll in her right hand and held it up to him as she stopped in front of him. “Can you sign my doll?”
“Sure.” He smiled at the child. He had nothing to do with this particular plastic figure, but what the hell.
“What’s her name?” he asked as he took the plastic figure wearing scantily clad clothing from her hand. He tried not to frown and reminded himself that little girls didn’t pay attention to the details the way adults did. She didn’t think her dolly looked like a slut.
“Frankie.” She giggled. “She’s my favorite doll in the whole world.”
Jonas saw his Frankie reaching into a purse to pull out a thin permanent marker for him to sign the doll with. He had her attention again, if only for a moment. He held the doll and looked at it. She was obviously based on Frankenstein.
“Jonas,” Frankie warned as he touched the neck of the doll’s shirt. He did it to provoke her.
“Hmm. Maybe I should sign her back.” He bent the doll half way forward, placed it against the table and watched Frankie out of the corner of his eye. He knew he had the doll in a precarious position. He slid the top up and took his time, rather than making some scribbles, signing the doll’s plastic back. He could have sworn her breath caught. Her cheeks pinked. The marker dried instantly, but this was no longer about a signature for an oblivious young fan waving to her parents sitting inside the restauran
t. It was about Frankie, her rapt attention to his every movement. He leaned over and blew on the ink as though it needed the added air. Her lashes fluttered. Satisfied he had rattled her in some way, he quickly pulled the dolls top down. He held it out to the little girl still waving at her parents and said, “Here ya go, sweetheart. Thank you for letting me put my mark on Frankie. I hope you take care of her.”
“I will,” she promised as she hugged the doll. “She’s my best friend.”
Off she took into the restaurant. His Frankie glared at him. She took a fortifying breath and stood up. “If you gentlemen are done, I’ll clear the table. You should be getting back. You might have time to get an hour of sleep if we can beat the traffic.”
“Thanks, Frankie.” Buddy handed her his plate.
Jonas leaned back in his chair and looked at the practically bare street. He noticed the cracks in the asphalt, the warm summer breeze, the sound of his fork hitting the plate, and finally the sound of her feet against the pavement as she walked away from them.
“What the fuck was that?” Buddy asked in what could only be described as a yelling whisper. His tone was loud, but his words quiet.
Jonas shrugged as he looked at Buddy.
“I’ve known you for years now and I have never known you to be so…rude to someone. Hell, that doll thing made me uncomfortable. You need to figure it out, man. You either need to fire her or fuck her, but you need to remember that she is in position to begin controlling a good deal of your affairs right now. She knows your sister is pregnant. She could easily…”
“She wouldn’t. Even if she quit me, she wouldn’t. You know it or you wouldn’t have said it.” Jonas looked at Buddy and he nodded in agreement.
“She’s a good girl, Jonas. Be careful. You may get what you want, but you might not want what you get.” Buddy stood as Frankie returned. He shook her hand and said, “Thank you.”
“No problem, sir.” Frankie smiled at Buddy as she said it. Jonas could not explain the surge of emotions boiling in his gut.
“Later, bro.” Buddy walked off towards his vehicle.
Jonas sat at the table pouting, he hated to admit. He was concerned about the evening ahead, he was confused by the feelings he was dealing with, and he was cranky as hell from being at his agent’s office so early. Sometimes decisions could wait, and sometimes they needed to be the first thing a studio head heard in the morning. Today it had been the latter.
She shook the brown paper bag she had in her hand and said, “I got you a cannoli to go.”
“Frankie, I…”
“You’re tired. I’ll see what I can do to re-work the timing.” She smiled at him. Not the genuine smile she gave to Buddy. More like the smile his mother gave him the day he brought home an ant farm and declared them as his new pets. It was the smile a woman gave to a child when she was placating. He grunted a light laugh and got up. He was being a bit childish. He was aware of that. He needed a nap, much like a cranky child might, but he was a grown ass man.
“Thank you,” he said as they walked towards the car. He followed her around the back end of the vehicle and reached for her door handle at the same time she did. She pulled her hand back the moment it touched his. Frankie recoiled as though he had bitten her. He pulled the door open with a frown and waited until she was in before closing it. He walked back to the passenger side and got in. The ride home was quiet, a conversation of silence. No radio, no discussion, just the hum of the vehicle, the sound of passing cars, the smell of a beach coming from the car air freshener. He was dozing in and out of sleep the entire way.
Chapter Three
Frankie looked at the man sleeping in her car. He was a puzzle. One moment he was funny and fresh, the next he was trying to embarrass her in front of his brother-in-law. She couldn’t quite figure out if he was doing it to be mean, if he was mad she corrected him about her role at the restaurant when she didn’t sit with them, or he was insinuating with the doll what he would like to do with her. She gulped.
It was too much. Frankie was practically on fire from the lascivious thoughts running through her mind. She was trying to keep a professional distance while admiring him. Now, as his head tilted at an angle sure to make his neck sore, she could be close, she could look her fill, and not worry about those brilliant blue eyes pinning her with their gaze, those luscious lips hypnotizing her with every word. She wanted to drink in the details, but he had to get some real sleep in his bed, and she had some rescheduling to do on his behalf.
“Sir,” she said gently. He didn’t respond. “Jonas.”
He grunted.
“Sir,” she said as her fingers dared touch his arm. The contact as electric as it had been earlier, her breath as raspy as she feared it might be. “You need to wake-up. You’ll feel much better in your bed.”
He lifted his head, his lids heavy, his lashes long, full, tempting, kept her rapt attention as he slowly became aware of himself and his surroundings. “I fell asleep.”
“I know.”
“Ugh, what time is it?” He stretched as he shifted his head from one side to the next stretching his neck as a hand moved to grab the offended muscles that were no doubt aching from the awkward position he slept in.
“You can still get about forty-five minutes in, maybe an hour.” Frankie got out of the car. She had to. She wanted to touch those long eyelashes. She wanted to rub his aching neck. She needed to get him in bed, but not for her own selfish purposes. She needed to get him in bed and to sleep because it was her job. She reminded herself of that. He was vulnerable and so was she, because this situation was new to both of them. She had to learn what he expected and he obviously needed to read the contract that laid out what his expectations were.
The day she interviewed and he hired her, he’d said they would have lunch and hash out the details. She naively thought it meant lunch with him, but it was lunch with Lea. Today only proved he didn’t read her contract.
His hand worked his neck as they walked the short walk from the front of his garage, housing four vehicles, to the side door he actually used to enter his home. She was seeing it for the first time. Ishmael had a luxurious dog house out back with a fenced in yard of his own. She had punched in the code to the gate and he came right out to greet her in that playful puppy way of his. It didn’t escape her that the dog lived in better conditions than her apartment afforded her. She made what she thought was decent money as a literature professor at a state school, but she was practically living like a pauper compared to all of this.
“Follow me.” He motioned to her as she closed the door behind them.
Frankie tried not to gawk at everything, but really, how often does one get to walk inside a celebrity’s home. He was a private, public person. His home was never on MTV Cribs or anything like that. Jonas wasn’t just any celebrity, either. He was practically Hollywood royalty. His parents were both in the industry, his older sister, her husband, even his older brother worked on independent films from time to time. She knew a lot about them, in a fan-girl sort of way, but she didn’t really know them.
His home was immaculate. Marble tile led to genuine wood slats, wood floors to wood stairs, stairs led to lush carpet, and at some point to a door.
“This is the office, over there is a room you can use whenever you need to. It has a king bed, an adjoining bathroom, the works. I’m right here, across the hall.” He motioned with his head and then winced.
She could manage the schedule they had. She kept telling him he had less than an hour, but it was actually two if he went to sleep right now. Frankie did not like to be late. With his current condition, she would have to play things a little closer to the deadlines than she liked.
Her blood pulsed through her entire body as she mustered up the courage to ask, “Do you want me to work out that knot?”
He didn’t say anything he just nodded. Exhaustion had rendered him speechless she suspected. Her empathy was immediate. She followed him into his bedroom, a place she neve
r in a million years thought she would be. He toed the backs and kicked off his shoes as he walked. She watched the belt land on the floor next. His hand came up and over his head. He grabbed a fist full of material and pulled the shirt off. Frankie could barely keep her vision clear. She had seen this, seen his nakedness from this angle on a huge movie screen many times. The live show was so much better. The moment his pants slid down his hips she tripped over a wayward shoe and made a ‘whoops’ sound.
He half turned, effectively stealing her breath and asked, “You okay?”
“Yeah, I just tripped over a shoe.” She didn’t dare look at his face. She found a spot on the pristine floor and stared at it until she heard his body slide against the crisp linen on his bed.
“I don’t remember massage therapy being part of your special skills or interests on your application,” he mumbled around a yawn.
Frankie gulped. She tried not to look at his ass covered snugly by a pair of designer label boxer briefs.
Gathering her wits she made her way quickly to his bed and sat next to him as she quipped, “I have a lot of skills I didn’t put on that application.”
She could feel the rumble of laughter from the vibration of the bed beneath her. As her fingers pressed against the warm, soft flesh, deeper into the tense muscles of his neck he whispered, “I bet you do.”
Frankie wondered if she was meant to hear those words or if in his exhaustion he still found energy to get the last word in. She put him to sleep in no time. Taking full advantage of the opportunity she didn’t stop at one side of his neck, reasoning that his shoulders were likely just as tense. It was a complete pleasure to touch him. She found freckles she never saw in photographs or on the movie screens. Her fingers slid gently over his skin one moment and then pressed deeply into his flesh the next. Her heart thrummed, her clit pulsed. She was afraid she might wind up with a heart condition before this week was out.