#my beloved Yovanna

[intheorangebedroom]

Pleased to meet you, epilogue

Summary: It's the dawn of a new life for you and Frankie, amidst the ruins of your former respective lives. He made a promise to you, and to himself: that he would fix everything. But can everything be fixed? Are you ready to let go, and let him? And how will you deal with your homesickness?

Pairing: Frankie Morales x Gabrielle Tourneur (OFC)/French fem!Reader

Rating: disgusting fluff & explicit fifth 🔞

TW: non-descriptive allusions to past abuse and self-harm

A/N: Dear orange besties 🧡 Happy Frankie Friday ❤️‍🔥 This is the end. I am sorry it took me so long, and if anyone is still hanging in the orange bedroom, I am sorry this is so long. It's most likely bad planning on my behalf; it's also because Gabrielle was never meant to stay. I'm so scared I'll never be able to write anything else because this story fucking drained me. It's one thing to smash the keyboard and reblog unhinged gifs, but I'm very uncomfortable expressing my feelings publicly, mainly but not only on account of my ass getting very gothic, very fast. So if I've hidden some dedications at the end 🧡 But I want to say here, to anyone who's ever read and/or interacted with me and/or this story (likes, comments, reblogs, asks): THANK YOU 🧡 From the bottom of my gothic orange heart. Thank you 🧡 I really hope you like this. *presses post now and runs to hide*

Word count: 20k (I– listen, I'm sorry)

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Epilogue: Songbird

Summer

The summer is laced with sawdust. It’s everywhere.

In your nostrils, the blond, warm, toffee-like scent blending with the smell of the overworked electric sander’s gear. It’s in the sound of his boots scraping the kitchen tiles when he comes in through the backyard screen door to get a beer in the late afternoon sun. It’s in the texture of his tanned, freckled skin, soaked in with his sweat, catching at your fingertips when you run your hands over his forearms, before you lead him to the bathroom to get him cleaned up. 

It’s in the longer curls of his hair, on his cap and all of his clothes, and more often than not, it’s on your clothes too, when you join him outside the toolshed, to make sure he’s wearing the protection goggles you bought, and the dust mask he takes off the minute you look the other way. 

And you don’t know it yet, but you will forever associate it with his kisses. Languid, unhurried, they don’t lead to anything more than simply kissing. His hold on your body loose, his large hands spanning the expanse of your skin, his plush lips teasing yours, tongue swirling inside your mouth. You float together for what feels like hours, until you’re left deliciously disoriented.

And no matter what you do, it always ends up in the bed, dusted between the celadon sheets he chose for you. It scrapes at your shoulders and the round of your ass when you arch up from the bed, bucking your hips into his face. 

But that’s August. 

July is spent mostly at your place. 

Your first days together are lost to the haze of your brain. Wrapped in the hushed, draped atmosphere of your small apartment, you let him take all that he needs. His lips only ever leaving your lips for your skin, sucking in harshly, leaving new marks, his kisses more teeth than tongue. 

His body moulded around yours, inside yours. Sweat, spit, spend and slick. His palms relentless, roaming your body. Restless fingers digging into your curves. 

On Monday morning, the drive to the bookstore is tense and silent, his brow deeply creased, that tick of the jaw you haven’t forgotten. But there’s a life for you, here. One that you are looking forward to living. One you have to be able to afford. 

In short, you need to go back to work.

Out in the street, by the double-parked truck in front of the store, his emotions bleed into his kiss, fingers threaded in your hair holding you still in their grip, his bite on your lower lip nearly drawing blood, and you have to whine yourself out of it. 

You offer Suzanne a short apology, disarming in its sincerity. 

“I’ve been very ill, but I’m better now,” you say, and she silently nods because it is quite plain to see. You are better. There is life in your face and light in your eyes. She can’t possibly miss the marks on your skin, but as usual, she chooses to keep to herself and you carry on with your tasks and your day, quietly humming. 

Going through the backlog that built up during your absence, your mind wanders back to his kiss, its urgency contrasting with your relief. Beyond the tiredness weighing down your bones, deep down, you had been waiting for him. Like you always did. Sitting at the pitch-dark bottom of your exhausted heart, the knowledge that he’d be coming.

When you leave the store in the late afternoon, you find him there, standing across the street, arms folded over his chest, his tall figure, dark and intense, leaned against the truck’s hood. 

Goosebumps break out along your arms when you step together into your apartment, chilled air hitting your skin. On one of the bedroom window sills, the ancient AC unit is softly droning. Behind you, Frankie leans down to kiss the raised skin on your nape, whispering, “I fixed it, hope you don’t mind.” Not giving you time to answer, he nips at your neck and tugs at your shirt, but you turn around and stop him with your searching gaze. 

“Please, Frankie, talk to me.”

The night slips away in whispers, two quiet voices rising from under the baby-blue sheets in the cool darkness. What went down at the bar, who said what, how he got hit. When he’s done, you press him further than you think yourself able to handle, for his sake, but all he gives you is, “I don’t regret anything” and “I will fix it.” You believe him.

In the silence between his words, you lie still. You listen, you understand. His needs, the proximity of your body and the soothing contact of your skin, to be cooped up with you in the smallest possible space for as long as it takes for him to absorb the fact that he hasn’t lost you. That he never did. That he never could. 

So, the days pass. Sweat, spit, spend and slick. Stifling heat and sleepless nights. 

You bite your tongue every time you look at his weary face, every time you want to argue that the daily three hour commute to his workplace is far too long. He’s not flying yet. So you let him. 

Until July 23rd. 

Off on weekends, he picks you up on Saturdays, but today is Thursday and a quick shudder of panic runs down your spine when you step outside into the scorching heat and find him parked there. You scrape your knuckles in your haste to roll down the iron shutters, but it’s only when you join him that you realise what’s different: he’s waiting inside the truck. 

Elbow propped on the door through the rolled down window, he starts the engine as soon as you get in and the entire hold lights up with his smile. 

“Hey baby, how was your day?” he beams from underneath the brim of his cap, “Wanna go for a ride?”

When he pulls out an hour later onto a Brooklyn street you don’t recognise, your heart is pounding too fast, already. You have a notion of what this might be about, but you can’t bring yourself to hope you are right, even when he turns to look at you with that smug grin you haven’t seen in a long while. 

“Where are we?” you rasp, your voice cracking around the words.

“Climb here, baby, you’ll get a better view,” he smiles, tilting his head down and slapping a hand on his thigh. His smile deepens, to his dimple and to his eyes hidden behind his aviators, at the familiar, tell-tale sight of your pulse thrumming wild under the soft skin of your neck. 

But your chest feels too heavy, it’s pinning you down, tears prickling your eyes at what you’ll see, so he unfastens your seatbelt, then his, and reaches to haul you onto his lap with that easy strength, that surprising softness. 

The steering wheel bites into your lower back and you can’t peer out the window, instead you crumble onto his chest, your fingers twisting his shirt and your face buried in his neck, your own personal safe place. And anyway, you don’t need to look, you know what’s out there. 

A tall brick building, its brown facade streaked with iron fire escapes. 

A dry sob quakes your frame, and you feel the pressure of his large hands on your back, their warmth flowing through you. You remain limp in his embrace until he can talk around the memory choking him. That of a young man, driving up to basic training in his sister’s VW, wondering where he would have taken you if you only had more time to spend together. Daydreaming on the promise of later. 

More time then. Now years to erase. Rewrite and live again.

“Alright baby, alright,” he breathes into your hair, “how ‘bout we go to Coney Island?”

It’s bright and busy and loud. It’s rowdy teenagers laughing over the crashing ocean’s waves. It’s neon rainbows and blaring pop music and kids’ high-pitched screams on convoluted rides. It’s his hand splayed wide and protective in the small of your back, steering you through the crowd. It’s cotton candy on his lips, and sticky sugar on your fingertips; it’s a black and white photo booth stripe underneath the Wonder Wheel, split up in two, the upper half tucked inside your wallet, where a torn paper with faded ink used to be. 

It’s your life, now, and for the second time, you’re not standing warily on the outside. 

That night, he drives back to his place. That night, he’s out of the truck in a beat and you barely have time to climb down before he grabs the back of your head and the swell of your ass. He tastes of candy apple, sweet and sour, licking into your mouth, and his scent fills your lungs. He carries you inside with your arms around his shoulders, fingers digging into the strong plane of his back. 

That night, in many regards the first, you don’t make it to the bedroom. He puts you down in the living-room and he throws a couch cushion on the floor, shoving you down onto it, kneeling between your thighs, tugging roughly at your clothes and you scramble on the smooth leather to undress him. 

Leant over you, his grip on your wrists a bruising one as he pins your arms along your sides, fucking into you at a blinding pace, sweat dripping down his sideburns, your legs entwined around his, your breasts bouncing with each thorough trust. 

“Fucking look at you,” he grunts, again and again and again, and you come so fast, so hard, your back arching off the leather at a painful angle, but he doesn’t slow down. He fucks you through your high, and when you come down he’s already asking for “another one, give me another one.”

—

The phone keeps sliding down between your sweaty fingers. You swap hands, waiting for Dolores to pick up through what feels like a thousand ringing tones. 

The relief in her voice is audible, which confirms what you expected: she’s heard about the fall-out between you and Rosie. And soon enough she’s scolding you as if you were still the schoolgirl she first met 20 years earlier, and you realise you missed the mother nearly as much as you did the daughter. 

“Dolores, I just need to find out if she’s working next Tuesday. We need to talk, but I’m scared she won’t answer if I just call her. I need to see her, Dolores.” 

Her voice drops to a conspiratorial tone. 

“Just come home for dinner on Monday night, ok?” 

You get there half an hour early and wait, sitting on the edge of the couch, the back of your thighs sweating on the crocheted quilt draped over the cushions. 

A whole month without talking to each other, the longest ever you’ve spent without communicating in a way or another. Even back when you had no money to spare for transatlantic phone calls, you had never let such a long stretch of time come between you. 

You shoot up at the sound of her keys in the lock, looking at Dolores with sheer panic, and it doesn’t help that she reciprocates your look. 

Rosie darts inside the cramped apartment, grumbling in Spanish about parking in the Lower East Side, and stops short on the living-room threshold at the sight of you. 

Your rehearsed speech remains stuck in your dry throat. She crosses the room in two strides, dropping her bag to the floor, rushing to hug you with all of her strength. 

You breathe in her scent, shea butter, white musk, eyes shut to hold back your tears.

“Oh, Gabbi! I thought you went back home, I got so fucking scared,” she whispers, and under your clenched fists, her back is heaving.

Home. Did you always have so many of those? 

There’s a lot to unpack, but neither of you will let the other one talk, let alone apologise. Strongheaded as ever, Rosie, however, makes sure you listen. The panic that triggered what she calls her “disproportionate reaction.” The guilt and regrets behind her silence. Her misplaced pride. 

Atoning has always been easy for you, too easy, in fact, but you offer her words that have never passed your lips before. Words you now feel confident enough to fathom, and pronounce out loud: “I do need you.”

The two of you speak in turns until Dolores sits you down at the dining table, and then you keep talking with your mouths full. She’s cooked enough food to feed you both for a month, but you still eat most of it. 

It’s past 11pm when the chatter subsides. Stifling a yawn, she offers to drive you home. 

“I’m not sure, Rosie,” you start, uncertain, apologetic, “it’s quite the detour. He lives way up north,” you add as a way of explanation. 

“And is he going to succeed where we all failed and get you to drive your own car, Gabrielle?” 

You giggle with sheer delight because everything is different but nothing has changed, her beautiful black eyes alight with a mischievous flicker when she pulls out her phone to type in your new address. 

—

“Wouldn’t it be cheaper to just buy a table from Ikea or something?” you risk, putting on the construction gloves he’s handing you. You look down at the solid oak planks sticking out of the truck’s tailgate the two of you are about to carry to the backyard through the kitchen. 

He huffs and pauses dramatically, with an ostentatious roll of his eyes.  

“It would be cheaper, Gabrielle, but it wouldn’t be good. My girl is not eating off some cheap wooden melamine in her own home.”

Considering his frugal lifestyle, you were surprised to find out money is not really an issue. His pilot income, while not extravagant, is still sufficient by most standards, and it adds up to his veteran pension, making for a comfortable living. However, you know there are monthly installments for the mortgage. There’s food, electricity, gasoline and all this goodman premium quality wood.

You’ve offered to pay him a rent and share the common expenses, which has earned you another huff, followed by a sarcastic, “sure, I’m gonna have you pay fucking rent. How about you keep your money and get a car, big girl from a big city?” 

The suggestion punctuated by a nonchalant wink, before his plush lips found the slope of your shoulder, with a sharp scrape of teeth. 

You’re Alice, falling down the white rabbit hole, discovering him all over again, only everything feels safe because you know you’re landing in your own private wonderland. 

His quiet confidence, his occasional cockiness. His deadpan jokes quietly delivered under his breath. And the deeper you dive, the more you learn, the more you melt. 

His humble selflessness, his kind attention to others. His practical, methodical, efficient thinking. His sharp mind and keen eye. His determination. What little remains of the hermetically sealed lid, and the hard shell underneath the soft one. The limits to his patience, too. A threshold not to be crossed, but only where others are concerned. 

His playfulness when he whispers filth into your ear at the most unexpected moment, in the most inappropriate places.

It’s all intoxicating, unknown yet familiar. 

You’re like a flower seed that has lain dormant for years, finally blooming under his benevolent care. 

Nights are short and the right kind of exhausting, and you’ve never felt better. You dress in colourful shades: daffodil yellow, marigold orange, poppy red. 

As soon as you moved in, at the end of July, it started with shelves for your numerous books to join his collection. Most of the novels in two editions: one in French and one in Spanish. The Master and Margarita now standing in view, next to Le Maître et Marguerite. 

More shelves in the bedroom closet for your clothes and shoes, and a large standing mirror to check your outfit in the morning. 

Electric shutters installed on the bedroom window, so you can sleep in the dark – your shocked gasp met by another soft huff, when you found out about the price. 

And one Sunday morning, a dusty cardboard box he brought in from the garage. The orange curtains flowed out of it in a musty puff of air, dust particles floating in a sunbeam and you smiled at each other in silence, crossed-legged on the hardwood bedroom floor. 

You closed the distance between you to straddle his lap, the position quickly becoming a habit to deal with just about anything, from joy to frustration to fear to contentment. 

At the bottom of the box sat a green plaid shirt. He pulled it out as you wrapped yourself around him. 

“Doesn’t fit me anymore,” he murmured against your temple. “You can have it back, baby.”

You handwashed the shirt and the curtains with unnecessary care, and helped him hang the latter on the bedroom window. 

They clashed violently with the rest of the room, and you stood in silence, wrapped in their orange glow, Frankie’s chest pressed to your back.

Just like your grandmother, his mother was a seamstress. She’d sewn them. 

“It was her favourite colour,“ he’d said. And he’d never mentioned her again. 

You looked at them, unsure. Hadn’t you already lived too much of your life in the past? 

“The colour’s really– loud, Frankie. Are you sure about this?” you murmured. 

He lowered his face into the crook of your neck, as he so often did, and his lips brushed at the shell of your ear, the thin hair on your nape standing with the rush of air when he spoke. 

“I can’t wait to fuck you in this light, baby.” 

He pressed his body harder at your back so you would feel just how much he meant it, expertly unfastening your button fly, his hand inside your jeans shorts, travelling down your belly where heat spread in its wake like a wildfire.

You leaned back into him, closing your eyes and smiling at his appreciative grunt when the tips of his fingers met the dampness pooling in your sensible underwear.   

“You’re gonna sit on my cock now, Gabrielle. I want to watch you come in the orange.”

Afterwards, as you basked, naked, sated, exhausted, in the familiar glow, you tried and failed to affect a casual tone to ask him about the one thing that had been taunting you since you’d first been in this room, back in June.

“Why is this bed so big, Morales? How many women have you fucked in here?”

He’d scrunched up his face, feigning hurt before flashing his dimple.  

“Believe it or not, just the one with the French accent.”

—

Some time around mid-August, you come home from work to a faint smell of fresh paint hanging in the house. The loud, now familiar buzzing rumble of the Makita guides you to the small office next to the master bedroom, where you find him looking dishevelled and bright, his grey t-shirt stained with white paint, the power-drill cooling in his hand. 

The walls are clean, freshly painted in a luminous white. Underneath the single window overlooking the backyard, where he’s hung the blue drapes, a small wicker sofa is covered with a plastic screen he hastily lifts off and starts folding. Your two Modotti prints hanging on each side of the room, one over a tiny desk where he’s placed your laptop and a round cactus in a blue china plant pot, and the other over a breathtakingly beautiful mahogany display cabinet, that already contains all your photographic treasures. 

“I didn’t make this,” he explains sheepishly, tilting his chin toward the piece of furniture as you run your fingers over the sophisticated marquetry work. “Izzy helped me find it. D’you like it, baby?” his left hand twitching nervously, the plastic screen creasing noisily. 

You shake your head awkwardly in the middle of the cosy room. It looks like you. A refuge of your own. Love and gratitude swelling in your chest, laying heavy on your lungs. At a loss for the proper words to express a feeling so simple and earnest. 

“Frankie, I never… I never had anything so beautiful. Why– what is this all for?” you murmur, your voice unsteady.

“For when you need space,” he simply answers with a sweet, puppy-eyed face.

—

With early September comes the relief of cooler nights, and Frankie launches himself into yet another building project: lounging chairs for the backyard. 

“Who taught you how to do all that?” you keep asking, and he grins bashfully, the shadow of another dimple on his left cheek, his answer always the same. 

“I don’t know, baby, I just taught myself.”

Of the two wide, sturdy chairs he’s crafted, you only use one. Evenings are spent stargazing, sipping beers and talking, your bodies intertwined, sunk into each other’s scent. Oblivious to the street noises, hiding away in a world of your own. 

When you join him in the backyard with two beers on a chilly Friday evening, nothing indicates it will be any different. Until you lay your head on his chest and feel the constricting tension inside it. 

Is it because of your insatiable fascination with everything that touches him? Curiosity killed the cat, your mother would always tell you, enough that you ended up living your life forever treading on the edge of most relationships. 

Is it because he found his own equilibrium readjusting your imbalance? 

Whatever the reason, from the moment you curl up into Frankie’s side, you can tell something’s off.

Pressing yourself closer to him, you slide your hand under the hem of his t-shirt and bring it to rest over his scar, grounding him with your touch.

Only then, Frankie starts talking. 

His childhood in San Diego, growing up with a hot-tempered sibling and the shadow of a mother, her melancholy, her obsession, her passing… all the way back to his parents getting married. The happy memories only borrowed, reimagined through faded photographs. Absence, forever unanswered, hanging over him like a chiming mobile. The father he never met.   

Holding your breath, intently listening to a story he had so far only ever told in scraps, you’re struck by the realisation that both of you grew up without a father. Gone, already, before you were born. 

Under the canopy of the purple urban night sky, Frankie, at last, confides in you about his ghosts, his fears, his rage. About the strangeness of moving through life with questions in lieu of bearings, of being older than his father will ever be.

And when he’s done talking, when his words have run dry, you take the hand he runs over his face and bring his palm to your lips. You hold on to it tight for balance as you climb on top of him. Vulnerability altering his face and it carries you back to a windy Brooklyn street on a forever ago Monday morning, it slices through your heart, bittersweet, sharp-edged. You once felt so helpless to erase the crease of his brow. But that was forever ago. 

You lower your lips to it, and with a kiss you absorb all the pain it withholds. In the still of the night, in the near darkness, a fleeting light glimmers in his dark eyes, the sliver of a swelling tear. 

You cup his face, and you whisper, “I’m so proud of you, Francisco Morales. My man.” 

He sucks in a sharp breath. It trickles down your spine. 

You tug lightly at his shirt and he offers no resistance, sitting up and letting you slide it off above his head. 

Another kiss to the side of his nose, to the edge of his jaw, to the heart-shaped bare patch of his beard. Down along his neck, and he’s the pliant one, for once. Over the slope of his shoulder and to the dip between his collarbone, his suprasternal notch, where you lick and linger. Your palm pressed to his scar. 

A scrape of your teeth over his nipple and you feel him thicken between your hips, until his hands grab hold of your legs and he rasps, “Not here.”

He carries you back inside your home, through your kitchen and down the hallway to your bedroom, your legs hitched around his waist. Lays you down onto the bed where he spent too many nights avoiding sleep so he wouldn’t dream of you. 

In the heat of your mouth, under the caress of your hands, with the sway of your hips, Frankie is whole again. 

—

Autumn 

Your happiness makes him giddy. A grown man, a veteran, and every time he looks at you, shuffling over to the bedroom, a dance in your steps, or when he hears you sing along some classic rock tune as you prepare coffee on Sunday mornings, he’s fucking giggling.

He’s done some things he would have deemed ridiculous, no, downright crazy, only a few months ago. He’s picked his T-shirt from the laundry basket after you’d slept in it a couple of nights, and wore it to work. He washed his hair with your shampoo to carry the scent of you; he kept it long because you asked him to. He’s taken this colourful thing you tie your hair with, and wore it on his wrist all day, breathing it in every time he’s alone.  

He, who’s never been late anywhere, can’t make it on time to work anymore, despite waking up earlier than ever before, because he can’t tear himself away from the sight of your tranquil, sleeping face. 

And in the evenings, he brushes your hair. He’s discovered a birthmark on your nape, a little red fleck hidden in your hairline. On some days, he can’t think of anything else, counting down the hours until he can see it again. Press his lips to it, eyes closed in rapture. 

He doesn’t give a fuck how it looks, or what his friends or anyone would think if they knew. He’s longed all his life to experience that blissful balance with you. The one you two settled in so rapidly, with such ease. 

By 4pm, he’s done with his working day and he drives home. This once was a dreaded hour, but not anymore. Evidences of your presence are scattered all over the house. 

In the bathroom of course, your French cosmetics and lotions neatly aligned in the small cabinet, two towels, two robes. The small room constantly smells of you. 

In the bedroom, in the way you leave the bed open when you leave after him in the morning, the comforter folded over, in stark contrast with his military bed-making habits. 

In the living-room, whatever book you’re currently reading lying on the coffee table. Framed pictures of you and Rosie smiling at him from the bookshelves.

Foul smelling cheeses in the fridge. Your tin mug drying on the rack next to the sink. Two knives, two plates, two forks. 

A house that feels like home, at last. 

Instinctively, he understood your need for independence and learnt to navigate it. A big girl from a big city indeed, he’s known it all along. You’ve only had yourself to rely on for most of your life. And he gets it. 

So in spite of his primitive impulse to provide for you in every way, he refrained from protesting when you expressed the will to pay for food, and gas whenever you get the chance. You can be stubborn, if you need to be. He’s learnt that too. 

You sometimes go to the movies alone, or visit art exhibitions, and there are the occasional girls' nights out in the city. 

When you come back home afterwards, it’s a real treat, one he can’t get enough of. He feasts on your buoyant tales of what you’ve seen, experienced, discovered or learned, on your eagerness to share it with him. He could listen to you for hours. He does.

Some other times, however, you feel small, your anxiety crawling back out from within, settling to the forefront. You’re still the same girl he met, vulnerable, incredibly courageous. Seeking his reassurance. 

And he’s equally happy to make sure you get both space and safety. The single most important purpose he could ever be entrusted with. 

Out in public, in the street or amongst friends, you two never hold hands. There’s a modesty about you and him. 

Still, it’s always his hand in the small of your back before crossing the street or going through thick crowds. It’s brief, stolen knowing glances, fingers intertwined under a diner’s table. 

When you think no one is watching, you tuck yourself into his side, his large hand gripping your hip. As if you can’t live in the open, yet. As if you’d rather hide your happiness from the rest of the universe, lest it be taken away again. 

And there are his eyes; they always find yours. Watchful and intent, years of training and acquired instinct put to use to protect you, keep you close. 

But your behaviour doesn’t matter, anyway. The organic pull between your two bodies is far too obvious to conceal. 

He hasn’t stopped, he never will, leaving marks on your skin. Blooming flecks of his love peeking out just barely from under the collar of your shirts, for you to carry and never forget you are his. You squirm in his hold when he pulls in your skin, hard suck, sharp teeth, squirm and whine in pleasure-plain. 

He brands you. He admits it now. His love flushes your blood to the surface of your skin. He does that to you. You let him. 

Something alien, unbridled, something he can only identify as pride has him puff out his chest whenever he sees you in his clothes. 

As if he hadn’t built rows of shelves to accommodate yours, it seems you’re always wearing his. None of his plaid shirts are safe, you even wear them to work, only to change into one of his t-shirts the minute you come home. 

He pretends to mind, knowing you love that game. Only one day, in early October, you dig up a military tin trunk containing his army stuff in the garage, and you start wearing the things you find in there too.

The first glimpse of you in a green jersey has his stomach turn. Too upset to speak, he watches you leave with it for the day, willing his disapproving glances to be eloquent enough. 

But a portrait of him in his dress uniform pops up on your desk, next, in a brand new fancy frame. And a little over a week later, on a Sunday morning, he walks in from the backyard to find you in a US Air Force shirt, one of his early ones, and the fact that it actually suits you, fits you like one of your own thrift store swag, oversized in just the right way, has his temper simmer. 

He walks straight to the stove where you’re cooking scrambled eggs, his boots thumping heavily on the tiles. A sweet smile curls your lips when you turn around to face him. However sweet, it doesn’t stop the words from shooting out of him, nor contains the anger in his warning. 

“Ok look, I don’t want you to wear those– things, Gabrielle. I don’t want any of it to touch you, entiendes?”

The Spanish slips right out of him, but you hold up your smile, and hand him a mug of freshly brewed coffee. 

“I really love the Morales name tag,” you simply state. 

He grabs the mug by reflex, thrown off by your unfazed reaction. Raising on your tiptoes, you place a kiss on the bare patch of his jaw. 

“I’m proud of everything you ever did, Francisco,” you add in earnest. “But I’ll take it off, if you don’t like it.”

The blunt honesty of your answer immediately deflates him, and he swallows thickly at the first sliver of your skin when you unbutton the shirt to reveal your naked breasts. 

—

Familiarity hasn't killed this miracle. Even when, in the intimacy of your house, you’re never more than two feet apart. Skin on skin from the moment you rush home at night until the moment he ruefully passes the door in the morning. 

On his lap is where you sit most of the time, and he fucking loves it, sliding his hand underneath the hem of your clothes, pecking kisses in the curve of your neck, under your ear, where the scent of you is heady, feeling the weight of you shift against his body when you talk. 

Your hand on his thigh when he drives, his arm on the back of the seat when you take the wheel. Brushing your teeth side by side before bed. Curled into his chest, slouched on a pile of pillows to watch movies on his computer (he’s offered to buy a television, but you declined). Your legs propped over his when you read together on the couch. 

At night, in the ridiculously oversized bed, your bodies lie entwined. You need him around you to fall asleep, need him to crush you with his weight, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“You run so hot,” you mumble with delight, seconds before tipping over into unconsciousness, your voice heavy with your day. 

You taste so good, he murmurs against that spot he likes too much under your ear, his kisses rippling in shivers along your skin; you taste so good, he moans into your mouth, never sated, never pulling back first; you taste so fucking good, he grunts into your cunt, pinning you down on the rumpled linen. 

You’re here, at last, for him to love and to revere, for him to taste, taste, taste.

He had you in his truck, pulled over to the side of the road in a rainstorm, on the way to an upstate farmers market. He had you in the garage, against the hood cooling down. He had you in a bathroom stall in the Guggenheim, his mouth fastened over yours to keep you quiet, his fingers buried inside your cunt. 

He has you in the storage room in the back of the bookstore, more often than he should, when Suzanne’s not there on Saturday afternoons and he can’t wait for you to come home. When you come around him, he calls you his good girl. 

He had you in your room; you sat him down on the wicker sofa, rucked up your pretty dress and rode his thigh clad in raw denim, “Remember the first time you made me come, Francisco?” 

He gripped your ass so forcefully your skin bore bruises for days, and you gave him that sound, that two-tone moan, straight into his ear and then you dragged your teeth along the column of his throat. He flung you down on the carpeted floor and fucked you limp. 

He had you in the bathroom, more times than he can count, and in there, whether rough or languid, he always fucks you with a delightful, ironic revenge. 

He ate your cunt on the dining table like you were the main course in a fancy dinner, and then he flipped you over and fucked you so hard you cried out his name. 

He brought your shoulders up against his chest, clasped his hand over your mouth and fucked you harder. 

You bit his fingers and clung onto his arms, your nails carving lovely pink crescents into his flesh, your entire body jerking when you came again, your cunt gripping him and you sobbed as he filled you up. 

He dropped to the floor, exhausted, chest heaving, drenched in sweat, and you crawled over him, curling into his side. 

When he fucks you with such feral rage, you’re soft for days afterwards, as if relieved by the reminder of his intensity. And just like with everything you need, he’s only too happy to provide. 

“Frankie—” you breathed out, but you trailed off and you hugged him tighter, and he thought you were about to say it, those three little words you spoke daily in a million different ways but never with actual words. 

But you stopped short, once again. 

He often wonders if you’ve ever told them to anyone. To Rosie, you might have, even Will, perhaps. To Ben, he’s now certain you didn’t. 

He can’t tell why it’s so important to him to hear them. After all, he’s never pronounced them either. Not in English. Not when you’re awake. 

But this isn’t only about a shared feeling. He knows your family never taught you how, and the thought makes his body ache. 

—

In the weeks leading up to Halloween, you grow more and more excited, decorating the house, scheming about matching costumes. It doesn’t even occur to him to deny you any of it, he’d dress as a pink bunny if you asked him to. Even though, given what you have labelled “your fascination for all things morbid,” he can tell a bunny isn’t in store. 

Here he is, falling in love with you all over again. Your childlike enthusiasm, your unabashed enjoyment, your bubbling excitement. These are the things he lives for. 

At long last, he gets to introduce you to his sister on Halloween’s eve. Out of town for most of the summer, Izzy’s invited over you for dinner, but the evening doesn’t play out in the least the way he thought it would. 

You pretend otherwise, but your silence betrays your nervousness on the drive to Manhattan. His doesn’t talk either, tense and anxious until you get out of the truck and he can splay his hand on your back, feel you loosen under his touch. 

For weeks, months, he imagined the two of you vibrantly sharing your similar views on politics, when in fact the interaction remains polite and policed, at first, nearly distant. 

Until you zero in on a couple of old pictures displayed in his sister's apartment, in the hallway to the bathroom. 

Izzy’s entire demeanour shifts. She’s delighted to provide you with embarrassing anecdotes on “babyface Frankie.”

“Look at this lanky teenage boy,” she grins, and Frankie, a grown man, a veteran, Frankie feels his heart skip a beat and trip over the sight of your wide eyes filling with tears. 

Back at home, in the dark bedroom, you open up. Tucked under the comforter, wrapped in his arms, with your head resting on his chest. Those are the moments in which the words you had to swallow down all your life come easy. 

“It’s because of the dead,” you begin. “It’s almost like a promise. That they can come back and walk amongst us for one night. I know it’s childish of me, but I would— I would like to see my grandparents again. Especially now. I can’t even lay flowers on their grave.”

He pulls you in closer. Waits for you to keep going, hoping you will. Guessing you are being mindful about his own ghosts. Adamant not to press, he simply gives your hip a light squeeze. 

When you resume, your voice drops lower. And you tell him everything. 

Your mother got pregnant during her senior year in high school, and sought an abortion her mother didn’t let her get. Taking you in when you were born, she watched as your mother left home in rebellion. 

“It was wrong of her. My mother had the right to decide,” you say in a little voice, and the implication makes him physically sick, a foul taste sitting in the back of his throat at your resignation. 

You go on to describe your happy, albeit short years with your grandparents. The orange curtains, summer vacations by the ocean, your grandfather teaching you how to read a map and ride a bike. 

And how it all ended abruptly with your grandmother's death. 

You had to go live with your mother, then, and as you briefly recount some of your most difficult moments, you make excuses for her. It wasn’t that bad. I was too sensitive as a kid. I wasn’t her choice. She was only 23 then. 

Your father had long bailed, and again you provide reasons and excuses. You chuckle sadly when you mention two half-sisters. “Strangers,” you say. 

You’ve long severed ties, with all of them, and it’s probably better, you say. For your mother, anyway. For you too, you have to believe. Some days, some days still, you can’t help it. You look her up on social media. Just to see. Make sure she’s ok. 

Frankie listens. His heart bleeds inside his hallowed chest. Pieces of you falling into place to the muted sound of your voice, your words crawling under his skin. 

I’m sorry. 

Please. 

I never had anything so beautiful. 

And when your voice dwindles at the evocation of a step-father coming into your life when you were seven, when you finally fall quiet, what Frankie hears in your silence makes his inside curl and burn up with a vengeful rage. 

But you’re done talking for the night. You circle his waist and soon, your breathing evens out, your body easing into sleep with little, jerky movements. 

Frankie lies in the opaque darkness of the room, clenching his jaw until the physical pain takes off a bit of the edge. Eyes wide open to the memory of the first time he touched your breasts, on loop in his brain. 

Is the man still alive? You certainly are wise to keep that part to yourself. You really do know him well. Because that would be the one kill he would never regret. 

The following morning, he stays in bed until you wake up, and you don’t question his presence, even if he should already have left.   

He follows you into the bathroom, steps with you into the tub and washes your body, towels you off, brushes your hair. 

You let him. 

—

“How old is Santi, again?” you ask from the bedroom. 

Frankie spits the mouthwash into the sink and straightens up with a heavy sigh. 

You know how old Santi is. But there’s something else on your mind, something that’s been eating at you, causing you to be distracted since the invitation to the party arrived in the mail. Something that’s compelled you to avoid eye contact since you came back from work, today. Something you’re keeping to yourself, probably trying to protect him, if he had to guess.

“He’s turning 37, baby,” he answers, imperturbable, buttoning up his worn denim shirt, leaving the last two buttons open.

“Oh yeah, right. Yovanna told me she invited Rosie,” you continue, “but she didn’t mention who else’ll be there—” you trail off.

There it is. Who else will be there. Or rather, who won’t be. 

“Too many people for comfort, that’s for sure,” he chuckles, stepping out of the bathroom to join you.

Standing in front of the large rectangular mirror he’s built for you, you’re fiddling with the little strings tying your dress at the waist, and the sight of your silhouette in profile has his breath hitching. You don’t often dress up, but tonight you’re wearing a black wrap dress that looks like an oversized smoking jacket, with a plunging neckline and a whole lot of leg. 

You wore dresses all summer, short or long, but as the days got shorter and the air got cooler, you went back to jeans and pants only. 

“I don’t like tights,” you explained once. 

And whatever you wear is fine; he can snap your fly open with two fingers, but seeing your legs clad in the sheer black material does something to him. Something that shoots straight to his cock.

“Damn, baby,” he whispers, and it’s all he manages.

“I don’t know,” you wince, “I have those smart black trousers, perhaps I should chan–” but you fall quiet because he’s come to stand behind you, his broad frame towering over your tall one, his head dipping into your neck. 

His mouth stops half an inch short of your throat, and the magnetic pull it exerts on your skin lifts his lips in a satisfied grin. He draws back, the movement imperceptible, and it’s as though your skin reaches out. Like witchcraft. 

“Frankie, would you like me to wear fancier clothes?” you ask in a small voice, finally looking him in the eyes through the looking glass. 

You lean your head back to rest against his shoulder, and he reaches for your legs, his palms lightly trailing down over the smooth fabric.

“No, baby” he starts, and he watches the goosebumps breaking along your neck at the sound of his voice. “What I want is irrelevant, you wear whatever makes you feel good. Only tonight, I won’t mind if you decide to wear that,” he finishes. 

His calloused fingers span up your thighs, catching at the thin material, all the way to your mound. The tights press into it, and it’s fucking delicious. When you close your eyes, two of his fingers travel downward along your constrained folds, and the low grunt that rumbles from his chest is met by a whimpering sound you can’t hold back. 

His left hand slithers under the side of your dress to find the swell of your breast, teasing your nipple with his thumb.

“We’re gonna go to this party, and everyone there will be looking at you in this dress. Your breasts… your legs… your eyes… your smile…” a stroke over your seam with each word whispered into your ear, and your eyes flicker, you buck into him, “and I’m gonna look at them looking at you while I decide how I’m gonna ruin you and these fucking tights the minute we come home.”

He dives into your neck, pressing his plush lips to your soft skin, giving it a hard suck for good measure. 

Santi and Yovanna’s place stands out from the row of neatly aligned houses. Light pouring out from every window, music, warmth and laughter spilling into the bleak November night. 

His hand finds your back when you climb out of the truck and join him on the sidewalk. You’re wearing shiny black heels he didn’t even know you had. They make you taller, slightly shifting the familiar landmarks of your body at his side, and he thinks the entire party will be able to see it on his face. 

Pride, like the sun reverberating over the surface of a placid ocean.

It’s that ability of yours to overcome your fear, to go headstrong against it. He won’t ever get over it. You’re more courageous than some men he’s fought alongside, and he often wonders if this could be the main reason why Will held you in such high regards. 

And yet, you’ve chosen him to be the one who gets to hold you when you can’t be brave. Most of his life now revolves around being worthy of that.

But tonight, you carry your head high.

All of Pope’s friends and colleagues will be here, save for three of them, and their absence will, most certainly, noticeably stand out. 

Yovanna personally called Frankie to inform him she had taken it upon herself not to invite Tom. Ever the suave diplomat, Santi kept loosely in touch with him after the incident at the bar. But he knows from Santi that Yovanna strongly disapproves of the lasting bond between them.

On the subject of the Millers, however, Santi remains tight-lipped. Frankie assumes they still hang out on a regular basis, probably on Friday evenings, at the bar, where himself has become persona non grata. And he bears no resentment for that, not towards anyone.

However, and even if he would never admit it to you, he misses the two men. He misses the bar, and perhaps most of all, he misses the fight nights. Benny’s jokes and Will’s expressive silence.

He’s texted Benny. Back in September, for his birthday, and his message remained not only unanswered, but unread. He tried again, a week later, and then a third time, to no avail. 

He tried Will, next, and the phone rang out for what felt like a whole minute before he got sent to voicemail. The next morning, Will called him back during his morning commute. A smooth move for a clever man, Frankie thought. He hung his head as he listened to the short, non-committal voicemail that didn’t require any follow-up. Not exactly a rejection. Definitely nothing of an invitation. 

He can tell you miss him too. Miss them. Small telling details permeating your daily life. You change the station every time CCR comes up on the radio. A wistful sigh that punctuates your impressions of an art exhibition. 

So when the invitation came, he picked up his phone again. 

But he knows your presence tonight implies a choice on Pope’s behalf. You’re smart enough to have it figured out, and he doesn’t need to ask you how you feel about it. He hears it in your short replies, sees it in the taut line between your shoulder blades, feels it in the tight squeeze of your small hand around his —a first, in public. 

And yet you step into that party with your chin up and he wills his confidence to seep into you through his touch, to convey it with the pride lighting up his eyes whenever they set on your beautiful face.

Trust me. I will fix it.

The front door is open and you step together into the crowded living-room, where the furniture has been taken out or pushed against the walls to make space. 

Santi rapidly walks up to you to greet you warmly. Beaming, clean-shaven, sharply dressed in a black suit, black shirt, no tie, he looks perfectly at ease in this social setting. But then again, he’s at ease everywhere, whether it is a luxuriant jungle or a parched desert.

Behind him, Yovanna flutters from guest to guest, shining bright as a Tuscan summer sun with all the standing lamps bouncing over the golden sequins of her short, long-sleeved dress. In his peripheral vision, Frankie catches your relieved smile. When she rushes to hug you, you hand her the bottle of champagne you bought two days ago. 

“I don’t know the first thing about champagne,” you’d said, “I just took the most expensive one,” an apologetic shrug he eased up with a lingering kiss. 

Yovanna takes your jackets, complimenting your outfit, and you slowly small talk your way through the crowd over to the other side of the room, where a bar has been set up and a young woman with short dark hair and tattooed hands mixes drinks. Frankie recognises her from the bar, where she sometimes works as an extra. 

He watches over you, intently, through the endless parade of familiar faces coming up to him for a chat. Veterans, friends, vague acquaintances, and nearly all of them enquire about Benny’s whereabouts. 

Your tense body feels small, pressed up against his side, and your grip on your glass is white knuckled. Every so often, he gives your waist a discreet but hard squeeze, and flashes you a reassuring wink.  

Rosie walks in about an hour later, cheerful and bright in her deep-green jumpsuit, moving with confidence through the room to join you and turning heads along the way, as if it were her own birthday. 

A quick peck on your lips, on Frankie’s, and she turns her attention to the barmaid to order a mojito. You untangle yourself from him, and begin to sound more like yourself as you chat with your friend. Soon, you’re too absorbed in your conversation to notice his glance darting toward the front door across the room every time someone steps in. 

A couple of hours into the evening, the alcohol helping, people get loser and louder, and Pope cranks up the stereo. Frankie hangs down his head to hide his grin at the familiar, aggressive playlist, that Yovanna promptly changes. 

Rosie has left your small group and is chatting animatedly with a young officer he’s seen working with Will at the VA, confirming Pope’s invited everyone he’s ever met. 

You’ve already had two whiskeys while he’s still sipping on his first beer, when he feels your hand travelling down from his side and sliding into the back pocket of his jeans. 

Your gentle grasp on his ass broadens his dimpled smile, and he basks in your gaze for a brief moment, before he turns to you. 

“You’re so pretty, Francisco Morales,” you whisper, and he gets the feeling that you waited for him to look at you to tell him just that. 

“Ok,” he chuckles, “are you drunk?”

“Just a little bit,” you concede. “But I don’t need to be drunk to appreciate what I see.” Your voice drops along with your smile when you continue, “I— I look at you, and I can’t believe you’re mine. Are you really mine?”

Frankie takes your glass and puts it down on the bar next to his bottle, so he can grip your hips and steer you toward the wall. You may be a couple of inches taller than usual, but he still towers over you, and his broad shoulders hide you from the rest of the room. 

“I’m yours, baby,” he murmurs. “All yours.”

His lips brush your cheekbone, and he cherishes the slight tremor of your skin under the tickle of his whiskers. It is new. It belongs to your new life together. 

“Would you still ask me to leave with you?” you ask again, bunching his shirts with shaky hands. 

“I would ask you over and over again a million times, Gabrielle,” and he presses his forehead against yours, “I wouldn’t change anything. Except for the rain.”

He places his palm over your collarbone and his thumb comes to rest on your pulse. 

His fingers slide and curl around your nape. Time stills, fading out the sounds and lights of the room around you. He presses his lips to yours, pulling you flush to his chest, and you immediately open up for your man. 

The smooth, malty taste of the whiskey blends in with yours, it goes up to his head and shoots right down to his cock as he licks into you with the same need and hunger he once did on the fire escape, swallowing your doubts along with your moans. 

He does want to leave with you, he wants to leave with you right now, spare you the pressure and the plastered smiles, take you home, brush your hair, feed you. Massage your body from your feet up to the crown of your head, rub your legs through those goddamn tights, feel your slick dampening them, have you come in them once, twice, if he can pace himself, watch your legs twitch in pleasure in the sheer black fabric.  

But he has to wait. Wait just a little longer. There might still be a chance. 

His self-control wears thinner yet when you push away from the wall to mould your body into his, when you whine as you meet the growing bulge in his pants, your leg hitching up along his. Is it a trick of the mind, that he can feel the smoothness of your tights through the thickness of his denim? 

Fuck he can’t give in, he has to wait, stall for more time, the injunction coming from the back of his brain, barely reaching his consciousness. 

He’s already fucking your mouth with his tongue when Pope’s voice rings out on his right, music and lights leaping back into focus, like sandpaper grating his senses. 

“¿Qué haces, pendejo? Jesus! Get a room! It’s not that kind of party.” 

Frankie quickly pulls away from you with a gritted “fuck,” but not so far that you can’t bury your face into his neck. 

Pope’s smug laughter drums on his nerves, adding to his frustration, and he’s about to lash out when he feels you giggling.

As if summoned by Pope’s sarcasm, Rosie appears beside him. 

“They’re unmanageable,” she quips, “you just can’t leave them unattended.”

“Oh, yeah, you’re one to talk!” you retort with a smirk. 

Drawing away from you, he’s reaching for your glass when he sees your features drop. Your eyes widen, strained on the front door, and in an instant, it’s all over your face. Your mouth falls open, you suck in a sharp breath. He doesn’t need to turn around to check what —who— you’re looking at. He knows. He understands. He no longer has to wait. 

Rosie and Pope see it too, whipping their heads to the left to follow your gaze, but you're already walking forward, quick, steady steps. Frankie pivots slowly, in time to see you fling yourself into Will’s open arms.

Oblivious to the couple of men coming to greet him, he picks you up with ease, splayed fingers across your back, and one of your heels drops to the floor. He closes his eyes, for the briefest moment, squeezing you tight in his brawny embrace. 

Frankie doesn’t hear you, but he catches his friend’s answer, spoken through a wistful, brotherly smile that transforms his entire face. 

“I missed you too, Elle.”

—

The dam breaks. The minute he parks in the driveway, the fucking dam gives. 

“Keep your seatbelt fastened,” he orders and he kills the engine. 

With a quick, deft gesture, he unbuckles and slides next to you over the truck’s bench, caging you with his upper body, sinking his face into the curve of your neck to inhale, deeply. His breath pushes back out of him with a grunt like a threat. It rumbles in his chest first, before it rattles inside his throat and fans over your skin. Your skin that raises and reaches out for him. It’s your scent, your smell, and he wants it to be his. 

In your sitting position, your folds feel denser, trapped inside the black nylon material of your tights, and you grab the door handle when he starts rubbing fast circles over your clit, threatening grunts into your neck, scraping teeth, lapping tongue.  

You come in a matter of minutes, head shoved into the headrest, lips pinched to bite down your throaty moans, breathing heavily through your nose, the windows blurred with a transluscent fog. 

He carries you inside, swung over his shoulder, it’s playful but it’s not, it’s a want, it’s a need, a fire that flares in his loins, a dam that finally gives.  

He tosses you onto the bed and you bounce with a little shriek. He takes off his boots and climbs onto the mattress, kneeled before you, strips you down to your tights, knocking your hands away every time you try to undress him, until you understand what he needs and you lay back on the bed, become soft and pliant and let him take it. 

There’s an indentation at the base of your throat where he sank his teeth while you came under his hand in the truck, and the heat in his loins settles down a bit. 

The nylon of your tights brushes smooth and sleek when you rub your legs together, pressed knees, shifting hips. 

Framed by the dark halo of your hair, your face looks pale and eerie, like the slippery ghost he used to dream of, sunk into a restless sleep after rage-fucking women he did not see. 

He parts your legs with his frame, spreads your hips with his breadth. The nylon is dense and brushes louder under his calloused palms and digits, heavy and hot and underneath, your skin too is burning. 

The need to feel you is too heavy, the scent of you heady, he wants it to be his, his scent oozing off your skin, organic evidence that you’re his. He slides off his t-shirt, unbuckles his belt to ease off the pressure of the scorching hunger, it burns in bright anger between his hips, he doesn’t know how to tame it.  

He crawls above you, dives onto you, teeth and tongue and spit and need, scraping your earlobe, your jaw, your lips, biting into the column of your throat, biting new marks and new indentations, would you still ask me to leave with you?

His in every scenario, every dream, every reality. 

Between his lips, the hardened peak of your nipple is hot, still cooler than his mouth when he wraps it around the hard bud and sucks it in, squeezing your other breast, calloused palm, calloused fingers, his.

His teeth find your hip, the soft swell of your flesh, the hard bone underneath and you writhe and arch up into it, his name rumples your lips, the K rips from your throat, ripe, hot, thorny. 

His forehead presses through your tights and into your belly, the little swell of it below your navel, sweat dampened curls of his hair leaving a sweat dampened spot, his scent permeating the fabric, infusing your skin. 

He pulls back, calloused fingers hooked under the back of your knees catching at the nylon, sliding your calves over his shoulders, smooth fabric, hot skin, bright need. He spits on your clothed cunt and rubs it in, blends his saliva with your slick, hot, liquid, sticky.

His strokes are not gentle, they’re rough and needy, your fingers gripping his wrist to ease the roughness and he frees it with a twist, strong hand raising your arms above your head to pin them into the soft mattress. His face right above yours, sweat beading at your temples, on your pinched brow, his sweat dripping into your mouth, opened slack, your tongue pulled out and greedy. 

You come as rough and hard as his strokes, your head trashed back, corded neck, folded in two, twitching legs like squirming snakes of nylon wrapped over his shoulders. 

His forehead pushes down on your collarbone, infusing you with his sweat and his scent, where he can feel your orgasm blazing through your bones and your flesh and your skin.

The heat grows brighter between his legs, angrier, consuming, swelling along his cock, thickening. The urge to taste, and he pushes up from your heaving chest, releases your arms, your fingers a frantic scrabble over the white sheets. He’s pulled back in, instantly, drawn to the wet spot between your legs, dark and leaking nylon covering your cunt. 

He dives in to cup it in his mouth, too hot and burning, to taste it, claim you, and it’s a bite, instead, rough and needy, and you jolt, his name scratching your throat like sand, “Frankie!” and he sucks in, rough and needy, saliva and slick, too hot and burning, would you still ask me to leave with you? 

He sits back to undress your legs, the nylon a smooth drag along your skin when he peels it. He’s holding his breath, holding his spit, the taste of you and him swirling around his tongue, coating his palate.

His mouth travels up your leg from ankle to hip, in bites and licks, your skin hot, hot and smooth and tense between his lips, hot skin and hot lips, and he bites into it, sharp, unrestrained. 

He sees it flicker across your face and in your eyes, wide and glazed, the moment you register what he’s doing, when he twists the sheer black fabric around your wrists, tugs on it, elastic, raising your arms above your head, shuffling along your body, your head caged between his thighs, and ties it to the headboard.

He hears it from the outside, the voice that comes from the back of his skull to ask you if “You ok with this?” and when you nod, the voice insists. 

“Words, Gabrielle,” a warning and a need. 

“I’m ok, I want it, please–” you breathe, sand in your throat. 

“You don’t ever have to say ‘please’ to me.” 

He steps off the bed to get rid of the rest of his clothes, eyes strained on you, hot and flushed and tied up and burning under the dark halo of your hair, bruises and marks of bright red scattered over your skin, you can leave all the marks, high-pitched two-tone moans of your want and your need carving his chest, his. 

“Fuck, you’re so wet,” more growls than words, kneeling between your spread legs, spread folds shining and slick, pressing on your knees, down on the mattress with both hands, calloused palms, calloused fingers, smooth, burning skin. 

The back of his two middle fingers slides along your seam, liquid and sticky and it’s an easy glide into your pretty cunt, hot and burning, deep and slow and then rough and curling, dark eyes sunk into your dilated pupils.  

“Wanna taste how good you did for me, baby?”

You nod and he growls, curling deeper inside, so you nod again and you “Please, please Frankie please—“

“Don’t fucking say please to me, Gabrielle, I’ll give you everything you need,” and he pushes his fingers into the heat of your mouth to smother the word, calloused fingers, hot tongue gliding and swirling, a sharp bite of your teeth and he hisses, would you still ask me to leave with you? 

“I got you, I got you,” more grunts than words, and he lines himself up, doesn’t wait and sinks in, sinks his thick cock into your tight cunt, down to his base, rough and needy, sweat dripping down his back, high-pitched moans. 

Large hands framing your hips, keeping you still under his thrusts, bruising, sliding over your belly where he’s shoving his cock into you, Frankie, can you feel yourself inside me? Slowing down just enough to feel you trembling around him, soft walls, warm cunt, grinding deeper inside under his palms.

“You feel so fucking good, Gabrielle, I can feel your sweet pussy fucking squeezing me,” his eyes drawn to the odd angle of your shoulder blades poking under your skin.

His hands find the headboard, bracing forward, lying heavy into you and he thrusts in and out, rough and needy, your legs bracketed around his waist, your knees hitched along his torso, hot, smooth burning skin, sweat dripping, “oh god, Frankie.” 

“That what you needed, baby? For me to fuck you like this?” ramming into your cervix, tight cunt clenching, hot, wet, his. 

Your head pressing into the pillow, you push away from the comforter, clutching his cock, hard and thick and ramming, and you nod, and you remember, you say “yes, Francisco,” and he’s fucking losing it, pounding harder, sinking deeper. 

Calloused fingers curled around the headboard, white knuckled, taut muscles shifting under his skin. 

Your high rips through you, through a cry, two-tone moan, eyes rolling, empty bound fists clenching, arms jerking against their binding, hot tight cunt gripping him in its endless flutter.

“Frankie, Frankie—“

“That’s it baby, just like that,” growls and grunts and words, “just like that.”

Years spent and wasted wishing he could carry you inside him, before he started wishing he could rip you out like a poisonous seed.

Your heartbeat pulsating under his chest and your cunt thrumming around his cock, the air you draw in gulps filling his own lungs, limbs entangled, sweat on sweat. This is as close as it gets to slicing his chest open to fit you inside it. 

Static fills his brain, the room spins around him in orange waves and he comes like a whip, hot, liquid and sticky, pumping his seed into you, further, deeper, teeth clenched, eyes shut, a hissed curse in Spanish, through waves of orange. 

His. 

—

Winter

Everything you once dreaded, everything he once hated, you are now looking forward to experiencing, side by side. 

It’s not your first Christmas with Dolores and Rosie, but it’s the first time you don’t feel like a rescue puppy, stepping inside the camped apartment with your arms full of presents and your man at your side. 

Everywhere you go, you feel legitimate. 

Everywhere he goes, he feels at ease. 

For once, Izzy’s in town for New Year’s Eve, and he doesn’t think twice before accepting her invitation to what she promises will be a quiet and cosy family dinner at her place.  

She ends up so drunk, Frankie has to put her to bed before you can go home. 

Fairly tipsy yourself, you sober up fast when he carries you over to the bedroom and bluntly declares he’s going to fuck you into the next year.

“Which one?” you joke, “cos technically it’s already next year, big man Morales.”

“2050, baby,” he answers with a cocky grin, unbuckling his belt. “Now get naked and spread those legs. I wanna see everything.”

January brings snow and icy northern winds along with the prospect of flying again, his six-month probation drawing to an end. 

And one evening, it brings you home late, freezing cold, and particularly irritated. 

“I had to wait 15 minutes for that damn bus because of the snow,” you fume, hanging your damp coat on the wall rack by the door. “How does this fucking country get so fucking hot in the summer, and so unbearably cold in the winter?” 

He briefly considers arguing it’s not as much the whole country as just some states, but he wisely opts for compassionate silence. 

You turn to face him, pointing a menacing index in his direction.

“You know what, America? You win. I’m getting a fucking car.”

“Don’t call me America in front of Izzy, if you wanna live long enough to drive that car,” he advises you with a raised eyebrow, his smile widening to his dimple.

He takes the following Tuesday off, and the two of you head back to Autoland, where a blond woman about your age welcomes you and introduces herself as Julie. 

A brief conversation is all it takes to ascertain that Julie is far more competent than Gary could ever dream to be, but the sheer idea of having to explain what you’re looking for once again prompts you to enquire about him. 

“Oh, Gary’s in jail,” she tells you with a hint of a smile. “Embezzlement. Didn’t end well,” she adds, and her lips stretch into a satisfied grin. 

Twenty minutes later, you leave the dealership with a decent bargain and a pre-owned Ford Fiesta in forest green. 

It’s only when you come home the next evening, your hands warm and your clothes dry, that Frankie measures just how relieved he actually is. 

And you won’t admit it, in fact, he’s fairly certain you make a point of complaining about finding a place to park near the bookstore, but he can tell you’re happy too. Happy and proud, because the following weekend, he catches you calling Will to tell him you’ll be picking him up at his place to drive together to the Met.  

A four-month hiatus hasn’t altered the tightly woven fabric of your relationship with Will. You fall right back into your cosy routine of monthly trips to the city to visit exhibitions, followed by drinks and endless talks at McSorley. 

Emboldened by his blunt questioning habits, you don’t walk on eggshells the first time you find yourself alone with him.

“How is Benny doing? Does he know we’re seeing each other, today? How does he feel about it?” you ask after quickly gulping down your first half-pint. 

His steel blue eyes dive into yours and you do your very best not to shrink on your wooden chair.

“Benny’s fine, ok? He’s good. He–” he seems to consider his next words before he continues, “We had a few conversations about it. It’s not easy, he doesn’t really wanna talk. I told him about your history with Fish. He’s still a bit angry, but he’s coming around. I think deep down he understands.” 

He pauses, and when you don’t say anything, he keeps going. 

“But I don’t think he’ll be able to hang out with him for another couple of months, at least.”

Hang out with him. No mention of you, there. As often with Will, what lies within the silence matters as much as his spoken words. 

You get it. You can’t have it all. But you are genuinely relieved to know he’s doing well. And that there’s hope for the two of them. 

It doesn’t occur to you that you only hear what you want to hear.

—

The first banging noise jolts you out of sleep. You sit upright in the bed, dishevelled, confused, not quite awake. Your heart is pounding painfully inside your rib cage, pulsating in your eardrums.

Instinctively, you reach for Frankie. Your hand fumbles under the comforter, only to find an empty spot where he should be lying next to you, and you whip your head around to his side of the bed.

It’s the middle of the night, yet it’s not as dark as it should be. The living-room lamp is on, casting a feeble light inside the bedroom, enough for you to distinguish Frankie’s dark silhouette standing awkwardly by the bed, slowly opening the drawer of his night stand.

Another rattling sound comes in from the kitchen. Metal on tiles. Your sleep-dazed brain identifies the noise as that of one of the bar stools being dragged across the floor. Frankie tilts his head in your direction and silently brings his index finger to his lips. 

Now you’re wide awake. 

Panic trickles down your lungs in icy streaks at the realisation that someone has broken into the house, but it doesn’t compare to the horror that seizes you when Frankie stealthily pulls out a gun from the open drawer. 

He’s still looking at you, the yellow glint from the hallway reflected in his ink-black eyes, his finger pressed to his lips. 

Before you can process what’s happening, Frankie’s moving toward the corridor, his gait precise and absolutely silent, broad shoulders hunched and tense in his downward hold of the gun with two hands. You want to protest, tell him to stay here with you, but your entire body has gone rigid, disconnected from your brain. You’re glued into place. 

Eyes opened so wide they might pop out of your skull, you watch him disappear into the hallway, and in the dead of the night, you can hear the door of the fridge being opened. 

Years from now, you will still remember thinking that this is a fucking nightmare.

You brace yourself for gunshots, a fight, more clatter, but it’s Frankie’s voice that comes in next, resounding into the January night, angry, loud and… surprised?  

“What the fuck, man?”

It snaps you out of your trance. Untangling your legs from the heavy comforter, you climb down the bed and slip on your sleeping shorts before you dash towards the kitchen, and you’re still walking down the short hallway when you hear him.

“Oh fuck, ‘m sorry, Fish, ‘d’ I wake you up?”

Benny’s booming baritone. Audibly shitfaced. 

You see Frankie first, standing in his black boxer briefs, his gun hanging from his hand. Following his angered stare, your eyes fall on Benny, who’s tall silhouette is partly hidden behind the opened fridge door. His face peeks out from above it, a nasty-looking bruise blooming red and purple around his right eye, accentuated by the angled shadows. 

His gaze is unfocused, dazed, and when he sees you, an unfamiliar melancholy blurs it a deeper shade of blue. He closes the fridge, a tall boy of IPA in his hand, and he straightens up like a little boy at Sunday school, his lips curling around a drunken smile.

“Hey, baby. How are you?” he slowly slurs. 

“Jesus fuck,” Frankie grits, hanging his head, and your mind reels, you’re not sure how to handle the situation. In fact, you have no idea how to deal with it.

Walking up to your man, you curl your fingers around his forearm, and the tension you find under your touch does very little to temper down the alarm flaring in your chest. Your hand slides to his wrist, his own hand a tight grasp around his weapon. You don’t dare lower your eyes to it. And it’s probably just a trick of the mind, the way you can see it shine from the corner of your eyes under the crude ceiling light. 

You don’t dare look at Frankie either, so you keep your eyes strained on Benny, who’s swaying on his legs, and ask in a shaky voice you don’t recognise, “Hey Ben. What are you doing here?” 

“He still got a spare key,” Frankie growls in his direction, and you hold on to his wrist a little tighter. 

“Won my fight, tonight,” Benny drawls with pride, as if this were a perfectly rational explanation for his presence in your kitchen at 3 am, and, visibly satisfied, he proceeds to crack his beer open.

“And how the fuck did you get here, Benjamin?” Frankie asks, his tone so aggressive it makes you jump.

Benny takes a long sip before he simply shrugs, “Drove my car, the fuck is this question…”

“Oh god,” you breathe out, and between your clutching fingers, Frankie’s muscles loosen. 

Finally looking up at him, you’re shaken by the emotions playing across his face, far more complex than the upfront annoyance in his voice. 

Frankie himself is not sure how he feels. 

Relieved, at first, to find Benny instead of someone else, something worse. Fuck knows he could have shot down a stranger on sight, had they tried to come anywhere near you, and he’d rather you never see what he’s capable of with a gun.  

Why, then, is he shaking with anger? Is it, deep down, the relief to see him at all? Could it be because Benny came to see you, and not him? 

Most of his jealousy and resentment towards his friend had been drained out of him when you curled up on his naked chest, back in your apartment, over half a year ago. 

He’s well aware of the lasting affection you continue to harbour for his friend, that the concern plainly etched on your face at the moment only serves to demonstrate further. And if it’s not exactly pleasant to think about, his confidence and the daily evidence of your shared love sweetens that bitter knowledge. 

What’s a lot more difficult to stomach, however, are Ben’s lingering feelings for you. He can’t blame the man, he himself never got over you, and he had fifteen years to try to. 

“He’ll come around,” Will had promised. Only Ben’s little stunt tonight makes it impossible to ignore any longer the one thought he has so far deliberately avoided. He broke his best friend’s heart, with a self-righteous determination, without an ounce of regret. 

Benny takes a step in your direction, beer dripping on the tiles from the can, askew in his bruised hand, and Frankie sighs heavily. 

As you release his arm to go to Benny, he tries to slide the gun in the back of his jeans before realising he’s in his underwear. He sets it down on the kitchen table, where it hits the wooden surface with a muted thud. 

“Aww baby, I really missed your face,” Benny mumbles as you grab the can from him, handing it to Frankie. 

“Ok, let’s get some water into you,” you answer, holding his shoulders straight to deflect the incoming hug. 

You lead him to the couch on the other side of the room where you sit him down, while Frankie fills up a tall glass with tap water, and you wait for him to join you to whisper, “We can’t let him go home like that, baby.”

Benny’s muttering incoherently, and Frankie bends over him, taking his legs to pivot him into a sleeping position, his feet sticking out of the couch. 

“No, of course, not. He’s gonna sleep here. I’ll drive him home in the morning.”

He lets you take off Benny’s sneakers while he returns his gun to the night stand drawer, but when you don’t come back to the bedroom, he can’t resist the urge to go see what’s going on.

He’s still in the hallway when he stops short at the scene before him. You’ve draped a plaid over Benny, already fast asleep, and you’re threading your fingers through his hair. A token of your affection, a tender gesture he saw you demonstrate before. In public. You lean down to place a soft kiss on his forehead, and when you stand up and turn around, your eyes find his, instantly. 

He doesn’t wait for you, he can’t, not when he knows you’re seeing right through his gritted teeth, right through the nauseating guilt sitting at the back of his throat, and he goes back to bed, where you soon join him. 

He opens the comforter to let you in next to him, and as you slide underneath it, you tell him, “Scoot over, Frankie baby, tonight I’m the big spoon.”

—

If there’s one thing Frankie has always envied Ben for, it’s the speed at which he pulls through any type of hangover. Mild, brutal, soul-destroying, it makes no difference. The man’s up at the crack of dawn, and by 8am sharp, he’s out the door for his daily run.

Maybe it’s the age difference. But Frankie was never this prompt to recover, even when he was younger. Maybe it’s good genes. He’s seen Ironhead getting shot and still complete the mission with dashing excellence. 

Today, however, as Frankie leaves the safe-heaven of your body, warmly tucked under the duvet, and walks into the living-room with a pack of Tylenol, a little after 6 am, he finds Benny quietly snoring. 

His bruised eye has turned a violent shade of purple, bloody crusts flacking around his injured knuckles. 

Frankie knows exactly who Ben was up against last night. A bulky giant of a man, a force of nature, a major household name in the MMA circuit. 

He’s been keeping track of Ben’s defeats and successes. This victory is one that counts. Important enough for him to get hammered in celebration. So important, he had to get behind the wheel and come to tell you about it in person. 

It’s another two hours of aimless silent roaming around the house, brooding, mulling over what he’ll tell him when he wakes up, if anything, before he decides to start cooking breakfast. 

When Benny begins to stir on the couch to the clanking noise of the frying pan, Frankie focuses on the stove, keeping his nervousness in check. In his peripheral vision, Ben sits up with a hissed curse, and gulps down two tablets with water.

He’s just done lacing his boots when Frankie places a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon in front of him on the coffee table. 

Keeping his eyes to the floor, Benny mumbles in a thick voice, “Thanks, but I’m leaving.”

Frankie’s answer shoots out of him before he can think it through. “She’s gonna want to know you ate something.”

Benny tilts up his head toward him in slow motion. He meets his eyes with a cold, hard stare, and Frankie wouldn’t be surprised if he leapt from the couch to take another swing at his face. 

He holds up his gaze, until Benny lowers his head and starts eating up. Cleans up his plate in complete silence and drinks up to the last drop the mild coffee Frankie’s prepared for him.

And when he’s finished, he gets up without a word and walks towards the front door to pick his jacket from the floor. Fiddling with the breast pocket, he pulls out a keychain and places it on the kitchen table as Frankie observes him, jaw cocked to the side, arms folded over his chest. 

His hand is on the doorknob when Frankie speaks again.

“You had 5 hours of sleep, man. I don’t think you’re sober enough to drive,” he says, pushing up from the counter. 

“Yeah, right,” Ben huffs, “I’m not leaving my car here. Not coming back to pick it up.”

“Alright, let’s take your car, I can ride the bus home,” Frankie says, grabbing his cap from the coat rack.

—

Somehow, he can always tell whether you’re awake or asleep if he’s with you inside the house. Today, he knows you hear them leave together. 

The drive is tense, to say the least, Ben’s leg bouncing up and down nervously as he shifts, restless, in the passenger’s seat, darting sideways glances at him, most likely waiting for an opportunity to lash out. 

But the early Sunday traffic is fluid, and Frankie a smooth driver, leaving him nothing to grasp. 

When Frankie pulls out in front of his house, Ben’s out of the car before he kills the engine.  

In turn, Frankie unfolds slowly from the low seat. The crisp January cold bites his cheeks when he gets out and locks the door. He risks a glance in Ben’s direction. 

“Hey, Ben, wait up,” he calls, white puffs of his breath swirling from his lips.  

Benny stops and reluctantly turns around to face him.

“Congrats on your win, last night,” he offers. 

Ben answers with a dismissive, “Sure,” and Frankie throws him the keys across the roof of the Mustang. 

He snatches them mid-hair in a smooth catch. A bittersweet reminder of their past synchronicity. Their ability to communicate wordlessly. 

“You wanna talk about it?” Frankie asks quietly. 

“What, the fight? Which one?” Benny sniggers. 

“Ok,” he nods, ducking his head under the brim of his cap.  

Ben takes a step towards his front door, but immediately turns around.  

“You wanna know what really hurts?” he barks, his loud baritone thundering in the empty street. “Why didn’t you say anything? After that first night at the bar? You let me fucking parade her to you, guys, and you didn’t say shit.”

“Yea, I don't know, Ben,” he whispers, hanging his head. “I’m sorry. I really am.” 

“That’s all you gotta say? I’m sorry?” Ben retorts, crossing his arms. 

“Look, it’s complicated—“ he starts, but Ben interrupts him.

“I was supposed to be your best friend, that’s pretty fucking simple to me.”

“Ok, listen,” Frankie counters, raising his head and looking straight at him, “I don't know what you know, or what Will told you, but I thought she’d forsaken me. I guess I didn’t see the point of telling you. And by the time she–” he reconsiders, tongue darting to lick his bottom lip, careful not to imply your responsibility, “by the time I found out what really happened, it was already too late.”

“Yeah, well, it still doesn’t add up, Fish,” he argues, prepping his forearms on top of the car roof. “If a girl ghosts you, why wouldn’t you warn your best friend?”

Because she’s not that kind of person. Because she seemed happy with you and you with her. Because I never quit loving her. 

Because I could never give her up. 

“Like I said, man, it’s more complicated than–” he tries again, but Ben cuts him off, again, adamant to get it all off his chest, and if his tone is not exactly aggressive, it’s not particularly friendly either.

“Ten years. Ten years we’ve known each other. We went through fucking hell together, and you still fucking chose her over me. Twice.”

“Yea well, I went through another kind of hell for losing her, Ben, you just gotta take my word for it,” Frankie states with a pointed finger at him and a warning in his rising voice that Ben seems to hear, because he leans back just a bit. 

He softens up to add, “But it’s done. So now what?”

“Fuck, Fish,” Benny answers, softer, “if it was that bad, why’d you never say anything? You never mentioned her, not once! I’ve seen you wasted, high as a kite, buried in pussy and you don’t share that?”

“No, Benjamin, I do not share that. Not with you. Not with anyone.” 

He marks a pause, inhaling the cold morning air to maintain control before he can continue. 

“Look, I'm sorry I did you in like that. I let you down and I feel shitty for handling the whole situation like I did. You were my best friend. You still are. But I’d do it all over again to get her.”

He winces at his poor attempt at an apology. 

Benny remains still for a beat before he leans again over the car roof, joining his hands. 

“So it’s like, true love, and shit?”

“Yea. True love and shit,” Frankie nods.

“Well, this I understand,” Ben concedes, unusually quiet. “She’s something. You lucky son of a gun.”

—

Everything you once dreaded… 

Well, you’ve always dreaded January. It once freed you from Éric, but you still associate the dark, short days with loneliness, and a fast, spinning downward fall into depression. This year, however, you haven’t thought about it once. Not until this morning, that is, when the looming dread rose anew, expanding inside your constricted chest, hindering your breathing. 

The fluffy duvet drawn up to your chin, you’ve lied still as the dead, your ears strained to the sounds coming from the other side of the house. 

You fully woke up when Frankie left the bed, depriving you of his reassuring heat, after three hours oscillating between sleep and consciousness, always acutely aware of his unnaturally stiff body lying wide awake between your arms. 

You mentally followed his barefoot stride, amplified by the early morning peace, the events from the previous night flooding back to your tired brain like rising waters. 

Listened to nothing but silence for an excruciating long time, the growing tension emanating from him thrumming along the walls all the way to your hiding place. 

Hiding, is what you were, and once more your mother’s reproachful tone rang out in your head, “tu ne fais que t’enfuir.” 

“I’m a big girl from a big city,” you murmured to yourself. You were not hiding, they needed to talk, you were merely giving them the necessary space, but nothing you told yourself could ward off your anxiety. 

When you walked into the living-room, after they’d left, you scrunched up your nose at the acrid smell of alcohol. And something else. Something you didn’t want to remember, so you pulled the curtains and opened the two large windows to let in the brisk winter air.   

That’s when you noticed his phone, face down on the console by the front door, where he leaves it when he comes home. 

You disposed of the leftover coffee in the sink and prepared a fresh pot, strong, to your taste. 

While it brewed, you folded the plaid and straightened the couch cushions. You cleaned the stove and washed the dishes, wiped them dry and returned them to their cabinets. 

When there were no more traces of Ben’s presence in your home, you stood by the counter, staring blankly at the microwave, double dots blinking between the red digits. 

Now, it’s nearing 11am. You’ve been alone for three hours. 

Uncertain about the distance between Frankie’s house and Benny’s place, you’ve no idea whether Frankie’s absence is too long or perfectly normal. You could put your mind at rest, even just a bit, if you only checked it out on your phone, but the idea itself irritates you. You’ve lived here just a few months shy of three years. When will you be as capable of navigating the city as you are in Paris, going about the metro and streets on sheer instinct, visualising entire neighbourhoods and calculating routes without the support of technology? 

Driving your own car is bound to achieve that, you tell yourself, stepping gingerly into the tub. 

Why does the entire house feel colder when he’s not there? This is nothing unusual, he’s rarely home when you get ready for work on weekdays, and it’s a beat before you realise you’ve left the living-room windows opened. 

The water runs over your face, set to scalding hot and high-pressure, and you wish it could drain out your thoughts. Perhaps, if you’d see them floating at your feet, you might be able to sort out your feelings. 

When he pulls out in the driveway 20 minutes later, he steps in through the front door to find you sitting by the kitchen table, arms crossed and shivering in one of his sweaters. There’s little to no difference in temperature between outside and the room, he notes with a frown, and his eyes land on the table in front of you, where his black gun stands out against the clear wooden top. 

He stills, fingers on the brim of his cap, elbow raised mid-air. 

He’s in so much fucking trouble.  

“Hey, baby, how–” he starts, before you cut him off sharply. 

“Are you ok?” you ask, more briskly than you intended. 

You clear your throat, willing your hoarse morning voice to sound softer when you ask again, “You’re not hurt or anything, are you?”

“No, baby, I’m good,” he answers, taking a few long strides towards you. “I’m sorry, I meant to call you before I got on the bus, but I think I left my phone here. And the ride home took forever, I don’t know how you had the patience to…”

He trails off, standing in front of you in his jacket, awkward and rigid. For the first time ever, he’s not certain of what you need. And something tells him he’d better step back until you’ve expressed it yourself.

The tension hangs heavy between you, but once your eyes have scanned his face and confirmed he’s alright, your lungs open up just a notch. 

Unfolding your arms, you lower your hands onto your lap, rubbing your clammy palms dry over your denim. 

His eyes quickly flicker to his gun and back to your face, and he takes another step closer.

“Ok,” you shoot, straightening up in your chair, your gaze plunging into his, “can you please tell me why we have a gun in the house?”

It’s not the question that’s driven you mad since they left the house earlier, but this one is considerably easier to formulate. 

His demeanour shifts immediately. He straightens up, planting his hands on his hips. 

“Listen, baby, it’s perfectly legal, alright? I got a permit, and you know I know how to use it.” 

He has the good sense not to point out the gap between your respective cultures, fully aware of your position on the matter of gun control anywhere in the world, but you’re standing up already, stubbornly facing him. 

“Whether or not you got a permit doesn’t make any goddamn difference to me, Frankie. I want it gone.”

He lifts off his cap, slowly runs his fingers through his hair, and you falter. 

This is not going the way you imagined, you didn’t intend to come at him with such aggressiveness, and your tone doesn’t reflect your confusion, certainly none of your fears, it only gives away your conflicted feelings. 

Sucking his teeth in, he tilts down his head, and his eyes disappear. 

“The gun’s not going anywhere, Gabrielle,” he hears himself state, and his point-blank refusal to comply derails you completely. 

“What kind of threat is there that requires that you keep this thing in here?”

“Intruders, burglars, some junky high on bath salts…” he enumerates, shaking his head.

You mirror the movement before you counter with what you expect to be a foolproof argument.

“And what if Benny did something stupid? He was drunk, what if he’d jumped you, for a joke? What if you’d hurt him?” 

Frankie's head shoots up, dark eyes devoid of all light staring you down with a hard gaze that has you swaying on your feet. He’s never looked at you like that, except… Except that first night at the bar. 

And like that first night at the bar, he can’t stop his mind from reeling into the wrong direction, despite your face telling him something entirely different. 

“Is this what this is about? You’re concerned I might have hurt him?” 

“Of course I am!” you answer, puzzled by his reaction. “Look, I’m sure you don’t need a gun. If ever someone breaks in, you can probably subdue them–“

“That’s Ironhead’s thing,” he cuts in.

“Well, you can knock them out, then–”

“That’d be Ben,” he all but spits out.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Frankie!”

You throw your palms up in irritation, tears gathering at the corner of your eyes that only fuel your exasperation.

Back in June, in his truck, he’d told you that he’d been too quick on the trigger, more often than not. Is that what you’re hinting at? Are you doubting his ability to keep you safe?

“Gabrielle, just drop it, ok? I’m asking you to drop it,” he warns, his voice a low threat that brooks no argument, and in turn you dig your heels in. 

“I can’t just drop it, Frankie, I’m sorry but–”

“Please,” he grits through his clenched jaw. 

Something gets stuck in your throat. You’re trying to breathe underwater. It’s escalating too quickly. 

You try to blink the tears off your prickling eyelids before they start running down your cheeks, you want to stab your nails into the back of your arms and draw blood, but the urge to touch him overthrows everything and you place your hands on his chest, palms down, splayed fingers, anchoring your body to his, grounding him to yours. 

“Frankie what’s happening, are we fighting?” you articulate around a repressed sob. 

His hands go to yours instinctively, covering them entirely, and he can’t tell which one of you is shaking, can’t explain how what he means to say is so far removed from the way he expresses it.

“No– no baby, no we’re not fighting, I just need you to understand–” he tries, but it’s too late, your words spill out in moving waves.

“Please, I don’t wanna fight, please, Frankie, I’m sorry, I’m sorry Benny barged in like that, I’m sorry, I don’t want him to hurt you anymore, I don’t want you to hurt yourself—“

“Baby, I’m fine, I’m ok,” he says, comprehension downing on him as your first tears roll down in rivulets to hang from the line of your jaw.

He closes the distance between you, cupping your face to rub them off with a stroke of his thumbs, standing so close your eyes flicker between his. 

“I’m sorry I overreacted—”

“Fuck no! You didn’t over— hey, listen to me Gabrielle, you didn’t overreact, I did,” he says, holding your head up when you try to hide. 

Your hands slide underneath his jacket and find the plane of his back, you bunch up his t-shit in your fists. 

“You just gotta let me watch over you the way I know how, baby, that’s all I ask, that’s all I need, for you to let me take care of you. I know you’re a big girl from a big city—“

“Oh but I’m not,” you cry, pressing your face into his neck, your next words muffled against his collarbone, “I’m scared, you left the room and I got so scared, and I don’t know if I’ll ever fit in here, there’s always something to remind me I don’t belong—“

The spectre of your departure resurfaces and Frankie hisses a sharp breath, a Pavlovian reaction to a pain stimulus. He focuses on the shape of you between his arms, the scent of you enveloping him, the taste of you only a kiss away. 

Broad hand cradling the crown of your head, he leans into your ear, his voice dropping to a low, soft murmur. 

“Last night was scary. You’re exhausted, we both are. We can talk about it later, ok?”

“Don’t leave me, Frankie, don’t leave me alone, I need—” you sob. “Merde, I feel so fucking stupid.”

His lips brush a smile against your temple, eyes closing at the contact of your skin. 

“Hey, I got an idea,” he says. “How about we take a trip to Paris, this spring? You can show me around the city? What do you say?”

He’s been thinking about it for a while, but has so far found himself physically unable to discuss it with you. The whole idea could backfire. What if going back there reminds you of everything you still miss? 

You’d said a purpose. And a goal. 

Between his large cupping hands, your face feels like an evocation, and he’s drawn in, endlessly, on a loop, back to you, to your skin. 

To the way it trembles between his pursed lips. A peek of his tongue to harvest the salty beads of your tears, to swallow the fear and sadness he vowed to see disappear, and you cling onto him with a murmured plea. 

“Take me to bed Frankie, plea–“

“Don’t you fucking say it,” he growls, and he crashes his mouth onto yours. You open up for him, sliding the thick jacket off his frame, knocking the worn-out cap off his head. 

—

The weak January sun, white and crisp through the treasured curtains, fills the bedroom with a hushed shade of orange, weaving together past and present. 

His first thrust inches into your tight warmth slow and measured, and he pauses between your hips to let you adjust. 

His hand a gentle grip around your jaw, he turns your face to the side and traces open-mouthed kisses down the column of your throat, a tender suck at the base of your neck, a hard bite on the slope of your shoulder, it makes you writhe underneath his body, crushed into the mattress by his weight, and you keen, legs bracketed around his waist, knees folded high around his torso, heels digging into the meat of his ass, urging him deeper. 

You need him rough and you need him now, you want to feel sore tomorrow and the day after, you want his girth remodelling you into the shape of him, only him, forever him.

But he controls the pace. Attuned to your reactions and the sensation of your clenching walls around him, clutching him, blending pain and pleasure, your entrance catching along his length. 

He shifts above you, tilting your head further to the side, the hardened tips of your nipples a soft drag against his skin, and you can’t breathe with his chest crushing your chest and he knows it, knows you want it this way. He moves inside you. Just a bit, not enough. You moan and you hear it through your need, through your want, like you’re running a fever, like a tiny, needy animal.

“Shhh baby,” he purrs in your ear, forehead to your temple, “I can’t move, I have to open you up for me.” 

The words scorch your skin. You burrow your nails into the taut muscles of his back, eyes shut so tight under your pinched brow you see stars, his lips raising goosebumps all over your body on their trail along your jawline.

“Frankie Frankie Frankie–” you say Frankie like you say please, and your cheek sinks deeper into the pillow.

“Shhh, you're gonna get it, baby, you're gonna get it.”

Your hips buck against the restraint of his mass, and it slips out of you, inaudible, weak and quick, too quick for you to stop it.  

“You looked so hot with that fucking gun, I–”

He stills with your earlobe trapped between his teeth, licks it better before he lets go.  

“What did you say?” 

The unwilling confession, making sense of your earlier fury. You shy away from the truth, a whining “non” stuck inside your throat, you try to hide from it, from him, the heels of your hands covering your eyes when you breathe out, “Nothing.”

His smile curls into your skin through a scrape of his whiskers, and he sinks into you, sudden, rough, deep, all the way down to the centre of you. 

You bite down your moan, pleasure-pain, head trashed back into the pillow, clenched teeth corded neck, pinned down underneath the overwhelming weight of him and everything he means to you.

“I heard you,” he groans, grinding into your heat, “I heard everything.” 

Everything you once dreaded. The contour of your fears, retraced, redefined. Innocuous, beyond the confines of his arms. 

—

Spring

“Can you fly this plane?” you whisper excitedly, adjusting your seatbelt. 

His eyebrows disappear in the overgrown curls hanging low on his forehead. He stills in his seat to stare at you.

“Baby, it’s a Boeing 767.”

“So yes?” 

The stewardess announces the imminent take-off for Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle, her words nearly unintelligible through the buzzing noise of the overhead speakers.

“No, I can fly military aircraft, like C-12 Huron or MH-60 Black Hawk or–”

“So you could probably fly this one too?” you cut in. 

“No, Gabrielle, I can’t,” he huffs in disbelief.

“Have you ever tried?” 

The crease between his brow deepens, his eyes searching yours, scanning your face for any trace of teasing. 

“I– what? ‘Course not!”

“Aha!” you exclaim, triumphant. “So you probably can. You just don’t know it.”

He watches you bend forward to place a thick book in the seat-back pocket in front of you, and shifts his hips once again, trying to accommodate his breadth into the seat, before his eyes fly back to your face. 

His heart leaps into a painful somersault, like a punch in the sternum that radiates up to his neck and down to his gut. Backlit by the plane’s oval window, your dark profile looks like the Victorian cutout portraits in your treasure cabinet, and it’s like he’s known you his whole life and the ones before, like he’d find you in every reality he’s ever known, and all the ones he hasn’t. 

He lowers down his head, remembering to breathe. Something settles down inside him. A gnawing anxiety that had been steadily flaring since he’d book the tickets. He’d find you. In every reality. 

“Do you really need to be this fucking cute?” he mutters.

“I’m not cute, Frankie, I’m serious! Now tell me, how do you feel about spending the next 7 hours crammed into this seat?”

A flash of pink as the tip of his tongue peeks between his parted lips. A wink.

“It’s ok. I’m used to fitting into tight spaces.”

—

Small. 

Everything looks small. 

The entire city has changed. New, modern infrastructures, subway lines extensions, bicycle lanes everywhere, roadworks on every corner and a new mayor.

All of it, small. 

The streets are too narrow, the ceilings hang too low, the cars look like toys and the buildings like doll houses frozen in time because nothing measures up to Frankie’s height, breadth, or dimple. 

The man shrunk your old world when he expanded your horizon.  

You walk down the streets that saw you becoming who you are through happiness, loss and pain, strutting about like you know something no one else does. 

The Airbnb you picked is on the south side of the place Gambetta. The Marais was appealing. More expensive but more central, fancy but not too much, but you finally decided against it. The 20e arrondissement is your neighbourhood, your home. It’s where your grandparents are buried. 

There’s something incongruous, bordering on comical, about playing house with him in the tiny, typically Parisian apartment overlooking the Père Lachaise. The kitchen’s a corridor, and there’s no way for him to fit comfortably inside the shower cubicle. The bed is a full size, and if you knew not to expect anything bigger, Frankie’s eyes widened in bewilderment at the doll-sized bedding. 

“Gonna break that thing,” he grunted, testing the mattress. 

The first time you step into the métro, you take in the particular stench, and the realisation that you missed even that pulls at your chest with a sharp pang. But the nostalgia is smothered by the sight of Frankie squeezing into one of the narrow seats of the line 3.

The first couple of days are spent sightseeing the touristic landmarks of the capital, following the military schedule you’ve drafted. You don’t even try to hold back as you recount the many anecdotes behind every famous church, park or building, giving him what you self-derisively label, “the leftist historical tour of Paris.” 

If there’s one place where you’ve always had enough space to be you, unapologetically so, it’s with him. 

Here, you don’t need any maps, apps or directions, and Frankie diligently follows, listens, asks follow-up questions that prompt more thorough explanations, drinking up your self-confidence. 

Sure, Paris is nice. But it’s not the buildings he's looking at. 

His big girl. Growing up on her own in this big city.  

Hiding, yet standing tall on that fire escape, your heart rabbiting under the pulse point of your neck, bravely withholding his gaze. Leaving the party with him, your smaller hand squeezing his bigger one as he parted the crowd for you, for the two of you. 

He’s only ever had eyes for you. From the very beginning.

With his preference for modern art in mind, you’ve arranged the third day around the visit of Beaubourg, then the MaM halfway across town, which will bring you near the Eiffel Tower, you announce over breakfast, and that’s when he gently puts his foot down. 

“Baby, take me to Orsay, will you?” he asks softly. “I wanna see that blurry painting you told me about. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don't really give a— I don’t really care about the Eiffel Tower and all that stuff. I’d rather go to the cemetery. Or see your high school.”

You look up from your tartine, a toasted piece of bread stuck in your throat that you try to gulp down, and you stare at him blankly. A fixed, intense gaze that has him flinching, creasing his brow, has he fucked up the whole thing now?

“You wanna see my high school?” you repeat, and when he nods, you add quietly, “Do you really need to be this fucking cute, Morales?”

Your high school, your university, the bars in Pigalle and Ménilmontant where you hung out as a student, your favourite bookstores, antique stores, bridges, museums, artist’s studios, paintings… 

It’s been decades since you’ve walked the narrow, quiet lane where your grandparents rented a three-room apartment. Years of repressed emotions have confused your recollection, and you breathe uneasy and short because you don’t recognise the grey stone building where you supposedly spent your first years. 

Frankie holds your hand. You lean into it. 

Later, walking in silence towards the family grave along the pebbles alleys on the east side of the Père Lachaise, you keep your head down and the tendon in Frankie’s jaw is pulled taut, ready to snap. 

But his gaze, strained on you, is warmer than the late March sun that draws pale, ephemeral patterns under your feet through the lush green foliage of the century-old chestnut and lime trees. 

His arm wraps around the haunched slope of your shoulders. It’s heavy. Grounding. He draws you in to his side, and pecks a kiss on the crown of your head, your hand sliding inside the back pocket of his jeans. 

You look up at his sharp profile, and he’s more beautiful than any of the works of art you’ve shown him this past week, more beautiful than anything you’ve ever seen. 

The bare-patch on his jaw calls to your lips, but instead you reassure him, “I’m good, Frankie,” because his bashful, dimpled smile makes you, because in his arms, you are. 

The sprawling, romantic necropolis has remained the same to you, a place of solace, a refuge, a hideout. 

The wardens are blowing their whistles to signal closing time when you reluctantly leave the cemetery. It’s cold now, the sun has given up and recessed behind pearly grey clouds. 

Back in the small rental, Frankie follows you to the cramped bathroom when you go wash your hands. He watches you, leaning against the sink counter, crossed ankles, crossed arms. Tense muscles and knots.

“Where’s your mother now? Does she still live in Paris?”

Your eyes dart to the door frame on your left, on instinct, but Frankie’s massive frame is preventing any form of deflection or escape. Your body stiffens, you focus on your hands.

“Last I heard, they moved to a new fancy apartment they bought in les Batignolles. That’s in the 17e arrondissement,” you add, like that means anything to him. “But I’m not taking you there, Frankie, I can’t.”

“Not asking you to, baby. I want to know if he is still around.”

Your chest hollows under his words, hands clutching the beige towel. The faded scar tissues on the back of your arms itching like a million microscopic blades picking them open.

Everything you never said, never told anyone. Everything you convinced yourself never really happened, or wasn’t really that bad. Everything you kept inside, thickening the walls of your heart, weighing you down, because the only person you needed, and who you asked for help, had called you a liar. 

Under his creased brow, his eyes are black as midnight sky. They’re looking straight into you. Contemplating that thing you lost, like a constituent piece that fell off and you replaced with something else. Aloofness, distance. Orange curtains. 

He pushes himself up to his intimidating full height and you recoil involuntarily, but he doesn’t let you. He grips your face with both hands, his palms scorching your cold skin, and between them, you’re fully exposed, bared, left with nowhere to hide, nowhere to bury your secrets.  

“I will hurt anyone who tries to hurt you, Gabrielle. Do you understand? Say that you understand.”

His words are quiet. Firm, steady, collected. 

“I understand,” you whisper, and you clasp his wrists so you won't feel the ghost weight of his gun between your hands. “I want you to.”

He nods. 

“You are mine.”

You nod. 

You know you are. 

—

Everything looks smaller. 

Shrunk down by his height, breadth and smiling eyes. 

The city hasn’t changed. But you have. You know something no one else does. 

—

The day before you fly back, you meet for lunch with Laura outside the Hôtel de Ville. 

She hadn’t minced her words –she never does– expressing her disappointment when you’d announced you wouldn’t come back at the end of your hiatus. But everything has long since been forgiven. 

Sitting across the dark-haired woman in her early fifties, you chat excitedly over sushi you forget to eat. Crammed into a ridiculously tiny metal chair on your left, he feels the bespectacled gaze of your former boss scrutinising him.  

Within hours after you landed in Roissy, your accent had thickened. Today, it has reached an all-time high. It’s the longest Frankie has ever heard you speak in your native language. 

Your voice sounds higher, in French. You speak so much faster, with a lot of hand gestures punctuating the throaty sounds cascading from your pretty lips. He focuses on his chopstick skills, trying his very best to ignore the growing bulge in his pants. 

It’s clear the two of you are more friends than colleagues. You had described her as your mentor. And from the dynamics he observes, there is obvious mutual respect. Which partly explains your instant hatred for Tom. 

Laura thinks you look different. You might have put on some weight, you say. She shakes her head, grinning knowingly. That’s not what she meant. 

Under your shirt, nested in the curve of your neck, sits a bruise in the shape of his teeth, blood underneath the surface of your skin blooming like a red peony. 

The waiter clears the dishes and Frankie walks up to the counter to pick up the tab. 

Laura leans closer to you over the narrow table. 

“Je comprends que tu n’aies pas voulu rentrer [I understand why you didn’t want to come home],” she starts, and with a tilt of her chin towards Frankie’s solid figure, she adds, “Bien joué, Miss Tourneur [Well done, Miss Tourneur].”

She gladly agrees to give Frankie a tour of the Bibliothèque, a historical institution situated on the fourth floor of the central city hall. In the elevator, your heartbeat gallops up your throat. The life you chose, the life you once led. 

The spacious reading room’s concave wooden ceiling is like the upside-down hull of a ship. When you step in, you’re overwhelmed by the faint musty smell of old books, mingled with that of the dusty carpets. You missed that too, but the feeling no longer tears at your chest. 

A few former colleagues come to greet you, and you watch Frankie and Laura from the corner of your eye as she explains, in her approximate English, what your work as a librarian entailed, praising your skills and knowledge. 

Frankie watches you too. He knows he’s doing a poor job of concealing his pride. He couldn’t care less. 

Before you leave, you lead him up to the rooftop of the building through narrow metal stairs. Culminating at a 48 metres height, in the very heart of Paris, the vantage point offers a breathtaking 360° view over the urban canopy of tin roofs. 

“Whenever I’d get a chance,” you tell him, “I’d come here for my lunch break.”

“Hiding again?” he grins. 

“Hiding again,” you admit, “but not only. I’d look up at the clouds, and if I was lucky enough to see a plane fly by, I would pretend you were flying it.”

Years of chasing the shadow of him, years of searching for traces of you. 

—

“Thank you for bringing her back!”

Rosie’s attempt at casualness is not fooling either of you. Frankie flashes a mock military salute and hauls the luggage into Rosie’s car trunk, hiding his grin behind the decklid. In all fairness to Rosie, he wasn’t so smug himself, on the day Pope drove you to the airport. 

It’s not a long drive from Newark, but the car progresses slowly through the late afternoon traffic. The New York City skyline stands out in orange hues. Everything is too big again. Too large. Too tall. But it’s fine. Everything’s on scale. 

The keys to the house jingle in your hand before Rosie exists the New Jersey turnpike, and you’re first to pass the front door, Frankie heaving the luggage behind you. 

You’re so exhausted you could sleep for days, but you’ll have to open the store tomorrow at 10am. 

Frankie goes straight to the bedroom and you hear the heavy thud of your suitcase hitting the floor, followed by the softer one of his rucksack. 

When you join him, bringing two glasses of water, you find him lying on the gigantic bed, arms sprawled, staring blankly at the ceiling. 

On scale. 

“Did you enjoy yourself?” you ask him, crawling onto the bed next to him, curling into his side. His arm wraps around you. 

“I sure did. That tour guide really knew her shit. Easy on the eyes, too.”

You chuckle tiredly, his chest rising and falling slowly under the palm of your hand. 

“Could we go to Rome, next year?” you ask. 

“We can go wherever you want, baby.”

“Even— even San Diego?”

He pauses for a beat before he answers. 

“Sure. Anywhere you want.”

You scoot closer to tuck your face into his neck, and you lie together in silence for a little while. A pleasant heaviness is slowly claiming your weary limbs. 

“Why does the trip back always feel longer?” you mumble. 

“What are you talking about?” he shakes his head, a smile in his voice, “You slept the whole flight.”

Your cheek resting against the slope of his shoulder, your hand on his thigh, one day he would tell you, that being airborne with you had been the best part. 

“It’s true,” you shrug, “I guess I just couldn’t wait to come back home.”

***

Bonus: Frankie & Gabrielle 🧡

Source

****

Dedications 🧡

Kelli. You started all this, but where do I start? I don't know if you remember the first letter you ever sent me, and what it said, and I don't know if you remember when I first told you about this orange bedroom idea, last summer. But I do. You’ve held my hand, like you always do. Your guidance and validation and support saw me through. Because you’re impossibly generous, with your time and patience and advice, you’re unbelievably kind, intelligent, talented and insightful. I’ve learnt so much from you already, about writing, about myself. You inspire me to reach higher. It's exhausting, but I love you for it. Oh yeah, and you beta-read this fucking monster too! Everything that is good in me this story, is good thanks to you. You turned my black heart orange. Kelli, I love you 🧡 @frannyzooey

Dreamy bby, my purple beauty, my beloved, my angst master genius, how many times have I come to you crying and whining and complaining, telling you I was giving up? Please don’t answer, it’s too fucking embarrassing. You kept my head above water, with love, kindness and humour. What did I do to deserve you? Beats me. Also I'm sorry but I love you more. Ha! Thank you 🧡 @dreamymyrrh

Ren, you’ve pulled me out of the ditch in a heartbeat more times than I care to count, because you are a genius and a wonderful friend. You are the reason I found a home in this fandom. You are my Reine, and I adore you. Thank you 🧡 @the-ginger-hedge-witch 

Nicole my love, I know I’m repeating myself, but you are the first person ever to read the first chapter of PTMY. I sent it to you for your opinion, but really for your encouragement because I was absolutely terrified, and you delivered, you always do, you beautiful, beautiful friend. Thank you for your investment in this story and its characters. Watching you go from team Benny to team Frankie to team Benny and team Frankie again is seriously one of the greatest achievements of my life! Thank you 🧡 @nicolethered

Cee my darling. You gave me the final push to press post and you haven’t stopped encouraging me and supporting me since. You've lent a patient and kind ear to my doubts and fears, you’ve given me the most thoughtful feedbacks a friend could ask for, you let me stand on your shoulders, you give me strength to stand up for myself. In many ways, I carried on because you gave me the validation and self-confidence I so desperately need(ed). Thank you 🧡 @fuckyeahdindjarin 

Deadmantis. Girl, Frankie really owes you one, because Gabriele stayed mainly thanks to you! I owe you an even bigger one for the love you’ve given them, and the orange bedroom. You know them like no one else. Your asks have fuelled me, they still do. I could never repay you, but please know that I am infinitely grateful to you. Thank you 🧡 @deadmantis

Lua. You rascal. You gave me the levity I so badly needed in a thick river of ANGST. I’m very selfishly hoping you never stop making me guilty by dropping Benny into my ask box. A million thank you 🧡 @pedrit0-pascalit0

And to my two favourite Anons, 🍻 and 🥖, I fucking love you to pieces. Thank you thank you thank you 🧡🧡🧡

****

Taglist (thank you 🧡):  @elegantduckturtle  @mashomasho  @lola766  @flowersandpotplantsandsunshine  @nicolethered  @littleone65  @bands-tv-movies-is-me  @the-rambling-nerd  @saintbedelia  @pedrostories  @trickstersp8  @all-the-way-down-here  @deadmantis  @hbc8  @princessdjarin  @harriedandharassed  @girlofchaos  @gracie7209  @mrsparknuts  @mylostloversbookmarks

[intheorangebedroom]

Pleased to meet you, chapter 17

Summary: You're going back to Paris. There's only one thing left for you to do, here: break up with Benny. Meanwhile, Frankie tries to find a way to love you that doesn't mean letting you go.

Pairing: Frankie Morales x French fem!Reader (OFC)

Rating: Explicit 🔞

A/N: Ok orange besties, we're in the endgame (yes I've always wanted to say that). Thank you to everyone who's still here 🧡 It's been a hot minute, and I'm so very sorry. Some wonderful, brilliant, beautiful human beings helped me. I want to humbly thank them. @frannyzooey beta read this chapter, which is a very dull and formal way to express how much she's improved (my entire life) it with her kindness, goddess's brain and generosity. Kelli my love, you know, you know everything 🧡 (I adore you). @the-ginger-hedge-witch immediately "unblocked" me when I couldn't even make out my own characters' thoughts because I'm dumb and she's a genius... Ren ma Reine, you are truly my Queen, I love you and admire you so damn much and I miss your voice and your hugs like a ghost limb 🧡 @dreamymyrrh made sure I wouldn't give up. You brilliant little devil you, I love you to pieces, you make my life brighter every day, I'm just the luckiest. You deserve the world and you will get it 🧡

Word count: 6.9k

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Chapter 17: Auf Achse

“This is a Brooklyn bound L train. Stand clear of the closing doors, please.”

Frankie exits the train on the Union Square platform in a brooding rush. He barely falters when his left shoulder collides with another passenger. The man steps into the car hurling incoherent slurs that don't reach his ears, the giant overhead rotor fan annihilating all surrounding noises and Frankie remains unfazed, trapped within the din of his own mind. 

Ducking his head to avoid the stale air fanned into his face, and under the familiar shelter provided by the brim of his cap, he moves his body forward amid the roiling motion of his thoughts. 

He has seldom known peace, never experienced quiet, and when he has, it was only too briefly. In the orange, in the ocean. But the storm has picked up speed since April, hitting the walls of his skull, and the same vision resurfaces above the mess, relentless and without mercy: you, disappearing inside your red brick building without a look back for him.

As you laid naked on top of him, your sweet face resting in the palm of his hand, he had wanted to believe it. That the disrupted promise for a bright future together had been restored. Yet you all but ran away from him. 

It’s Thursday again, the middle of the afternoon. The connection to the 6 train is already crowded, tourists and kids in uniform teeming around him in tight clusters, but he doesn’t register any of it, walking on autopilot, with the looming threat of your resentment hovering in and out of focus in his overworked brain. 

Should he have told you back in his car, when you had questioned him about that damn 15 year gap, about the true meaning of his scar? In Will’s kitchen? Back in the bar? When is the start? 

Striding down the tiled corridors is downright brutal, each and every muscle in his sore body battling his will to turn around and hurry back to you, to tuck your body away against his chest underneath his clothes and your face into the crook of his neck and explain. Explain in words that are not his because his words have failed him. And you. 

No te vayas por una hora porque entonces… 

Borrowed words he struggles to remember, would they make any difference?

Truth is, he betrayed you long ago. When he doubted you, when he gave way to anger and rage and easy, degrading escapes. 

I never stopped waiting, this you have to understand. 

You never ran away from him, not really. You ran away for him. 

Beyond his pain, yours claws at his heart, threatening his precarious balance, like a hindered scream catching at his throat and constricting his chest. He can’t think of you alone, emptily gazing out your window like a desolate figure in a Hopper painting. Can’t live with the fact that he’s the reason you finally stopped waiting. 

What could have he said? Were there any words that would have held the power to bend your mind and turn you around, erase your guilt and keep you to him? Why didn’t he try harder?

I don’t fucking care.

Tilting up his head, he finds himself sitting on the hard plastic bench of the 6 train. Across the central aisle, a small boy propped on his father’s lap is staring at him, the bottom half of his face smeared in apple sauce. The dried flakes of yellow compote shape a beard around his plump lips, and his wide, intrigued eyes make him look old beyond his years.

Frankie’s eyes flick upward to the map, where the blinking dot reminds him to get out at the next stop.

He resurfaces on Bleecker St, to an unexpected cool breeze, and tries to let it clear his mind so he will be able to present his sister with an intelligible account of the situation.

Growing up in the Morales household meant evolving in a crowded, shape-shifting space ; the small two-bedroom apartment serving as a workshop for Eva’s sewing business. In the cramped living-room, numerous piles of seemingly orderless clothes and fabric laid in what felt like an endless rotation, on top of beaten pieces of furniture that was bought at garage sales or found on the curb. For the two siblings, lounging on the couch to watch a movie or sitting at the table to do their homework meant having to move a heap of clothes that would invariably crumble to the floor a few minutes later. Only Eva seemed able to balance the precarious stacks that earned her a living and provided for her children.

Frankie rapidly became skilled at fixing just about anything, from a chest drawer to a toaster, because it was in his answer-seeking nature and because it gave him a sense of purpose. Izzy began bringing money home when she was fifteen, tutoring kids and baby-sitting young children from posh neighbourhoods, but both her and Eva denied Frankie when he expressed his intention to get an after-school part-time job. It had little or nothing to do with the fact that he was a boy, but rather the two Morales women were determined to clear the path that would lead him to an airport runway. 

Having been brought up in a space intended for two people and shared by four, as they alternately navigated and evaded their father’s ghost, as a result, Izzy and Frankie curated sparsely furnished, minimally decorated homes. 

The transient soldier’s path Frankie walked for most of his life made his relative material asceticism a practical choice and still, two years after settling down, it’s reflected in his utilitarian interior, where the only items in surplus are books. 

Similarly, Izzy’s place, on the top floor of a Mott Street brick building, doesn’t reflect the social status to which she has risen. Childless by choice and conviction, Izzy is rarely single, but prefers to live alone, and her comfortable income could afford her much more than the pricey location she has chosen to live in, the only luxury she indulges in. 

Throughout the years, her place has become as close to a family home as Frankie’s fragmented life could have had him hope for. The tastefully arranged apartment is where he spent his leaves and tended to his wounds, both tangible and the ones that wouldn’t heal. The walls, adorned with modern and old black and white prints, watched over his restless nights as he laid curled up on the opening sofa, fresh off the Army, sleep eluding him. Where his sister admonished his excesses without ever speaking a word, and forgave him everything speaking too many, always providing practical ways out along with unwavering love and support. 

So, quite naturally, it is where his steps take him now, because a phone conversation wouldn’t cut through the fog. 

When she opens her door, Izzy’s taken aback by her brother’s drawn features, even though the tension in his voice earlier on the phone had cued her in as to what to expect. 

“Damn, you look like shit, hermanito,” she whispers. “¿Qué te pasa?”

Frankie sighs as deeply as his constricted chest will allow, fails to look her in the eyes and snaps, “Yea, can I get in, first?”

She steps to the side and lets him in, and as Frankie walks past her and into the bright living-room, she scrunches her nose. 

“When was the last time you showered?”

The comment earns her a roguish look but he doesn’t argue with it. He has yet to wash you off his skin, or change the denim shirt he put on to drive you back.

Standing by the door, her left hand still grasping the doorknob, she surveys his tall, dark frame standing out in the centre of the white room, and before he can sit, she says with unusual softness, “The hat.”

Pausing imperceptibly, he removes his cap and swivels around to place it on the nearby oak dining table. They stand still in the afternoon light, with distant street noises from the world that exists outside the narrow windows dwarfing time and space. 

“¿Querés un mate?”

 “Sure.” 

Speaking feels physically insurmountable. He has to engage all his muscles, reach for air at the very end of his lungs. 

When Izzy comes out of the small kitchen, Frankie’s in a leather armchair with tubular iron armrests, and rubbing his clammy palms over his jeans. She places two round cups with metallic straws on the dark kidney coffee table and sits on the edge of the off-white couch, doing her very best to conceal the concern that reads plainly on her open face. 

“You haven’t been using ag-“ she starts, but stops short when her brother looks her straight in the eyes with a warning on his face, lips pinched, jaw clenched. 

“I’m clean, Izzy,” he grumbles.

“No because if you are-” she trails off, and her uncharacteristic hesitancy drums on his nerves.

Frankie knows his sister can listen. She’s been his sole confidant for over forty years. The only living soul who knows of what happened to you and him in the orange bedroom. She just needs a little reminder.

“I’m gonna tell you everything, Izzy. Just let me talk, alright?” he tries, his neck strained around the words to keep his tone down.

She nods and smooths down the wrinkles of her blouse. 

“Ok,” he starts, and the waver in his voice surprises them both, “I don’t know if you remember… the girl…“

How the hell does he explain that? Is he supposed to say your name?

“The French girl?” she asks. “The one who got away?”

The one who got away. 

Izzy’s eyes have grown as wide as her glasses, but her demeanour has shifted, no longer wary. Frankie’s jaw unclenches for the first time since you’ve left him yesterday, surprise untangling his brow for a fleeting second. Arms crossed on his chest, he leans back into the leather back of the chair, searching her dark eyes. 

“Go ahead, hermanito,” she encourages, “I’m listening.”

He unfolds his arms. Sits up straight. Draws in one last breath. 

Then, he jumps. 

The first words are the most difficult, the ones that define your relationship to his friend, but once he spits them out, the rest freely flows, and he talks. He talks more than he ever has, with Izzy or Santiago or William, using words he can’t recall ever pronouncing before, like longing and certainty and craving and peacefulness, “her skin, Izzy, her fucking skin,” and to his attentive sister, he bares it all. 

The years spent losing himself when he couldn’t find you, regrets, remorse, errors and shame. The blind wildfire of his hatred when you walked back into his life with another man, with this other man. How you gently extinguished the blaze without so much as a word. How it only took five encounters, stretched over the course of three months, before you found yourselves coming apart around each other again. How you ran from him, in the end, and how he’d been powerless to hold you back. 

How he didn’t even try. 

That you were going home and how far away that meant, just so you could protect a friendship he wasn’t even sure could be saved. 

What he sees play across Izzy’s face doesn’t reflect any of the ugly feelings throbbing in his chest. There’s understanding in her eyes, and hope in her smile; relief in her posture. For Isolda Morales remembers what Francisco Jr cannot: the ashen neon light of a military hospital room, and the lean, lifeless figure of her brother lying under a coarse sheet that looked like a shroud. She remembers the blood-stained dressing wrapped around his waist. She remembers his face, gleaming a waxy yellow as the morphine flooded his system, and his wistful realisation, spoken around a drug-heavy tongue, “if I die now, she will never even know.”

Izzy could have cursed your name, then, Gabrielle, but for the second time in her lifetime, and for her baby brother’s sake, she walked her mother’s path, and formulated a silent prayer. 

For the lost lovers to be reunited. 

When her brother falls silent, Izzy feels like herself again. 

“I knew you to be more persistent, Francisco,” she says sternly.

The statement hits him square in the chest with lethal precision. The soft leather creaks in protest when he leans back into the armchair, scrutinizing his sister’s face. 

“I don’t have much latitude, here,” he argues. “If she wants to go–”

“You’re not really considering letting her go?” she cuts him with ill-concealed impatience.

“I can’t hold her back, Izzy. She’s a free woman,” he says, and he hates that it sounds like an apology.

Izzy lunges forward, reaching for her untouched cup of mate. She takes a long, slow sip, mulling over her next words while Frankie waits, running his hand over his mouth, bracing himself.

“Why are you here?” she asks eventually, replacing the cup on its glass coaster. When he doesn’t answer, she presses further. “You’ve never been one to seek comfort, and I can’t imagine you coming here so I can give you a sisterly pat on the back and tell you everything’s gonna be alright. Nothing will, by the way. So what is it that you want from me? Why did you come?”

He can see it. See it so clearly. The shame on your face the first time he touched your breasts and then your relieved abandon when he came on your skin after only one night together. He remembers how this victory made him feel, the single most meaningful thing he could ever achieve. How you kept saying “sorry,” how you still say “please,” consistently moving through life as if you take up too much space. 

“I want her, Izzy. I want to be with her. Take care of her,” he says, a nod punctuating each affirmation. “But I can’t coerce her into choosing me, if that’s what you’re suggesting,” he continues, his blood brought to a simmering level by the uncomfortable truth in her words, by the paralysing contradiction in his. 

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Frankie! She is choosing you. It’s herself she’s not choosing, here.”

Frankie flinches, trying to swallow the handful of pins and needles she just shoved down his throat. 

“Is that what it is?” she asks in a softer tone. “You think getting her to stay would make you, what, selfish? A bad man? Because it would fuck things up with the guys? Are you afraid that she would despise you for that?”

Bending forward, he rests his elbows on his lap, his fingernail worrying at the little tattoo on his left thumb. Izzy’s eyes rapidly flick down from his hands to his tense face, in time to see him mutely nod his agreement, his gaze floorward.  

“I know,” he starts, his voice hoarse and so quiet she has to lean forward not to miss a word, “I know that if I’m with her… if she’s mine… I could fix it.”

“Are you talking about yourself or the group’s dynamics?” Izzy asks without malice.   

Her. I’m talking about her. She’s the only one that matters. 

The look on his face is one of pleading and pain, eyes strained on his hands where he presses a finger onto the green mark, seeking focus through the discomfort.

“Frankie, look at me.”

Frankie finally lifts his head and finds her dark, lively eyes. They’re the same as his. Identical, yet so different. 

“I think that’s what you came for. To hear me tell you to fight for yourself, for once.” She pauses to let it sink in. “It’s ok to fight for what you want. I know you’ve always put everyone else’s needs first, because you’re a good man, Francisco. But you can’t miss that shot. You’ve been so lucky. Twice over. I can’t say I’ve ever felt the way you do.”

“You had it pretty bad for Paula,” he mutters.

“True,” she agrees. “But I left, in the end.”

“What happened with that?”

“I think I was too independent. And she wanted kids. Listen, we’re not talking about me, here,” she shrugs away the topic with the back of her hand. “Hermanito, you’ll never be happy without her. You are right. You know you are. Go get your girl. The way you talk about her, it sounds like she needs you just as bad as you need her. You can make everything right after, later. Do whatever it takes to convince her. You’ve loved her forever.”

His mouth is parched but he’s still denying himself the drink that would soothe his throat, and it’s a hard swallow before he can articulate his next words. 

“Fuck, Izzy, that’s all I ever want. To keep her safe.” 

In the breast pocket of his shirt, a muffled buzzing signals an incoming text.

He pulls his phone out hastily, hoping to see your name lighting up the screen. What he reads instead draws a hissed curse from his tight lips and they dip downward, pulled by his corded neck. 

“Fuck.”

“¿Quién es?” 

“Ben. Wants to meet at the bar. Now.”

—

Pope arrives first, and when he steps into the bar, it’s as though the dim lights instantly grow brighter. 

A thoughtful, personal greeting to everyone, from the regulars to the bartender, and their faces lighten up too, under the glow of his attention. 

He orders beers for the five of them and leisurely struts over to their usual table, securing the spot before larger parties of the early evening start pouring in. Taking his favourite seat on the left, he waits for the bartender to bring over their drinks. Service at the table is a preferential treatment only Tom and him are ever granted. 

The Millers come in shortly after, and Pope’s easy smile drops at the sight of the youngest man, who’s clearly missing more than a couple hours of sleep. Who, on closer observation, might have been crying. 

He stands up to welcome them with a brotherly embrace, but he has to wait to ask his many questions. The glasses and ice-cold pitcher are brought in, and when Fish arrives next, Pope straightens up in his seat. His gaze intensifies, strained on the two men sitting side by side to his right around the large wooden table. The blond and the dark-haired. There’s something at play here, something he’s been missing, and his increased attention darkens his handsome features.  

“Damn, when I got your text I thought we would be celebrating something. What’s going on, guys?” The corner of his lips curls up with a charming smile, but his stare is cold, his eyes working on reading the scene. 

So far unusually quiet, Benny’s about to speak when his brother lays a heavy hand on his shoulder.

“Let’s wait for Redfly,” he suggests in a firm tone, “I don’t think you wanna have to repeat that twice.”

Frankie slowly downs half his glass in long, uninterrupted gulps. He knows his quietness to be suspicious. If Benny has news that requires to be delivered in such an exceptional setting, and that he hasn’t heard of already, he should at least express concern or curiosity. But Benny's blotched face and his fraternal handshake told him everything he needs to know. 

You carried out your plan and took the blow so he could walk out of this unscathed. 

It’s going to take more than a beer to take off the edge. 

Alone yet undeterred in his attempt to maintain the illusion of a friendly gathering, Pope proceeds to fill the uneasy silence with innocuous small talk.

Frankie’s eyes meet Will’s steely gaze for the briefest moment and gratitude flares in his chest for his sensible advice. The feeling doesn’t last, however, taken down by guilt, and shame. The man dropped you on his threshold, knowing enough about the history between you to figure out what could ensue.  

When Redfly eventually shows up and takes his seat, the overhanging tension cranks up until Benny’s baritone breaks like thunder over the five of them. Unable to contain himself any longer, his account of your breakup, that he never names as such, spills out of him in an endless, vivacious stream with that larger than life petulance that’s always tugged at Frankie’s heartstrings. Only today, everything bites at his nerves and erodes his restraint, from the emotion brimming under the surface of Benny’s messy narrative to Pope’s genuine look of surprise and Redfly’s unfazed reaction.

Exhaustion comes in waves, and he has just enough control left in him to maintain a white knuckled grasp around his glass and not resort to the telling rubbing of the little target inked on his skin. 

Looking at his friend’s hunched posture and wet eyes proves itself impossible, but more than once his gaze lingers on Will’s face, in a vain attempt to read the man’s thoughts. There’s nothing to see there, nothing to grasp, and suddenly an alarming doubt has him uncomfortably shifting in his seat: what does he let on? Ducking his head, he finds the shelter of his cap brim. 

His heart thumps louder than Benny’s voice at what’s missing from his story. What did you feel? What did you look like? What were you wearing? Did you cry? Did you brush a strand of hair off his forehead like he watched you doing once? Did you cup his face, give him one last kiss? Did you fuck one last time?

Benny marks a pause, which leaves space for Pope and Redfly to express their sympathy. Frankie registers plainly the lack of sincerity in Redfly’s short sentence, and he’s reminded of that very first night, when you were introduced to the group and had the audacity to tell him off. He had wondered, no, hoped, truly, that you had done so on his account. He has his answer now. Most of the things you’ve ever done have been either because or for him. 

Why hadn’t he said something, then? Anything. “We’ve met before,” simple, non-committal. In retrospect, this had been the biggest mistake of all. There might have been a chance to salvage something from this wreck if he had spoken there and then, instead of letting his friend proudly parade you in front of everyone. But he’d been too consumed by anger to think straight. Anger and jealousy. And something else. Your skin. The mad beating of your heart under the pulse point of your neck. Had you shown him that piece of paper then, he might have fucked you on the table. 

You hadn’t said anything either. You looked as if you’d seen death itself, which he mistook for an admission of guilt. In truth you had instantly fathomed the depth of the mess you two were in. Clever, clever girl.

In the end, your tacit, instinctual agreement over your conjoint secret spoke of the intensity of your feelings. Unescapable. And everlasting. 

“Shit Benny, I’m really sorry. That’s tough,” Pope says for the third time. “When did she say she was leaving?”

“I don’t know, man, and I don’t care cause it’s not happening,” Benny shoots back, shaking his head left and right like a scared kid. 

Will tuts and when he speaks, his tone suggests they’ve already been over that a hundred times. “Come on buddy, you know she does what she—“ 

“The hell she does!” he all but shouts. 

Under the brim of his cap, Frankie clenches his eyes, your voice on loop in his mind, “he’s your best friend…” He’s painfully aware that he has yet to say something, anything. 

“Did she explain why she’s going back to Paris?” he eventually asks under his breath. 

“I don’t know, something about her boss offering back her former position,” Benny answers dismissively.

“That boss a man, by any chance?” Redfly snarls. 

“Jesus, man,” Will breathes out. 

All of a sudden, the situation feels uncomfortably familiar. The stench of gasoline fills up his nostrils and cold sweat breaks out along his spine. Questionable orders and deflected responsibility. Frankie’s gaze moves up to focus on Tom and it’s as though he sees the man, their undisputed leader, for the very first time. Flawed, sad, and bitter.

“Look,” Pope starts, another attempt to ease the heavy atmosphere, “Yovanna likes her, and she has a pretty good bullshit radar. Maybe it’s just that. Maybe she’s really just homesick, maybe she does need to go back.“

“Yeah, maybe it’s this, or maybe it’s that,” Tom persists.

Pope raises an eyebrow at the comment. Crossing his arms over his chest, he tilts his chin up to address Will. “You know her the best. After Benny, I mean. She didn’t tell you anything?”

Will sits up straight, unfurling his sturdy frame. “Talks about Paris all the time. She’s homesick, alright,” he confirms. 

“She is,” Frankie whispers. 

The words slip out of him before he can hold them. All eyes turn to him, save for Tom’s, who slaps his palm on the table and starts rambling. 

“And that’s just the French for you, guys. A bunch of double-faced, unreliable people. Lazy, always fucking protesting something, never falling in line…”

“Ok, we get it,” Will grunts.

“No I mean, let that be a lesson to you, Benny. Because she really just said ‘it’s not you it’s me’ and dumped you for–”

“Hey, here’s an idea for you, Tom.”

The air stills around the five men, wrapped around the anger in Frankie’s commanding tone. 

“Fish, easy, man,” Will warns with a tilt of his head, but Frankie’s already raising up to his feet, right fist resting knuckle down on top of the table, squaring up with his former commanding officer who’s staring back at him, dumbfounded.

“Why don’t you shut the fuck up?” 

Hushed conversations fade around them; most of the room turning its attention to their group. 

His voice picks up in intensity as he speaks. “You don’t know anything about her, or where she’s from, or why she did what she did– in fact, you know jack shit, so why don’t you shut your mouth, for once, because if you don’t I swear I’ll make you.”

Tom is about to answer when Pope lifts his hands in the air, palms outward. 

“Alright, what the hell is going on, here, guys?”

“Yeah, what the hell is going on, Fish?” Benny asks, standing up. 

Frankie turns to face his friend and something flickers in his eyes. Almost regret, though not quite an apology, but rather a suppressed threat that twists his lips. In his peripheral vision, Will drops his head with a heavy sigh. 

“Did you fuck my girl, Fish?” Benny quietly asks, a lingering doubt in his tone. 

Frankie’s lived long enough to know this is the pivotal point of his adult life, and in his head, an image surfaces. The waves of the Pacific Ocean. 

Raising a pointing index at the tall man, he licks his lips and slowly answers. 

“She is not your girl.”

He only has time to register Tom’s sniggering snort before Ben’s fist collides with his face. A sharp pain blurs his vision and the violence of the blow sends his cap flying across the room. The back of his knees hit the chair and he topples backward in a loud clatter. 

An instant uproar bursts around them. Frankie tries to sit up but Ben is on him before he can move, pinning him down to the floor in a straddle, his shirt clutched in his fist. Frankie tries shoving him back but there’s no fighting his strength and he takes the second punch; the back of his head hitting the hardwood floor with an ominous thud and the skin over his cheekbone breaking under the impact of Ben’s knuckles.

A piercing, ringing noise fills his ears, drowning out the other men’s voices along with Ben’s curses, and a surge of blind rage washes over him. He strikes Ben once, twice in rapid succession under the sternum, the sound of his own grunts splitting his skull and Ben collapses on top of him with a groan, warm breath fanning the side of his face. Frankie can’t breathe, crushed under the weight, but it’s lifted off his chest immediately.

Clutching his brother by the collar of his t-shirt and the waist of his jeans, Will pulls him off Frankie and away before he has a chance to dive in again. Frankie’s ready, getting up off the floor, Pope sliding both hands under his arms to hold him back, but Frankie’s voice is heavy with unreleased anger when he shouts, “It’s fine! I’m fine!” 

In the dim bar, several people have stood up to get a better view of the commotion. 

Shoulders heaving, he pushes Pope away, ready to counter or attack, but Will has both hands on his brother’s chest and is holding him back. 

“Get him out of here!” he commands Pope, his words barely audible under Ben’s string of insults. 

It’s a beat before Pope is able to snap out of it, his deep frown and curled lips betraying his horror. He turns to Frankie, who is still standing a few feet from the two brothers with his fists clenched and bared teeth, feet planted firmly on the ground and seemingly ready to launch his body forward. Pope comes closer to drag him toward the exit, a splayed hand on his shoulders forcing him backwards, a low rumble of “Come on, man, let’s go,” as if he were attempting to tame a wild beast.

Frankie catches sight of Tom, who hasn’t moved from his seat, beer in hand, staring him down with contempt. 

“Go fuck yourself, Tom,” he coldly throws in his direction, but it’s Ben who answers. 

“You go fuck yourself, man! I fucking trusted you!”

“Pope! Out!” Will shouts.

Before Pope has time to react, Frankie shrugs off his hands and takes a step forward. Ben stills under his brother’s hold, observing his moves, slow and deliberate as he bends down to pick his hat off the floor. 

He stands up, and the two men glare at each other one last time.

“She was never yours,” he quietly states, before Pope gives him a hard push and they both disappear through the door. 

Out in the street, the brutal daylight has him squinting. He winces at the pain in his cheek, letting Pope usher him toward his car, with a hand on his back to make sure he complies. 

Once in the car, Pope doesn’t wait to start the ignition, forcing his way into the rush hour traffic, and they drive in silence for a while. Frankie’s eyes are trained on the windshield, his breathing evening out slowly, both hands braced on his knees. Adrenaline still pumping high through his system, he can’t bring himself to risk a glance at his friend’s face, knowing he can’t confront the disappointment he knows he’ll find there. 

“Jesus Christ, what the fuck, man? ¿Qué pasó? ¿Qué has hecho?” Pope bursts out vehemently. 

Frankie sighs in frustration; he’s not telling this story again, not today, not now. 

“I haven’t done anything wrong, Santiago, ok? It’s fucking bad luck if–”

“Bad luck? Really, Frankie, bad luck? Your fucking face is bleeding! You served together for ten years! The man saved your life!”

“You think I don’t know that? You think I haven’t thought about it?” his voice raises to a near breaking point. “Gabrielle and I, we met– fifteen fucking years ago, ok? She was never his. To me, she’s everything. I lost her once, I’m not losing her again. That’s it, that’s what’s happening.”

The cab falls quiet again. The car stops at a red light and Santiago pivots in his seat, trying to catch Frankie’s distant gaze, and his dark eyes soften. 

“Why did you never tell me? I would have listened,” he says. 

“I know.” 

He wants to explain. And he hopes that one day he will get the chance. His silence didn’t spring from lack of trust, but from lack of faith. From the unexplainable absence that left him broken. But right now his jaw is too tightly clenched to articulate the intricate feeling, and his tongue too heavy with the bitter taste of loss that is only too familiar to him. 

“Makes sense, though,” Santiago continues. 

“What?” he asks with a dry mouth, eyes to his knees. 

“You. Missing someone. All these years. I think I always assumed it was your parents, but with all the compulsive fucking I should have guessed it was a girl.” 

Frankie doesn’t answer. Santi’s offering open-minded understanding, just like he always has. It might be just who he is. Or it might be that Frankie is right in his gut feeling: he can fix it. 

The grey sedan in front of them starts moving, and Santiago activates the right-turn signal.

“Where are you going?” Frankie asks.

“Your place, where you wanna go?” 

“No, leave me at the corner of Seaview and County. You need to turn around.” 

“What’s there?” Santi frowns. “Her place? You really serious about this?” he asks kindly.

“Yea I'm fucking serious. I'm not going back,” Frankie mutters.

“Well, you’re going back to her,” Santi quips with a grin. 

Frankie finally looks at his friend, who’s flashing him his most radiant smile. “Ok, Pablo Neruda, calla y conduce.” 

—

You called in sick, and then you simply gave up. What’s the point anyway? For what purpose? To whose benefit?

Countless times you reached for your phone to dial up Rosie, missing her so much you could have screamed, but even for that sort of relief you were too exhausted. 

You drafted an email to your boss in Paris, enquiring about the modalities of a possible reinstatement, and failed to send it. 

You sat under the shower until the water ran cold, until your eyes ran dry, until your whole body began shivering from the loss of his scent on your skin.  

You stared at your ashen reflection in the bathroom mirror, setting a mental countdown to the disappearance of the purple flecks he had left on your neck, your shoulders, your breasts, the swell of your ass. They’ll be gone in a few days. Then your life will reverse to being contained into a memory. 

You crossed your arms over your belly and clasped your hips in the same way he had on the fire escape and in his kitchen. 

Underwear, socks, high collar T-shirt, jeans. You dressed methodically and remembered to take your Metrocard and to lock your door and walked over to Walgreens to buy some cheap concealer you weren’t sure how to use, applying it in the pharmacy aisle to cover the stubborn marks your clothes wouldn’t hide.

All this, so you could finally, finally ride the bus one last time to Benny’s place. 

The conversation didn’t go down easy. That’s one hell of an understatement. He wouldn’t hear, wouldn’t even let you speak. He followed you around his house as you gathered your belongings, (they were everywhere, fuck, what had you been thinking), and kept tugging at your arm for you to face him, trying to cup your face but you wouldn’t let him. Imploring eyes and vows to give you anything you ever needed, and you would have given ten years of your useless life to get out of there, to stop wanting to take him in your arms and thread your fingers through his hair. 

You were going to miss him. You missed him already. The realisation struck you like lightning and brought a foul taste to your mouth. 

In the end, you still kissed him. Or, you let him kiss you. 

“You’ll be fine,” you breathed into his mouth and his hold on you was bruising but it was not the same. Nothing ever was. 

Your best friend’s words rang in your ears, true and prophetic. 

Rosie, Will, Benny. You were, you are, throwing away the best relationships you’ve ever had over a one-night stand. 

Only there’s this space, between his jaw and his collarbone, along the strong line of his neck, where your face fits perfectly. Where you’re important, primordial. Where you’re protected and safe. And free to be what you can or want to be. That space was made just for you, along the strong line of Frankie’s neck, and that space is worth everything. Even if you can only know of it in your most valuable memory. 

You’ll choose him, again and again and again: over yourself and over everything. 

You wish Rosie had chosen you. You’ll be lost without her. You are, already. 

You’re confident you’ve taken the best possible decision. You couldn’t live with the guilt, nor the threat of his eventual resentment. 

Back in your apartment, you wiped the concealer off your skin and undressed to your panties. You put on a threadbare red T-shirt, flocked with the name “Chamonix” and a skiing figure that belonged to your grandfather. 

Then you drew the curtains. You crawled into bed and pulled the blue sheet over your head. 

You'll think about everything later. Rosie, work, packing, moving –for now you just need to sleep, because you’re too tired to hurt, too tired to weep. Heavy heart, heavy lids, heavy limbs. 

Time passes, and then a strong, repetitive banging rattles your front door, slowly penetrating the dazed limbo your mind has slipped into. It might be the morning, or the middle of the night. Your body is curled up and sore and you scramble out of bed, hitting your shoulder on the door frame as you step into the living-room. It doesn’t even occur to you to put on some pants before you open the door. 

He’s here. 

His broad silhouette backlit against the neon lit corridor, the left side of his face bruised and bloodied. 

He’s here. 

He steps into the dark apartment and closes the door behind him. His hands find your hips, and he pulls you in. 

He’s here. 

“Who did that to you?” you whisper. “Frankie, what did you do?”

Everyone he’s ever known has asked him a variation of this question, today. What has he done. What did he do. And for each version, there’s only one answer: he’s come back to you. 

“It’s fine,” he tells you, his heart painfully pulsating under the cut on his skin but you take his hands off your hips and instruct him to sit. 

In the bathroom, your numb fingers fumble noisily in the cabinet for a cotton pad and some alcohol. When you close the mirrored door, you’re met with your reflection again. You might be on the brink of tears or the verge of laughter.

When you come out, something feels different. It’s a minute before you realise he’s opened the curtains he came in to install with his friend less than a week ago. The setting sun casts a golden hue in your small living-room. He hasn’t sat, but he's taken off his cap and he’s pacing the small room. 

“It’s over, Gabrielle. I told him. Ben knows. So that’s that, he knows everything.” 

It’s a half-truth but the details can wait. Frankie stills when you approach him, knee popped to the side and hands on his hips, but his eyes betray his nervousness. 

They follow your trembling hands as they soak the rectangular pad with the yellow liquid. They search your face for a reaction, an emotion, but you give him nothing, focused on your task. 

You bring your hand to his face and start wiping his cheek before you stop, hesitant, your fingers releasing their grasp on the cotton pad that falls onto the carpet without a sound. Raising to your tiptoes, you peck an open-mouthed kiss to his wound. 

His skin quivers under your lips. You look up at him when you lick your lips clean of his blood, it tastes of copper and salt, and his eyebrows go so high, the crease between them nearly disappears. His shoulders ease down, almost unwillingly, there’s a twitch in his arm, and he sighs heavily. His hands go back to your hips, where they belong, and his heart is pounding. 

“You’re staying,” he says, his voice coarse and urgent. “I need to hear you say it, baby. With words. Say you’re staying.”

The fabric of your T-shirt paints your vision red when you slide it off above your head. One by one, you unfasten the press-stud of his shirt and open it wide. There’s a large bruise on the right side of his chest, under his collarbone. You brush your fingers over the purple mark, all the way down to the scar on his side. 

Your hands skate up along his sides and find their way around his waist to splay over his back and you press your breasts to the warmth of his solid body. You tuck your face into the crook of his neck, and you tell him. 

“I’ll stay. I’ll stay right here.”

You still can’t describe it, and you probably never will, but it’s fine, you won’t have to anymore. His scent. Ever present. Unforgotten. It surrounds you, now. And as Frankie takes the sides of his shirt and wraps them around you in a tight embrace, you both smile with relief. 

It’s been a long journey, but you made it home in the end. 

****

Bonus (because I had a hard time choosing between the two and I love @nicolethered 🧡):

Additional note: I HC that Santi and Frankie, and especially Izzy and Frankie, would speak a lot more in Spanish, between them. Unfortunately, I don't. So this is what it is 😔 A (French) friend who speaks Spanish kindly helped me with the translations. If you're a native speaker and I've messed it up, please slap me over the back of the head.

Taglist (thank you 🧡): @elegantduckturtle @mashomasho @lola766 @flowersandpotplantsandsunshine @nicolethered @littleone65 @bands-tv-movies-is-me @the-rambling-nerd @saintbedelia @pedrostories @trickstersp8 @all-the-way-down-here @deadmantis @hbc8 @princessdjarin @harriedandharassed @girlofchaos @gracie7209 @mrsparknuts @mylostloversbookmarks

[intheorangebedroom]

Pleased to meet you, chapter 16

Summary: Frankie's well-being your one and only concern, you've decided to go 'home' to Paris, taking your secret with you. Frankie doesn't quite agree...

Pairing: Frankie Morales x French fem!Reader (OFC)

Rating: Explicit 🔞🔞🔞🔞 (I blame the meds)

A/N: Please, be kind to my girl. She's had it tough all her life. I am so, so nervous about this one, it's hell. Thank you to every one who stuck with me (and them) this far, and for patiently waiting for my anxiety to lift and let me write again 🧡 Ily 🧡 Also, jfc they're filthy, I blame the meds. That shit is unbeta'd, you've been warned.

Word count: 6.5k (I blame the meds)

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Chapter 16: Plainsong

Once upon a time, there was an orange bedroom, its light kept burning through young lovers’ hearts, long after hurt and rain had turned it blue. 

Once upon a time, there was a fire escape, a bed with white linen, and a Brooklyn bathroom. There was a book, its title cast a spell; lips of red, purple bites, and golden hues. 

Once upon a time, there was him, and there was you. The outside world ceased to exist, only to better catch up with you.

—

“Stay,” Frankie says, his lips on your lips. His splayed fingers on the small of your back keeping you balanced, his gentle touch on your collarbone softly saying, “you are mine.” 

It would be so easy for you to exist solely between his two palms. It would make you happy and content. It could be home, to you. 

Exhaustion washes you over and drowns your mind. You raise on your tiptoes, wrapping your arms around his shoulders in a tight embrace, letting his scent take over your senses, your bodies sealed together. The soles of your sandals hit the tiles with a two-tone clapping sound when he circles your waist and lifts you.   

He’s twice as massive as he once was, and it’s twice the safety to you. His large, open hand carefully cradling the back of your head, he holds you like a newborn baby, as if you were frail and fragile, as if you could snap in two, and you find it so fitting, for he’s truly the only one who could ever break you. 

Others have tried and failed. You’ve been shunned, abandoned and let down, but you kept slipping between their fingers like running water seeping through cracks, flowing, imperturbable, in one direction and one direction only: to throw yourself into the ocean of him. 

“I’ve got you, baby, let me–” Frankie pauses at your whimper, the term of endearment only ever carrying meaning in his low, husky baritone, “I’m here.”

The loud, violent beating of his heart rattles inside your chest like it was your own. 

“You got me,” you acquiesce. 

The slight release of your embrace signals him to loosen his hold. Your chest slides down along his, and the tiles feel cool under your bare feet. 

You should go now, you think. 

“I should go now,” you say, and he doesn’t answer, his face closed and sullen because he knows you’re right, you should leave now, this much the two of you can agree on, so when you press your lips to his, you’re not sure whether he reached for you, or if you reached for him. 

It’s a chaste kiss, for a last goodbye. Frankie can almost feel the rising wind blowing litters around you on a Brooklyn sidewalk, and inside him, the tightly sealed lid is fractured, the damage irreversible.

At the light, hopeless pressure from his lips, his body tensing up, you open up, your tongue seeking his. And he’s inside you instantly. 

That taste he’s been chasing through dozens of other women, that taste is on his tongue, at last, and he swallows it all, tugging you flush to his body with enough strength to shatter your bones. Frankie is done pacing himself, he will have you now, and he will eat you whole. 

His hand slides up to your nape, his fingers grabbing your hair and tilting your head back, exposing the line of your throat to his hungry stare, while you span your hands over his sides, around the breadth of his back, up to his shoulders where they find purchase. 

“Tell me to stop, Gabrielle. Ask me to stop now. Because I will not go back.”

So close you can taste the cold beer on his breath. So quiet you can still hear the echo of his words when he asked you to follow him all those years ago.

He’s not asking you to bear the weight of this decision. He’s relieving you of it. He’ll carry it for you. 

“I want you,” you answer again, always. 

His mouth crashes down on yours in a messy kiss, teeth colliding, lips reclaiming. 

You can’t breathe and it is fine, you only need to breathe through him, for now, his tongue swirling avidly around yours inside your mouth makes everything easy and right.

A commanding tug from his hand angles your face to the side and he deepens the kiss, his left hand travelling down to the swell of your ass, giving it a hard, possessive squeeze, and you moan against his lips before he swallows that too. 

And he hasn’t had his fill, not remotely, not even close. The urge to taste you everywhere else is overwhelming, so he trails down your neck, under your ear, licking and kissing and biting your soft skin. The unfamiliar, tickling prickle of his moustache sends your mind in a lewd spiral, and curiosity makes you moan again.

You think you might be dreaming. You think you’ll wake up alone in your cold, empty bed, but around you, everything feels so real. Could he be the one dreaming you?

Your touch wanders underneath his shirt, seeking out the heat from his skin, where it is raw and unfiltered by the cottony fabric, and the contact sets your insides ablaze, your entire body wanting more. Your fingers dig into the firm muscles, their tremor a mirrored response to the slick pooling down your core.

Frankie senses your panic the very moment you reach the lumpy stretch of skin below the left side of his rib cage. Your surprise is audible, muffled by the imperious, desperate press of his mouth over yours. His hold on you tightens, but you’re pushing him away with both hands. When he yields and lets go of you, he hasn’t given up yet, but the alarm that widens your eyes tells him he’s already lost this battle.

“What is it?” you breathe out.

“It’s nothing,” he lies in that steady, even tone he has learned to master a long time ago.

“It’s not nothing, let me see,” you insist, your own voice having gone up an octave.

He doesn’t budge, nor does he answer, frowning in his resolve, so you reach for his shirt, which only prompts him to take a step back. He’s stalling for time, ignoring your pleading eyes, knowing full well he’s only delaying the inevitable. In a moment, he’ll have you naked underneath him, nothing will keep that from happening, nothing but you could stop him. 

And you just might, if he tells you the full story behind that fucking wound. 

His mind is racing as he tries to figure out what would kill him faster, if you left now or after. If he has it in him to take that choice away from you.

“Does it hurt?” you ask in a softer voice, approaching him carefully.

His jaw doesn’t move as he answers, “No. No it doesn’t.”

“Let me see?” The inflection in your phrasing marks the question, but you’re already lifting his T-shirt with infinite care, your eyes on his face, trampling his defiance. He lets you pull it over his head, following your movement. 

The sight of him, standing before you bare chest, has you swaying on your feet, and you forget to breathe for a moment. Broader, it seems, than he used to be, radiating warmth, solid and reassuring. The passage of time hasn't altered the recollection you have obsessively cultivated through the years. This part of his body you have mapped so meticulously is more familiar to you than your own. The pattern of his freckles on his golden skin, the small, brown circles of his nipples, the oval mark on the curve of his left shoulder are the landmarks of your desire. 

Drawing in a shaky breath, you lower your gaze to the raised scar, a shade darker than the surrounding skin. You brush the tips of your fingers to it, careful but thorough, and you ask again, “Does it hurt?”

Frankie struggles to keep his eyes open, moving imperceptibly closer to your touch. It eases a pain he thought had been long gone. He breathes slowly, lowering his face, and when he speaks again, his tone has softened to match yours. 

“It doesn’t anymore.” 

“But it did?” you ask in a quivering voice.

“Just a little,” he lies again. You look up at him, and he can tell you know. 

“Were you in a hospital? For long?” 

“A few weeks.”

“And your sister–” Talking around the large lump in your throat makes your voice sound eerily unnatural, “did your sister come to visit?”

“She did. I wasn’t alone.”

Frankie gently pulls on your wrist to draw you near, and the urge to wrap yourself around his body crawls up your spine again. You recall a medieval French poem about honeysuckle that grows intertwined with hazel, and how both wither and die if they are separated, and your eyelids flicker under the weight of your impending tears.

“Hey, baby, look at me,” he asks, cupping your face, “look at me. It doesn’t hurt anymore, you hear me? Nothing does.”

“Nothing?” 

“Nothing.” His certitude is vertiginous. It takes down all of your fears, and leaves you with nowhere to hide. 

You should leave now. But you’ve been so cold, for so long. And he should let you go, but your skin is still vibrant under his palm. 

In a few minutes, your naked bodies will touch thoroughly and fit into each other like a solved puzzle and none of this will matter, sixteen years sucked into an obliterating vacuum, minced into jagged pieces and scattered into complete oblivion. 

Frankie undoes the shoulder bows of your dress one by one, the fluid fabric flowing down your naked breasts and he hisses through clenched teeth, as if through pain.  

You bask into the untamed and unrestrained want darkening his eyes and brightening his face, you’ve never known a hunger like his and between your shaky legs, arousal leaks into your sensible underwear.  

With a mind of reclaiming what is rightfully his, he reaches for your breasts, kneading the soft flesh with deliberate strength, his thumbs rubbing the rapidly hardening peaks of your nipples, and your skin breaks out in goosebumps. You cover his hands with yours, his grasp over you never strong enough. 

You can’t hurt me, not like this.

“Lift up your skirt, baby.” His low, hoarse command is punctuated by a hard pinch to your nipple. 

Your mouth goes slack and you exhale slowly, a pointless attempt at slowing down your frantic heartbeat and keeping your balance. You can’t think straight for how violently you want him everywhere inside and around you, but your hands diligently move down to your hips, grabbing the fabric of your dress and bunching it up in your trembling fists. 

His tongue peeks out between his parted lips, his palm on your inner thigh, burning its way up towards your mound and he cups you there, roughly, an appreciating hum rumbling from the depth of his chest when his fingers find the dampened fabric of your panties, pushing it against your entrance. 

“Naked. Now.” His tongue hits the back of his teeth on the letter D, round and textured. So thick, you can almost touch it. It trickles inside your lower belly, shivers running down your sides from under your arms. 

You sigh in relief, numb fingers fumbling with the thin zipper on your hip, struggling to work it open. Unbuckling his belt, his deft hands still when your dress pools down at your feet. 

“Yes,” he growls, grabbing you by the waist to pull you flush to his chest, and you think your skin might combust at the contact of his. Your feet shuffle on the hallway carpet as he walks you backward to his bedroom, his cock pulsating against your belly, his hungry mouth nibbling the lean column of your neck. 

He has you disoriented, moving too fast for you to register anything outside of his hands and his lips. When he releases his hold, you fall sitting on the edge of a large bed. Instinctually, you scoot to the middle of the mattress while Frankie toes off his boots and undresses to his black briefs. 

“That too,” he says, nodding at your panties, standing tall and mighty over you, palming his erection. You comply immediately, smacking your lips in hunger. Time has blunted the sharp edges of his silhouette, and his broad shoulders and tapered waist are an impressive sight to behold, one that has you thinking you might love his body even more than you did before. 

It’s calling to you, and you're calling to it. You’ve got new paths to map and years to erase, the kisses, sweat and come of women who should have been you but weren’t. 

He watches your gaze linger on the dip at the base of his neck before he takes off his briefs. You look so fucking pretty, and he can’t wait to make a mess of you. If there’s one thing he knows, one thing he’s never forgotten, it is how to undo you. 

Climbing on the bed, the mattress dipping under his weight, he positions himself above you on all fours. You reach for his hair, threading your fingers through the longer curls on his nape, these are new to you, you need the feel of it. 

“I don’t know–” he grunts in frustration, the ridge of his nose a drag over your temple, “I don’t know where to start, I want to open you on my cock but I want to eat you out before you taste of me.”

“Fuck me Frankie please,” you beg, bucking your hips upwards, his hard length sliding between your thigh. 

“Oh I will, baby, I will. I’ll fuck you until you can’t take it and then I’ll fuck you some more.”

You ruffle his hair in your reluctance to let go when he backs down and hooks his hands in the back of your knees, and when he spreads your legs open, when they open with a telling squelching sound, his eyes are alight with a fierce possessiveness, something dark and primal, something you’d be shrinking away from if this was any other man. 

But it’s Frankie. 

How many nights have you longed for his return? Never not waiting, dragging his absence beside you like a weighed shadow, wrapping yourself in your longing like a suit of lead. Like an armour. 

Tipping your head back on the sheets, you stare emptily at the ceiling, laughing without a sound, and for the first time since you stepped into his house less than half an hour ago, you take notice of your surroundings, of the luminosity. The only fundamental difference. It’s dusk, already. The setting sun casts a waning light through the bedroom curtains, and the room around you… it is blue. 

You gasp out of your thoughts at the drag of Frankie’s fingers along your slick slit; he’s teasing your empty cunt with the tip of them, directing your arching body like a conductor. 

Beads of sweat pearl on his forehead, his heart beats too fast in his ears. He can’t imagine ever wanting you as intensely as he wants you now, but he’s believed that before, nearly lost his sanity over it, and the attraction has never abated.  

Frankie bends down into you, and swipes a broad stripe through your folds, from hole to clit, with the flat of his tongue. The salty tang of you quakes his entire frame. He plunges his tongue into you and you choke on your moan, hand clasped over your mouth. 

He licks in leisurely, once, twice, before pulling out to ask you, “Lemme hear you, baby, you’ve no fucking idea how much I’ve missed you,” his words spoken straight into your cunt, where they belong. 

Your hand flies to his hair, harshly tugging his face back to your core and you feel his lips curl into a smile between your folds. 

He has just enough sense left in him to hook your legs over his shoulders, before his control gives out, before he gets lost in your taste. It is all that matters to him for now, his fingers digging into the dip of your hips, in a hold that is sure to leave your flesh bruised and mottled. 

He’s diving into you, drinking you up. His wandering days are over and you roll your hips into his mouth with increasing speed as the ridge of his nose rubs against your clit. 

The sounds filling the room are obscene, avid laps, rumbling grunts and high-pitched moans, and when he moves up to suck on your clit, because that’s what you like best, you get so close to come in his mouth. You’d warn him, but you know he can feel it too, his hands gripping you harder, until he suddenly pulls out and rasps, “not like this, around me.” 

You whine in frustration, but he unclasps your hands from his hair, crouching back between your thighs, and tension breaks through you in a breathless laugh, remembering your last night and wondering if the repetition is wilful or involuntary. 

Frankie quietly chuckles with you, sliding your body down the mattress and onto his lap, your back dragging on the sheet, your hair spread around your head like a dark halo, but his face drops and darkens when he lines up at your entrance. A droplet of sweat slides down his sideburns, and he asks, “You ready?”

Your laugh dies in a smile and a panting “yeah” is all you can provide, before he drives into you brutally. To the hilt. In one thrust. Your body pinned down by his hands on your waist, and you trash your head back at the blinding stretch with a cry, fingers scrambling over the sheet, a barely articulated string of “Thank you thank you thank you” spilling from you. 

Words are too small to express what he does to you. He’s rearranging you, putting everything back into place, annihilating all that came before him. 

He doesn’t move right away, he can’t, he might just lose his mind and dissolve into you. 

His eyes tightly shut, the crease between his brow deeper than it’s ever been, his grip loosens, and the palm of his rough hand comes to span the soft skin of your lower belly, where he’s sheathed inside you.  

“I can feel it. I can feel it, baby. Do you remember?”

“Yes Frankie, I remember everything.”

He bends down with fervour to cover your body with his, hooking your legs around his waist, and grinds down on you, both his hands hooked on your shoulders. You’re drowning in his musky scent, heat burning up your chest and neck, hitching your knees higher up on his sides, linking your ankles on his back. 

And when he starts fucking into you, he drills in with all of his strength, deep, rapid thrusts, barely pulling out, your tight cunt catching around the heft of him, his damp forehead pressed to yours, your body slippery with sweat, his, yours, and his words spill out into the blue twilight of the room, “I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry baby, I’m sorry.” 

Sorry for letting time and distance separate you, sorry for his waning faith, for all the other bodies, for not flying to Paris and laying the entire city to waste to find you.

Your nails break the skin of his back and you ask, “Harder, Frankie, I want it harder.”

He leans back immediately, briskly clutching your hips, rocking into you with a rage, narrow hips slapping your ass, and you dig your fingers into the muscles of his forearms for leverage, meeting him thrust for thrust, leaking onto his length at the sound of his growls. 

His damp curls form a halo around his face. Across his chest, a sheen of sweat glistens in the blue hues of the late evening light. Blue, your never-ending, cold and lonely nights. Blue, the strangers’ bodies that never felt right. Blue, the glimmer that flickers in your hooded eyes. Irrelevant, the place, the time, or the colour. 

Too soon, always too soon, he feels you clenching down on him, your belly pulled taut and your whole body arching up under his hold, reaching out for the reassurance of his skin and that’s all he ever wants to do, give you that. 

“Oh god Frankie, I’m coming, I’m coming,” you whine, and he lays down on you once again, throbbing inside your clutching heat, focused on the sounds and sensations he draws out of you as they ripple through him. He’s learned the hard way there are no other drugs that can give him that high. 

“Come on, baby, come on, give it to me,” he grunts through gritted teeth, and his name tumbles down your tongue and stretches in your mouth. You slip out of consciousness, you grow bright and disintegrate into a million pieces of light between his arms.

His voice, hoarse and breathless, brings you back to the bed in the room, reassembling the fragments of you, his face buried in your hair, his lips brushing your ear, “…you’re perfect, Gabrielle, you’re so fucking– so perfect–” 

The movement of his hips resumes with a plea, spoken after sucking in the smooth skin below your jaw, leaving his mark there, “I want another one, I–, I need another one, baby please, you need to take it, I need–” words like a fever scorching you raw inside and out. 

Your nails dig trails of blood on the plane of his back before you answer, “Take everything you need.”

His cock drags along your walls at a debilitating speed, his mouth pouring filth into your ear, promises to make you feel good in every possible way for the rest of your days, to wreck you and kiss you better in an endless blissful loop, “I’m yours, baby, you’re mine.” 

He roughly cups your jaw open and spits into your mouth, and at this you come hard with a broken cry, and he follows, so forcefully, so completely, you can feel his spend fill up your cunt, but he doesn’t slow down yet, and it’s a feral grunt before he says, “gonna fuck it deeper this time, gonna fuck it so it stays inside you forever.”

—

The midnight June has brought a cool breeze, wafting in through the large window, and in the spartan bedroom, the feeble moon casts a shy ray of light through the blue curtains. 

You sucked your taste off his cock into another release, taking him down your throat without breaking eye contact, and he came faster than ever before, at the sound of your heavy breathing. His fingers threaded in your hair, pulling you close to his base, his thumb brushing the tear rolling down your cheek from the corner of your eye. 

He sat up and came on your chest and rubbed his spend into your skin without asking for permission. Lazy circles and light pressure applied with two fingers as you lied, weak and sprawled on your back, a question revolving in his mind, another one he could not push down. 

“Did you let him come on your skin?”

You covered your eyes with the heels of your hands, begging, “Please, don’t—” and when you moved your hands away from your face, you saw his soft eyes turning pitch-dark and his face twitching under the storm in his mind, his fingers pressing harder on your sternum. You watched the bobbing of his throat, the pebbled skin of his neck cast in the shadow of the waxing crescent moonlight. 

“I let him come on my skin, because I wouldn’t let him come in my mouth. Because I never let him fuck my ass, or fuck me bare. I kept waiting for you, even when I thought you would never come back. I never stopped waiting, Frankie. This you have to understand.”

His hand stilled, pinned down by remorse. Words failing him in his desire to atone. 

“Sit on my face.”

“I won’t be able to sit anywhere for a week, Frankie,” you said in a stern, albeit tired tone.

Bending down over you from where he lied at your side, he carefully parted your folds with his thick fingers, gathering his saliva on his tongue, letting it slide down and drip onto your swollen clit, shivers running up your spine that turned into prickling tears under your closed eyelids. 

He teased gently, delicately nudging and licking around your bundle of nerves with the curled up tip of his tongue, suckling on it until you came like a flower blooms, unfurling slowly at first, and then all at once, and he drew away from you, mindful not to take too much. 

He covered your entire body with revering kisses, from hips to shoulders and from head to toe, meticulous, repenting, thorough, a new smile on your grateful lips for each one of his “I love your skin.”

Now his spent cock is resting between your breasts as you’re lying on top of him, arms folded on his stomach, your chin propped on your hands because you can’t stop looking at him. 

A lock of your hair twirled around his fingers, his other arm folded under his head for support because he can’t stop looking at you. 

“And these curtains,” you say with a soft laughter, “these curtains were… I don’t know. They kept haunting me. Like they coloured my dreams, you know?” This ever present apology about your feelings, still, and his heart flinches in his ribcage. “Did you keep them?”

“Of course. They’re in a box in the garage.” His voice doesn’t give him away, steady and self-possessed.

“Oh, right! Your mother made them.” You tilt your head to the side so his fingers touch your cheek, and he lets you peck a kiss on his little tattoo. 

“Yea. Because of that, too.”

Your smile blooms in his chest. 

Lifting your head up to free your hand, you reach for the right side of his jaw and scrap your fingernails in his beard. 

“When did the grays appear, here?”

He takes a deep breath, and your body follows the rising movement of his belly. 

“I don’t know. I stopped shaving when I quit the Army two years ago, and it was there already. You don’t like it?” he asks. He can’t recall ever being self-conscious about the way he looked, not like he is now.

”I like it, I like it a little too much.”

You bob with the hearty laughter shaking his chest and tug on a streak of hair in reprimand. 

“Hey, don’t laugh, stop it!”

“Ok, ok I’m not laughing,” he replies, his shoulders still heaving. 

“There’s a bare patch here,” you press your finger to it, “and another one there.”

“Yea,” he’s not laughing anymore, and he lets go of your hair to scratch his beard, “it’s– I should probably shave.”

“No. No you shouldn’t, it’s perfect. It’s the exact same size as my lips. It’s like a target for kisses.” Your voice drops to a murmur. “And this one is… heart-shaped.”

You fall silent and he hopes you’ll come closer and kiss him there, like you said, but instead it’s sadness he sees playing across your face. 

“You’ll be turning 40 next year, right?” you ask.

“No baby, I am 40 already. This year. Back in March.”

You sigh heavily, blinking repeatedly. You let your hand slide to his side and lay your cheek on his warm skin. 

“Then I missed all of your thirties.”

His jaw ticks, guilt scrambling his mind. He feels useless again, helplessly contemplating your regrets. His voice is low and quiet when he says, “I know. I missed all of your twenties.”

“Not exactly,” you correct him, “I was twenty when we met.”

“Yea I know, that’s the point. What little I saw was really fascinating.”

You laugh unconvincingly. “No. No, it wasn’t very interesting. Lots of studying, lots of drinking.” You pause, hesitant. “Lots of bad decisions,” you finally add, very quiet.

Frankie frowns and closes his eyes. Unsure whether he wants to know what this entails. How much pain. How many other men. He’s registered the nearly invisible scars on the back of your arms. And remorse keeps burning through his chest.

A small dog barks in the distance. You span your hand over his side before lifting your head up again.

“But there’s more of you, now,” you tease with a cheeky smile, pinching his side. 

“Oh, alright,” he chuckles self-deprecatingly, and your face lights up at the sight of his dimple, more pronounced in his fuller cheeks.  

“I love that too,” you add in earnest.

Silence lingers for a beat, as he brushes his knuckles to your cheek. You look so young, when you look at him like that. 

“You— you haven’t changed,” he says, worship in his hushed voice. 

“Ha! Right!” you scoff, sitting up between his thighs.

“No, it’s true,” he insists, and you see it in his eyes, the way he perceives you, and it’s the most beautiful you will ever be. 

Your hand caresses its way down his belly, scraping the thin path of rougher black hair leading downwards. You circle his cock with feather-like softness, and you stroke him lightly in silence, watching his lips part, his response to your touch immediate. A bead of precome, leaking for you, and you press your thighs together in your kneeled position, resisting the urge to taste it.

“Why do they call you Catfish?”

His heavy breathing hitches. He doesn’t answer, shaking his head slowly to the left, to the right. 

You move up to straddle him, placing the round, blunt head of his half-erect length at your entrance, and sink smoothly onto him with an audible exhale you can’t control. 

You start rolling your hips languidly, both hands splayed over his chest for balance, for pleasure, feeling him grow thicker inside you with every swaying movement. 

“How many women have you fucked, Francisco Catfish Morales?”

He sits up surprisingly fast for a man his size, and the sudden change of angle makes you gasp. The flat of his hand finds the swell of your breast, and when he pinches your nipple between his index and middle fingers, your head drops limply on his shoulder. 

He takes over, roughly grabbing the meat of your ass, your flesh gushing through his fingers and the way he slides you onto his cock at a quickening pace, his hair rubbing at your clit, has you moaning into the crook of his neck, your legs twitching. When you’re flush against him and pliant in his arms, Frankie leaps for your forgiveness, and murmurs in your ear.  

“I was looking for you, baby. I was only looking for you.”

Your shoulders slump under the weight of his words. You pivot your head to the right, peeking your tongue out to taste the skin of his neck. And then you ask, “Will you come in my mouth, please?”

—

He left a new purple mark in the crook of your neck. Bit your hip with a mind to draw blood and you would have let him. Turned you around and laid you flat on your stomach to lick the sweat between your shoulder blades. 

And then he covered your body with his and breached your tight ring as deep as you could take him, snaking his arm around you to sink a finger into your cunt, then two, then three, the heel of his hand deftly applying pressure to your clit. Your lips catching on the white linen; you might have been drooling. 

He let himself go and came with you, mouthing his love against your nape in Spanish. 

Exhausted, engulfed, overwhelmed, you cried just after you came; silent tears soaking the sheet, your words barely coherent. 

“You feel so good,” you said, “I thought I made it up, what I remembered.”

He held you in his arms. 

—

He reluctantly left the room to go get some water, and you smiled to yourself at the long-lasting habit, giving you the opportunity to take a look around you. The bed, bigger than any other you’ve ever seen, let alone slept in, the chest of drawers on the opposite side, a few items you can’t make out scattered on the top, family pictures pinned to the wall above it. A large closet on the left that you had failed to notice. Two simple bedside tables with lamps, and books lying about that you have no strength to pick up and study. 

Quenched, sated, comfortably tucked up into his side, you’ve no desire to sleep but your eyelids have become lazy. The dark square of sky behind the blue curtains has turned into a lighter shade of night. You couldn’t care less about the time. 

Under the palms of your hands braced on his chest, his breathing is even, and his skin warm, the beating of his heart peaceful and steady. 

The pads of your fingers find his scar once again, and you feel him quiver. 

“How did it happen?” you ask quietly.

Frankie doesn’t answer. Not now, he thinks, please, please not now. 

But then, when?

“Frankie?” You tilt your head up to look at him. “When? When did it happen?”

He picks a strand of your hair from your face and tucks it behind your ear. The tips of his fingers rest on your pulse point until he finds the courage to answer. 

“2005,” he articulates, his tongue heavy. 

You stiffen against him. The year sounds familiar, but you can’t replace it. Your tired mind swivels around something Ironhead might have said.

“Isn’t that when you met— when you met the guys?” you ask tentatively. Your voice sounds like it’s coming from a distance. 

“I met Pope back in 2001, and Redfly a couple years later, but— yea. That’s when I met Will and Ben.”

Benny’s name rings out in the dark, altering the silence between you. You've grown rigid, trying to control your breathing as the implications and consequences of what you’ve initiated dawns on you like iced water.  

“Second tour, in Iraq. For Pope and I. We were supposed to back up a ground unit, but the whole thing went… it was fucked up from the start. We got ambushed. They were waiting for us. We took on some fire, a rocket hit the tail rotor, and I lost control of the helicopter.”

“Oh god. You crashed?” 

You sat up as he talked, and in your pale, weary face, your eyes are immense. He straightens up after you, facing you, without quite meeting them.

“Yea. Bad fucking landing. I crashed the fucking chopper.”

You had thought, a few days back, that you had it all figured out. But now everything falls into place, glaring ugly under the crude light of hard facts. Your voice fails you, and you clear your throat feebly before you ask a question you’ve already guessed the answer to.

“Did anyone else get hurt?”

He looks at you with dim, beaten eyes that reveal his true wound. 

“Pope made it with an injured knee. Got ejected before the crash. The two other snipers on board died when the helicopter exploded.”

You wait for the end, the key information of what took place between the crash and the explosion. He delivers it in a low, monochord tone, not a glimmer of light in his eyes. 

“A piece of the cockpit got torn up and stabbed me. Benny— Benny was in the ground unit. He rescued me. Pulled me out of there before the explosion. Didn’t have time to go back for the others.”

An overwhelming urge to hurt yourself twitches your hands. You move fast, climbing into his lap, enveloping his body with your legs wrapped around his waist and your arms around his shoulders. He doesn’t stop you, but he doesn’t return your embrace, and you fight off your tears. This is not about you. 

“Oh, baby,” you murmur, “baby, it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault.”

You repeat the words until you feel his clenched fists circling your back. You know you’re defeated. That he will never believe that. You hope he doesn’t hear you cry, and you grip him harder, until his shoulders sag under your hold. He feels so young, in your arms, like a boy, like a little child, hiding his face in your neck, and you wish for your skin to absorb all his tears.

Your next words feel like tearing your chest open to rip out your heart. 

“I can’t stay.”

“Don’t, please don’t.” You hear the ragged sobbing in his voice. 

“I can’t stay, I can’t stay Frankie, you know I can’t–”

“I don’t fucking care.”

You disentangle your body from his and he glares at you as you get down the bed and put on your panties.

“I can’t stay, I can’t ask you to choose—”

“You don’t have to ask me to choose, I already chose, I don’t care about anyone else,” he argues, getting off the bed as well. 

“What about in a year?” you straighten up abruptly to face him. “Or five? Or ten? What if it doesn’t work out and you’ve lost all your friends?”

He comes to stand in front of you, towering over you, crushing you with his impressive silhouette backlit by the blue light of the early morning. The contained wrath in his voice raises the thin hair on your nape.

“Look at me, and tell me you don’t believe it would work. There’s no version of this in which you and me doesn’t work,” he accompanies his angry words with a back and forth movement of his index finger between you and him. “We work. You know we work. It’s the only fucking thing that makes any fucking sense.”

You turn away from him and exit the bedroom, walking hastily down the hallway toward the living-room and open kitchen, where you stood hours before and have no recollection of. Your dress is heaped on the tiles next to his t-shirt, and you proceed to put it back on, your trembling fingers utterly useless. 

By the time you’ve managed to tie the shoulder bows, Frankie emerges from his bedroom fully dressed and booted. He picks up his cap from the floor where it had landed the evening before and adjusts it on his head after combing his hair with his fingers, and you stare at him, dumbfounded.  

“What are you doing?” you ask in near panic, as he walks past you on his way to the front door.

“What do you think? I’m not letting you go back to your place on the fucking bus,” he snaps with his back to you, grabbing the car keys from the console.

“You know if you drive me back we’ll only end up fucking in your truck,” you retort, slipping on your sandals. 

His hand stills on the keychain, his entire frame stiffening under his denim shirt. You straighten up slowly, horrified. 

“Frankie, I’m sorry,” you whisper. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, I’m so sorry.” 

You run up to him, throwing yourself against his tall figure, pressing your forehead to his nape, to the scent of his hair. 

“I’m not letting you go back to your place on the bus,” he repeats, softer. 

“I’m sorry. Forgive me,” you plead, your hands grabbing at his chest. 

“I do. I forgive you. Let’s go.”

****

Taglist (thank you 🧡): @elegantduckturtle @mashomasho @lola766 @flowersandpotplantsandsunshine @nicolethered @littleone65 @bands-tv-movies-is-me @the-rambling-nerd @saintbedelia @pedrostories @trickstersp8 @all-the-way-down-here @deadmantis @hbc8 @princessdjarin @harriedandharassed @girlofchaos @gracie7209 @mrsparknuts

[intheorangebedroom]

Pleased to meet you, chapter 15

Summary: You eventually made up your mind, but acting on it is a whole different story. Time is ticking on you. An afternoon at the museum with Will precipitates everything.

Pairing: Frankie Morales x French fem!Reader.

Rating: Explicit 🔞

A/N: So yeah, Plainsong became Flaming June... Don't ask! You'll see. If you'd like a song to go with this one, may I suggest Maps, by Yeah Yeah Yeahs? And if ever you're interested, @deadmantis (my favourite enabler) sent me an ask (thank you 🧡) that has allowed me to ramble discuss Reader & Benny's relationship further.

A million thank you Fanna my darling for making this gorgeous gif of those two kings. I am still giggly from it and I promise next time I won't ask on such short notice 🧡

@meandorla I don't know where I'd be without you... Thank you for your time, your help, your enthusiasm, your sharp understanding of them and their story. For bearing with me, and helping me find my way as I'm approaching the end of this story 🧡 Ily 🧡

Word count: 5.7k

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Chapter 15: Flaming June

Time is such an odd thing. A social construct, as they say. 

And you have spent so much of it reading on the subject, from nebulous scientific essays in specialised publications that left you questioning your intellectual abilities, to popular articles in mainstream media, trying to understand how two days and three nights in an orange bedroom could have contained all of your past and your entire future. 

How the fifteen years that followed could have lasted longer than ten life sentences.

How it violently collapsed in on itself as you walked into a dingy New Jersey bar, only to be propelled into an ascending spiral, gathering speed and momentum, yet still endlessly stretching on. 

Monday morning finds you rested. With the heavy curtains blocking the early morning sun, for the first time in months, you’ve slept soundly until your alarm rung.

Benny snoring lightly next to you. 

Rested but restless, hating yourself because you couldn’t find it in you to say “no” when he asked if he could stay the night at your place. It took his massive presence in your small apartment for you to realise you own only one pillow. 

But he didn’t mind, of course he didn’t. In appearance unfazed, undeterred, cheerful and patient as always, even when you pushed away his hands under the sheets with a bullshit excuse. 

How you’d wanted him to call you out on the obvious lies, confront you about your distance, the fact that you hardly ever let him fuck you anymore when you two used to get down to it in his brother’s pick-up parked on the side of the road.

Are your lies so expertly hidden, or is Benny so well-trained to your recurrent distance? The persistence of his affection just another blemish on your conscience, another blame for you to carry on your own. Besides, you have no right to wish for him to make this any easier for you, anyway. 

When you set off for work, he left with you, to swing by his house before his morning run and when he pulled you in for one last hug, holding you flush against his firm, wide chest, you let him. You strengthened your hold, threading your fingers through his thick blond hair, incapable of holding back your words, laced with guilt and regret. “You’re so good, Benjamin.”

Time is ticking on you. As loud as the clock back in Rosie’s kitchen when you got up to leave. Relentless, no matter how hard you dig in your heels, how desperately you try to stall for more. One more day. One more night. One last kiss, one last fuck. 

And now it’s 10am again. Forty-eight hours since you’d sat in Frankie’s truck with the unreasoned, remorseless desire to let him know that you’ve never stopped waiting, that you have always cared. That to you, he’s still the same. You could swear it’s been forty-eight years. 

Twenty-four hours since you opened your door and let him in. Twenty-two since you’ve felt his lips on your neck, his skin etching your skin. 

And how long exactly until you can’t pretend any longer that it never happened? That your thoughts are only of him; your sole concern the fate that awaits him when he goes back to work today? 

Tomorrow, you reprise like a chorus. Tomorrow, you’ll act. Tomorrow every week. 

And in the meantime, you hide in the cracks, seeking physical discomfort to lull your sadness to sleep. 

The noise of the bookstore metallic shutters winding up that fills your brain like boulders made of lead tumbling down a cliff.

The sweltering atmosphere in the small, quaint shop when you get inside. The drop of sweat that rolls down your spine with every ample movement, until Suzanne walks in after lunch and turns on the antique AC unit that has only two positions: cold and freezing. 

The rasp in your throat from the frigid, artificial air. 

The unpleasant customers, the chatty ones and the obnoxious, the ones you hope will never visit again. 

The burn in your lungs when you draw another drag, Fayçal’s words adding a guilty flavour to the tar aroma of the nicotine. “Tu fumes trop, cousine.”

The proximity of hot and smelly strangers' bodies on the 7pm bus.

And when you finally make it home, well, another day has passed. Time your unlikely ally. Monday an unexpected truce. 

Tomorrow. Tomorrow you’ll act. 

The plastic handles of your heavy grocery bag is cutting off the blood circulation in your fingers and your key jams in the front door when you try to unlock it, winded from the four floor climb. 

The muffled ringtone of your phone has you cursing loudly at first, before your body stiffens at a sudden thought. 

Rosie. Could it be Rosie? Tomorrow is Tuesday. Could she be reaching out to you? Hope rattles your heart in your chest, the grocery bag dropping to the floor when you grab your phone from the back pocket of your short denim overalls, your other hand frantically jiggling the key. 

The lock gives as you read the caller ID on the screen. 

Ironhead

Will doesn’t text. He calls. You hate it, speaking on the phone makes you uncomfortable, you need time to think over your words. But where Benny can be flexible, Will never caves. You text, he calls. And that’s the end of it. 

However, you don’t hesitate before picking up, kicking the bag inside your apartment, groceries scattered and rolling on the carpeted floor. 

“Allô?” you answer in French, locking the door behind you.

“I thought you were going to send me to voicemail there for a second,” he taunts. “How are you?”

“No, no, I’m only just getting home. What’s up?”

Will marks a pause, and you grimace at your poorly performed deflection.

“Right,” he answers in his measured drawl. “Calling about tomorrow. Shall we meet over there, or should I come to pick you up? Did you finally buy that car?”

Tomorrow.

Fuck.

—

The GPS promises an hour’s drive from your place to 1 East 70th Street, but you’ve lived here long enough to know that the constant traffic will nearly double that, even on an early Tuesday afternoon. Reaching the destination is only the first part of the adventure; finding a parking spot there is always the real challenge. 

You’d be fine riding the subway but Will systematically insists that it’s faster this way. Deep down, you don’t really mind the drive. The New York City skyline appearing on the horizon of the New Jersey Turnpike is a spectacle you have yet to tire of. Growing up in Paris meant learning early on to make the best out of the busy, stressful capital, in particular by preserving your ability to marvel at its postcard landmarks. 

Despite the increasing tension running through you since early April winding you up like a power line, you welcome this opportunity to spend the afternoon with Will, certain that his self-possessed, even demeanour will soothe and balance your own. 

As the car takes the last U-turn before entering the Lincoln Tunnel, where more traffic awaits, you offer to give him cash for the toll, knowing full well he will turn it down.

“I choose the route, I pay the toll,” he tells you with a half smile. “You can pay for the first round.”

The midnight blue, tight polo he’s wearing darkens his eyes. Your gaze lingers affectionately on the large tattoos adorning his brawny forearms, before you become aware that you are trying to memorise them, and you push back the nagging thought that this might be the last time the two of you hang out together.

The tickets have been booked months in advance, Will sharing your excitement, with only slightly less exuberance, at the prospect of seeing Flaming June, on loan from the Museo de Arte de Ponce and presented at the Frick Collection. One of your favourite pieces by Frederic Leighton, whose work you’ve only seen printed in books or badly reproduced on postcards, save for a painting in Orsay and one in the Tate Gallery in London.

Booked before your world was tipped off its axis, and you completely forgot about the exhibition. 

Now, there’s a spring in your step when you get out of the car. You got dolled up, and enjoyed doing so, for the first time in what feels like a long while. Red lipstick and loose hair, you even put on a dress, sleeveless with a deep V-cut in the front and in the back, pretty knots tied over your shoulders. If this is a funeral, let it be one worth remembering.

You can barely pace yourself as you make your way through the mixed crowd of tourists and art enthusiasts across the Garden Court of the Frick. Will’s heavy boots resound on the marble flooring as he lengthens his strides to catch up with you. You step into the Oval Room like others walk into churches for mass, with reverent apprehension, devotion, and respect.

And then, it’s there.

Leighton’s masterpiece punches the air out of your lungs. You stare at it in stricken silence, mouth agape, Will standing behind you to your right, arms folded on his chest. 

There’s a small, wistful smile on his lips, as he lets the painting bring him back to his college years and resurfacing lessons on academic style, Victorian era, aesthetic considerations and concepts. Seemingly unproductive yet essential hours spent debating perspectives and artists’ intents, the reminiscence an indulgence only you and your friendship can provide. A futile and necessary contentment only you can share with him. 

You two have discussed it in the past, early in your relationship, when you had asked him if he had any regrets. He had none, he claimed with dignified resignation, save perhaps for the lack of recognition for what he had sacrificed to accomplish his duty. 

After a moment spent in silent contemplation, he takes a step closer to you, and he’s about to share his thoughts when your absent expression stops him in his tracks. You’re standing a few inches from him, yet you are miles, or rather years away from the Oval Room. 

Time has recoiled and wound back like a reversed mechanism. The woman at the centre of the painting, sleeping languidly and with a trustful, serene abandon, is draped in a sheer orange gown, her long, luxuriant hair parted on both sides of her body like a cascading, lush blanket. Above her, the sun sets on a placid sea, under a pastel pink summer sky. 

The gown leaps out of its frame to grip at your throat, its colour louder than any copy you’ve ever seen in art catalogues, Wikipedia page or websites, and you recognise it instantly. This particular shade has been seared into your flesh and your soul. It’s your past and a lost promise. It is love and safety. It is desire and trust. It’s two worlds colliding on a sunny and warm Sunday morning in July. 

There’s a prickling sensation at the corner of your eyes. Will sucks his teeth in and his stare sharpens. Propping his hands on his hips, he takes another step closer to you, and whispers, “You alright, there?”

You run your hands over your arms to hide the shivers that won’t leave your skin. When you speak, it’s in a distant voice, your eyes locked on the rumpled gown hugging the model’s figure.

“You know, my grandparents had curtains just like that in their living-room,” you start. “My grandma was a seamstress. She had made them herself.”

Will nods in silence. 

“Why couldn’t you stay with your grandfather, after she died?” he asks bluntly, albeit in a soft tone. 

You love his forthrightness and have always appreciated his lack of pretence. It puts you at ease, and grants you the freedom to provide him, or not, with an answer.

“I did, for a couple of months, but he was too overwhelmed with grief. It was as though he couldn’t function anymore, without her. He got very depressed, very quickly, and, well, you know what happened next.” 

Will knows, if not in the darkest details, about your difficult relationship with your mother, and your grandfather’s passing within two years of your grandmother’s death.

“What about your father? You never talk about him.”

“Ah yes,” you can’t keep the bitterness out of your scoff, “him. Said he wasn’t ready to be a father. Then went on and married another woman, who got pregnant, like, fifteen minutes later.”

You keep facing the painting, your spine a rigid metal rod, because you don’t think yourself capable of withholding his astonishment and the question you know he’ll ask next. 

“You mean you have siblings?”

“No,” you reply a little too fiercely. “As far as I’m concerned I’m an only child. These people are not my family. I found out about my father’s death two weeks after they’d buried him.”

Behind you, Will exhales slowly, deeply, and you realise he’s standing closer to you than you thought.

“My father loved art,” he says, eventually. “His parents wanted him to learn what they called a ‘real trade’, but he never stopped reading and learning about it. Pretty sure I got it from him. And he certainly never objected when I said I wanted to study it.”

In turn, you sigh and let your hands fall to your sides. 

You stand in silence side by side for a while longer, before he asks again. “So? Is it everything you hoped it would be?”

“It’s more,” you murmur.

“McSorley’s?”

“McSorley’s,” you reply with a nod, drawing away from Flaming June. 

—

Ever since you had landed in Newark, you’d been more than conflicted regarding the transient nature of your stay here. The part of you that hated to be away from Paris for longer than a summer vacation considered the move transitory. An internal countdown was permanently ticking in the back of your head towards the end of your three-year sabbatical, and you had failed - if not refused - to adjust to your new home in more ways than one. Your stubborn use of the metric system being just the comedic tip of the iceberg. 

Yet you had had all your books and belongings shipped to your new address the very day you got the keys to your apartment. You had never even raised the subject with Rosie, let alone with Will or Benny, instead slipping deliberately into a comfortable routine to neutralise your homesickness.  

Will had first taken you to the historical ale house, an East Village institution, after you had confided in him that you missed Europe as a whole. “It’s not that I feel French when I’m here,” you’d said, “I feel European. I can’t explain.” The Irish pub had been his answer, his own vision of good ol’ Europe, and the bar had quickly become a mandatory stop whenever you visited the city together.

It takes a moment for your eyes to adjust to the dimmer light inside the pub when you follow him in, but the wood chips on the floor, catching on the leather sole of your huaraches sandals, feel comfortingly familiar. 

Will places the order at the bar while you take a sit at one of the round tables, glancing at the hanging wishbones covered in a hundred years worth of greasy dust, wondering, as always, if any of them belonged to a pilot, only this time you know yours has returned from his wars, if not entirely sound and safe. 

Once the waiter has brought in four half pints of McSorley’s ale, you start sharing your impressions on the exhibition, digressing to the importance of the pre-Raphaelites avant-garde in the Victorian Era before the conversation naturally dies. 

The strong ale has given you a pleasant buzz, you’re light-headed, but nicely so, and you prop your elbow on the thick wooden table to rest your face in your hand. Staring emptily at the floor, you’re unaware of Will’s gaze fixed on you. The man is twice your mass and it takes more than a pint of beer to get him remotely tipsy. His next question falls on your neck like a guillotine. 

“So, where do you know Frankie from?”

Your cheek glued to your palm, you pivot your head on your arm to face him, eyes as wide as saucers giving away your alarm.

He leans back against the back of his chair, his forearms on his thighs, impassive, his steely blue eyes plunged into yours, and you feel like a field mouse that fell prey to a hawk.

You want to answer, you really do, but your teeth are stuck together and all you can do is frown, conceal the panic beneath pretend outrage, knowing all too well he will not let go. Sure enough, he seems to rethink and tilts his head to the side, sits up and leans forward over the table. 

“Wait… maybe the better question is, when do you know Frankie from?”

Would it be so bad if it ended here? With Will? The man already knows more about you than his brother does, would the damage be greater if he knew it all? Panic turns to capitulation, and capitulation reshapes into relief. 

The dead weight of weeks of dissimulation slowly slides off your shoulders. You straighten up, eventually, and look your friend in the eyes when you answer, in a flat tone, “1999.”

Whether he didn’t expect such an easy win or didn’t suspect such a long time, Will is visibly taken aback, and you ponder if you should speak first or wait for him to question you further. The man has been trained in interrogation techniques, you might want to take the lead in that conversation. Is he still your friend? 

Your voice is hoarse, and the prickling sensation is swelling again under your eyelids, but your mind is clear. Deep inside your chest, a foreign feeling flares up, one that you fail to identity at first.

“We met at a party I went to with Rosie. It was in July. Just before he joined the Army. We-” your words get stuck in your dry throat, your eyes flicking down to your empty glasses, fuck this is harder than anything, “we spent the weekend together.”

A single tear rolls down your cheek, that you only register when it reaches your jaw and hangs there before it falls on your forearm. Anger. What you feel is anger. 

“So it was just a one-off thing?” he prods.

More tears threaten to spill and you look upward to try to hold them back, breathing in through your nose and exhaling shakily through parted lips. When you look at him again, your face conveys so much pain and disillusion, he falls back against his chair, as if to avoid the ripples of your sadness. 

“What do you think, William? Would you be here, asking me those questions, if it was just a one-off thing?”

You take in the embarrassment on his face when he hangs his head, running his tongue other his teeth. 

“Yes,” he concedes. “So what happened?”

“We got separated by dumb fucking bad luck, is what happened. I lost his number, that’s the short version.” You let the implications sink in. “Does Benny… suspect anything?” you add in a small voice, hoping you don’t sound as despicable as you feel. 

“No. No, he doesn’t,” Will answers slowly. “But he’s worried. Said you were growing distant.”

Tears are freely rolling down your cheeks, now, but your brow remains knitted in anger. You can’t shake that off, nor do you want to, because it might be the last thing keeping you upright. 

Will’s voice is considerably softer when he asks, “What are you going to do, then?”

“I don’t want to hurt him, you know,” you reply aggressively, wiping your cheek with the back of your hand.

“Oh you’re gonna hurt him,” he shoots back matter-of-factly, “I know you don’t want to, I believe you. But you will. I don’t know what you…” he trails off and reaches across the table to cover your hand with his, encircling your wrist with his strong fingers, giving it a hard squeeze as he continues in a tone of confidence. 

“Look. I’ve known Frankie for a little over 10 years. To me, he’s always been like- like a puzzle with a missing piece. And then- then I see you together, in the same room… you’re not even talking… and I see the missing piece.”

A repressed sob shakes your chest and you pull your arm back to free your hand from his grip, so you can blow your nose, dry your cheeks, anything to give the illusion of composure, but he doesn’t let you.

“I don’t know what you’re gonna do, but I can’t imagine you staying with my brother, now. So whether you leave him for his best friend, or you just leave him, he’s gonna hurt.”

Letting go of your hand, he leans back again, shrugging his bulky shoulders, “It’s gonna be rough, probably on all of us but, I mean, that’s life. It’s not on you. This clown is lucky he didn’t get his heart broken earlier.” 

It’s not on you.  

A couple of days ago, his words would have triggered the imperious need to go home and give up, once more take it out on yourself, smoke a pack of lung cancer sticks, get shitfaced and blackout. 

So that you can keep soldiering on and show the world that you haven’t let your traumas and your losses define you. 

Will moves to stop you from digging your nails in your forearm, but you recoil from his touch, angry tears spilling out. 

“Hey,” he calls, his palm extended toward you, his brow knitted in concern, “hey, I mean it. It’s not your fault. It’s a shitty situation. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

The image of Frankie’s cap on your countertop flashes through your mind, the ghost sensation of his hand spanning your body raising a new trail of goosebumps on your skin. 

“I’m gonna need you to tell me that you’re hearing this,” he tries again. “It is not your fault.” 

Slowly, his right hand reaches your forearm, grabbing it and pulling it gently away from your other arm. His grip on you is almost tender, and after a few seconds, you register the little circles his thumb is tracing on your skin. 

“I hear you,” you articulate, eyes closed, before swallowing thickly, “I hear you,” you repeat, giving him the reassurance of eye contact.  

“Do you have any idea of what you’re gonna do?”

The depth of his insightfulness causes your head to spin a little. Around you, the bar has filled up, people stepping in for drinks after a day of work, tourists with thick annotated guides on their tables, happy chatter and laughter bouncing off the walls covered with framed pictures of patrons from yesteryears, their solemn faces looking down on you. 

“Yes,” you start, aware that speaking your plan out loud will give it substance and compel you to put it into motion, “I’m going to leave Benny.”

He gives you an encouraging nod, but his expression remains neutral, enabling you to continue, “I’ll speak to him tomorrow. I have to see Frankie, first, make sure he doesn’t tell him anything. I’ll tell Benny I met someone else, or that I’m not in love and things are getting too serious, I don’t know, he can hate me, it’s probably better, as long as he doesn’t lose his best friend.”

Will folds his arms on his chest and remains silent for an excruciatingly long moment, visibly weighing his next words. You know him well enough to understand that your willingness to shoulder the blame on your own forces his admiration. You’re not being entirely honest, however. Benny’s not really the one you want to protect. So when he speaks next, his words shoot through your body like a stray bullet. 

“And where does that leave us?” 

“I’m sorry,” you whisper inaudibly under the cacophony of the pub, your throat closing up, and you clench your eyes shut to hold back a new wave of tears, hiding your face in your hand. 

His heavy sigh sounds like defeat. He leans forward, hesitant, reaching for your hand once more, before changing his mind and sliding his napkin towards you across the table. 

“Ok, let’s go, I’ll drive you home,” he offers, standing up and placing his hand on your shoulder. 

“I need you to give me Frankie’s address, Will,” you say, dabbing the corner of your eyes with the tissue, removing small flakes of black mascara from your eyelids. 

His grasp on your shoulder tightens.

“He’s up north. Come on, it’s late, I’ll drive you.”

—

Six months of probation, with weekly drug tests. Any refusal to comply and he’s welcome to seek employment elsewhere.

Frankie slams the front door of his house behind him and throws the keys onto the console table next to it. It’ll be six months until he can fly again, working as a mechanic under tech support supervision, with this asshole Giovanni who ratted him out bossing him around. Back to square one, and for what. A stupid, minor coke bust.

Storming into the open kitchen, he gets a bottle of beer out of the fridge, uncaps it and tosses the cap on the table, where it ricochets and falls on the tiled floor. The cold glass pressed against his right cheek does little to temper his mood, but he leaves it there for a minute, until the condensation runs down his hand and into his beard. 

They had him drive over first thing Monday morning only to keep him waiting around all day, and have him come back again today to inform him of the conditions of his reinstatement, adding humiliation to injury. Well played.

He falls heavily on a kitchen chair, his blood boiling over the fast downward spin his life has recently taken, and the six months freshly added to his sixteen years of penance. 

“You gotta get back on your game, pendejo. It stops now,” he mutters to the bottle in his hand.

Just because you’re not his doesn’t alter the fact that he doesn’t want you to bear witness to his fuck-ups. You’re here. You’re real. 

Two days later, he has barely come down from the intoxicating sensation that came with the smoothness of your skin under his fingers, the weight of your breast in his hand, your scent between his lips, he could almost taste you as he ran his tongue over them, rushing back down the stairs. 

And the elation, the vengeful rightfulness he felt, taking the passenger seat of the Mustang next to Benny. The thought ugly and rampant, stifling his lungs, envy, near hostility, as he glanced in his direction from under the brim of his hat with ill-concealed fury. Resentment over his happiness, simmering and threatening to choke him until he had to remind himself that he would never have found you again if it wasn’t for him. Wouldn’t even be alive, for that matter. 

But fuck. You are his. 

You chased his mouth with yours. He didn’t imagine that. Reached out for his skin, moved by the same frantic need that made him seek yours. Dug your nails in his arms and your scent on that pillow…

“FUCK!”

The chair crashes with a clatter onto the floor when he stands up.

The last time he experienced this level of irritation was on the field, calling out Pope for challenging Redfly’s orders while they were under enemy fire, and his fingers flex around nothing, around the ghost presence of a gun. 

His doorbell jolts him out of the traumatic memory, his dark eyes flicking up to the front door. He’s in no mood to entertain visitors. He’ll sit this one out, he decides, falling still and silent, until your muffled voice comes in from outside, hesitant and apologetic. 

“Frankie?”

He’s at the door in two steps and swings it open so forcefully your hair flies with the pull of air. 

The first thing he sees is your dress, long, black and with a deep cleavage plunging down to your midriff, dragging his thoughts along the way, but when his eyes flicker back up to your face, dread flares up in his gut.

Small red spots linger tellingly around your swollen eyes, and there’s a shadow of wiped lipstick on your lips. 

“What happened? Are you ok?” he rasps before noticing Will’s pickup doubled parked in the street behind you. 

His frown deepens when his friend nods in his direction, starting the engine, and his puzzled gaze follows the vehicle until it turns right and disappears around the block.

You’re left standing here, on his doorstep, silently looking up at him, and he doesn’t know what to do with you. 

“Come in,” he mumbles, stepping to the side to let you pass, but not enough that you won’t brush his arm with yours. 

Seeing you in his home is disorienting, and guilt makes him wince, thinking about what he put you through two days ago. 

You seem lost in the large open space, trying to decide between the living-room and the kitchen, so you turn around and face him, a few feet away from his standing, rigid figure. For a brief moment, he thinks you’ll ask him for help, but instead you take your purse and position it in front of you, so he takes a step back away from you. 

“I have to talk to you,” you start in a breathy voice. 

“What happened?” he asks again. 

“Nothing happened, not like that,” you add. “Last Saturday I told Rosie I saw you again. And she won’t talk to me anymore,” you explain shakily. “And Will knows. We went to the city together today, and he asked… Well, anyway. He knows.“

“Surprised he didn’t find out before,” he grumbles. 

“I think he’s suspected for a while.” 

“Yea, sounds like him,” he agrees.

His understanding stands between you, an overwhelming reminder of their enduring friendship, of their history and their bond. You deflate, suddenly, fiddling nervously with the strap of your bag, averting your eyes when Frankie lifts off his cap and combs his fingers through his dark curls.

“Do you have any alcohol?” you ask. 

He sighs heavily before asking, “What do you want?” 

“Something strong. Whiskey. Do you have whiskey?”

“I’m not giving you alcohol. What do you want?”

His voice is loud and clear. It travels around every surface of the room until it comes crashing into your ears. It’s not a question, not really, it’s an injunction to decide, a desperate demand to set him on his next course, whatever it may be, and as your silence stretches between you, time slowly swirls into a million eternities. 

“I want you,” you answer soberly, your shoulders sagging with the confession, and the sadness he had vowed to chase away forever ago in the orange bedroom dims your wide eyes. “I never taught myself to want anything else but you, Frankie. But that’s not possible. You will lose too much. I’ve seen you together. He trusts you. And you love him. I can’t destroy that.”

His frustration is palpable, it makes the air thrum around him. Everything in his body, in his posture, betrays his state of mind, from the nervous grind of his teeth to the hard grip of his fingers on his hip, from his corded neck to his glaring eyes. 

He wants to tell you that it’s too late. That his fondness for Benny was irredeemably tarnished the minute you stepped into that bar with your hand wrapped in his, probably longer before that, at the very second Benny deluded himself into thinking he could ever give you what you needed. 

That you are not to blame for his resentment. That your self-hatred and your culpability make him want to scream until his vocal cords snap. That he can shield you from it, if you only let him, please, let him protect you from it, and from the rest, from anything and everything.  

“I wish you would let me decide,” he says as gently as he possibly can, but the restraint in his voice remains audible, and threatening. 

And through it, you hear everything he cannot tell you. And you believe him, believe he would keep you safe, from the world and from yourself, that he holds that much power. But how can you possibly choose your own happiness over his? 

Defeated, you let go of your bag, let it sway over your hip before it stills and hangs by your side. 

“I am going to leave him. Tomorrow. I mean tonight,” you state. “And then I’ll go home.”

Frankie straightens up, raising to his full height, lips parted, hardly breathing, for the word has hit him in the chest. 

“Home,” he repeats huskily. 

“Home. Paris.” The familiar name catches in your throat like a large bone, and you clench your teeth with all of your strength, giving yourself the illusion of a will power you fear you don’t possess.  

“No.”

You’ve never heard him speak this loud, and the determination in his voice makes you flinch, your bag falling on the tiles. What happens next unfolds so fast you don’t even think to recoil, your feet are riveted to the floor and all you do is watch, watch Frankie grab his cap and throw it in the room at random, watch him march towards you with heavy footsteps and stop abruptly, an inch short from your trembling body. 

His right hand curls at his side, once, twice, before he reaches up and places it at the base of your neck, large and firm and burning. His thumb is on your pulse point, where your heart is leaping in a frantic, erratic thrum, the exposed expanse of your skin a siren song to his lips. 

He stands so tall and solid, you have to tilt your head up to look at him, and times stills, at last, your whole world contained in the dark pools of his eyes. You feel so tiny under his palm, once again the urge to fit you inside him overthrows everything he has ever stood for. 

“I’m so tired, Frankie,” you implore. 

He lowers his face over yours, his lips brushing against your lips. 

“Stay,” he says, and his entire life vacillates on the tip of his plea. 

****

Bonus: Flaming June, Frederic, Lord Leighton (British, Scarborough 1830–1896 London), 1895. Oil on canvas, 119.1 × 119.1 cm. Museo de Arte de Ponce.

Taglist (thank you 🧡): @elegantduckturtle @mashomasho @lola766 @flowersandpotplantsandsunshine @nicolethered @littleone65 @bands-tv-movies-is-me @the-rambling-nerd @saintbedelia @pedrostories @trickstersp8 @all-the-way-down-here @deadmantis @hbc8 @princessdjarin @harriedandharassed @girlofchaos @gracie7209 @mrsparknuts

[intheorangebedroom]

Pleased To Meet You, chapter 14

Summary: Now Frankie has the answer he sought, what will his reaction be? And how will you navigate your relationship with him, and with Benny? Time to make some decisions.

Pairing: Frankie Morales x French fem!Reader.

Rating: Explicit 🔞

A/N: Please no one screams at me for this chapter 🫣 I cannot be held responsible for these two and their bad decisions. Additional note at the end to avoid spoilers.

Unrelated of sorts, I have been so close to giving up lately and deleting the whole thing. I shouldn't be telling you that, and I only am so that I can properly thank @frannyzooey @nicolethered @dreamymyrrh and @pedrorascal for their love and support. Ladies, I love you more than words and I can never thank you enough for cheering me on 🧡

And then there's the case of you, @meandorla my dear. I love, I love, I love you, I want to hug you and squeeze you so hard it hurts. I was stuck and couldn't start, and you saved my life 🧡 And then you worked your beta magic, despite you-know-what. I am SO grateful for your patience, your support, for making me laugh and for helping me make this story better with your big wonderful filthy brain 🧡

End of sap.

Word count: 7k (sincere apologies)

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Chapter 14: Love is Blindness

The pebbled skin of his neck.

The room feels oddly silent, as if in the aftermath of a natural disaster, or a car crash, undisturbed but for the sound of your solitary, ragged breathing. 

The dimple of his smile.

You draw in another drag, long and deep. Ashes are sent flying when you lower your hand to rest it on your knee, twirling briefly before they land on your denim. You don’t brush them off, staring at it emptily, looking without seeing. 

The wrinkles at the corner of his eyes. 

You draw harder on the next one, oblivious to the crackling sound from the burning stub. It’s raining again, sparse raindrops falling onto the beige carpet underneath the opened window. The chill air wafting in feels incongruous when the sun shone bright and cheerful just over an hour ago. But you’re not cold. In the small of your back, the press of his splayed hand lingers, warm and righteous. 

The gray strands in his patchy beard.

How will you shake off that vision? The tension in his frame and the tick in his jaw as he glared at that piece of paper. You didn’t want to tell him. He didn’t need to know. What good could possibly come from that knowledge? All this loss. All this mess. Because of a fountain pen and the fucking rain. 

The situation was easier to handle in the immediate aftereffects of seeing him again, back when you feared his resentment, and you chuckle bitterly at the irony. You know better now. You can’t stand his heartache. It is crushing you. 

The unpleasant smell of the burning filter brings you back to the room. You put it out in the coffee cup balanced on the windowsill and grab the pack of cigarettes, and the lightness of the box makes you wince. 

You stare into the empty pack for two minutes, as if this might conjure up an extra one.

What do you want?

You know what you want. But you can’t think of one outcome in which getting what you want wouldn’t result in him losing his best friend, if not all of his friends. Your heart’s only desire, at arm’s length. But you will not put him through that. 

What you need now is to decide whether you want, or rather can live with the current status quo. Or if you are prepared for the alternative. Because breaking up with Benny would mean losing so much more than just Benny. It means losing Will. It means… it means losing him. 

You clench your eyes until flashing white dots start dancing under your eyelids, fighting unproductive thoughts of your own failings. You need to move, make a choice and act on it, and you know who could shake you back into focus. You can’t imagine it's going to be pleasant, but you need to move. It’s been long enough. 

You unlock your phone, press on the green Phone app, and swipe down to reach the top of your favourites list. You’re about to press on Rosie’s name when an incoming call punches the air out of your lungs. You consider sending it to voicemail, but that’s another return call you’ll have to make, so you might as well get ahead of it. 

“Hey baby,” Benny’s happy baritone feels like shattered glass in your ear.

“Hey,” is all you can articulate.

“What you’re up to, tonight? You coming home? I thought we could watch Don’t Look Now.”

This was your life, three months ago. Your wholesome, happy routine. Not quite perfect. But nearly complete. 

“Oh I like this movie,” and the regret in your voice is sincerer than he will ever be able to comprehend, “but I can’t, I’m meeting with Rosie. For dinner.”

You regret not having had the time to call her first, and you’re hoping she won’t be working. And willing to see you after your deplorable behaviour on her birthday, followed by your guilt-ridden silence. 

“Oh, ok,” his disappointment trickles through your chest like cold water, “You wanna come after? You’re taking a cab, right? You said you would.”

“I’ll take a cab but I think I’ll go home. To my place, I mean,” you wince at the unnecessary precision. 

“Ok, baby.” He pauses, and his voice is uncharacteristically quiet, hesitant, when he adds, “I miss you.”

“Miss you too,” and you clench your eyes again, this time at the empty lie. “You should still watch the movie. I’ll call you tomorrow morning.”

“Ok. Have fun.”

You lower your phone, about to hang up when you hear his voice again, “Hey baby, everything ok?”

You need to move.

—

The doorbell is still ringing when Rosie swings the door open, her lean figure seemingly taller than usual, certainly taller than you feel standing small on her doorstep. An eyebrow raised over her dark eyes, the left corner of her mouth curled up in disapproval, she has yet to open the screen door, which you knew better than to do yourself.  

“There she is! The elusive librarian,” she crosses her arms over her chest, her strong shoulders accentuated by the black tank top she’s wearing, and her annoyance fills the doorway. You’ll have to earn your way out of the doghouse. 

“Ok, ok, I come bearing gifts,” you say, raising the plastic bag you hold in your right hand. 

You swung by her favourite Thai place, an impressive detour between your apartment and her house, and an effort she acknowledges, finally pushing the white frame of the screen door and stepping to the side to let you in.  

The house is a classic, two-story building on Terrace Ave, with a large living-room to the front, a bow-window overlooking the street, and a kitchen to the back, opening on a small lawn. The first floor is divided between two bedrooms and a comfortable bathroom that she had entirely renovated before moving in. 

Rather small by American standards, the house is gigantic for your Parisian paradigm. After breaking up with Éric, you had not been able to afford anything bigger than a 25m² studio apartment, despite making a decent living. You are immensely proud of your friend for achieving her dream of becoming a home-owner, something her mother couldn’t have imagined for herself.

The house is well maintained, the fake brick façade pristine and the lawns trimmed on a regular basis, but the interior presents a starkly different aspect. Rosie has many qualities, tidiness not being one of them. In all fairness, her job doesn’t leave her much spare time, and you don’t blame her for not wanting to spend it cleaning around. She has professionals come over to mow the lawns, clean the gutters, check the roofing. But you've known her long enough to acknowledge, not without a certain tenderness, that she’s always been like that. 

The living-room is overcrowded with mismatched pieces of furniture, cross stitch cushions, photographs, and all sorts of disparate objects. Clothes and magazines are scattered across all surfaces. You kept the place organised as long as you stayed with her, but it had returned to its natural state the minute you had left. 

You follow her into the kitchen and set the table while she unpacks the food containers, sheepishly declining the beer she offers you with an appraising glare. 

Aside from some appliances, such as the microwave and fridge, Rosie chose to leave the kitchen untouched. The 1970s furniture and wallpaper create a comforting atmosphere, evocative of the early 1980s movies you love and grew up watching. Sitting in there with your best friend, you usually don’t feel a day over 18, giggly and carefree.

Which is yet another thing that seems to have been irremediably altered by the recent turn your life has taken.

The amount of food you bought is ridiculous, especially with the current state of your appetite, and especially because Rosie cannot be bothered to hold a grudge for too long, but you figured that a satiated stomach would lend a kinder ear to the necessary conversation that is to follow. 

She’s the first to initiate small talk, speaking with her mouth full of rice noodles, thawing both the air between you and your heart. You’re not sure if you deserve her clemency, so you don’t stall any longer and gather the courage to speak, at last. 

“Hey, Rosie, listen. I’m sorry I ruined your birthday. I behaved like an idiot, I know I don’t do well with tequila and I-” you trail off before you’re tempted to lie about accidentally get yourself in that state, but your words are sincere when you add, “I hope you can forgive me.”

You put your chopsticks down and look her in the eyes, so she knows these are not meaningless words. 

“Look it’s fine,” she says after a brief pause. “If anything, it’ll make a fun memory I can use to guilt you into doing stuff.”

You chuckle feebly, knowing she’s not done. 

“It reminded me of our trip to Berlin. Remember that one? I was a fucking mess and you put up with me. I never said sorry for that,” she continues, and you accept the implied apology with a nod of your head. “You know you can talk to me, right? If something’s wrong, I mean. I know you miss Paris. I know I got you to come over here, if ever you-“

“Oh Rosie, no,” you interrupt her hastily, “I like it here, I mean it’s fine, I don’t regret coming. It’s just that-“

Here it is. All of a sudden, you realise you haven’t prepared for this conversation, and you have no idea how to present her with the situation. You’re not even sure how you feel about the fucking situation. 

“I saw him,” you blurt out bluntly. 

She shakes her head at your cryptic statement, and you understand there is no scenario in which you can present yourself in a good light, coming clean so belatedly about something you should have shared with her months ago, so you keep going, throwing yourself into it.

“Frankie. I saw him when I went with Benny to that bar, to meet his friends. He’s-” you draw in a short breath, “he’s Benny’s best friend.”

Rosie sets down her fork on the table and leans back against the padded back of her wooden chair, her smart eyes narrowed at you.

“Well, that must have been an awkward conversation.”

It is you, in turn, who visibly fails to comprehend. 

“With whom?” you murmur, and she leans forward with a sharp glance. 

“With Benny? Your boyfriend? Surely you must have told him that you fucked his buddy twenty years ago? Or that Frankie guy did?” Something plays across her face and she suddenly softens. “Oh, is that what it is about? Did Benny dump you?”

You open your mouth and close it immediately. The clatter of your teeth resonates in the silent kitchen. Rosie’s nostrils flare in anger when you shake your head and answer, “He doesn’t know.”

“You got to be fucking kidding me!” she exclaims, throwing her palms upward in the air, “You’re telling me neither of you told him anything?”

“Fifteen, actually” you mutter, rooted to your seat, “sixteen in July.”

“What?”

Her voice sounds at least an octave higher, and you should know better than to speak again, yet you hear yourself say, “Not twenty years ago, it’ll be-”

“Oh for fuck’s sake!”

“Listen,” you try, “I know I should have told you before, but I think you’re-”

“Not me, dumbass,” and you grimace in agreement, “your boyfriend! And what’s the plan, here, now?” 

You straighten up uncomfortably on the rigid bench. You expected her to get somewhat irritated, but you didn’t anticipate this heated outburst.

“Well, that’s the point, Rosie, I’d like to talk it out with you.”

The request backfires immediately, fanning her wrath, and she stares at you in disbelief, her eyebrows shooting to her hairline. 

“What is there to talk about, exactly? You’ve been with Benny for a year,” this time you don’t risk correcting her on the timeline. “Are you seriously even considering throwing it all away for a one-night stand you had with a random guy twenty, or whatever years ago?” 

Rhetorical as it is intended to be, the question, and its formulation, shocks you out of your numbness. 

“That’s a real low blow, Rosie, you know damn well it wasn’t a one-night stand, and it certainly wasn’t a random guy,” you emphasise your words with your index pointed in her direction, which only raises more hell from her.

“Oh wake the hell up, will you? This guy’s a fantasy! You don’t even know him anymore, if you ever even knew him!” 

She stands up abruptly, her exasperation uncontainable, and starts pacing the tiled floor in front of the table, while you remain pinned between the table and the wall to your back. “You know Benny. Benny’s good, you said so yourself. Aren’t you happy with him? You’re seriously telling me you’re willing to jeopardize that for what, for a dream?”

“It is not a dream, Rosie, it was real, it is real,” you insist, raising your voice, “when we were together this morning everything was just the same, it felt right and-”

“Excuse me, you did what, this morning?”

She stops her pacing abruptly and faces you, staring at you incredulously from across the square table, but you withstand her glare, sitting up straighter. You exhale through your nose and roll your eyes exasperatingly. 

“Chill, ok, nothing happened. I tried to buy a car, and he came with me for advice. And it was Benny’s idea, I’ll have you say!”

“Oh well then, if it was Benny’s idea, then I guess it’s fine!” she scoffs. “Jesus, do you fucking hear yourself?”

This entire conversation is getting out of hand. Being with Frankie was never an option for you, but somehow you’re miserably failing to tell her as much. You never performed well in confrontational situations, your breaking point is just a few words away, before your defensiveness gets the better of you and you start throwing names. You can’t risk losing your best friend, your sister, over this mess.

“Look, I came to you for help. I need to find a way, to do something about it, I don’t know what, but this is not helping me. You’re not helping me,” you say, appealing to her friendship.

Much to your dismay, her wide eyes turn glassy as they fill with tears. She grips the back of her chair with both hands and leans in closer to you, speaking in a low, restrained voice you struggle to recognise. 

“Don’t you come here and tell me shit about helping you. Do you know how I found you, three years ago, before I dragged you here? The state you were in? The state you put yourself into? You don’t seem to realise, but you go so far, you retreat so far within yourself, and I, I have to live with the fucking fear that one day I won’t be able to get you back.”

Her words ring out in the room, burning your skin as if she had just slapped your face. Slowly, purposefully, you push away from the table and stand up, to the sound of the ticking clock on the wall.

“I don’t want to sound ungrateful, Rosie, but I never asked for your help,” you start in a low voice, your anger and outrage barely in control. “You provided it on your own accord. I’ve been alone my whole life, and I do not need anyone’s help, not yours, not Benny’s, not anyone’s. It is my choice and my problem if I want to- to live isolated.”

Less than a minute later you’re storming out of the house, tumbling down the flight of stairs and rushing in the direction of Kennedy boulevard to catch a bus. For once, you really wish you owned a car, but you’ll have to ride the Jersey City public transportation with a sniffly nose, reddened cheeks smeared with mascara, and a brow creased in anger, or fear, or despair. Who the fuck knows. 

You’ve never fought with Rosie before. You’ve never fought much, with anyone, except maybe for Éric, and of course your mother. You want to stop and sit on the curb, pull out your phone and write down everything that has just happened, because in a short while, the words will be lost to you. All that will be left, all that your brain will let you access will be a collection of indiscernible feelings, Rosie’s manifestly unjustified albeit immediate anger, and how, in reaction, you kicked over the traces.

You turn on Kennedy boulevard in time to see your bus drive past the stop and you curse loudly in French, ignoring the woman next to you who stares you down, as she tightens her grip on the handle of her kid’s stroller. 

This is uncharted territory to you, both in your relationship with your friend and in your personal life. Aside from political matters, you’ve never felt this strongly about anything, and have certainly never been this collected and assertive in your argument. You’re not sure what you were defending back there, your perception of personal freedom, or the reality of your connection with Frankie. 

You reach the bus stop and ponder waiting there, but there will be at least half an hour until the next one and you can’t stay still for that long. Instead, you choose to walk to the deli next to the bookstore to get cigarettes. A long walk, but you don’t care, you’re unsure why but you want to speak French with the Moroccan grandpa who works there. 

What you said is untrue. An ugly lie. People have helped you in the past, whether you would like to admit it or not. Rosie of course, and Dolores, countless times. Laura, your former boss, although to be completely fair, in most cases it was just your competency being rewarded. 

But you know what Rosie is referring to. Your preference for aloneness. Throughout the years, you’ve proven yourself capable of making friends, albeit very few. Will stands out amongst them, giving you space with an almost uncanny instinct. Shielded behind your smile, you were unanimously appreciated in your former job, by superiors and colleagues alike, for your bright, amiable personality. An exhausting lie, at times, when you remain, in truth, unable to fully trust anyone or to commit yourself.

Because the most uneasy relationship you’ve ever had is by far the one with yourself. Your interactions with the world are challenging, at best. The torment subsides when you hide within you. 

You don’t know if your mother is to blame, either for rejecting you or because you inherited this trait from her, and in any case, you couldn't care less, because it’s who you are, and at this point in your life, you’re finally at peace with forever treading on the edge. 

And also… And also because there is one place where you didn’t feel the need to hide. Where none of it mattered. One place where you were able to let go, almost instantly. Where you were not asked to be anything more than what you wanted to be. Than what you could be. 

Perhaps Rosie would understand, if you’d given her the chance, if you tried to explain. But you highly doubt that. 

You know of only one thing that can quieten your mind, turn the raging ocean inside you into still waters.

The pebbled skin of his neck.

You’re going to need alcohol to get you through this night.

—

Situated on the fourth and last floor of a brick building on the corner of Seaview Avenue and Old Bergson Road, your apartment is graced by the first morning light from winter through autumn. A convincing argument of choice for any realtor, and your personal hell. 

Presently, the blazing sun of the first day of summer inundates your bedroom, burning your eyeballs through your closed eyelids. Your groan of discomfort drags you out of sleep and you resurface to a state of semi-consciousness. You try to flick your eyes open and you take in the pillow, where the right side of your face is crushed, an unpleasant dribble of saliva pooling at the corner of your opened mouth. 

There’s a sharp pain in your spine, from lying heavily across the bed on your stomach, on top of the undone sheets, your back unnaturally curved inward. The same position you were in when you passed out around 2am, fully clothed. 

An old AC unit sits idly on one of your bedroom windowsills. Already broken when you moved in, you never had it fixed, being used to life without it in Paris. On days like today, however, you come to regret your dismissal. If the sweat beading in the dip of your lower back is anything to go by, it’s going to be a hot one. But that might also be the whiskey.

Some apartments in the building have fire escapes. Not yours. Which was fine as long as you didn’t feel the urge to take up smoking again. The three living-room windows are cracked open, but the lingering smell of cold tobacco makes your stomach lurch dangerously. 

You stretch your left arm and reach for the night stand, blindly fumbling for your phone, which you hope is somewhere nearby. 

You’ve just put your hand on it when the ringtone startles you. Your body recoils in surprise and a new bolt of pain shoots through your back. You struggle to get up on your hands and knees with a hissed “Putain,” your head throbbing lightly, each one of your muscles sore.

The screen is illuminated with the caller’s picture: Benny’s smiling face, the pine trees of Harriman State Park in the background, your favourite photo of him that you captured three months back, at the very end of the winter. 

8am. He’s setting out for his morning run. You’ve managed to sleep longer than usual. 

You let the call go to voicemail, staring at his picture with a cocked eyebrow, and when your phone falls silent, you get off the bed and undress, get out of the bedroom and walk naked across the living-room into the open kitchenette. You pour yourself a tall glass of water that you chug down greedily, followed by a second one. The voicemail notification tinkles, but you pay it no mind, dialing Benny back instead.

As always with whiskey, your hangover is mild. Your mind is strangely acute, your ideas sharper than they’ve been in weeks. Asserting what you want, at last, has lifted that dead weight off your lungs. Even if what you want is out of your reach.

 “Hey baby,” his voice sounds different, you notice it immediately. Devoid of his natural cheerfulness. 

“Hey, what’s up?” you croak, and you hold the phone away from your face long enough to clear your throat. 

“Listen, yesterday I went-“ he starts, before cursing under his breath and asking, “sorry, how was your dinner with Rosie?”

“Good,” you lie reflexively, increasingly intrigued by his unusual behaviour. 

“Cool. Yeah, yesterday I went out with Fish for drinks-“

Blood rushes out of your face all the way down to your toes and leaves you swaying on your feet.

“And we talked about some stuff, and anyway, he says you can’t sleep? Because you didn’t hang the curtains?”

You are frozen where you stand, your mind reeling with the implications and potential consequences. With the mental image of these two men, talking about you over drinks. 

“Hey, baby? You still there?”

“Yeah,” you swallow the lump in your throat, “yeah, I wake up early. And the street lights kinda bother me, at night,” you add in earnest. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” the reproach is palpable in his low voice.

“Why- I didn’t think it mattered. I spend most nights at your place, anyway. Why- why is it important?” you ask tentatively.

“Because I’m your boyfriend, I’m supposed to take care of you.”

You bite down your retort. Now is not the time to argue that you can take care of yourself. You did not, in fact, get around to hanging these goddamn curtains. Besides, you’ve got enough clairvoyance to understand that this is not what this whole conversation is really about. 

Perhaps because of your silence, he seems to relax a bit, and his voice sounds warmer when he asks, “Can I come by after my run? I’ll do it quickly and then we could have lunch together?” 

You rub your eyes with weariness, and stare at what’s left of yesterday’s makeup smeared over the tips of your fingers. 

“Sure. Sounds great.”

You hang up and start the coffee maker before stepping into the small adjoining bathroom. 

In the shower, the scalding water eases the tension off your shoulders and revives your sore limbs. You let it run over you for a long while, some of your anxiety running with it down the drain, before washing your hair and scrubbing your skin raw, and when you exit the bathroom, cleaned up, perfumed, and wearing fresh mascara, you almost feel like yourself again. Whoever that may be. 

You drink your coffee while dressing and begin to tidy up the apartment, starting by airing out the place. Clouds of dust fly out of the paper bag when you pull out the plastic packaging. Perfect. Now you’ll also have to vacuum the carpet. You unwrap the curtains and stack them neatly on the small coffee table in front of the couch, sorted in two piles. The colours you’ve picked are still to your liking two and a half years later, you’re happy to find, a dark yellow mustard shade for the living-room, and charcoal gray for the bedroom. The curtain rods are standing by the kitchen counter, against the wall, and you swipe them clean with a rag. 

You empty the contents of the cup you use as an ashtray into the trash can, grimacing at the smell, and proceed to your bedroom. 

You stand hesitantly by the bed. You should probably change the sheets, but you don’t want a pile of dirty laundry lying about. The weekly trip to the laundromat is an aspect of this life you can’t get used to. It’s not about the time you spend there, quite the contrary. It’s the incongruity of sharing such an intimate appliance with complete strangers. Your washing machine is probably what you miss most from your Parisian life. Sorry, Orsay.  

When your doorbell rings an hour and a half later, you've just finished brushing your teeth. You take a deep breath before swinging the front door open and nearly topple over in surprise. 

Frankie is standing in the doorway, his broad silhouette backlit by the corridor’s fluorescent neon bulbs. His head cocked to the side, his eyes instantly find yours from under the brim of his cap, his jaw tightly clenched. 

“What are you doing here?” you murmur, but your body doesn’t question his presence, and you move away from the threshold to let him in. He steps inside briskly, closing the door behind himself and turns around to you, a hand extended in your direction asking you to remain calm, and you notice a bulky case hanging from his left hand. 

“I’m with Benny, he's parking the car,” he whispers hurriedly, “he dropped by earlier to borrow my drill but he says he doesn’t know how to use it.”

You hardly suppress an annoyed sigh before Frankie’s eyes set on the empty pint of Black Bush standing tellingly by the trash can behind you. You follow his gaze, and exhale an exhausted “Merde.” 

His eyes return to you, an eyebrow raised in a silent question, and his obvious concern feels like ants crawling over your clean skin. 

Your brain swivels, searching for a reassuring lie, but once again, you don’t feel like you need to lie to him, and you don’t want to. So you simply shrug. 

Stepping closer, he crowds you with his height and breadth, standing close enough that you can smell the detergent from the faded black t-shirt he’s wearing inside out, close enough that you can see the dip between his collarbone and the pebbled skin of his neck. 

“Look, half an hour and I’m gone. I promise to be as fast as I can. It’s my fault,” he adds, and his hand moves forward, as if to run his knuckles over the exposed skin of your arm, but he catches himself and stops half an inch short. 

Your eyes are pleading when you look up at him, your carefully crafted composure crumbling under the scrutiny of his soft, brown gaze. 

“You’re not the problem, Frankie,” you whisper shakily. 

“Yea, I know. I know,” he husks, and you can hear the “baby” missing from his phrase. 

Approaching footsteps echo in the corridor and he quickly moves away from you. You hurry past him to hide the empty bottle inside a cabinet. 

As you let in your boyfriend, as he kisses you voraciously, Frankie averts his eyes, turning his attention to your living space. 

The small room certainly is very luminous, with its three windows lined up on the opposite wall to the entrance door. He easily identifies the prints hanging between each of them: Tina Modotti’s interpretations of the Mexican Revolution, which he immediately recognises because they are Izzy’s favourite works. He notices the old turntable on top of a vintage cabinet and the small collection of vinyls on the rack underneath it. 

On the door’s left, against the adjacent wall, a gray, beaten up but comfortable looking sofa fills up most of the room. It’s surmounted by another large print, Berenice Abbott’s New York At Night, another of his sister’s best-loved pictures he can name without hesitation. 

On the opposite side of the room from the kitchenette, wooden shelves frame the door to your bedroom and cover the entire wall from floor to ceiling, seemingly threatening to crumble under the colossal weight of an impressive number of books. He can make out exhibition catalogues, and what looks like fiction, paperbacks and fancy leather-bound editions. 

In front of each cautiously lined up row of books are photographs, most of them ancient, tintypes, autochromes, and other curious photographic objects, alongside colour photographs he’s dying to take a closer look at. The display reminds him of Will’s office, a room he’s only ever been in once. 

You fit in perfectly with the two Miller brothers, the kinship undeniable, and with the same sincerity with which he promised you to be fast, mere minutes ago, he promises himself that after this, he will let you be. Get out of your life once and for all. For real, this time.

His eyes linger for a moment too long on your bedroom door, cracked open just enough so that he can see your bed, made with pale blue linen. A memory blurs his eyesight, whirling across his mind. A vision of you, folding his white sheets, in the orange bedroom.

“Frankie?”

“Yea?” he turns around to face you. 

You’re standing behind the kitchen counter. Benny’s lost into you, mellow with fondness, standing behind you with his hands on your waist, breathing in your hair. As if he were the one whose life had been stripped of your presence for too many years. He places a kiss at the base of your neck, and you keep your eyes trained on Frankie. The air stills. The silence rumbles between you. 

“Coffee?” you repeat in a little voice.

He nods quietly and Benny asks if you have something else. One thing he doesn't like about you is your coffee, too strong for his taste.

“Can I use the bathroom?” Frankie asks suddenly.

You indicate the door behind you. Once inside, he locks himself in. 

Frankie’s moving fast. This is his only chance. He has to find it. He runs the tap and, avoiding his tensed reflection, he opens the mirrored door of the cabinet above the sink. There are very few medicines, nothing stronger than ibuprofen, and some plain-looking lotions and creams. Most brand names look French, and he briefly wonders how you manage to source them here. It can’t be easy. It can’t be cheap. He pushes away the implied meaning, the disheartening thought that you might feel constantly homesick. 

A tall, rectangular glass bottle catches his attention: your perfume. The label reads “Chanel n°19 Poudré”, and he makes a mental note of the name as he takes off the cap to smell it. It’s close, but it’s not it. 

Benny’s laughter rings out on the other side of the door. Frankie moves faster, opening a couple of bottles, to no avail. He throws a glance at the bathtub. Three bars of soap lie on an enamel soap dish near the shower faucet. He nearly drops the first one, still wet and slippery from your earlier shower, but he hits the mark on the second. A woody and spicy smell, a manly fragrance, the one he thought was Benny’s.

He flushes the toilet and comes out. Benny’s already crouched over the opened drill case and he’s about to go join him when you hand him a mug of steamy coffee. He knows he doesn’t need to ask, knows it’ll be to his taste, no milk, no sugar. 

He grabs the mug by placing his hand underneath it, avoiding your fingers, and thanks you in a hushed tone.  

The room is blazing with the mid-morning sun, the heat already barely tolerable. The drapes will help with that too. He starts fumbling in the case for the right drill bit when a sudden thought darkens his eyes. He glances at your bedroom door, sticking his tongue inside his cheeks, and ponders his next move. 

“I think the ¼ inches are enough,” he tells his friend, handing him the long piece of metal, “I’m gonna go check the wall in the bedroom.”

You watch him as he crosses the room in two long strides, with a resolute gait, his t-shirt pulled taut across the plane of his back, highlighting his dorsal muscles, and your entire body goes numb. 

He’s careful to shut the door behind him, and makes a beeline to your bed. In an hurried but deft motion, he lifts off his cap and grabs the pillow with his other hand, burying his face into the cottony fabric. He inhales deeply, madly, and his shoulders sag in relief. 

It’s here. At last. It’s this, your distinct and unique powdery scent, he recognises it now, as the memory of it comes back rushing, flooding his senses. He can’t let go. Doesn’t know how. It’s the crook of your neck and the crown of your head, it’s the inside of your wrist and it’s your inner thigh. It’s that faint fragrance laced with his own on a sunny and warm Sunday morning in July. 

How does he come back from that? Now that no doubt remains as to your feelings and your truthfulness. 

A fountain pen, and the fucking rain.

Your voice. Your voice, once again, brings him back.

When he steps out, Benny and you are standing by the window to the left, you just brought him a can of Ginger Ale. 

“So what,” you start, doing your best to sound as casual, as playful as possible, not a trace of reproach in your tone, “you really don’t know how to use a power drill?” 

“No, no, I know how,” he answers with a bashful chuckle, before pointing at his friend, “but he has a Makita. Those things cost a fortune. He’ll kill me if I fuck it up. Right Fish?”

Frankie doesn’t raise his head but answers with a quick smile. 

“And I want to do this right, for you,” Benny adds with a sweet, eager smile. 

You can’t help but return that smile, reach out and brush a strand of blond hair off his forehead.

Frankie didn’t lie, half an hour is all that it takes for them to complete a task you’ve postponed for over two years. 

You stay on the outside as you observe them work, listening to the low, round humming sound of Frankie’s voice as he occasionally gives directions. This is a different side of them, one you never got to see until now, far from the happy gatherings, the teasing jokes and the thunderous, tipsy laughs. 

The two men move in tandem and with acute focus. You read the years of shared experience in their tacit coordination. Their language is their own, spoken without words, weaved with knowing glances and understood nods. And soon, you’re left with the unsettling feeling that you are trespassing on something with a level of intimacy that shouldn’t be shared with you. 

You don’t follow them into the bedroom. You simply sit and wait on the couch, resigned and tired, chasing away the thought of Frankie’s hair curling around his ears, of the droplets of sweat beading on his nape, of the tangy taste of them. 

The result is far beyond what you had expected. You never doubted their handiwork would be any less than irreproachable, but it’s something else. Benny draws shut all three thick drapes to test their efficiency, and the room is plunged into near total darkness. They tie the room together, give it a cosy, homely atmosphere that had been missing until now. All of a sudden, it’s a home. Your home. It feels like you’re settled in at last. Like you are going to stay. 

Melancholy washes over you, tinged with apprehension, and you feel your chest tightening a bit. Benny jokes light-heartedly about staying at your place more often, and Frankie’s eyes instinctively fly up to you from where he’s kneeled, arranging the screws and pegs back in their square compartments in the case. 

It’s like a reflex, something almost beyond his control, the way he wants to get up, stand close behind you and shield you from it. But from what, exactly? This is your life. The one you’ve chosen. And he promised you, if not himself, that he would leave you be.

Your first “thank you” is almost inaudible. You shake your head at the sound of your own voice, hoarse and weak, and you pull yourself together, thanking them profusely and offering to buy lunch.

Frankie gives you a strong look, and then declines, explaining he’s meeting with his sister, and you don’t know what to make of it. Very little, if nothing, in his attitude, has given you a clue as to how he feels about what you told him yesterday morning. 

The imperceptible glances, the kind words, the reassuring hand. It’s always been there, since the very beginning, even back in the bar, when his eyes glared at you but his words spoke another story. It might just be who he is. After all, Yovanna had said so herself, Frankie is a good man. 

And then it strikes you. Nothing’s really different, because it’s not about something new. It’s about something missing. His anger is gone. And the distance that came with it.

Frankie watches as the realisation plays across your soft face. He has to get out of here. 

He’s dependent on Benny to drive him home, but Benny insists that you come with them, and it is, indeed, the practical thing to do. You eventually persuade him, arguing that you need to vacuum here before, and if you were never much of a liar, the urgency helps you sound convincing.

When the door closes behind them, you let out a long, trembling breath, and feel the steely tension that has been building steadily between your shoulder blades since you came out of the shower.

You take another measured and steadying breath, stretching the strained muscles of your neck. If you hurry, you might have the time to smoke a cigarette before Benny comes back. You start collecting the mugs and glasses from the coffee table when your eyes land on the cap lying on the kitchen counter. 

Standard Heating Oil. 

The blue, worn-out hat fills you with a disproportionate dread. You can’t have this thing in here, god knows what you’ll do with it, tuck it under your shirt against your skin to sleep with, or worse, inhale it like a madwoman, you need it out. 

You drop the dishes unceremoniously into the sink with a clatter and grab it, rushing towards the door, thinking you can still catch them downstairs, but when you open it, you collide into Frankie’s solid chest.

The cap falls to the floor when you steady yourself by placing your hands on his arms, that wrap around your waist with a bruising grip, and your feet hover above the ground when he lifts you with his combined strength and momentum and carries you across the room to pin you against the wall, the draped curtains cushioning the shock with a muffled thud.

Your brain bails on you, you struggle to make out what’s happening. You lose all your bearings and are left with nothing but sensations, burning, blinding, incandescent and dizzying, the tight grip of his left arm, his knee nudging your legs open as he presses you into the wall, moulding the shape of your body into his own, the heat from his chest against yours, the press of his right hand skating up along your side, brushing past the swell of your breast, his calloused fingers a rough caress on your collarbone, on the soft skin of your neck.

The firm muscles of his arms shudder under your palm, you moan at the scent of him enveloping you, at his commanding pull on your hair when he tilts your face to the side, at the sharp ridge of his nose crushed into your temple and the tickle of his mustache. Your splayed fingers dig into his arms when he runs his plush lips over the line of your jaw with unexpected softness. 

His words are spoken into your skin, whispered with a fervor, slowly, articulately.

“I have missed you. I have missed you so fucking much.”

And he’s gone. The door shuts with a loud banging noise behind him. He’s gone and your body slumps down against the wall, quivering and cold.

****

Additional note: I threw in a little nod to Joel Miller, in there, just for fun. Did you get it? Also the gif is from this awesome FishBen set, please go check it out.

Taglist (thank you 🧡): @elegantduckturtle @mashomasho @lola766 @flowersandpotplantsandsunshine @nicolethered @littleone65 @bands-tv-movies-is-me @the-rambling-nerd @saintbedelia @pedrostories @trickstersp8 @all-the-way-down-here @deadmantis @hbc8 @princessdjarin @harriedandharassed @girlofchaos @gracie7209 @mrsparknuts

[intheorangebedroom]

Pleased to meet you, a drabble

Pairing: Frankie Morales x French fem!Reader.

Rating: Explicit 🔞

Word count: 620.

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Drabble: What lingers (you&him)

The air stilled around you as you stood, motionless and entwined. Time stretching, no more consequences, the sunset pouring golden-blue in the small living-room, street noises non-existent.

Your face tucked away in the space between his collarbone and his chin, that space that was made just for you. More than a space, a place. His hands on your hips, skin on skin. Held close and tight, hidden under his shirt. 

What happened next is a blur, to you. You don’t remember much, the night that followed, or the day that came after it. Just a blur of relieved lethargy, of being fixed, the jagged pieces of your life slid back into place, solved and put together under his large, competent hands. Their infinite, surprising softness. 

Food, soapy water and moans. His mouth cupping you between your thighs, his tongue hot and wet and heavy.

But Frankie does. He remembers everything. The same way he remembers being pulled out of the wrecked helicopter, thinking he should be dead, knowing he should have died. The acute awareness of being still alive. A feeling and a vision: “I came this close”. 

You might have left. 

He found you twice. 

“When was the last time you ate?” he asked in a whisper, feeling the hollow between your ribs, like testing the depth of a crack, and when you didn’t answer, he broke the embrace, found whatever was there to eat, eggs, milk, Heinz baked beans, cheese past its expiry date, and you clung onto him, arms circling his chest from behind, cheek pressed between his shoulders, feeling the sturdy muscles rippling underneath the heat of his back. 

He took off his shirt and slipped it on you, one arm, then the other, you were pliant, docile, dazed, exhausted. You didn’t fasten the press-stud buttons, so you could still feel his skin. The worn-out fabric was slightly damp with his sweat under the armpits. You pressed your arms to your sides to soak it in, let it sink into your body through your skin. Little puffs of his scent, laundry, and the musk of him. You don’t need to know how to describe it anymore. 

He sat on your couch and you curled up on his lap as you ate in small bites. He tasted the soft skin behind your ear while you tasted the food he’d cooked for you. 

“I came this close.”

He let you clean his face. You let him clean your body. Lathering soap along your back, on your breasts, down your thighs, and you hummed quietly for him, like you once did. He was thorough and meticulous. And what ran down the drain was what came before him. 

He carried you to bed, laid you down, let you sleep, wrapped around you in the New Jersey heat. Eyes wide open, fingers splayed, possessive. 

“I came this close.”

You woke up before dawn, purple-blue light bleeding in through the living-room window, his face buried between your hips, “I’m sorry baby, I need it,” tongue tasting and dipping, plush lips pursed and suckling, one finger gently thrusting. 

“I came this close.”

He didn’t let you come, kept you balancing on the brink of it, pulling out just before your fall, playing your body like it hadn’t been 15 years since he had learnt it. You were limp, flat on your back, sprawled open for him. Melting into your mattress that dipped under his weight when he kneeled up and slid his hard length inside you through your slickness, broad freckled chest gleaming with a sheen of sweat, rocking slowly, hands on your hips, “say it again, baby, say it again, please.” 

“I’ll stay right here.”

“I came this close.”

“Come on my skin.”

****

Additional note: surprise!! This was written a while ago but didn't fit into the previous chapter, and it doesn't either in the epilogue (which will come next, still a lot of loose ends to tie), the way I'm building it. But I like it very very much (for once), and I find it to be a nice echo of their respective hell reminiscence at the beginning? I hope you enjoy it. So happy Frankie Friday, orange besties 🧡 Gabrielle was really supposed to fly back, thank you all for making me change it. I love you all so very much 🧡

Taglist (thank you 🧡): @elegantduckturtle @mashomasho @lola766 @flowersandpotplantsandsunshine @nicolethered @littleone65 @bands-tv-movies-is-me @the-rambling-nerd @saintbedelia @pedrostories @trickstersp8 @all-the-way-down-here @deadmantis @hbc8 @princessdjarin @harriedandharassed @girlofchaos @gracie7209 @mrsparknuts @mylostloversbookmarks

[intheorangebedroom]

Pleased To Meet You, chapter 13

Summary: Time and reality catch up with Frankie and you, and it’s your last night together in the orange bedroom. Are you two ready to part, even temporarily?

Pairing: Frankie Morales x French fem!Reader.

Rating: Explicit 🔞

TW: cryptic mention of self-harm. Please see the additional note at the end (to avoid spoilers).

A/N: Welcome to the angst fest. This chapter kept me awake for months, yearning for this man, so I really hope you like it, and him. And also, they’re filthy.

My endless love and gratitude to my beta. @meandorla, you are wonderful and an absolute dream✨ Your kind and wise words during the holidays kept me up and going♥️

@heythere-mel provided me with the Spanish translation and with so much kindness, Mel your cheerful mood is everything, you are pure sunshine ☀️ Thank you 😘

@deadmantis Thank you for all the inspo 🧡 Please keep them coming 🙂

Word Count: 5.1k

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Chapter 13: Perfect Day

The room suddenly falls oddly silent, as if in the aftermath of a natural disaster, or a car crash, until the sounds of your combined panting resurface. He’s lying heavy on top of you, his face sunk into the crook of your neck, and you welcome his crushing mass, your forehead pressed on the cool, hard surface of the tiled bathroom floor, your shoulders heaving furiously. 

More time passes before he can untangle his arms from underneath your limp body to raise himself on his forearms, his spent cock still sheathed inside you. The bite mark on your flesh is bright red, blood just beneath the surface of the indentation. He can make out all his teeth, count them distinctly. What has he done? 

“Shit, fuck, I hurt you,” he husks in alarm, withdrawing from you. You whimper as he moves, and a new wave of panic floods his brain. Supporting the weight of his body on his right arm, his left hand flies to the fresh scar and he starts thumbing it in a frantic rub.

“Leave it,” you whimper feebly, words barely articulated, and they don’t quite reach him over the din of his own breathing. 

“Shit, shit, shit!” he grits nervously, wiping your skin faster.

“Frankie, I said leave it,” you say louder. 

His thumb stills on your skin. With great difficulty, you brace your hands on the rug and laboriously turn onto your back between his legs. You can’t help it and you gasp at the sight of him, his soft, wet curls contrasting with the gravity of his frowned brow, his dark eyes with his skin of gold, smooth and freckled. You don’t think about your next words before you let them out. 

“God, you’re so beautiful.”

In the years to come, in the darkest, empty hours of the night, when you’ve run out of ways in which to hurt yourself, you will think he was never meant for you in the first place. Too soft, too smart, too beautiful. How could you possibly have kept a man like him? Better that he was taken from you before you had a chance to lose him.  

“Help me up,” you whisper once you’ve steadied your voice, and he slides a firm hand under your back to sit you up straight. The exhaustion that weighs you down is a pleasant one, and you use the momentum to climb onto his lap and straddle him, circling his broad shoulders with your arms, your chest snugly fitted against his. The crease between his brow has grown deep again. You press your lips to it and tighten your embrace.

“You can’t hurt me, Frankie, not like this,” you coo, tracing random figures on his back with the tips of your fingers, “I meant everything I said.” 

Your body’s vibrating under his palms, and when he pulls back a little to better see you, the look on your face reaches deep within him, slowing the wild thumping of his heart. You trace a trail of kisses on his eyelids, down the side of his nose, the edge of his jaw, and when you meet his lips, he opens up for you immediately. You kiss your certitude into him, and he swallows all of it. Slowly, languidly, until he stands up, lifting you easily to carry you back to the bedroom. Which is just as good, you don’t think you’ll be able to walk anytime soon.

He lays you on the sheets, and neither of you break that kiss. And you remain safely tucked in his embrace until, finally, you fall asleep.

There’s a pattern to this, he notes, sitting on the edge of the bed, relishing your even, quiet breathing. You’ll rest if he rails you. You’ll let go if he fucks the doubt out of you. 

Should he cover you? The heat hasn’t abated, but there’s a light breeze rustling the orange curtains, and you might be more comfortable if he pulled the white sheet over you, at least up to your waist. But perhaps all he wants is to wrap you in his scent again. 

He watches you a while longer before he can tear himself from your sleeping form, fencing off thoughts of the morning to come. He can't let them taint what little time you two have left. But he has to think, however, about after. How to formulate his request for a bond to tie you to him. He could take your number, your address. Ask you to wait. Word it, plain and clear. He’s yours. You’re his. 

Is it fair, though, asking you to attach yourself to a man who will most likely one day go to war? You’re younger than him, just a few years, but enough to have him question his rights to ask this much, if he even has any. You’ve a mind cut out for books and learning and academic achievements. What has he got to offer? Piles of paperbacks, a bag of clothes, and a pair of orange curtains. Questions about his past, an empty space where a father should stand.  

He’s got himself. That’s all he has. He knows his worth. And he’ll offer you that. You could try, at least for a while, cheat the distance, ignore the passage of time, write and call and fly across the globe into each other’s arms at every occasion. Would it work? He knows the answer to that. It’s in the tranquil, rhythmic rise and fall of your chest, in your emerging confidence, in your serene, sleeping face. It’s in your touch and in your eyes and in your trust. It’s in the peacefulness he’s never known until now. Of course, it would work.

Standing up, eventually, he walks over to the stack of clothes you neatly folded the day before, and slips on his black briefs. Another glance in your direction, and he goes to the kitchen sink, opening the tap to fill up a tall glass of water.

On the countertop near the front door, his cellphone lies face down where he threw it when he came home with you on Friday night. It feels like forever ago, now. In the best possible way. 

Unsurprisingly, the phone is dead, and it takes him a few minutes to retrieve the charger, in his bedroom by the bed, and walk back to the other room to plug it in. 

He thought himself ready, but reality still kicks him in the gut when the small Nokia screen lights up, ominously glaring with 12 missed calls and 16 unread messages. He runs a weary palm over his face before he can bring himself to look into it, and he lets out a relieved sigh when he realises that most notifications are from his sister. 

There’s a weekend’s worth of her daily reminders of “You can still change your mind, there’s no shame in it,” a phrase she’s delivered in person or by text ever since he enrolled. Most messages are practical inquiries about the apartment, and his last days as a civilian. Is he packed? Does he need help? Is there something in particular she needs to know before she meets with his landlord on Monday afternoon?

Frankie tries to focus on the practicalities, feeling a surge of affection for his sister. The thorough care and consideration with which she’s sending him off, despite her disapproval of his choice of path. And now, he’s not so sure if he wouldn’t rather she was still sulking. 

He’s just through sending her a fifth message, hunched over the kitchen counter, when you walk up behind him, sliding your arms around his torso and pecking a kiss between his shoulders, the tension he didn’t even register had built in his frame dropping instantly. 

You release your embrace and go around him, casually leaning against the Formica countertop, when you realise what he’s doing. 

“Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were… sending sms? How do you say it in English?” you ask.

“Texting,” he answers with a soft smile. “It’s fine. It’s Izzy, my sister. About tomorrow,” he adds, a tick in his jaw, a nervous tic of his you’re growing accustomed to. 

You’ve put on your panties and you’re wearing his shirt again, the sides of it framing your naked breasts. He considers asking you to keep it. He doesn’t really give a shit if that makes him sound too needy.

“She’s coming to pick you up, right?” He nods and you ask again, “What time are you leaving?” 

“6 a.m.,” he replies, his teeth slightly clenched. 

You mull over your next words. You’re intuitive, but far too sincere to be considered subtle. Incapable of concealing anything, despite your inclination for secrecy. So you opt for a straightforward question.

“Do you need time alone to get ready? Perhaps you should rest, I should leave you-”

He stands up straight, rising to his impressive full height, silencing the rest of your sentence with his silhouette towering over yours. 

“Stay.”

You tilt up your head to look him in the eyes, dark, overshadowed by that damn crease between his brow. 

“I will. I am.”

You grasp the countertop so you don’t sway when he smiles so deeply his dimple shows. His arm goes around your waist under his shirt and his hand splays possessively in the small of your back. 

“I like your skin,” he says, strengthening his hold. 

“I like your lips,” you whisper, and you reach for them, the kiss deepening rapidly, threatening to become something else, something more, until the ringtone of his phone pulls you apart.

He doesn’t let go of you as he reads the message and answers it, and when he’s done, he throws the phone on the counter and returns his full attention to you, pressing his mouth on the fresh scar at the base of your neck. He was so quick to figure what gets you off, but you still feel sore from earlier, in the bathroom, so you resist the pull in your lower belly and ask, “Can I help you with something? Do you need to tidy up the place?”

As you say it, you realise the apartment is already as clean as it gets, but Frankie picks up on your hint and slightly draws away from you, giving you a little space. 

“No, not really. Izzy’s coming tomorrow afternoon to pack up the sheets, the towels, and the curtains. The rest isn’t mine.” 

Your eyes widen as your eyebrow shoot up to your hairline and you gasp in horror, “Jesus Frankie, you’re telling me your sister is gonna see those sheets?”

His laughter rumbles from the depth of his chest. It’s the first time you hear him laugh so resoundingly, and your heart sinks a little because it retains the breathy quality of his voice.

“Yea, and she’s gonna see you too, tomorrow morning, so she’ll know who’s the culprit.”

You burst into a silly giggle and slap his shoulder in mock reproach. He draws you in again, wanting to feel you laugh with his whole body. He can’t help his next question, he needs to know and it’s better to ask now, with the light mood you two are in.

“When are you going back home?”

You scrunch up your nose to think, not even sure of what day today is anymore.

“End of August? Uni starts in October, so I’ll have a month to work full time and save some money.”

“What will you do with the rest of your summer?” He does his very best to conceal the ache from this one, your remaining time on this continent, that he won’t be spending with you, before the ocean spreads your two bodies further apart, but it’s useless, it seems. You tuck yourself against him before you answer, speaking into his neck.

“More museums, probably. Coney Island. I’ll go back to the Algonquin, take pictures. I want to see the Guggenheim again.”

He nuzzles into your hair, his words muffled, “You been to the MoMa yet?”

“Yes,” you look up at him, “but I prefer the Guggenheim. The building itself, I mean. It’s 80% of the experience, to me. I don’t know, it’s so… sexy?”

You chuckle in self-derision and hide your face in his neck again, and you feel more than hear his breathy laugh. 

“Sexy? You wanna elaborate?”

You lean back against the counter, moving away from his heat so you can focus and think over your arguments. 

“Ok, yes, sensual might be a better term. The coiling structure? It’s like… an ascent? A building orgasm? I find it somehow soft, yet dramatic. I like the open space that doesn’t feel impersonal, it’s like a womb, I don’t know. I don’t necessarily care for the art in it, actually, I’m more classic in my tastes, but this building does something to me,” you finish, throwing your palms up.

You bask in his luminous smile, the gleam of his soft eyes that have regained their warm, brown shade. 

“Yea, ok, I understand.”

At times, he thinks you might be aware of the extent of what you do to him. But mostly he’s convinced that you haven’t got a clue. 

“Do you like the MoMa better?” you ask.

“Not anymore, I don’t,” he jokes. 

He pushes the half-full glass of water towards you and you drink it up, before asking again, “Who’s your favourite painter? Do you have one?” 

“Oh yea, that’s easy, Gerhard Richter,” he answers quickly. 

You furrow your brow, “That’s super abstract, no?” 

“I guess, maybe, not everything. Who’s yours?” he adds, taking a step closer to you after you’ve put the glass down.  

You rest your hand on his forearm as you pause to decide.

“Eugène Carrière, probably.” Frankie shakes his head, indicating he doesn’t know the name. “He was a 19th century French painter… He painted in grey, brownish, kind of sepia tones. I don’t know how to explain it, I’m not an art student,” you shrug, always a lingering apology about your words. Yet, you carry on, “What I love is that, it should be dark, and gloomy, but it’s not. It’s very luminous, lots of golden tones. And what I like best is that, from afar, his paintings look defined, but the closer you get, the blurrier the edges, the brush strokes look so light, almost… I don’t know, not there?”

Frankie swallows the lump in his throat before he can close the distance between you completely. Tilting your face up between his thumb and index, he kisses your parted lips, peeking out his tongue to find yours. He only breaks it to lean into the crook of your neck, breathing you in, and pecking the mark he left there. 

“Fuck, baby, I really love your skin,” he whispers against the imprint of his teeth. 

You press your body into his, where he stands tall and strong, with all of your strength, and he doesn’t even budge. 

“And I really, really love your lips.” 

—

The light’s grown dim again in the orange bedroom, a dreaded physicality of the time you got left. 

Standing by his nightstand, Frankie’s been staring into the empty box of condoms for the past two minutes, as if this might conjure up an extra one. He could run to the deli on Manhattan Ave, but that would lose him a half hour between your arms. Still, it’s better than not having you one last time. 

When you exit the bathroom, his sadness startles you. You see him tossing something back into the creaking drawer, but can’t make out what it is, and it’s only when you level up with him that you understand. 

“Hey, it’s fine” he says, more to himself than to you, his voice restrained, “we don’t need to– you’re probably still sore from-”

You silence him with your entire body thrown against his, arms flung around his shoulders.

“Frankie I don’t fucking care, I want you inside me, I want you to fill all my holes,” you plead.

“Take this off,” he rasps, nearly ripping his shirt off your shoulders.

You expect him to be rough again, urgent and brisk in his need; he cradles the back of your head in his hand, instead, kissing you as he lowers you onto the bed. His hands roam restlessly over your body, his palms pressed on your skin, as if trying to cover you entirely and all at once. He breathes you in, your cheek, your temple, your hair, his muscles shuddering under your touch.

“I wanna taste what I do to you, baby,” he murmurs in your ear in a low, husky tone, and you shut your eyes, your arousal pooling down your folds at his command, “I wanna drink you up, I wanna remember your taste.”

He nibbles your earlobe, skates the bridge of his nose along the line of your throat, and when he reaches the slope of your shoulder, Frankie thinks to himself, “one more, just this one more,” and draws in your skin with a strong suck, his cock hardened at the sound of your moan, the expression of your total abandon. 

His eyes remain locked on your face, his lips sealed to your skin, this is about recording you, in whole and in parts, the sensation of your reactions, the thrill of your shivers, and he’d suck on your skin harder if only he knew how this will end, that what is to come are too many years imprisoned in his head, rummaging through his memories in search of your forgotten taste. 

His mouth slides along your collarbone, and he tastes you there, too, gathering on his tongue the salty flavour of your sweat from the dip of your throat, oblivious to his own grunts, lost in the light touch of your fingers on his back. You writhe underneath him, and it’s like a dance. 

Cupping your breasts, he kneads the soft flesh, gentle at first, then with a mind to imprint his touch, so that you too won’t forget. You wrap your legs around his waist and twine your fingers in his curls. You won’t forget, that is your curse. 

He sucks in your nipple, pulls on it between his teeth and when you hiss your pleasure, he decides that one last mark is not enough, he’ll leave another one on the swell of your breast. 

Then it’s a sharp inhale between your legs, spread by his broad shoulders, his nose pressed to the dampened fabric of your underwear. Your hips arch against his face, and he holds you down with an arm barred across your belly, the other one clutching your thigh, biting your clothed mound with a primitive grunt that makes you quiver and quake. 

Words get stuck in your throat when you want to beg him to take, take, take, so you buck your hips again instead. 

Frankie shuts his eyes, resting his forehead against your panties, willing his waning control to endure just a little longer. Willing himself to savour when he wants to devour. 

The slow drag of the cottony fabric along your legs is a never-ending torture, followed by the soothing graze of his stubble, but he feels you squirm under his hold, and he has no desire to keep you waiting too long. To you, he knows it now, there’s nothing he will ever deny. He licks a broad stripe along your core and, slowly, dips his tongue inside your cunt. You exhale your relief, tugging at his hair with the urgency of despair. 

Thorough and gentle all at once, he drives his tongue in and out, deep, unhurried, and meticulous, the curve of his nose rubbing on your swollen clit, and when he feels your legs twitch, he releases his hold, and pauses. Kissing it better, in hopes to make it last, when he knows you won’t be able to give him as much as you want, as much as he needs, and anyway, that’s not how he wants to make you come. 

Ruefully, he draws away from you, kneeling between your open legs, and your body goes slack on the bed with his retreat. 

No words are spoken. Holding your core against his throbbing cock, a bruising, possessive grip on the dip above your hips, he waits for you to lift up your head, your dazed, unfocused eyes finding his. And on your imperceptible nod, he lines himself up. 

He wants to watch, he needs to see, where he splits you open, and the look on your face as he slides inside you bare, inch after inch, your tight skin catching around the heft of him. His eyes flick frantically between the place where you’re joined and your beautiful face, your parted lips, your hooded eyes, the unquenchable want he finds there. 

The nightstand lamp casts a golden hue in his dark eyes. You record his loving gaze, it carries all the tenderness you’ve never received. You record the warm tone of his skin, the feeling of his touch, the delight of his scent. 

Your hands skate up his forearms in a soundless request. He leans forward, covering you, his fingers splayed on your sides as yours find the V shape of his hair on his damp nape. 

His strokes are deep, barely pulling out before he thrusts in even further, grinding his hips against your ass, tracing open-mouth kisses along your jaw, under your ear, down your neck, and you’re sinking in, engulfed, from within and from outside, all around, enveloped in his scent, lost in his warmth, wrapped in his arms.

You want to call him darling, or chéri, you want to say mon amour, but all that passes your lips is Frankie, because it is the sweetest name, because it tastes like honey and floods your inner world, because Frankie is all that there is left inside your brain. 

Years from now, you will still cry out his name, your face hidden into your tear-stained pillow, your empty body heaving with pain, with want, with regrets, the faint prayer of Frankie Frankie Frankie flowing out of you. 

So it is Frankie, you say, as you take his hand to place it on the soft flesh of your lower belly, your skin glistening with his sweat, “Frankie, can you feel yourself inside me? Can you feel me around you? Can you feel it?”

Frankie watches the tear that rolls down your temple, his chest constricted with a brand-new sort of pain, he presses his hand harder, and his forehead to yours and he whispers, “I feel you, baby, I feel everything, I feel only you.”

A heavy sob shakes your chest, so Frankie hooks his arms under your knees and his hands around your shoulders and crushes you under his weight, buries himself inside you and grinds. Heels shoved into his back, you’re blindingly stretched around him, he knows you’re going to feel him for days, with what he’s making you take, knows that’s what you want, too, and something primal rips in his chest, he wants to tear it open and fit you in there, carry you with him everywhere. 

He brushes his lips against yours, his voice hoarse and low when he speaks into your mouth, “I’m gonna come inside you, baby, I’m gonna come inside you.” 

Tears flow freely from the corner of your eyes, sliding down to your hairline. You dig your nails in his back, and he hopes you're going to leave a mark, he’s breathing inside your mouth, and it is with his breath that you answer, “Come with me, Frankie.” 

He nods his answer and it’s only a few more strokes before he feels your cunt start to flutter, your body pulled taut in his hold, your nails breaking his skin. He buries his face in your neck and lets go, finally lets go of everything, pouring it into your wanting, open body, into your soul, thick ropes of come painting your slick walls, empties himself, fills you up, surrenders to you. 

Your breathing comes in short and shaky, but a rush of cold jolts you up when the air hits your sweat-dampened skin as his body leaves yours. 

“No!” you cry out, sitting up on your elbow to see Frankie crouching down between your legs again. 

Carefully, his fingers part your swollen, aching folds. That primal pang fires through his chest again, at the sight of your cunt leaking his spend. He wraps his plush lips around it and plunges his tongue inside you, gathering his essence and yours. Another sob threatens to break through you and you clasp your hand on your mouth to hold it back. 

When he’s sure to have it all, he sits up and braces himself over you on one arm, brushing your damp hair off your face, brushing the tears rolling down your temple with the work-worn, calloused pads of his fingers, wishing he could drink it up. His thumb presses gently on your bottom lip, prompting you to open for him, and when you do, he lets it roll down along his tongue into your wanting mouth. He watches you swallow, watches the bobbing of your lean throat. 

Years later, this image will keep invading his thoughts, in foreign brothels, in humid jungles, in scorching deserts. He will think about it in regrets that he didn’t fuck it deeper inside of you instead.

Frankie lowers his face close to yours, “I’m gonna sleep inside you, tonight, baby.” 

You nod with what little strength you have left and wrap your arms around his shoulders, your lips seeking his, as he sheaths his still-hard cock inside you. Sliding his arms around your waist, he draws you in and rolls with you on his side. You snuggle your face against his chest, his skin scalding your skin like a fever, and you fall asleep almost instantly. 

—

The night brings him no rest. He wakes up as soon as he slides out of you, pulling you in closer, burying his face in your hair until he can’t breathe anymore. 

Awake when you stir and you stretch. Awake still, or again, when you moan feebly in your sleep. 

When his alarm chimes at 5am, Frankie has barely slept. 

You jolt in his arms, mumbling, “Shit, did we oversleep?” and the pronoun nearly brings tears to his tired eyes. 

It takes you a moment to register the darkness outside, as you rub off the sleep from your eyes, perched on the edge of the bed. The air has shifted, a cold breeze wafts in the orange bedroom through the curtains and you shiver in the silence. 

Frankie slips on his clothes, finally deciding against giving you his shirt. It bears your powdery scent, he’ll take that with him. 

Neither of you want to shower the other off your skin. Instead, he packs his books and clothes in his duffle bag, and you offer to prepare some coffee. 

You’re fully dressed when he joins you in the kitchen, handing him a mug. 

“Mmh,” he smacks his lips, “you make good coffee. Strong. You want some sugar?”

“No, cheers, just milk.”

You run your fingers on his back before walking back to the bedroom, where you start folding the sheets. 

You hear him rummaging frantically through the cabinets and drawers, and when he reappears in the doorway, he’s visibly flustered.  His low voice comes in tense when he asks, “Do you have a pen?”

You retrieve a fountain pen from your purse and go back with him to the kitchen. He’s ripped a small, rectangular piece of paper, on which he writes down some numbers. He hands it to you, but holds on to it when you grab it. 

“Swear you’ll call me,” he pleads, and you know there is not enough love on your lips to ease the crease off his brow. What he needs are your words. 

“I swear,” you answer. 

When Frankie locks the front door, it’s for the very last time, two years’ worth of memories numbing his fingers. He follows you down the narrow stairwell, the atmosphere devoid of the electric anticipation it carried two days ago. 

Down in the street, you are greeted by a swirling wind and bleak morning light. Frankie nods silently in the direction of a parked VW Golf a few cars down, where a bespectacled brunette waves back enthusiastically. You offer a bright smile and a sign with your hand, and Frankie focuses on the prospect of the two of you properly meeting, one day. One day soon. 

“We should drop you off. Do you know which way to go?” His voice sounds gruff and bears the weight of his exhaustion.  

“No, thank you, you’ll be late. Don’t worry. I know my way. I’m a big girl from a big city,” you add with a wink. 

Frankie bows down his head, shaking it left and right, his resolve failing him, so you broaden your smile and cup his face in your hands. 

“I will call you tonight. I can’t wait to hear your voice. You’re going to be a pilot, Frankie! You will fly me over the fucking Andes.”

A sad smile barely lifting the corner of his lips, he’s taken aback by the strength emanating from your trustful features, no apparent traces of sadness, no more blurry edges. He didn’t fuck that into you, even he couldn’t. That strength you’re giving him, is all you.  

He gives you one last, shy kiss. 

You part, eventually. 

Taking the direction of Manhattan Ave, you turn around one last time to watch him get inside his sister’s car, the little piece of paper with his number safely tucked in your jean pocket. You should have told him to be safe, you really wanted to, but it sounded ominous, like a farewell. 

“I can’t believe you!” Izzy laughs as he takes the passenger seat in her Golf, “until the last fucking moment!”

Frankie fastens his seatbelt, flinching.

“You know you can still change your mind, hermanito? No shame in it,” she taunts him for what has got to be the hundredth time. 

“Yea, well, maybe I will,” he mumbles. 

Izzy’s hands stills on the ignition, her black eyes searching her brother’s face. Flying is the only thing he has talked about since he was 10 years old.

“Hermanito estas bien? Who’s this girl?” Izzy asks in a quiet voice. 

Frankie bends down and retrieves a red cap from the bag between his legs. He combs his fingers through his unruly curls, sets the cap firmly on his head, and your name passes his lips for what is going to be the last time in the next sixteen years. 

****

Additional note: it is not spelled out but Reader actually never had unprotected sex and she’s on the pill. Same for Frankie (aside from the pill, it’s a patriarcal world 🙄) who, moreover, just had his physicals. All this to say: please wear condoms.

Taglist (thank you 🧡): @elegantduckturtle @mashomasho @lola766 @flowersandpotplantsandsunshine @nicolethered @littleone65 @bands-tv-movies-is-me @the-rambling-nerd @saintbedelia @pedrostories @trickstersp8 @all-the-way-down-here @deadmantis @hbc8 @princessdjarin @harriedandharassed @girlofchaos

[kirsteng42]

1 of the greatest Frankie stories ever told!!!! The smut is incredible, the relationships between everyone is so believable and Maddy got me to fall in love with Frankie more then I had from the film alone….Your 💔 for Benny, Frankie and in fact all of them it’s such a crap situation. It’s incredible though, started rereading for about the 4th time and I will never tire of these 2 lovebirds!!!!!

Pleased to meet you (a fairy tale)

Series, complete.

Summary: You meet Frankie Morales. Twice.

A 20-year-old French student, you're spending the summer of 1999 in New York with your best friend. When she drags you to a party in Brooklyn, you meet an aspiring pilot and the two of you spark an instant and intense connection. Separated by unfortunate events, you waste the next 15 years of your life longing for what you've lost, only to meet him again when your new boyfriend Benny introduces you to his best friend.

Pairing: Frankie Morales x Gabrielle Tourneur (OFC)/French fem!Reader with a dash of Ben Miller x Gabrielle Tourneur (OFC)/French fem!Reader

Written in reader format but Reader is an OFC. There are sparse but still present physical descriptions, she is French and has a thorough background, and a name.

Rating: Explicit 🔞

Note: In 2023, I will stop apologising. Maybe. And anyway, I make no excuse. I'm in love with this pilot and obsessed by this movie so I'm making it everyone’s problem. This story is nothing if not a self-indulgent exploration of the soulmates ideal. Expect a lot of angst, and smut.

Every chapter is explicit and you should be 18+ to read this. The American university system remains a mystery to me, I googled "how to become a US Army pilot", and visas are not a thing in this AU. English is not my first language, but one I adore.

Welcome to the orange bedroom, hope you'll enjoy 🧡

Chapters

Chapter 1 - Lovesong

Chapter 2 - I Feel You

Drabble (chapter 3) - What lingers (you)

Drabble (chapter 4) - What lingers (Frankie)

Chapter 5 - Boy meets girl

Drabble - Proud Mary (Ben Miller x you)

Chapter 6 - That Brooklyn bathroom

Chapter 7 - Frankie

Chapter 8 - Shuffle Your Feet

Chapter 9 - The Way Young Lovers Do

Chapter 10 - The Deal

Chapter 11 - Sunday Morning

Chapter 12 - The Drive Home

Chapter 13 - Perfect Day

Chapter 14 - Love is blindness

Chapter 15 - Flaming June

Chapter 16 - Plainsong

Chapter 17 - Auf Achse

Drabble - What lingers (you&him)

Epilogue - Songbird

Drabbles

Road Trippin’ - inspired by one of Wildemaven’s beautiful weekly moodboard writing prompts 🔞

The ties that bind us

To Bring You My Love

I <3 U SO - coming one day for sure

Headcannons

Frankie's high school locker

The TF boys' favourite things in life and how they like it done.

Benny and Gabrielle (better read between chapter 14 and 15 to avoid spoilers)

A PTMY Halloween 🎃

Playlist

[intheorangebedroom]

Pleased to meet you, chapter 12

Summary: You gave in to Benny, sort of, and now you have to go buy a goddamn car. You and Frankie find yourselves alone together for the first time in nearly 16 years.

Pairing: Frankie Morales x French fem!Reader.

Rating: Explicit 🔞

TW: cryptic mention of self-harm.

A/N: Voilà, they're talking. Jfc the struggle... I'm still in a state of shock (and exhaustion). I think I'm satisfied about the substance of this chapter, not so sure about the form. Some of you might recognise some lines from the movie... I'm insanely grateful for anyone who interacts with this story, for your support and for sticking with them this far! *presses post now and goes drink a tall glass of Bailey's*

Word Count: 7.1k (oops)

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Chapter 12: The Drive Home

The two of you didn’t talk much over the course of the weekend because there was no need for words. The synchronicity between you was evident, if one that he couldn’t explain. The implicit trust and shameless want he saw in your wide eyes was a high he never found anywhere else, no matter how many drugs he tried.

You were you, and you craved him.

Most of the talking had been done on the fire escape. Favourite books, favourite movies, favourite musics. Politics and values, dreams and allegiances. The differences welcome, no real divergence, only promises. 

In retrospect, this was another regret. So many questions he should have asked. He never forgot your reaction when he called you baby. How you tensed up in his hold like a wild animal, like you’d never known love, or you had forgotten that life could be sweet. Your sadness had torn a gaping hole in his chest. How many times had you say, “sorry”? The first night, at least. He’d spent the following days erasing it, thoroughly, lovingly. There was what you were, and what you’d been taught. Who had done this to you? 

And yet, in spite of your apparent wounds, you had let him in. Your softness towards him all the more special. Uncertain, at first, and suddenly all in. Resolutely unguarded, a strength in its own right. He wasn’t sure, then, if he possessed that kind of courage. But he knew what he felt, this consuming urge to right all the wrongs. He would gladly unleash hell on anyone trying to hurt you again. 

Is Benny good enough to you? Most probably. And he should bottle up his questions and leave you the fuck alone. Turns out you didn’t need him to flourish.

He understands clearly now, with enough years behind him to name the feeling, why he’d been so eager to feed you, to get you cleaned up. He remembers that shower together, before you started fooling around again, he had come in your mouth less than an hour before, fuck he’d been relentless, and you’d taken it all. 

Standing behind you in the narrow tub, he had washed your body, lathering soap with the palm of his hands on your shoulders and your back, the curve of your hips, along your thighs, his satisfaction tinged with regrets for you’d lose his scent, but he would imprint it on you again later, deeper, definite, and you kept leaning into his touch, eyes half closed, humming quietly to yourself, your skin a constant thrum. Like you’d been starved of any form of attention, of affection. He could tell. Yet he never asked. 

And perhaps it had played into what had happened next, how he had lost it completely, when he took you on the bathroom floor, after nearly two days restraining himself, his arms caging you with an iron grip, his teeth sunk into the soft flesh at the base of your neck, pinching your nipples so hard you had cried out his name. Your body vibrating endlessly with it. He had to carry you back to bed. 

You were still laughing from that disastrous attempt at a romantic fuck when he stepped out of the bathtub behind you. His cock felt heavy as he palmed himself through the discomfort of the condom, and he was about to take it off when his eyes flickered up to you. You were wiping the steam off the mirror above the sink with your right hand, and you turned around to face him, radiant, with a candid smile. The yellow light from the bare bulb hanging above the mirror ricocheted on every single droplet of water clinging to your body, your skin glinting in a golden hue. 

You were golden. 

Something snapped in his brain. His breath caught in his chest, and he shut his eyes quickly, but the vision was dancing under his eyelids and when he reopened them, his gaze had turned dark and wild. He was on you in one step, his right hand curled around your nape. He pulled you in with all of his strength, tilting your head up with a tug of your hair, his mouth crushing your mouth, his tongue forcing you open. You responded immediately, his hunger bleeding into you through the kiss and you sank your nails in his back and his shoulder. It felt more like wrestling than kissing, your bodies slippery and wet, and he laid you down underneath him on the rough rug as you whispered a needless plea he couldn’t hear, with the thunderous noise of the blood rushing in his ears. 

He had fucked into you at a punishing pace, with the maddening thought of ripping that damn condom off his cock to have you bare and paint your slick walls with his cum, his blunt head bumping against the cup of your cervix and it still wasn’t enough. He had to possess you, encase every part of your body with his, crush you with his weight, mark your skin with his mouth and his teeth and his spit and his cum, fuck your cunt, your mouth, your ass, your tits with his cock, his fingers, his tongue. Ruin you for other men. You were his. He was yours. 

He should have been terrified by the intensity of it, and perhaps he was, but your every movement spoke that confession.

There hadn’t been anything to fear within the realm of the orange bedroom. But then, how to explain the deafening silence that came when he never heard your voice again?

He waited. He waited on the car ride with his sister to basic training, realising in a panic that you two hadn’t even exchanged last names. He waited the following hours, days and weeks. He waited as he helplessly observed the quick fading of the red crescents your nails had left on his skin. He waited all through the pilot training program, his first tour and the second. He waited, patient and focused and cool-headed, and with each passing year, the certainty waned. He waited until one day his phone got stolen, and a Verizon vendor who looked like a drowned rat flatly told him he had to change his line. He had remained perfectly calm, but he could have murdered the man.

What began after that was a brand-new kind of hell. One morning he woke up and he couldn’t convoke the memory of your taste. That was when he started fucking all these random women, their faces and bodies morphing into a blurry composite of anonymous features. The doubt drove him insane, but he could no longer find it in himself to believe it had really happened. Maybe he had dreamed you. A filthy fever dream that had meant everything. Finding the book with your red lips etched on the page barely helped, only adding to his confusion, edging on resentment.

But when he saw you, when he saw you walking into the familiar setting of the bar where he meets with his friends every week, holding Benny’s hand, beyond the fury of those years, beyond the anger and the pain, he looked into your eyes and found hope again.

So now he’s back to waiting. Back to that goddamn piece of plastic burning through the back pocket of his jeans. But waiting is fine. Waiting is seven years of his life. Nearly a sixth of his years. He knows how to handle that. Waiting is what was before everything went south, before his phone got stolen, before his first kill, before Al-Qa’im, before the brothels and before the doubt. 

And so, he waits. He waits as April slowly dies, as May drags by and as June blossoms under a thin drizzle. He waits until, one perfectly mundane Thursday morning, you text him. Three messages sent in quick succession. 

Hey. Is this coming Saturday at 10am ok for you?

It’s me by the way. 

He stares at your name. It’s been 16 years since he’s said it out loud. His thumb hovers over the screen. He tells himself the burning sensation from the scar on his left side isn’t real. It’s not pain. It’s guilt. 

—

Yea. I’ll pick you up outside your building. 

Frankie 

You never gave him your address and he hasn’t asked, you have to assume Benny gave it to him. Have to. 

Nine weeks and four days since you last saw him. Since he walked in on you in Will’s spotless kitchen, basking you in his scent and his heat and his strength, and demanded that you let him come with you to buy a car you don’t even want. A goddamn car. Not a table, or a plant, or even a TV, a goddamn car. And you didn’t even think twice. You straight up consented without taking a second to think about the consequences, just like you had instinctively and consistently reacted to everything he had ever asked. 

In the course of those nine and a half weeks, you’ve reverted to the proven ways of your former life, doing what you do best: act normal amidst the rumbling storm inside your brain. Constantly, expertly compartmentalizing, your mind an oversized closet of neatly folded fears and neurosis. Immediate pleasures and comforting memories. Sadness, fondness, regrets, remorse. Restless with your time, headstrong against your anxiety, no pause to reflect. The great escape. 

The very next day, you started to fill up your boyfriend’s house with your belongings, scattered across every room. Panties, bras, socks and t-shirts in the newly emptied chest drawer by the bedroom window. Books he never gives you time to read on the nightstand. Deodorant, creams and shampoo in the bathroom cabinet. An umbrella by the front door. Records stacked by the vinyl turntable. A tin mug in the kitchen. You stay there four to five nights a week, now. He is delighted. 

On three separate occasions, Benny had to go away for a fight and remained out of town for a couple of days, which is not uncommon, and you ordinarily welcome the time alone. 

The first time provided you with the perfect opportunity to get together with Yovanna, the two of you meeting in a downtown Russian restaurant of her choosing, sharing copious appetizers and laughs and strong liquor, along with your respective backstories, yours carefully redacted. She recounted the first twenty years of her life, traumatic by any standard, matter-of-factly and without bitterness. She defines resilience, and the following morning you woke up revived, if a little hungover.

By the time Benny had to leave again, however, an indistinct, murky dread had settled in your chest and between your shoulders. You proceeded calmly, with resolve, asking him if you could spend the evening at his place in his absence, which implied him giving you a set of keys. You trusted him not to make a big deal about it, and sure enough he didn’t, but you did not anticipate the way he made love to you that night. With an unusual softness, and intent, as if to communicate how much he had no desire to be away. 

And when the time came, a Saturday, you curled up on the empty couch in the silent living-room, hunched over a book you could not focus on, eventually falling asleep on his side of the bed. 

The third time had been rough, perhaps because you chose to stay at your apartment, chain-smoking again, drawing from your experience the necessary resources to hang on until dawn, when you know the morning light will dissipate your darkness. The morning always comes. All it takes is for you to bite the bullet and await. You know the dance. 

You haven’t told anything to Rosie, even though you’ve had several opportunities to do so. You know what she’ll say, and you don’t care to hear it. You’re getting a car, not a room. You’re an adult. You’ll be fine. 

And anyway, Rosie knows something’s not right. You haven’t missed one single Taco Tuesday since you skipped that first one, back in April, and you’ve done your absolute best to act natural, like it means something, but she’s been closely observing you ever since. Like she used to when you first arrived here, after she’d dragged you out of your isolation, like you’re a saucepan of milk over the stove, ready to overflow. You don’t know how she does it, but she knows something’s askew. 

Seemingly innocuous questions of “everything good with Benny?”, “Still happy with your job?” cue you in. Sideways glances. Her dark eyes overshadowed. 

And if she only had doubts, your behaviour on her 36th birthday probably confirmed them all. 

She had made plans to celebrate with a girl’s night out, inviting some of her friends from work, along with Yovanna, to her favourite place, a Mexican restaurant with a garden room in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, which brought you way too close to Greenpoint for comfort.

You didn’t just get drunk, you got blackout drunk, downing shots of tequila, knowing very well your body doesn’t tolerate those, polishing off everyone’s drink until you got sick and just about passed out, and Rosie had to take you home, where you woke up with your head split in half to a handwritten note on your kitchen table that read, simply, “call me.” Which you haven’t done.

You spent the next day glued to your sheets, only crawling out of it to stick your head down the toilet bowl, throwing up, seven times, grand total, your body painfully collapsing on itself, getting rid of the alcohol, but not of the guilt, and not of the pain. No, those remained, sticking to your clammy skin, weighing down your soul.  

You know this road, been down it many times. The automatic deflection through invisible, self-inflicted physical pain. You recognise the symptoms, the warning signs for that shifting cloud of thick black smoke swelling in your chest, like a fast-growing beast made of nothing tangible but two glinting, yellow eyes. 

So the following day, when you got to work, you picked up your phone, and texted Frankie, at long last. When his answer came, immediate, as if he had been waiting all along with his phone in his hand and did not care in the least if it showed, you informed Benny, and asked Suzanne for your Saturday off. 

A sequence of events that has you standing in front of your bedroom mirror, now, applying mascara, nervously fiddling with your hair, unsure whether you’re wearing the proper outfit. You’ve been up since dawn, and as you gulp down your third cup of coffee along with your fourth cigarette, ignoring your throbbing throat, you tell yourself it’s not really stress, it’s only the morning light, because you still haven’t installed the curtains you bought over a year ago. 

You can feel a contraction building up in your left calve. It would be wise to drink some water. But you don’t.

The smell of nicotine clings to your hair and your clothes, but it’s too late to shower again, or even to change, and it doesn’t matter anyway. You’re getting a car. Not a room, after all.

Your eyes flick down to your watch for the umpteenth time. 9.55am. You peer out at the sky, through your bare bedroom window. It hangs low and overcast, the temperature chill, for mid-June. It all adds up and lies heavy on your lungs. You don’t know the first thing about buying a car, but you’re not exactly eager to take a test drive on wet asphalt.

When you pull open the front door of your building at 10am sharp, you notice the pattern formed by the wet dots as they agglomerate on the pavement. 

Frankie’s here, parked just in front, as promised. Faded red t-shirt and light-coloured jeans, he’s standing on the sidewalk, leaning against the hood of his red truck, arms crossed over his chest. The vehicle is ridiculously massive but his broad figure and square shoulders look perfectly on scale. He’s been waiting for a while, judging by the dampened patches on his shoulders, but his face doesn’t show any sign of impatience. The deep lines between his eyebrows only giving the slightest hint of tension under the brim of his cap. 

“Hey,” his voice sounds rusty, as if he hasn’t spoken in weeks.

“Morning,” yours is too breathy, and impossibly high.

You don’t stop and walk straight to the passenger side of the car, ignoring the way his head tilts to the right to follow you, instead cringing at how inelegant you must look, as you climb awkwardly into the high cab. You drop your bag on the floor and fasten your seatbelt, admonishing yourself, one more time, that none of it matters, not how you move, nor what you wear, nor what you smell like, because you are only getting a car. 

He waits until you are settled in to join you inside and when he shuts the door, his scent fills up the space, brushing against your skin, and you pinch the side of your right thigh as hard as you can. His moves are measured and deliberate, and you will your heart to slow the fuck down and align its erratic rhythm to that of his movements.

You risk a glance in his direction when he lifts up his cap and combs his fingers through his thick dark curls. You remembered them a lighter shade of brown. During the few hours you’ve spent observing this older version of him, you’ve come to decipher the gesture. He readjusts his thoughts, just like he does his hair. Once the cap is firmly deep-set on his head, the mountain that is Francisco Morales is set in motion. 

But you don’t know him anymore, not like you did. Years after years, unwanted layers of separate lives, wounds, and emotions have altered the fabric of your innate connection. He has become a guarded man, remote, distant. To you, at least.

Then why are you here?

There’s a pause and the air hangs still for a moment, save for your uneven breathing, louder than the few street noises. Frankie’s perfectly poised when he turns towards you and asks, “So where are we going?”

You blink wildly, your mouth falling open at the one question you didn’t anticipate. 

“What– what do you mean, where are we going?” you stutter. 

“To what dealership?” he offers patiently. 

“I don’t know,” you breathe out, with a shake of your head, “you said ‘let’s go get a car’ and I–” you trail off, you don’t know how to end this sentence. 

“I said, ‘let me go with you to buy a car,’” he corrects, and you sit there, dumbstruck, and exposed. 

“What kind of car do you want?” he tries again, and as you remain silent, rubbing your palms on your thighs in a subconscious attempt to dry them of the sweat your entire body is breaking into, he averts his eyes, looking down at the steering wheel. A smile tugging at his lips. 

“How about we go somewhere, get a drink, first?” he finally proposes. “We can talk about it, see what are the options?”

“It’s 10am,” you reply blankly, as if it makes any difference. 

You immediately wince and his smile broadens. 

“A coffee, then?”

—

Your nervousness drives him mad. You stare out the window as he drives, refusing to look at him and he can see your fingers compulsively fumbling along the side of your thigh when you think he’s not watching.

He put you in that impossible situation. You look pale and tired, there’s a faint smell of cigarette about you, and what’s worse is that he can’t help but smile like a fucking idiot, no matter how hard he tries to bite it down or cover it with a grimace. You’re sitting next to him in his truck. Once more, all he had to do was ask.

You look like a misplaced stereotype of a French girl in your stripped boat neck shirt, and he struggles to focus on the road, scanning the exposed skin of your neck, where it meets your shoulder, searching for a mark that has long faded. 

By the time he pulls into the empty parking lot in front of the Dunkin’ on Tonnele Ave, fat raindrops are splattering on the windshield. 

“You wanna stay here? Or sit inside? I can go get our orders and–”

“Oh yeah, here is nice”, you acquiesce, apparently relieved at the thought of not having to go out, “I mean it’s fine. Please.”

You say “please” like you used to say “sorry.” 

“Milk, no sugar?” he asks quietly, immediately regretting it. He shouldn’t let on how much he remembers. He’s going to freak you out.  

You draw in a deep breath and answer, “Please.”

—

It all begins with small talk. Absurd and mundane. The weather, the traffic, the coffee that’s never strong enough. And before either of you realise it, the parked car feels like an island, the paper cup nicely warming up your stiff hands. 

You’re the first to chance a diverted evocation of your shared past, inquiring about his sister. She’s fine, he tells you, not without pride, a well-established professional photographer, whose work you’re likely to have seen in news magazines and art catalogs.

Your left knee propped up on the seat, your back leaned against the door, you’re finally facing him, your posture relaxed. His broad frame doesn’t allow him that much space, but he too seems at ease, his legs stretched as far as they can, his left arm resting on the wheel. Still, you recoil imperceptibly at his next question. 

“What about you? Are you an archaeologist?”

You take the involuntary hit and think about the best way to present that part of your life, so you don’t come across as worthless as you systematically feel every time you have to discuss that particular subject. 

“No,” you eventually sigh, “I failed.” Ignoring the tick of his jaw, you carry on, “I mean, I graduated, got my BA degree. But I couldn’t get any internship, just like they said. So I moved on to a master’s degree, but in contemporary history,” you chuckle at the nonsensical turnaround in your resume, easing into the topic, “and then I got tired of starving,” you laugh, lifting your palms upward, “so I became a civil servant. Got a position with the historical library of the Hôtel de Ville de Paris. I mean the Paris City Hall,” you shrug, uncertain with your whole translation. 

“Did you like it? The job?” he asks.  

“Well, it’s not what I had set out for. But I think it fitted me better. No pressure, no deadlines. Old books, manuscripts, first editions–” you start to enumerate before your voice fades.

“Do you miss it?” 

You nod wordlessly, your throat suddenly a little tight. His voice is so low you struggle to hear him when he asks again, “Why did you leave?”

You take a brief moment to gather your thoughts, looking vacantly at the neon letters spelling Dunkin’, blurred by the rain running off the windshield. You’ve been asked this question about a million times since you’ve landed here a little over two years ago. Offering countless consensual variations of the same explanation, none of them ever sounding quite right. 

Next to you, Frankie’s waiting, hung from your lips. 

“I think it’s because I had a purpose, but no goal, you know?” you say as you turn toward him again, in time to see him gritting his teeth. 

The crease between his brow deepens before he says, barely audible, “Do you have one, now?”

Somehow, you find it easy to maintain eye contact, and your own voice is steady as you tell him, “Yeah, I think I have.”

Frankie wants to follow up on your answer but he finds himself incapable of speaking. He doesn’t think he’d be able to bear it if you told him that the life you share with Ben provides you with both. Yet, your eyes tell a different story. Your eyes tell him this is not about a man. It is not about him, or his friend. This is entirely about you. 

“None of it sounds like a failure to me,” he eventually says softly. 

There’s no sign of the stress that tensed up your body earlier. He likes the sight of you sitting comfortably in his truck, absentmindedly playing with the empty paper cup in your hands. Perhaps you’d like another coffee, but he fears that if he leaves the car, he might find you gone when he returns. 

Outside, a tall blond woman is running on high heels towards the front door of the Dunkin’, her gait cloddish and imbalanced has she tries not to slip. You watch her until she makes it inside.  

“I don’t know. Anyway, nothing much I can do about it, anymore,” and perhaps for the first time ever, you’re ok with it. “But you, you made it! You became a pilot.”

He shakes his head, and before he can stop himself, mutters under his breath, “Yea, at what cost.”

Uncertain if you heard him right, you sit up straighter and ask, “How was it?”

“How was what?” he frowns. 

“The army. Was it what you thought it would be?”

“Yes and no,” he sighs. He has never given himself the time to reflect on that before. Rather rushed in the opposite direction. “I never expected it to be easy, but– I joined so I could get my pilot’s license. And I ended up doing stuff I hadn’t really signed up for.”

“Did you ever kill anyone?”

“Why the fuck you wanna know that for?” he narrows his eyes at your face, his voice an angry rumble. 

You want to crawl onto his lap and wrap your body around his, knock off that damn cap and run your fingers through his curls, get a glimpse of the lighter shades they used to shine with. You want to press your lips against his forehead, ease the crease of his brow with your thumb, let your skin reach out for him, like it used to, when words were unnecessary, you want him to hear it, because I care, because I wasn’t there, because I wish I could carry it with you. Because I spent too many nights awake, wondering where you were. Because, even when I thought the morning would never come, I hung on, in hopes that the thread between us would keep you safe and sound. Hear everything you cannot pronounce.

You lean back against the door, cranking your brain for another approach. “Did you know that Will kept a ledger of his body count?” 

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, before running a palm over his face. “Jesus… No. But I’m not surprised. Did he tell you how many?”

“Yes, but I don’t think it’s for me to tell you. Although he’d probably tell you too, if you asked him,” you reply in a casual tone. 

“You two really talk about everything,” he says with an empty smile.

“No, not everything. But we do talk a lot,” you offer no further insight into your relationship with the older Miller brother.

“And did he tell you how’s his sleep?” he snarls.

“He says it’s better than it should be,” you shrug as if you were still discussing the weather. “You haven’t answered, Frankie.”

He presses his back into the back of the seat to crush down the shivers that run down his spine when his name passes your lips. A lot may have changed. But not this. 

He knows what you're doing. At least he thinks he does. And anyway, that’s another thing that hasn’t changed. To your voice, he complies. 

He runs his knuckles under his chin, seemingly weighing his next words. “I did what I had to do. I was– I was often too quick on the trigger. I didn’t count them.”

Between his spread thighs, his hands have joined, his right thumb scratching the small tattoo on his left hand. 

“Were you ever scared?”

“No,” he says firmly, shaking his head, “not for myself anyway. For Izzy. Anything happens to me, she’s alone.”

The leather seat creaks when you scoot closer to him, seeking his heat. He rubs his skin harder, so he won’t think about yours. The rain has become a heavy downpour, the drops falling onto the roof of the truck in a loud racket that nearly covers your voice when you speak next. 

“What about that thing Tom mentioned, that night at the bar? About you being grounded. Does that mean you can’t fly anymore?”

His hands still. He turns his head and glares at you, his eyes black and cold. Your face is so soft. You said you’d take anything. But that was long ago. That was before.

He licks his lips, clears his throat. You won’t back down. So he tells you.

“I was suspended. They ran a random drug test at work,” he leaves Giovanni out of the picture, the last thing he wants is for you to think he’s not taking full responsibility for his own fuckups, “it’s a flight school for rich assholes over in upstate New York, and– they found traces of coke in my system.”

“Coke?” your eyes widen with shock as the image shoots through your chest, and he can’t stand the way you look at him right now, like you don’t know him, like you never did. 

“Does it help you? With your– sleep?” There’s no judgment in your voice, and you hope it gets through to him, pass the thick skin and the shame. And, perhaps, he’s more surprised than you that it does. 

“Yea,” he says, looking down at the little tattoo again, shifting in his seat, “it did, yes. And with the rest, I guess. But I’m not using, anymore. Izzy would bite my head off. She found me a good lawyer, the case got dismissed, somehow–” he shrugs, “I got my license back. I’m clear.” 

“What are you going to do, now?”

“I think they’re going to take me back. I gotta go there Monday, actually.” 

“I mean about your sleep, Frankie.” 

God, your face is so soft. 

“You don’t worry about that.”

As if it were that simple.

—

Cars have come and gone in the small parking lot. A composite Saturday morning crowd of busy moms and weekend workers hurriedly flowing in and out of the coffee shop, holding white paper bags and cardboard trays with tall paper cups. 

The outside world resurfaces around Frankie, as you two sit in silence side by side in his truck. 

You peeled him open. Picking out the jagged pieces of his life one by one, with infinite tenderness, and methodically reassembled them. Sought him out in the darkest confines of his existence. Left him with no place to hide. Weaved back the thread. 

“I think I need another coffee,” you stiffen a yawn. 

“Yea.”

The rain abated, without your realising it. You walk in together this time, and when you return to the car, you pull out your phone from your bag, to find Benny has texted you. Your eyes are heavy and your movements slow, you’re suddenly exhausted. 

You answer Benny’s question, “Are you guys done?” with a half-truth about waiting for the weather to get better, inwardly smiling at his abusive use of emojis. 

The conversation resumes, with more trivial topics. You mention the curtains laying untouched in a bag on your apartment’s carpeted floor. 

Eventually, Frankie asks about the car again. Secondhand, you say, and small, preferably European, although you can’t say why. An expression of your homesickness, perhaps. An extra comfort.

It’s a ten-minute drive to Autoland, a dealership on Communipaw Ave that Frankie pretends to know but really only googled the previous day. 

He parks in a lot across the street from the dealership, and gets out of his truck with a spring in his step. 

This time, you circle the vehicle over to Frankie’s side and wait for him, uneasy and apprehensive, seeking the reassurance of his tall figure before you can take one more step. The place looks reasonably sized, for once, you’ve seen bigger ones in Parisian suburbs, but you’ve never bought a car in your life and you’re utterly out of your depth. 

He looks at you as he tucks his t-shirt in his pants, and smiles. Before the two of you cross the busy road, he places a large hand on the small of your back, his fingers splayed, and gives an imperceptible squeeze. You lean into his heat, let it seep in and run through you. You’ve spent years worth of sleepless nights trying to imagine how it would feel like if he ever touched you again. Like electricity, like a dam that gives, like the end of your world. It’s none of it. It’s quiet relief. It’s a close circle. 

The cotton of your shirt feels warm under his palm, it catches at the calloused pads of his work-worn fingertips. Your skin, just underneath it. It’s not it, not yet, and it can’t be. This would be the end of everything. 

True to his profession’s stereotype, the salesman jumps you the very second you step into the lot and introduces himself as Gary. But the cliché ends there. Gary is a lean man of average height, in his late twenties-early thirties, with olive skin and strands of straight black hair that frame his face like a stage curtain. Shiny buckle shoes, skinny black jeans and a tight button-up shirt in a loud pattern, he looks just as misplaced as you in the somewhat depressing dealership.

Gary speaks with a quick flow you struggle to understand and swallows half his words, and when you discreetly peer up at Frankie, you catch him trying to repress a mocking smile. He tilts his head down and raises an eyebrow as he mouths, “I think he’s high.”

You’ve clearly stated what you were looking for, yet Gary keeps walking you towards sedans the size of your living-room. European, alright, Volvo and Volkswagen you wouldn’t know how to maneuver on an empty racetrack. He keeps addressing Frankie, who tries his best to suppress the scoffing off his tone every time he has to remind him that you are the client, and when Gary, at long last, takes note, he punctuates his well-rehearsed speech with a “sweetheart” that send Frankie’s shoulders heaving with a soft chuckle. 

After ten minutes that feel like an hour, you lose patience and cut him mid-sentence. 

“Hey listen, Gary, let’s forget about the European thing, ok? I want a small car. Small, you know, like three doors?” 

“Oh yeah, right, small car, got it!”

He turns on his heels and start walking briskly. You turn to Frankie, eyebrows disappearing into your hairline as you tell him, “Is he fucking serious?” and revel in the sound of his breathy laughter.

You join Gary at the rear of the dealership, where half a dozen compact cars are parked, when his cellphone rings. Raising a heavily bejeweled index to excuse himself as he picks up, he steps away from you. 

Hands on his hips, one leg extended to the side, Frankie watches you impatiently checking the time on your wristwatch.

“Hey,” he starts in a husky tone, “you know, I did fly over the Andes.” 

A wildfire flares up in his chest as you lighten up with the first genuine smile he’s seen on your face since you came back into his life, one that reaches your eyes, that has you beaming, and that he recognises, and you too recognise him when he smiles back, his dimple deeper in his fuller cheek when he adds, wiggling his eyebrows, “Twice.”

You let out a thrilled little gasp, your voice failing you, a little hoarse when you whisper, “How was it? Was it what you expected?” 

“Almost,” he answers. 

You’re so close, so fucking close he can smell that new perfume, and it doesn’t matter that it’s not the same, your eyes are, what if he leaned in a little closer and brushed your lips with his, what if he asked you to leave with him? Would you follow him, again?

Your gaze fall on his plush lips when he licks them, but you back away at the sound of Gary’s voice, standing in front of you.

“Ok guys, sorry about that! So, small car?”

Frankie’s mouth twitches and he stares daggers at the salesman.

“Hey Gary, would you mind giving us a minute?”

He doesn’t wait for his reply to place his hand on the small of your back again, and you take a few steps with him, on shaky legs. 

“Look,” his dark eyes plunge into yours, “if you don’t want a car, we can just go. Tell Benny there wasn’t much choice, which is kinda true,” he gestures towards the yard. “Just– please, promise me you’ll take a cab, when you go out at night.”

Your mind’s racing, going through the options, you need more time to think, so you stall and retort with your usual argument, “I’m a big girl–”

“From a big city, yea, I heard you the first time. Please.” There’s no scorn in his tone. You’re a big girl. He does believe that. But he needs to hear you say it. 

To you, however, it doesn’t sound like a request, most definitely like a direct order, and your mind reels unwillingly as you picture him on the field, in his military uniform, a gun in his deft hands, shouting instructions in his assertive, deep tone, his force and temper barely contained. You’ve seen his control slip. Experienced it firsthand. And you’ve no business being this aroused right now.

You let it ripple down your limbs before you push it away, before you sigh, “Ok. Let’s go, then. I’ve had more than I can take.”

Getting rid of Gary proves itself challenging. He follows you all the way back to the street and hands you a business card you politely decline at first, before changing your mind, in hopes it will shake him off faster. 

His nasal voice is still ringing in your ears when you climb back into the safe-haven of Frankie’s truck. He turns on the ignition and merges into traffic, taking the direction of your apartment, the only possible destination, the decision tacit and unspoken. 

This time, you watch him drive. In fact, you can’t stop staring, the lean muscles undulating under the freckled skin of his forearms, the shape of his solid shoulders, the line of his throat, and the curls on his nape, the sharp edges of his profile, the bare patch in his beard, the thin wrinkles at the corner of his eyes. For the first time, you notice his watch, big, square, utilitarian. 

You jolt yourself out of your trance and decide to call Benny. You can hear his disappointment through the phone, and you feel terrible, like you haven’t tried hard enough, before it occurs to you that the last time you placed your own needs below those of the man you shared your life with, it didn't end up so well. Granted, Benny’s not Éric, not by a stretch, which might be the very reason why it affects you now. So you repeat your promise to take taxis at night, Frankie’s eyes flicking between you and the road. 

He steers slowly through midday traffic, praying for red lights. The silent stillness between you hangs heavy when he double-parks in front of your red brick building. You can’t move. Not when you don’t know if you’ll see him again. 

Drawing in a shaky breath, you gather your strength and unfasten your seatbelt, Frankie once more lifting his cap to readjust his hair. 

“I never thanked you. For coming with me, today. For your help–” you trail off.

The sun has come out and you feel hot in your jeans and thick t-shirt. He doesn’t look at you, his head down, his brow once more knitted. 

“I– I guess I’ll see you,” you murmur. 

You want to wish him good luck, for Monday, ask him to call you afterwards to tell you how it went, but it all gets stuck in the back of your throat, so you grab your bag, instead, and put your hand on the door handle. 

He moves fast, gripping your arm, unclenching his jaw to ask you to “Wait.”

You face him, resigned. If not ready. You know what’s coming. 

Funny how, when the opportunity finally presents itself to get an answer to the one question that has obsessed him his entire adult life, the words won’t come out. And Frankie struggles to look at you as he whispers, “Why didn’t you call?”

You take the punch, breathing in deeply, thinking that the question you so dreaded wasn’t that terrible, after all, when you register the tears prickling at the corners of your eyes. 

“What’s it gonna change, now?”

He lets go of your arm. “Please,” he breathes out. 

Images overlap as your vision blurs, your last kiss, not far from here, so long ago, you cupped his face with both hands and sought his eyes with yours. 

You blink back the memory before you open your bag and pull out your wallet, moving slowly, as if in a dream, your body rebelling against the injunctions from your brain. You take the rectangular note, and with a trembling hand, place it on his lap. Frankie tilts down his head, narrowing his eyes on the little piece of paper, ink-stained and torn out. You’re not sure that he understands what he’s looking at. 

“I got caught in a rainstorm on my way back to Rosie.” It’s hard to speak with the heavy lump in your throat. “I– I was going to call you, that night, but that’s all that was left of your number.” You pause to aggressively brush off a stray tear rolling down your cheek. “I went back to your place, I thought I might catch your sister. I was too late.”

Look at me, Frankie. I tried. I swear.

Frankie hasn’t moved. He’s glaring at the paper, teeth clenched, breathing heavily through his flared nostrils. 

Wiping another tear from your cheek, you open the door and get out of the car. Your strides are long and hurried as you walk toward the front door of your building. 

****

Additional note: Thank you for reading this far 💕

I have no idea when I'll be able to work on and post the next chapter. Good news is, it's already half done, and entirely outlined. However, it is also my favourite, so I want to make sure I get it right. I am truly exhausted and clearly need to refill. Plus the holidays are never easy on my mental health... Everyone, be gentle to yourselves in this time of year 🧡 I'll keep you posted (bad pun always intended). Never hesitate to drop me an ask, I really love those. Love 🧡

Taglist (thank you 🧡): @elegantduckturtle @mashomasho @lola766 @flowersandpotplantsandsunshine @nicolethered @littleone65 @bands-tv-movies-is-me @the-rambling-nerd @saintbedelia @pedrostories @trickstersp8 @all-the-way-down-here @deadmantis @hbc8 @princessdjarin @harriedandharassed @girlofchaos

[intheorangebedroom]

Pleased to meet you, chapter 10

Summary: it's Will's birthday, and everyone gathers at his place for a nice Sunday barbecue. You choose a particular -sensible- outfit, and some decisions are made in the heat of the moment.

Pairing: Frankie Morales x French fem!Reader.

Rating: Explicit 🔞

A/N: it occurred to me recently (thank you Fanna) that some of you had subscribed to the taglist without my knowledge... I'm an unworthy idiot and thought I'd get a notif of some sort, so I never thought to check the form out. I'm very sorry. I'm insanely grateful to anyone who interacts with this story. I will never tire of thanking you.

Word Count: 7.1k (I'm very sorry, I don't know what happened, I'm blaming the Millers on this one)

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Chapter 10: The Deal

(👆🏻 as per usual, from @nicolethered 's treasure trove)

-

Catfish, noun [C] (FISH) : a fish with a flat head and long hairs around its mouth that lives in rivers or lakes.

Catfish, noun [C] (FAKE), informal: someone who pretends on social media to be someone different, in order to trick or attract other people.

Padding out of the steamy bathroom into the adjacent bedroom, you press the home screen button to close the Cambridge Dictionary app and tap open your Larousse translator.

Catfish [‘kætfiʃ] (pl catfish or catfishes), noun : poisson-chat.

None of it makes any sense to you, not in any language you know. Perhaps you should try Spanish? Putain de merde.

Benny’s resounding voice echoes from the living-room, the velvety tones brushing against your naked skin. He’s strumming his guitar to a song you recognise as Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Fortunate Son. The hand holding your phone lowers slowly, your tense shoulders dropping in slow motion as you listen.

Ben’s voice is what you like best about him. It’s the very first thing you noticed, in the hardware store aisle, and also the first that charmed you after your first couple of dates. It trickles down your spine like honey, keeps your inside warm and your mind snug, and when he sings… well, when he sings, on a normal day, it’s plenty enough to turn you on like an electrical wire, and he never gets to play very long when you’re staying at his place.

Only nothing’s normal anymore.

You stood up Rosie at the last minute on Tuesday, unable to face her in the wake of this new reality, instead showing up at work on your day off without an explanation and unilaterally deciding to undertake a thorough inventory of the bookstore. Your boss, Suzanne, was pleasantly surprised, and if something seemed off to her, she didn’t say.

When Benny told you he would see the guys again on Friday night, you attempted to talk him out of it, as subtly as you could despite your nervousness, feeling as though he could see right through you. Which he didn’t.

After closing up that evening, you walked straight to your usual deli, just around the block corner from the bookstore, where the cashier is a Moroccan grandpa with whom you chat in French, much to your delight, and who calls you “cousine”, and bought your first pack of smokes since college.

Back at your apartment, you smoked all 20 cigarettes sitting by the windowsill of your living-room, waiting for a text or a phone call from Benny that never came. He’s not in the habit of texting nor calling you, on Friday nights. He has taught himself to respect your chosen moments of aloneness, with a childlike willingness, eager to please you.

What were you so nervous about, anyway? How likely is it that Frankie would walk up to his friend to tell him, “Hey, I fucked your girlfriend fifteen years ago, and she let me do things to her that she has denied you repeatedly. Want another beer?”

Your manic brain won’t let go about it, however, no matter how sternly you reason with yourself, no matter what logic you employ. Would that eventuality be so far-fetched? You don’t know what these men share. You know nothing of the strength and nature of their bond. Only that they’re like brothers. You’re foreign to that. You’re an outsider. How can you be sure that Benny wouldn’t cut you loose without a second look if his friend told him about what happened between you? Besides, if Catfish looked at you with such unabated anger, he might very well consider it his brotherly duty to warn his friend. “She’s a liar. She’ll never call you.”

The worst being that you can’t make up your mind about what would hurt most. Benny’s abandon. Or Frankie’s betrayal.

If only you knew what the fuck “Catfish” means. If you had this one clue, you might get an understanding of the man he has become. Or so you think.

You put down your phone and retrieve a cotton t-shirt from your travel bag, laying it flat on the bed next to your jeans, smoothing over the fabric with a frown. You brought another choice of outfit, more suitable to attend a birthday party, a cute little white cotton short-sleeves button-up with a red lining around the collar, a yellow one along the button placket and a dark green one on the breast pocket.

Picking up your phone again, you briefly consider running a Google image search, for the hundredth time or so, but instead angrily toss it on the bed, where it bounces off and ends up on the wooden floor with an ominous noise.

“Et merde!”

“Ooooh she’s naked!” Benny appears on the bedroom threshold, dirty blue jeans and shabby Kiss T-shirt, his massive silhouette dwarfing the doorway.

“Sorry, I’m dressing up, I’ll be ready in a minute,” you quickly shuffle back to the bag and crouch down, rummaging through it in search of your underwear. Benny offered weeks, no, months ago, to clear a drawer for you. And a shelf in his wardrobe. You’ve really mastered the art of deflecting, if anything else.

“That’s not what I meant,” he croons, joining you in two long strides, tugging at your arm until you stand up and face him.

“Stop it, we’re bringing the drinks, we can’t be late,” you tilt your head up with a raised eyebrow, your frustration visible.

“I do not care… Come on, I’ll be quick,” he promises with a cocky smile, wrapping both arms around your waist and pulling you flush against him.

“Oh, you’ll be quick? What about me?” you exclaim in mock offence.

It systematically takes you by surprise, every single time, the ease with which this man manages to lift up your mood. No matter how reluctant you are, he just drags the joy out of you.

“I can get you off fast. Three minutes—”

“Three minutes?!” you cry indignantly.

“I like a challenge, come on,” he chuckles, splaying his large hands across your cheeks, drifting toward the cleft of your ass as you try to wiggle out of his embrace.

“Benjamin, it’s late, stop it,” you giggle, but the drag of his lips along the line of your neck is making you weak in the knees already, a small heat flaring up in your belly.

His voice drops another octave and your entire body shudders against his rumbling chest, “Three minutes. Bend over the bed, baby.”

—

Three minutes turned out to be twenty, after what you had to take another shower, and now you’re definitely running late. You’re not cross, however, if anything you feel more relaxed than you have since the beginning of the week. More than quick, he’s been rough, pounding you ruthlessly into the mattress from behind while you frantically rubbed your clit, and perhaps it was just what you needed to straighten your head. To remind yourself that you’re precisely where -and with whom- you’re supposed to be. Because you are. Right?

As you apply mascara in the bathroom, Benny calls in from the living-room, announcing he’s going to start the car. You acknowledge the information for what it means: that gives you five extra minutes, it being the amount of time he likes to run the engine for, before pulling the Mustang out of the garage.

You briskly walk into the bedroom and slip into your sensible underwear and your jeans. The t-shirt you pulled out of your bag earlier slipped on the floor while Benny was fucking you, and you pick it up without looking at it, shoving it back unceremoniously inside the bag. You make a face at the rumpled cotton as you pull out your blouse and lay it on the mattress. As you vainly repeat your earlier motion, trying to smooth the shirt under your palm, you decide that you’re going to ask Benny again about the shelf and drawer, after all, nodding to yourself.

You put on the blouse and start buttoning it up, circling the bed to retrieve your phone from the corner of the room where it fell earlier, and as you pick up the device, the screen unlocks and lights up.

Catfish [‘kætfiʃ] (pl catfish or catfishes), noun : poisson-chat.

You pause for the briefest moment, clenching your jaw and about to rub your eyelids before remembering you’ve got makeup on. Sliding the phone in the back pocket of your jeans, you hurry back to your bag and choose the yellow t-shirt for the second time today.

—

Will is getting a grill for his birthday. An insanely expensive beast of a machine with more knobs than a sci-fi villain’s aircraft. Something he has no use for, since he’s had the same simple, basic charcoal grill since he moved in alone after splitting from Jean. Something Frankie’s dead sure he won’t even like. Pope and Redfly’s idea.

He tried objecting, but he’s no match for the two of them together, and Benny, typically, sided with the two men. So everyone chipped in, Yovanna and you included, he was informed, and Frankie was handed the money in cash and asked to take care of everything, from buying the damn thing, to storing it in his garage and bringing it over to Will’s house on Sunday morning. Everyone else too busy with their respective jobs, kids, girlfriends. He’s the one with the suspension and the big truck parked outside all year round. He’s the one with the empty garage and the empty bed.

When Will opens his front door, bare-chest and his hair still wet, Frankie gives him an eloquent glance from under the brim of his cap, as he moves to the side of the doorway to let his friend see what is hauled up at the back of the red truck.

“Fuck, man, you kidding me?” Will exclaims in his slow drawl. “Why did you let them do that?”

“I tried, brother, I tried. Happy birthday, anyway,” Frankie pats him on the shoulder before walking back to his truck to unload the monster with the help of a trolley.

It takes the two of them to carry it across the soft soil of the backyard, on which the trolley refuses to budge, and position it against the fence at the rear of the garden.

Yovanna and Pope come in soon after with the meats and side dishes, Pope’s winning argument to convince Will to throw a party being that he wouldn’t have to do a thing. While they help set everything on the large picnic table, Frankie starts the grill.

He had flipped through the thick manual the night before, shaking his head and occasionally chuckling at the convoluted instructions. He’d be damned if Will was going to use this thing once, and when he asked his friend whether he wanted him to take away the old grill, Will shot him a “don’t you dare” glance that got him wheezing.

Redfly arrives next with his two daughters, Tess, the eldest, looking like she’d rather stick a fork in her leg than be here with a bunch of old men, her headphones riveted to her head. Frankie notices for the first time, with a pang of sadness, how much she resembles her father, her defeated look reflected on his friend’s face.

The doorbell keeps ringing for a while, more guests pouring into the small backyard, arms full of drinks and food, and gathering around the table. First, the couple from across the street and their two toddlers, and Frankie inquires if they want the kids to eat first, the exhausted father gratefully agreeing to the suggestion. Then the next door neighbour, a cute redhead of indiscernible age named Clare who, Frankie observes, melts on her chair every time Will addresses her, and finally two of Will’s coworkers from the VA.

The table is quickly buried under heaps of food, egg salad, bowls of chips, biscuits and corn on the cob, three different salads, bags of buns and a large plate of homemade arepas brought by Yovanna… So Will neighbour’s suggests to lend him two plastic folding tables to accommodate everyone, that they install after retrieving them from his garage.

Pope plays some music through his Bluetooth speaker and everyone starts loosening up, happily chatting against the sizzling noises of grilling meat.

At which point, Frankie gets fidgety, his carefully crafted composure eroding slowly.

It’s not out of character for Benny to be late, quite the contrary. Even though he’s been tasked with providing the refreshments.

Only, he knows you too will be here. And he came prepared, deciding early on that this day would be a run test for future interactions. Specifically, is he capable of entertaining a polite and distant relationship with you, without feeling like his blood had been turned into lava. Without the need to take the anger out on himself afterward. Without wanting more than just that.

Judging from his increasingly shaky hand clasped around the fancy grill’s spatula, he might have to skip the next couple of happy family gatherings.

—

Will’s house is smaller than his brother’s, although it counts one more room. But being considerably tidier, you’ve always thought it to be much larger.

The front door opens directly into a wide but shallow room, arbitrarily divided into a living-room on the right and a dining area on the left. Beyond this first room, a corridor serves a bathroom and a kitchen to the left, and two small bedrooms to the right, and leads to the well-kept backyard, closed off by a neatly lined white fence.

You’ve been here once or twice before, but when you hang out with the Miller brothers, it’s usually at Ben’s place, or in a downtown bar. It’s not that Will’s house is uncomfortable, the couch is brand new, the fridge well stocked, the TV set modern. But everything about it is spartan, bordering impersonal.

Today, as Will greets you with one of his heartfelt, marked embrace, you can’t help but ponder one more time the contrast between the austere interior and what you know to be the man’s rich, limitless inner world.

“You’re late,” he shoots gruffly at his baby brother.

Ben shrugs carelessly and retorts, “It’s her fault,” tilting his head toward you, before making a beeline to the backyard, carrying a giant beer keg and a cooler filled with beverages with the same ease as if they were fluffy pillows.

Will throws you a skeptical glance and you answer silently with a shake of your head.

“Happy birthday, Will,” you say with a soft smile, and as he moves to follow Ben into the garden, you hold him back, tugging at his plaid shirt. “I’ve got something for you.”

“You mean you weren’t in on the present?” he asks as if it makes more sense, returning your smile.

“Oh no, I am, I wasn’t given a choice, but I got you something else.”

For some reason, you don’t feel comfortable handing him the rectangular, carefully wrapped package you extract from your tote bag in front of everyone, and he senses your hesitancy. He gives you a short nod and you follow him in silence towards the corridor. Somehow, his massive frame looks even more impressive as you walk sheepishly behind him, tall figure, wide shoulders, strong arms. You know him to be slightly smaller in height than his younger brother, but he’s all quiet strength and raw power. You wonder for a brief moment what it must feel like to be facing a man like him in battle, to find yourself on the wrong side of William Ironhead Miller.

He opens the door to the spare bedroom, where you’ve never been before, and before you have the time to withhold it, a faint gasp escapes you.

It’s an office, of sorts, and a cluttered one, with a desk positioned under the single window, covered in notebooks and scattered notes written on loose sheets, an old sofa bed, foam coming out of the thread-bare armrests, and so many bookshelves it looks as though they’re holding the ceilings, the walls barely visible. Rows of non-fiction, philosophical essays, geography textbooks and some exhibition catalogs, several framed military decorations, and framed photos. Dozens of photos.

You’re standing inside William’s brain.

You gape at him in bewilderment, your eyes asking a silent question, to which he replies, “It’s ok, you can take a look,” a knowing smile on his face, and you dart toward the nearest shelf without hesitation.

The picture of the two of them next to the golden retriever is the first one that holds your attention, but there are many more family portraits, some of them with a couple you easily identify as their parents, the boys bearing a striking resemblance to them, and one with a toddler, a girl, holding a very young William’s hand. Everything’s there, a colourful and assorted retrospective of their entire childhood: picnics, mountain hikes, birthdays, first bikes, fishing trips to the lake, graduations… Ben and Will at a variety of stages of their military carriers, lined up in chronological order, as far as you can tell, and because your mind so often works in the same ways as your friend’s.

A growing lump invades your throat, and you begin to blink wildly. You stand here, motionless, numb, unable to pull away from the images, fully aware of the privilege he’s granting you, admitting you into this sanctuary, tucked away from everyone else’s prying gaze.

And then you see it. A group picture of the five of them, siting around a camp fire in front of a large camouflage tent, in what looks like a Middle Eastern scenery. Pope, Redfly, Ironhead, Benny, and Catfish. All of them looking considerably younger. All of them grinning widely. Your heart sinks at the sight of his dimple. How old can he be? Thirty, thirty-five, you assume, his hair short, a soft caramel brown, his face clean-shaven, the wrinkles at the corner of his eyes shallow, still, but the crease between his brows deep, already.

You missed out on so much of him. You missed everything.

It takes all of your willpower to turn away and hand Will the package, without a word, not trusting your voice to be steady enough to speak.

He doesn’t tear the wrapping, instead tugging the adhesive open, until the busy book cover is revealed. It’s an exhibition catalog, Bauhaus 1919-1933: Workshops in Modernity, held at the MoMa in 2010, long before you met each other. The first time the two of you visited the museum together, you swung by the bookstore, and you observed him discreetly as he flipped through the catalog’s pages with covetous eyes, eventually replacing it on its pile, with evident regret. It took you a while, several weeks of getting to know him better, before you could understand why. Priced at $75, the book was an unaffordable luxury to him.

You see the surprise play across his handsome features, and you can tell the exact moment when he registers, the memory resurfacing, that milestone in your friendship, the fact that you remembered. You see this solid, pragmatic man, rarely surprised, always prepared, clearly shaken; and as you finally stir to leave the room, wanting to allow him the space you know he needs, he pulls you into his arms, hugging you so tightly it hurts, and he whispers, “Thanks, sister.”

—

“Alright, who wants some alcohol?” Ben shouts into the backyard, his question greeted by a collective and cheerful holler.

Frankie’s knuckles crack in his grip of the cooking utensil, and he has to make a conscious effort to stop gritting his teeth. Ok, he got this, he reminds himself. If he made it through Monday night, he can make it through Sunday afternoon. He turns around to face the house, and his front collides with Ben’s chest, who pats his back with a resounding grunt. You’re nowhere in sight.

“Hey man, wanna beer?” Ben asks brightly.

One of them had a good morning, at least.

“Yea, is it fresh?” Frankie’s voice comes out a bit tense, but he can work on it, he knows he can.

“It sure is,” Ben answers, cracking a can open and handing it to his friend.

Frankie takes a swig of the cool beverage and feels it flowing down his burning throat, scanning the door to the house. You’re still nowhere to be seen.

“You’re alone?” he asks, and immediately winces.

Off to a great start.

“Nah, she’s in there with Will, scheming.”

Ben tries to pick up a wiener from the grill and burns his fingers, swearing under his breath and mumbling something about the size of the machine. Something that Frankie doesn’t hear. His ears are filled with the frenetic thumping of his blood, even though his heart has stopped beating.

Will’s bulky silhouette appeared in the doorway, and as he stepped into the garden, you materialised behind him, pausing there for a moment to let your eyes adjust to the midday light. You’re wearing these jeans again, the ones that are way too tight on your hips, they’re Benny’s favourite, but Frankie doesn’t know that, and it’s not what he sees. What he sees is your t-shirt. A pale shade of yellow, and the print of a book cover. A black cat in a white bow tie, holding a gun in its clawed paw, winking straight at him, and the title in red, bold letters, etched over your breasts, that spell:

The Master and Margarita.

—

You find yourself behind Will again, walking down the narrow hallway to the backyard, but you have to stop on the threshold, blinded by the sudden daylight. It’s early in April, and you recall a Gainsbourg song about April inspiring love. There’s a stereo playing Jefferson Airplane and the smell of grilled meat fills the air. When your eyes adjust to the luminosity, you’re slightly taken aback. You didn’t expect that big of a crowd, and anxiety immediately kicks in at the thought of having to meet new people and make small talk. Something catches your eyes on your right, Yovanna is waving at you, standing next to Pope.

You smile back, relieved, about to step in and join her, when you see him.

A blue and brown plaid shirt pulled taut over his broad frame, the top two, no, three buttons undone, the dip of his collarbones exposed, rolled up sleeves revealing his forearms, locks of hair curling around his ears and on his nape.

When your eyes lock, a faint, wistful smile tugs at the corner of his lips and oh god, you want to crawl under his skin and forever live there.

—

The guests are all seated, now, divided into groups around the three tables in the cramped backyard, except for the neighbours’ kids, who are running around under the playful supervision of Tom’s youngest, Sue.

You’re sitting between Will and Benny, across from Yovanna and Pope, but more often than not, Will’s up and around, refilling people’s glasses, making sure everyone has everything they need. You know him to be more comfortable in quiet settings, but he makes for a very charming host, nonetheless.

Grilling food and preparing the burgers take up most of Frankie’s time, who has yet to sit down and enjoy his own plate. You’ve never seen so much meat, and you don’t think you’ll be able to swallow any for the next two weeks at least.

When Frankie comes over to your table to ask what your party would like to eat, you notice for the first time that he addresses Yovanna almost exclusively in Spanish, whereas Pope and him mostly use English. He’d told you he was born in Argentina, but you’d never heard him use his mother tongue, and it’s invading all your senses. His voice sounds different, softer, rounder, less gruff around the edges.

You won’t let it carry you back to the orange bedroom, not here, not like that, not with your boyfriend’s hand resting on your lap, his thumb rubbing your inner thigh. If you could just effectively control your goddamn breathing every time he lifts that cap and combs through his hair…

“What about you?” his husky voice jolts you out of your reverie. He’s looking straight at you, hands propped on his hips, “What do you want?”

You stare at him blankly, dumbstruck, an instantaneous acceleration in the rhythm of your heartbeat as you feel crimson creeping up your neck and cheeks. Will’s steely gaze is on you as you shift nervously on your hard plastic seat.

Meat. He’s asking about the meat.

“Burger. Rare. Please,” you answer without thinking, before adding hastily, “Wait! Can I have some extra cheese? Please?”

Pope bursts out laughing and Yovanna shoves her elbow in his ribs. A slow, devastating smile appears on Frankie’s face, so broad, so spontaneous, so sincere, all dimple and teeth, and for the first time in this life you’re facing your Frankie, despite the deep creases at the corner of his eyes, despite the cap hiding away his curls, despite the whiskered cheeks stranded with grey, and it’s more, much more than you can stand, you have to lower your eyes onto your egg salad.

The rest of the meal is a game of avoidance, played knowingly and with unexpected skill by the two of you. Every once in a while, you throw each other sideways glances, facing away mere milliseconds before your eyes can actually meet, holding your stare until the last possible moment. But for the most part, you concentrate on Yovanna, exchanging ideas on topics as diverse as politics or cinema, making plans for a girl’s night out with Rosie and some of her friends.

Frankie cooked the food you’re eating right now. You try not to linger on the thought. And he gave you extra cheese, alright, your burger disintegrating in your hands, nearly impossible to handle with the amount he managed to melt on top of the patty.

He loves the way you eat, grabbing the burger with both hands and unceremoniously pushing it into your mouth until you realise there are people around who might be watching.

Memories are resurfacing now, flowing into the gaping abyss vacated by his receding anger, flooding his brain, and his senses.

And if he can’t recall what the two of you ate during the single meal you shared over the course of the weekend, he remembers your voracity. To this day, you remain his best kiss. Like that first one on the balcony, no, not a balcony, a fire escape, when he hung on for dear life to your hips with a bruising grip as you pulled him in, a minute ago shy and self-conscious, all he had to do was show you the attraction was reciprocal.

And that other kiss you gave him after that meal, only it hadn’t been on his lips.

It was already Sunday, in the early afternoon, when you too had first thought of eating. You were together on that bed where you spent most of the weekend. Lying on his back, eyes closed and a smile dancing on his lips, he was focused on the sensation of the tip of your fingers tracing patterns along his torso.

Your stomach let out a very loud, very angry growl. Your eyebrows shot up and you rolled onto your side to cover your face in embarrassment, both of you bursting into a laughing fit. He wrestled you for a bit, trying to pull your arms away from your face, and he finally carried you out of bed. He couldn’t understand why he found the idea of feeding you so satisfactory, even then, as he still does today.

You slipped on his plaid shirt, the act so natural and familiar, you looked so fucking lovely. He felt a pang of possessiveness, a foreign feeling to him, one he’d never experienced until then. You followed him into the kitchen where you ate together in content silence, exchanging cheerful looks, like two happy puppies.

After eating, however, the atmosphere shifted. He felt your gaze on his bare skin and when he looked up, your hooded eyes told him everything he needed to know. You got up slowly, purposefully, and slowly, purposefully took off his shirt, draping it neatly over the back of the Formica chair. Fuck, he loved your tits, so damn much.

He found himself unable to move, mesmerised by your demeanour, confident and full of intent. It was new, and it was something else. You were not quite the same girl anymore, and he wasn’t sure if “girl” was still the fitting term.

Closing the distance between you in one stride, you kneeled in front of him, gently parting his legs with your hands, and you moved closer, holding his gaze. He felt dumbstruck, at your mercy, like he had when you first backed him against that same kitchen chair two nights ago, and he licked his bottom lips in a futile attempt to snap out of it.

You lowered your eyes to the growing bulge in his black briefs and his cock twitched. With parted lips, you leaned in to kiss him through the warm fabric, eyes closed in rapture under your raised brow. Softly, you nuzzled your cheek against the cottony material, and inhaled. He froze, eyes locked on you, his chest heaving, his mouth gone slack. You rested your cheek on the inside of his thigh for a short while.

Then, flicking your eyes open, you started quietly, “I really want to–” and paused, and it occurred to him you might not even know how to say it in English.

“You don’t have to, if you’re–”, he trailed off, hardly recognising his own breathy, shaky voice. What the fuck was he talking about? He might die if you stopped now.

“Please? Please let me. It’s just that… I know I’m not too good at it.”

He was already fully erect when you took him out of his briefs, hard and heavy, and when you hesitantly bit your bottom lip, his eyes squeezed shut. He felt the curled up tip of your tongue collecting the bead of precome from the head of his cock, heard your satisfied exhale, felt your cold mouth enveloping him -cereal, he remembers it now, you had cold milk with cereal-, felt the contrast of your warm hand wrapping around his base.

If you were fairly inexperienced, your eagerness more than made up for it, and he let out a muffled curse when you began licking up broad stripes, before dipping as far down on him as you could.

He wanted to bury his hands in your hair and thrust deeply into your mouth, fill you entirely, the thought of fucking your throat threatening to tip him over too soon, but a part of his brain somehow still functioning remained in control; instead he gripped the sides of his seat until his knuckles turned white.

Your mouth closed around him, you settled in a steady rhythm, tongue swirling around his fat tip, hand stroking up and down with a maddening twist of your wrist, but you were far too gentle. With his cock still in your mouth, your eyes flicked up to his with a question, to which he gave a short, rapid nod, yes, yes, do whatever the fuck you want with me and you withdrew your lips with a popping sound, your timid smile in complete contradiction with the filth of your actions, before spitting tenderly on the head of his cock.

You were going to be the death of him.

Spreading your spit down his length, you stroked harder, wrapping your lips around him again, this time sucking firmly up and down with hollowed cheeks. He saw you squirming, pressing your thighs together, he heard your moans, you were enjoying this. That realisation, combined with your ministrations, was overwhelming.

His hips locked into place, the muscles in his belly strained, his balls drew tighter, he was too fucking close; he reached for the soft hair on your nape and tried pulling you back before it was too late, but you resisted, sucking harder, looking at him from under your eyelashes with an expression that mirrored his when you had straddled him on that same chair. “Do it, use me.”

He came at once. His head rolled back, an obscene grunt echoing in the room, heavy ropes of spend hitting the back of your throat that you bravely tried to swallow, flooding past your closed lips and dribbling down your chin. You kept suckling him delicately through it and when he came around after a minute, or five, or ten, he noticed he was still holding your hair.

You looked dazed, dazed and pleased with yourself, holding him in your right hand, sitting back on your heels like a proud student waiting to be graded, and he laughed breathlessly.

He’s hoping now, looking at you as you wipe your chin clean of the dripping sauce from the burger he cooked especially for you, that he told you then how well you did for him. More women than he’d care to count have sucked his dick ever since, some of them professionals, none made him feel the way you did. All he can remember is that he had been eager to get you cleaned up.

And what happened then in the bathroom had been the beginning of the end for him.

—

When the neighbours bring their kids back home for nap time, the place becomes considerably quieter. Tom takes his leave shortly after, having to drive his daughters back to his ex-wife, and you’re slightly alarmed that his friends are letting him take the wheel, considering how much alcohol he’s had. Then it’s Will’s colleagues’ turn to go. There’s a pleasant, sated lull in the conversations, as the remaining guests stretch their limbs in the afternoon sun.

When Frankie joins your table, Benny sits up as if remembering something.

“Hey baby, I’ve been thinking,’ he starts, looking at you both, “Fish could help you with the car. He used to be a mechanic, right Fish?”

All the food you’ve ingested makes your body slow and heavy, but you think you could start shaking with the way Frankie’s eyes flick up to you, alight with an alarming gleam.

The car. Benny’s big project, getting you out of public transportation. You didn’t need one in Paris and you haven’t bought one here yet, you like the bus rides, you can read and listen to music and daydream. A real luxury. And you’re more than fine with Benny driving you around in the Mustang.

“We’ve talked about this, Ben, I’m not comfortable driving, here,” you remind him tentatively.

Frankie leans back in his chair, arms crossed on his broad chest, and you avoid the sight of his lean muscles rippling underneath the tanned skin of his forearms.

“Look, I don’t like you riding them buses alone at night. She won’t even take a cab,” he adds for his friend’s benefit. “Fish knows a lot about cars and engines and shit, he could help you choose a good one. I think that’s a good idea, that’s all I’m saying.”

Nothing about this is a good idea.

“Cheers, but I’m a big girl from a big city,” you answer with a hint of aggressiveness. “I mean I’m fine,” you try again, softer, “and I’m used to driving a stick, I would want a manual gear, anyway.”

A manual gear. Nice touch, very European, that was convincing.

“Yea I can help you with that, too,” Frankie lifts his head and you get a better view of his face under the brim of the cap, but you’ll be damned if you can decipher his expression.

This whole situation is throwing you off-balance, you can’t process what’s happening, but you know that you don’t like it, not in the least, what do you want, what does he want, what is he playing at?

He wants you safe. He wants you off the buses at night, is what he wants. Nothing else. Nothing more. Aside perhaps from the opportunity to ask you one question.

Clare provides you with a much welcome way out when she joins the discussion.

“I’ve been to Paris, like fifteen years ago? I loved it! What neighbourhood are you from, exactly?”

The topic seems forgotten and you carry out the conversation for as long as you can before excusing yourself and stepping inside for a glass of water. Talking about your hometown has cooled down your nerves, but you still need a moment to yourself.

Will’s kitchen is cleaner than an operating room. It’s disconcerting, and you wonder if he ever eats in. The hob is pristine, so is the oven, and you hardly resist the urge to open the fridge just to have a peek, refraining out of respect for your friend.

The first cabinet you open contains different sorts of coffee, teas and herbal infusions, canned soups and chocolate, something you didn’t expect. You find the glasses behind the second door you open, but your hand freezes on the handle as you hear someone coming into the kitchen behind you.

It’s him. The understanding instinctual. You recognize his gait, measured, calm, assertive, and before you can decide how to react, you’re surrounded by the scent of him. You were right, of course you were right, you do remember it vividly, only now it’s more potent, and it’s so close, too close, it’s there, you feel dizzy, he’s drawing nearer and you brace yourself for an impact that doesn’t come.

He stops half an inch short of your back, and it’s as if your very skin is reaching out for him.

He leans over you, his mouth to your ear, the thin hair on your nape standing, and his breath fans over your throat when he whispers, “Let me get that car with you.” It’s not a request. It’s not a question.

You feel the heat rolling off of him once it’s no longer there. You stand alone in the empty kitchen, eyes clenched, cold and perfectly still, your hand gripped onto the cabinet handle.

It’s a moment before you can walk out of the kitchen on shaky legs. You’re going to do this. You are really going to do this. You can’t pause to think.

You get to the garden and the sun blinds you, they’re all staring in your direction, if only in your head. You go back to your seat next to Benny and you put on a broad smile, willing your voice to sound perfectly casual.

“Ok you win. I’ll get that car. But a small one.”

Oh god he looks so fucking happy, like a child, and he kisses you deep, you hate yourself already when you notice Frankie’s watching, he hasn’t missed a thing. You recognise the sadness in his eyes, it’s the same that’s pinching your heart.

Everything happens too fast afterwards. Benny signals him to come over, and you exchange phone numbers, an ordinary social interaction that is anything but. The irony of the situation drops like an anvil in your stomach and you fear for a moment that you’re going to be sick. Neither Frankie nor you can look at each other as you tap the digits on the screens.

Your entire body shudders at the sound of Benny’s voice.

“Alright, then, Fish, I guess she’ll give you a call!”

—

Why you didn’t call is all he needs to know. He’ll back off once he knows. And he can’t stand the thought of you travelling by bus, alone at night. Two birds, one stone.

He didn’t recognise your scent. Standing so close to you in that clinically clean kitchen, he breathed in your hair, your neck, and it was intoxicating, but it wasn’t like it used to be. Not that he can remember your old scent. He’s forgotten about that, along with your taste, a long time ago, he just knows it’s not it. New shampoo, new perfume, maybe. New boyfriend.

The only thing he remembers after all these years, apart from your eyes and your face, is your skin. The feel of it under the pads of his fingers, under the palm of his hand, under his tongue, between his lips. How it shivered under his touch. The way it caught at his calloused digits. And your cool back against his burning chest. And your breasts, and your own hands as you ceaselessly caressed him.

Is it better to remember?

Around three years ago, he met a girl from Mexico, much younger than him, dark and beautiful, and she made him feel good for a while, he liked the sensation of her soft body underneath his, and he thought he might be in love until he realised it was nothing but a reminiscence of you. Of your skin. Over and over and over again. Always you. Only you. A life spent seeking you through all these stranger, distant bodies.

He got so close to your skin, earlier. He knows that’s how close he’s ever going to get, now. Benny’s never been this happy. Benny’s in love, it’s all over his face, on display for everyone else to see.

But it’s real. He’s got that. Everything that happened between you and him, has been real. That’s what you gave him, today, you clever, clever girl. He can be content with that, he thinks. If only…

If only he didn’t feel your skin reaching out for him.

—

In the orange bedroom, he’d fallen asleep first and you had fought through your own tiredness to stay awake just a little while longer. Looking at him, committing to memory all his singular details. The size of his hands, the shape of his nails, the colour of his eyelashes, the tattoo behind his ear and the one on his thumb, the curve of his nose, the line of his neck, the pattern of his freckles, the dip between his collarbones, the ones over his hips, the flawless shape of his length, the build of his thighs, the sharpness of his jawline, the breadth of his shoulders, the curls of his hair…

You couldn’t ever be satisfied but you didn’t want to disturb his slumber, so you got up for a glass of water and got reminded of the books piled up by the chair.

Kneeling down on the floor, you looked through a first column of physics and algebra textbooks. A few others, smaller, with eye-catching covers, were fiction. Mostly second-hand, judging by the yellowed paper. Some were in Spanish, from authors unknown to you yet, but some you knew and loved, Hemingway, O'Connor, Remarque, Capote… You picked up a beaten copy of Franny and Zooey, inhaling the old paper scent, and flipped through the pages. Here, some sentences were underlined, there, entire paragraphs. His bold handwriting sprawled in all caps in the margin, his thoughts laid down in ink, something you would never dare do.

You put down the book, resuming your browsing, you couldn’t figure out what you were looking for, only that you would know when you’d find it, and oh! there.

You held the book with both hands and murmured the title like one does a binding spell.

“Le Maître et Marguerite”

****

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[intheorangebedroom]

Pleased to meet you, chapter 11

Summary: it's Sunday morning in the orange bedroom. You're at peace with your feelings, but Frankie's control starts to slip.

Pairing: Frankie Morales x French fem!Reader.

Rating: Explicit 🔞

A/N: Ngl I’m very nervous about this one. Nobody screams at me, please! They will be talking soon. I think 👀 (I'm working 6 days this week and the next, bear with me). Thank you to anyone still reading this story. My endless love and gratitude to @frannyzooey who saved my life with this chapter (and for a million other reasons ♥) Also, size kink like woaaa 🫣

Word Count: 2.5k (balancing last chapter)

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Chapter 11: Sunday Morning

It starts with a caress. The morning sun on your right shoulder. Followed by the soft, cottony fabric of the bed you’re lying on, on your left side. You slowly open your eyes to a sparsely furnished bedroom, bathed in mid-morning summer light, a pleasant ache between your thighs, your body heavy but rested. It’s nicely warm, the cacophony from a world outside the window distant and muffled, barely disturbing the room’s peacefulness. You can’t remember where you are.

You’re confused, but not alarmed. The room is alight with an orange glow. Orange like the curtains in your grandparents’ living-room, before your grandma died when you were five and a half and your mother had no other option but to take you back, before she married a wealthy man and you had to keep a low profile in your own home. Before your childhood ended. You feel safe, like you felt back then. You don’t know where you are, but you know that, for once, you don’t want to be then. You want to be now.

Your back is resting against smooth, solid skin, and you take in the lean, strong arms circling your waist. It swells inside you like a colossal wave, and you have to bite down your lips, for fear that your broad smile will tear up your entire face.

Frankie.

His chest rises and falls in an even, slow rhythm, so you remain perfectly still, not wanting to wake him, but his arms tighten their hold, drawing you closer. He nuzzles into your neck and breathes in your skin. A faint trace of you, something powdery and sweet, underneath the musky spice of him. You smell like him. He’s never experienced that before. Never fucked someone so much he’d infused them with his scent. He pulls you in closer, again, always, and you wrap your arms around his, your fingers entwined.

A kiss to your hair, and a sleepy, hoarse murmur as he asks if “you ok?” and you exhale your answer, “yes.” The word stretches in your mouth like a cat in the sun, like the last days of summer.

Yes. You’re more than ok, you’re dizzyingly content, while Frankie struggles to identify the uncharted warmth pleasantly numbing his mind, when your skin reaches out for him. Something he will never forget, something he will forever miss.

When you press your back against his chest, he brushes a smile in the crook of your neck, so you lean further back and the curve of your ass meets his hard length.

How long have the two of you slept? Long enough that his exhaustion is gone, and that the need to be inside you is gnawing at his insides again. A slumber so sound he didn’t notice when you crawled back into bed and tucked your body against his, wrapping his arms around your waist. A dreamless, peaceful rest, the first one since he enrolled, his mind a blissful void, barren of all ghosts.

His right arm loosens its hold, so his hand can roam over the smooth skin of your curves and slopes, running his palm along your sides, around your hip, over your belly. He goes about your breasts easy, cautious, considerate, brushing the back of his hand along the swell of them. When you whimper quietly, your head tilted back, seeking the contact of his throat with your temple, he gives them a gentle squeeze, one, then the other. His.

You reach back and take him in your hand, taking in the heft of him, so smooth, so heavy, so perfect, the vein on the underside pulsating in your light grasp. Your thumb rubs lightly at his round head, smearing a bead of precome, and you bring your finger to your mouth to taste him leisurely. Heat flares up deep inside your core, spreading to your chest and neck. Arousal pooling down your folds, you untangle your legs from his in a wordless request, squirming between his arms, and his low “shhhh” pours liquid fire into your ear, doing nothing to ease off the longing.

Frankie’s learned you, and he knows he has to open you up for him. You took so much, yesterday. And he’ll make you take more. There's only one day left. He nips at your pulse point to chase the thought away, a hard suck on your skin, you can leave other marks, and your body goes slack in surrender.

He swipes his tongue over the fresh, dotted red fleck, and traces a line of open-mouthed kisses down your neck, unhurried and languid, licking his way back up, relishing the salty tang on his tongue, the unique taste of you and him. His right hand trails your body from your breasts to your folds, and when his fingers part you gently, he finds you soaking wet.

With anyone else, you would be mortified to be this exposed in your need, but not with Frankie. Frankie makes you feel safe, safe and wanted, like it’s ok to be you, more than ok, like he's chosen you for you. And you can’t find it in you to care that your feelings are deepening far too quickly. It’s all the better if he knows. Let your body tell him. You want to make him feel that way, too. Because, beyond the way he makes you feel, you've chosen him, too.

Again, you feel his plush lips spread into a wide grin against you, a barely there stubble scraping your neck, and that’s when he says it. His voice a whisper laced with want.

“Oh baby.”

A sudden, sharp inhale quakes tour chest, almost a dry and repressed sob. You thought you heard him say it last night, but did you really, you were drowning in ecstasy, in fear, in him, but this one is real. It's undeniable. Your heart rabbiting along your veins, you close your eyes and hold on to him. You might just drown again. Frankie’s “baby” is all you ever want to be.

You jolt when he slides a finger inside your warmth, and his left arm holds you down on it as he begins thrusting in and out, his strokes shallow at first, deepening until he plunges into you to his knuckle. When he adds a second finger, you start rocking into it, and with his mouth still suckling and nipping at your throat, you’re trickling down his hand.

You whimper feebly at the loss when he withdraws the digits, bringing them to rest on your lips and with a light pressure, silently prompts you to open up for him. Diligent, eager, docile for the first time ever, you lick your own taste, and he purrs in your ear, “easy, baby.”

Oh, he registered, you can hear the smug smirk in his voice, and you give the pulp of his fingers a playful bite. The teasing is gone from his husky tone when he adds, “I want some.”

The sounds he produces are explicit, obscene, wet noises and rumbling groans vibrating against your skin, as he sucks his fingers clean of your slick and your spit. You wish you could see his pretty face, choosing to close your eyes instead, smiling to yourself.

His left arm draped around your waist, he slides you closer, angling the curve of your ass higher up on his hips. The back of his hand grazes the cleft of your cheeks when he slides his length between your thighs, parting the lips of your cunt, the movement excruciatingly slow, the fat tip catching at your entrance.

“Baby, you’re so fucking tight, I can't even get in” he pushes farther past your entrance, skating through your folds, the tip of his length coming to kiss your bundle of nerves. You squeeze him between your thighs and he responds with a hissed curse in your ear that fills up your brain with static white noise. Reaching down again, he presses the heel of his hand to your clit, grinding against your ass, fucking whatever you’ll give him, you nearly dissolve at the thought, all the things I wanna do to you, your face turned into the pillow that swallows your breathless whine of “oh god.”

It’s soft, sweet and delicious, and for a while he just he rocks against you, at a slow, steady pace, the increasing pressure of his forehead to the back of your head the only sign of his impossible restraint. You cover his hand with yours, and you press harder, until he lets go to grasp your hip again, an imperceptible increase in the pressure, pinning you down as his cock rears back and this time, he slips inside you. Gradually, carefully, inch by inch, until the darker curls at his base scrape your cheeks.

It’s a stretch, a delightfully painful one that has you pushing down on his ass with your hand to urge him deeper, your breath coming in short pants, but Frankie remains in control, once more setting the pace.

He doesn’t move, giving you time to adjust, and when he starts nibbling your earlobe, your cunt floods and clenches around him tighter than a fist, you think you could come right then.

“You’re so tight,” he repeats, sweat pearling on his brow, and your skin quivers under his warm breath, but really what he means is you feel so good, the sensation of your silken walls fluttering along his cock is inebriating and his grip around your body tightens, your flesh gushing through his splayed fingers, his mind a swirl of you feel too fucking good you’re too fucking sweet, he wants to stay like this forever; but he starts moving, long lazy strokes, it is the best you’ve ever felt, even better than before, and you almost forget yourself before you realise what’s different, your head jerking forward with a strained “fuuuck.”

He pauses, hiding his face into your hair, his eyes clenched shut and his jaw flexing in frustration. “I know,” he breathes, husky voice heavy with regret, “wait,” and when the heat of his body leaves yours, you moan at the loss.

You don’t move, his left arm is still loosely around your waist. You just lie there. You want it just like that and so does he, so you don’t bat an eyelash as you listen to the nightstand drawer creaking open and the plastic fold reaping, you picture him deftly sliding on the condom with one hand, this man has such competent hands, aroused by the mental image and dripping.

When Frankie turns around, he lowers his gaze to your lying figure and sees his shadow undulating on your back. It’s a minute before he can draw himself from the vision, transfixed by the golden light reflected on your skin and the juxtaposition of the black cutout of his silhouette.

He pecks a kiss on your shoulder and sits up. His hand, gentle and firm, guides you onto your stomach. You love the way he handles you, like your size is inconsequential to his strength. It contradicts everything you’ve been led to believe about yourself. Between his arms, you don’t take up too much space. Under his touch, there’s never enough of you.

Straddling your legs, he traces a path of wet kisses along the back of your thighs, nibbles on the swell of your round bottom. You’re loose and pliant for him, sprawled out on the white sheets, extending your arms and hugging the pillow, your shoulder blades rippling under the gleaming hue of your smooth skin. He watches again, keenly, fascinated, what he does to you, what he can do for you. His cock, wrapped in latex, lies heavy between his legs, but his mind is foggy, he needs a taste before he can do anything.

He gently lifts your hips off the soft bedding, and licks into you, a wide broad strip, from clit to hole. His.

You whimper into the pillow as he closes his eyes. It’s that nasty thought again, skirting the edge of his consciousness, invading his mind.

One day left. How is he supposed to let go of you, tomorrow? What time can it be? He slept too fucking long. Will you even stay the day? You might have things to do, plans with your dark hair friend, what if you want to go home. Home. He grinds his teeth, shakes his head. Your home is Paris. It puts an ocean between you, dark and fathomless.

He kneads the flesh of your ass, the control over his strength brittle, you can leave all the marks, and you writhe under his touch again. What if he bites at your hip? Right above the bone? Traces a deep indentation in your flesh. Will you let him? Will you jerk and scream? I’ll take anything you give me.

Get a fucking grip, Francisco.

His broad frame covers your delicate one and all shadows disappear as he leans down over you, rolling you back with him onto your side. As he lines himself up, he briefly repeats his earlier motion, coating the latex covering his length with your slick, fuck you get so wet for him, he can’t stand that fucking layer between you and him anymore, and it’s a conscious effort to unclench his jaw.

It's a hard drive into you, burying himself to the hilt, filling you up in one hard thrust, a shaky exhale through his nose as you cry out his name, so full you can’t breathe, can’t feel your legs. “Yea,” he groans, strained, crushing you so forcefully against him, you think your bones will shatter in his hands, and it'll still be fine.

One day. Only one day left.

“I’m sorry, baby,” and you hear it in his voice.

“Make me come, Frankie. Make me give you that sound again,” you coo, reaching back and threading your fingers into his hair, the gesture intimate, tender and soothing.

You feel his shoulders slump down in relief against yours. He draws in a steadying breath. He slackens his hold. He starts moving into you. Brought back to now.

His thick cock languidly drags along your walls as he goes all the way out before thrusting back in as deep as your snug cunt will let him. Your body's moulding into his, one arm braced around your torso, the other down your folds, and with the way he’s breathing heavy into the crook of your neck, the way he strokes his fingers in circles around your swollen clit, the way his skin shudders under the scrape of your nails, his silken curls twisted around your fingers, the heat of him flowing into you, beads of sweat at the base of your spine dampening his hair, you’re afraid you won’t last much longer.

It begins with a numb sensation just below your navel, that sharpens like the pull of a string. It radiates from your middle and crackles along your nerves like firework, it reaches up and down your body, to your toes and fingertips and your tits and your neck is on fire, your eyes roll to the back of your skull, you arch up in his arms, trying to hold on to his hair, you’re drowning, you’re floating, your cunt’s an endless flutter, you hear yourself mewling as you try to call out his name just before your mind goes blissfully blank, and it’s your complete abandon that tips him over, he follows you, his hips starting to stutter, the muscles of his belly pulled taut, his body curled up around yours.

****

Taglist (thank you 💕): @elegantduckturtle @mashomasho @lola766 @flowersandpotplantsandsunshine @nicolethered @littleone65 @bands-tv-movies-is-me @the-rambling-nerd @saintbedelia @pedrostories @trickstersp8 @all-the-way-down-here @deadmantis @hbc8

[intheorangebedroom]

I have a confession... I've watched your notifs popping up on my app as you were going through the chapters and it gave me SO MUCH JOY all through the week. Still does!

I can't thank you enough for reading and especially for taking the time to tell me you appreciated the read, but I'll try 🧡

Pleased to meet you, chapter 6

Summary: You meet Frankie. Again.

Pairing: Frankie Morales x French fem!Reader.

Rating: Explicit 🔞

TW: description of a panic attack.

A/N: I know I'm telling this story for myself primarily, as a mean to get it out of my head, but I feel even less confident about this chapter than the previous ones. Descriptions are killing me, don't start me on the military terminology, and we're getting into the tough part of the story. *presses Post now and goes scream into a pillow*

Word Count: 4.3k.

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Chapter 6: That Brooklyn bathroom

“Ok, careful, that car’s like 3 inches away,” Benny’s voice comes out low and tense, his leg bouncing up and down on the car floor, the sound of his boot hitting the metal doing nothing to steady your nerves.

“Metrics, Benjamin, please. Inches don’t mean shit to me,” you retort a bit more aggressively than you intended. You’re struggling to stay focused, parallel park was never your forte, and it’s the very first time Benny lets you behind the wheel of his Mustang. Tonight is decidedly special. In a nerve-wracking way.

“Right, whatever, just don’t scratch my baby,” he says to the back seat, craning his neck to evaluate the distance between the rear of his car and the truck parked behind. 

Peering in the rearview mirror, you sound even harsher when you shoot back, “You’re not helping, young man!”. 

Your unusually high-pitched voice echoes in the car, its authoritative tone bringing the electric atmosphere to a sudden standstill. Benny’s leg drops to the floor. In what feels like slow-motion, he shifts in his seat to face you, his eyebrows raised in surprise, a teasing smile tugging the corner of his mouth.  

“What’d you call me?”

Fuck. Your lips produce a “tsk” sound as you slowly lower your head in defeat, eyes closed. He’s never going to let you live that one down. 

“I said ‘young man’?”

Laying a strong arm on the back of your seat, he leans in closer, the leather creaking under his weight. When he speaks next, his breath fans over your neck, and you shiver imperceptibly. 

“And that working for you? Me being younger?” 

You can hear his cocky smile. Opening your eyes, you turn your head to look at him, trying your best to keep a straight face. God that idiot can be sexy. But you don’t need sexy, right now.

“Let me park this car, Ben,” you warn him. 

Steering the vehicle to the right, you maneuver relatively swiftly into the parking spot, before switching off the ignition, letting your hand relax as it slides along the driving wheel. Benny is still looking intently at you, from this close you can practically feel his hungry stare grazing your skin. His baritone voice trickles in your ear like syrup.  

“Ever been fucked in a Mustang, baby?”

“No one has a car in Paris, Ben. We’ve got good public transportation. I don’t think there’s enough room for that in this car, anyway.” His smile broadens to downright insolent and you can’t help but smile too. “Oh shit, no, don't answer that.”

You like his rumbling laughter. It never fails to cheer you up, even when you don’t think you have it in you to brighten up. It teaches you lightness. 

“I can show you after, if you want,” he says with a wink. Something seems to cross his mind and he adds, in a more serious tone. “Hey. You know you’re the first one to ever meet the guys, right? The only one. You nervous?”

You draw in a sharp breath.

“Of course, I’m nervous. Will is already there, right?”

“Probably. Will’s never late.”

You glance at your watch: 7.30 pm.

“Right, good. How do I look?” you ask, smoothing your sweaty palms over your jeans.  

“Beautiful,” he replies without missing a beat. 

You’re fairly certain that if you were to cover his eyes with your hand and ask him what colour your shirt is, he would be at a loss. Yet, you don’t doubt his honesty one moment, however plain his answer. It comes in stark contrast to Éric’s snarly comments on your choice of outfit, on yourself. Especially the ones he’d casually fire at you for the sheer pleasure of throwing you off balance, before stepping out to one of the formal parties his job entailed, and that you always did so poorly at. “T’as pas autre chose à te mettre? Et si tu mettais du rouge à lèvres, pour une fois? Essaye de sourire, si c’est pas trop te demander.” [“Don’t you have anything else to wear? How about some lipstick, for a change? Try to smile, if it’s not too much asking”], Christ, you can’t understand why or how you put up with him for five years.

“Right”, you snap yourself out of it. “Ok, Benjamin Miller, let’s go before I chicken out.”

You remove the key from the ignition and hand it to him, and open the door to exit the car.  

—

When you join him on the sidewalk, he takes your hand and leads you toward what looks like a biker's spot to you. It’s nothing like the fancy cafés you used to frequent back home, and you feel once more confronted with your foreigner’s status. You try walking faster to catch up with him, but he’s already crossing over toward the entrance in a few long, rapid strides. In the small windows, neon signs announce Budweiser, an ATM, and Truly Hard Seltzer. It’s about all you have the time to notice before Benny ducks his head to avoid the awning and pulls the door, which opens with a loud, ominous creak. When you step inside behind him, it takes a moment for your eyes to adjust to the semi-darkness. 

The place is surprisingly big, considering its narrow facade. It also looks vaguely familiar, probably because you’ve seen the likes of it in approximately fifty movies. Directly on your right stands a large bar with at least half a dozen beers on tap, a mirror wall with several shelves, lined up with bottles of all sizes, shapes and colours. On the left, the space opens widely, and ten round wooden tables are spaced far enough so that customers can talk without disturbing each other. Despite the early hour, all the tables are occupied. Yet the bar doesn’t look crowded. A low-tone humming of rumbling male voices coats the atmosphere. At the back, on the far left, sits a low stage demarcated by a wooden balustrade, with three billiards and two games of darts. You make out the dark silhouette of a woman standing in front of a jukebox, the most luminous spot in the room, that the feeble wall lights struggle to brighten. Everything else looks dark, from the hardwood floor to the brown panelled walls. The styrofoam ceiling, that might have been white some years ago, is now a dirty shade of yellow.

Benny takes off his jacket and your eyes fall on Will, sitting at one of the tables. On his right, facing you, a tall man with unremarkable features and short brown hair is polishing off a pint of beer. On the left side of the table, a handsome, shorter man with dark eyes and lush black curls is laughing heartily. There’s an empty chair on his right, next to which a third man is sitting, his back to you. He’s wearing some sort of baseball cap, short, dark locks curling on his nape and around his ears. You’re not so stressed that you can’t notice he’s got nice square shoulders, his washed out denim shirt pulled taut across them, his dorsal muscles straining against the confine of the fabric. 

Will sees you and waves in your direction, and two pairs of eyes dart towards you, cranking up your anxiety a notch. Only the man with the cap remains still, but when Will gets up to greet you, he tilts his head down and to the right, exposing his profile. 

You make out the lines of his strong nose and his sharp jaw in the dim light, and your chest collapses on itself. The air rushes out of your lungs as your heart jumps to your throat, ice flooding your body. Your hand lets go of Benny’s faster than if you’d been caught cheating at a card game. Will is standing in front of you, pulling you into a bear hug, and you stand on tiptoe, eyes locked on the man in the cap over Will’s shoulder. When he releases you, you sway on your feet as he greets his baby brother. 

Finally, Frankie pivots on his chair and faces the three of you. You get a glimpse of his dimple, before his lingering smile drops, as Benny guides you toward the seated group, his hand on the small of your back.

Music starts playing but your mind fails to comprehend the sounds, distorted like a record player spinning backward. You’ve reached the table now, and you’re joined by the girl from the jukebox. She looks young, younger than you by at least eight or ten years, and stunningly beautiful, dark eyes alight with a clever spark, long black hair, thick and wavy. She’s the first one to greet you, offering her hand and a friendly, radiant smile. 

“Hi! I’m Yovanna, Santi’s girlfriend,” she punctuates her greeting by placing her other hand on the shoulder of the man with the black curls. “I’m so happy to meet you!” she stresses the word “so”, raising her eyebrows in exaggerated relief. 

Your static brain leans on her warmth to summon the strength to plaster a polite smile onto your face, and before you have to take actual action, Benny’s giving you a proper introduction. Your peripheral vision catches a glimpse of Frankie hanging his head, forearms braced on his thighs. 

“That’s Tom, here. You know, Redfly” Benny gestures towards the man with short hair who, from up close, looks exhausted. You somehow remember Benny telling you he’s the oldest. He greets you with a nod and a curt smile. 

The man with the black curls half stands up and extends his hand, his left arm wrapped around Yovanna’s waist. He flashes you a charming smile, adamant to put you at ease. “And I’m Santi. Very nice to meet you.”

“Yeah that’s Pope,” Benny’s grinning like a child, before adding, “And this right here is Frankie, he’s like a brother to me.”

Frankie raises his head, his eyes finding yours immediately, and slowly leans back in his chair. He doesn't smile. But he holds out his hand. 

"Hey", he grunts, voice like gravel. 

In the orange bedroom, you tried to fuck in the shower but you kept sliding and laughing too much, so you gave up. He fucked you hard though, right after, on the bathroom floor, and something had shifted then. His chest pressed against your back, he’d pinched your nipples so forcefully you’d screamed for him to fuck you harder, and he had sunk his teeth at the base of your neck. You bore the mark for days, wishing it would scar your skin forever. You had come together, so intensely and so loudly, the lewd sounds bouncing off the tiled walls, you were certain people heard you from the street below.

That's the first thing you recall, when your brain resurfaces to the sound of his voice. He's older now, his voice deeper, and it brings you back involuntarily to his low growls in that Brooklyn bathroom all those years ago.

Well, not the first thing you recall. Not exactly.

There’s a slight beat before you’re able to take his hand. His skin feels hot against yours. It’s the heat you’ve been fumbling for in the dark for the past sixteen years. When he releases his tight grip, your arm falls limply to your side. He lifts his cap and combs his fingers through his hair, eyes on you still.

“What you drinking, baby?” Benny asks you. “I think they have the beer you like, here.”

Frankie’s jaw ticks. Your mind scrambles, you haven’t been able to utter a single word so far, save for “hi”. 

“Can I have a whiskey and coke?”

Benny looks slightly surprised but he nods, before turning his attention to his friends, asking who wants another round. He pecks your cheek and saunters off to the bar. 

You’re left on your own. 

Yovanna sits down between Frankie and Santi, beaming at you, thawing the cold inside your limbs, so you gratefully follow her cue, sitting on a chair Will has dragged on his right, and you tentatively return her smile. 

Frankie’s breathing through his nose, well aware that Will’s eyes are on him. He should stop staring at you, but he can’t, what if you disappear again? 

You swore to call him. And vanished into thin air. Sixteen years of silence, questioning his sanity. And now you’re here, before him. He never thought he’d see you again.

Sixteen years worth of suppressed memories and sensations come back rushing, loud as a swarm of bees inside his brain, except it’s too late, and everything is tainted with anger. He needs a drink but his jaw is too tightly clenched. You haven’t changed, not that much, anyway. He just sits there, pinned down to his chair, caught up in his resentment, everything feels different, only it’s really the same. Your face, your unassertive smile, your neck, your wide eyes trying and failing to look at anything else but him, just like they did when you started talking on the fire escape. He remembers the way your skin shivered when he touched your arm with that bottle. God your skin, the softness, the taste of your skin, he can’t think about that right now. 

Benny comes back with your drink and a pitcher of beer. He sits down between you and his brother, pulling his chair closer to you, telling you they didn’t have whiskey, only bourbon, wrapping his arm around your shoulder. 

Santi and Yovanna are relentless with their questions, where do you come from, why did you come here, do you like it, how did you meet Ben… He should listen to your answers but he can’t, he knows this is probably hell for you, being the center of everyone’s attention, perhaps his, especially. He wants to shield you. Against his better judgement. Fuck that shit, let Benny deal with you.

“Ok, guys, give her a breather, let her drink,” his voice comes out strained and breathy. He just couldn’t fucking help himself.

Under the table, between his legs, his right thumb finds the small tattoo on his left hand and starts worrying at it with his nail, an old trick devised a long time ago to divert physical pain. Eventually, he faces away and reaches out for his beer, the condensation on the surface of the cold glass making it slippery. That, or his hands are shaking. 

He stopped asking about Benny’s girlfriends a while ago. Not that he doesn’t care. But there’s been too many. Around for a short amount of time. Benny has a short-attention span, but he’s not the one to blame. And even if he were, Frankie’s hardly one to talk, going through months at a time of abstinence before railing strings of random women in a frenzied row. No, it’s always been Benny’s lifestyle. 

When he met him, they were serving in the Army. The girls he picked up never stuck around for more than two or three months, not wanting to put up with the distance, or unable to live in perpetual worry. Now it’s the fighting. Women who attend the fights literally throw themselves at him afterwards, but these, Benny doesn’t care for, preferring the artsy, intellectual kind. Yea, you fit right into that. Only usually, these ones run away as fast as their legs can carry them the minute they find out what he does. 

So with time Benny stopped talking, and with time, Frankie stopped asking. 

When Benny started to mention “his girl”, Frankie didn’t even ask for your name. He got intrigued when he heard Will was spending time with you, and downright curious when Benny announced he wanted you to meet them. But again, not enough to ask who you were. Now Frankie can’t even remember if his friend brought up the fact that you’re French. He would have picked it up. Knowing Benny, he had probably said “Europe”, if anything at all. 

Frankie finds himself staring at you again, but this time you manage to avoid his gaze. You’ve already downed half your drink, and Benny tells you to go ahead, he'll drive on the way back. Benny knows your favourite beer. Benny knows your preferences in liquor. Benny calls you his girl. Benny fucks you on a daily basis. As a matter of fact, Benny’s probably gonna fuck you tonight after driving you back to his place. 

He wants to get drunk but that's really not a good idea. Fuck knows what he'd do then, or say, to you or worst, to Ben, fucking Benjamin who saved his life in that fucking shit-show near Al-Qa'im. He remembers the ACAB button on your bag, he'd like to know where you stand on that topic, now that you're fucking a second Delta Force operative. He wonders what you know about him.

He knows one thing, and it’s that he still wants you. He sees the way your breath hitches when he takes off his cap to readjust his hair, he sees your heart beating madly under the pulse point of your neck, he can see everything from where he sits, and you squirm on your chair, like you did under his body. Why the hell did you never call?

The one they call Pope cracks a joke and they all laugh. You force another smile, trying to act like you’re not in a trance. You thought about it a million times. Finding him. Seeing him again. Played the scene in your head at night, on the bus, in line at the movies, reading a bad novel. 

In all of your dreams, he looked like his younger self. 

You try your best to keep your eyes on whoever is talking, but you’re ceaselessly drawn back to him, you can’t help yourself. He’s aged but it suits him, small belly, broader chest, fuller cheeks. The crease between his brows got so much deeper. You used to smooth it with your thumb. His neck, strong and lean, with pebbled skin, and the dip at its base, you repeatedly licked it clean of his sweat. He hasn’t learned how to properly button up a shirt. You recognise that bigger freckle underneath his left ear, the one you liked to kiss best. He’s got a patchy beard, that’s new to you, with strands of grey hair. His short stubble had left the soft skin of your inner thighs abraded, toward the end of the weekend. He must be approaching forty, you think, and all the years in between, everything that you missed rests heavy on your chest. What did he look like with army-short hair? When he turned thirty? Thirty-five? It’s forever too late. 

You wonder what he thinks of you, you must have aged too, and you wince, you never fancied yourself pretty but you had youth for you, now that’s gone, what’s left? You wish you’d known that, back then. You catch yourself, how can you be so vain?

He’s not the tallest of the bunch but he’s still the most impressive to you, glaring at you from under his furrowed brow, and you feel small again, only this time you don’t want to. 

Comprehension slowly crawls out from the depth of your dazed brain. It’s not about you and his friend. It’s far worse than that. In all these years, nearly sixteen now, you never considered once that he might think you didn't call him purposefully. You bared yourself to him. There was no mistaking your feelings. He has no right thinking that. It destroys everything. 

You get up so abruptly that your chair threatens to topple over. Excusing yourself, you count your steps as you walk on shaky legs towards the toilet, so as not to run. 

When you pull the door open, a backdraft charged with a stench of ammonia rushes to your face, raising goosebumps on your skin. You dive into the room, you have no choice, you need the hiding place. This space is even darker than the main one, lit by a single naked bulb, the walls painted black, with three urinals and a stall. You run the tap and use your hand to drink a few gulps; the bourbon, too sweet, left a bad taste in your mouth, and you don’t feel the numbing effect of the alcohol yet. Fucking useless. When you raise your head, your reflection is waiting for you in a small rectangular mirror. That’s more than you can deal with right now. Turning on your heels, you get in the stall and lock the door. 

Your breath is coming short, your lungs won’t open up, you know what’s coming. Doing your very best to ignore the cold sweat breaking on your forehead and on your back, you press your right fingers on your sternum and try taking a deep breath. You can do this. You know the drill. Once, you remind yourself, you fought off a panic attack, clad in a sequin evening gown, in the bathroom of the Palais Garnier. You can do this. Only your chest won’t fucking open, and you really can’t breathe. 

Ok. Breathe in through your nose, breathe out through your mouth. Lower your shoulders, stretch out your neck. Press on your sternum. Harder. Again. Nothing. Your mind is spiraling, you're losing your train of thoughts, it’s not working. You throw your back against the panel, eyes clenched. 

Happy places, think happy places. Coney Island, 1997, with Rosie, yes, Rosie, your first corn dog on the Wonder Wheel, eyes on the open sea. 

Nothing. 

Inishmore, Aran Islands, 1995, the salted ocean breeze on your skin, eyes on the open sea. 

Nothing. 

Your chest heaves in a dry sob, your mouth twisted in pain. The orange bedroom emerges inside the darkness of your eyelids to wrap you in its humid heat, soft light, Sunday morning. The comforting contact of his smooth skin. Brooklyn. 1999. 

Your chest expands a bit and lets in a gulp of stale air. Slowly. Breathe in. Steady. The orange curtains. Breathe out. Easy. The cotton sheets. You open your eyes. Breathe in. His arm laying heavy across your waist. Breathe out. Deeper. That’s it. You made it to the other side. 

You hear the door open and Yovanna calling your name. 

“You ok in there?”

Her voice anchors your entire body back into the dirty toilet. You look at your feet on the wet tiled floor before you can answer. 

“Yeah, coming.”

Your voice is trembling but it’ll have to do. One step at a time. You refrain from looking at your image in the small mirror but you can’t avoid the worried look on her face. However distraught you must be looking right now, she quickly reverts to a warm smile. 

“They’re a lot, aren’t they? Sorry about all the questions, earlier. Can I do something for you?”

You appreciate her discretion but you don’t have the strength to be subtle.  

“I’m better, I’m good, thank you. So much for a first impression,” you grimace. 

“Oh no, don’t be too hard on yourself, you’re doing great. Look, you got Will in your pocket, and he’s the hardest to get. It took me literal months before I could carry out a conversation with him. And don’t mind Tom, he’s… well, I shouldn’t be telling you that, please don’t judge me, but he’s an asshole, so who cares what he thinks. And Frankie’s a sweetheart. I don’t know what’s with him tonight, but he’s usually very sweet. He’s a good man. Like, capital G, capital M.”

Your chest contracts just the tiniest bit. She takes a step, closing the distance between you, before cautiously but firmly putting her hand on your arm, giving it a gentle squeeze. 

“I can bring you a glass of water, if you want.”

“Oh no, thank you, I’m good. I feel like such an idiot.”

Tears start prickling at the corner of your eyes and she adjusts her strategy accordingly, stepping back just a bit. 

“Ugh, I hate this place. I think we’re the only women to ever come. I don’t know why they insist on meeting here. So we don’t join too often, I bet!”

You reward her effort with a small smile. If she goes on like that, you’ll probably kiss her too. 

“Listen. I’m eight years younger than Santi and I met him on one of his missions. My first time here was pure, fucking, hell,” she punctuates the last words with a shake of her head. “Just don’t pay any attention to Tom, and you’ll be fine. Come on, let’s go back before he makes a joke about ‘girls problems’ or some stupid shit like that,” she air quotes. 

“Wait!”

You bite your lips and pinch your cheeks to bring back some colours to your face, before nodding to indicate you’re ready. 

—

You exit the toilet in her stride and follow her sheepishly to the table. Benny’s talking animatedly to his friends and barely acknowledges you, which suits you well. You decide to ignore Yovanna’s advice and focus on Tom. Feminist wrath is just what you need to bring you around. 

If you took a peek at him, you’d see plain as day Frankie’s worried look etched on his face.

As the evening drags on, you gratefully follow Yovanna’s cue through every conversation. The guys don’t leave much room for the two of you any way, which is juts as well. 

Every once in a while, you risk a glance across the table. Is it real? How can he be sitting there, at arm’s length, how can you carry on? How can you stay still and not get up, walk over to him and curl up on his lap, wrap yourself around his frame? You’d never have suspected you possessed this kind of strength. Is it really strength? Is it shame? Or sheer terror? You’ll think about it later. 

More than once, you consider showing him the torn piece of paper with the smear of wiped ink that you carry in your wallet, next to your ID, but do you have it in you, step aside with him, a mere feet away from Benny? “He’s like a brother to me.”

“Look at me,” you plead in silence. “Look at me. I tried. I swear.” 

***

Taglist (Thank you 💕): @elegantduckturtle @mashomasho @lola766 @flowersandpotplantsandsunshine

[intheorangebedroom]

Ok, so something extravagant is happening to me this week, I have a ✨social life✨

Next chapter is roughly drafted (6k words whaaaaaaat?) but still requires a lot of work, editing and so forth, I can't promise anything for Frankie Friday, except that I'll try.

To anyone who's still reading and actually interested, I can't believe you're real, but ILY 💖

[intheorangebedroom]

Pleased to meet you (a fairy tale)

Series, complete.

Summary: You meet Frankie Morales. Twice.

A 20-year-old French student, you're spending the summer of 1999 in New York with your best friend. When she drags you to a party in Brooklyn, you meet an aspiring pilot and the two of you spark an instant and intense connection. Separated by unfortunate events, you waste the next 15 years of your life longing for what you've lost, only to meet him again when your new boyfriend Benny introduces you to his best friend.

Pairing: Frankie Morales x Gabrielle Tourneur (OFC)/French fem!Reader with a dash of Ben Miller x Gabrielle Tourneur (OFC)/French fem!Reader

Written in reader format but Reader is an OFC. There are sparse but still present physical descriptions, she is French and has a thorough background, and a name.

Rating: Explicit 🔞

Note: In 2023, I will stop apologising. Maybe. And anyway, I make no excuse. I'm in love with this pilot and obsessed by this movie so I'm making it everyone’s problem. This story is nothing if not a self-indulgent exploration of the soulmates ideal. Expect a lot of angst, and smut.

Every chapter is explicit and you should be 18+ to read this. The American university system remains a mystery to me, I googled "how to become a US Army pilot", and visas are not a thing in this AU. English is not my first language, but one I adore.

Welcome to the orange bedroom, hope you'll enjoy 🧡

Chapters

Chapter 1 - Lovesong

Chapter 2 - I Feel You

Drabble (chapter 3) - What lingers (you)

Drabble (chapter 4) - What lingers (Frankie)

Chapter 5 - Boy meets girl

Drabble - Proud Mary (Ben Miller x you)

Chapter 6 - That Brooklyn bathroom

Chapter 7 - Frankie

Chapter 8 - Shuffle Your Feet

Chapter 9 - The Way Young Lovers Do

Chapter 10 - The Deal

Chapter 11 - Sunday Morning

Chapter 12 - The Drive Home

Chapter 13 - Perfect Day

Chapter 14 - Love is blindness

Chapter 15 - Flaming June

Chapter 16 - Plainsong

Chapter 17 - Auf Achse

Drabble - What lingers (you&him)

Epilogue - Songbird

Drabbles

Road Trippin’ - inspired by one of Wildemaven’s beautiful weekly moodboard writing prompts 🔞

The ties that bind us

To Bring You My Love

More Than a Feeling

I <U SO - coming one day for sure

Headcannons

Frankie's high school locker

The TF boys' favourite things in life and how they like it done.

Benny and Gabrielle (better read between chapter 14 and 15 to avoid spoilers)

A PTMY Halloween 🎃

Playlist

[kirsteng42]

Well I couldn’t sleep last night and just binged the whole of this series, including extras and all I can say is wow!!!!!!! All the way through I was saying, just 1 more chapter and I’ll stop and then I didn’t stop till the end…Frankie is just perfection. You made it so understandable how that weekend with Frankie 15 years earlier, meant so much up against her 1 year with Benny!!! There was everything here, love, angst, fluff and the smut was 👩‍🍳💋 and yes you would want Frankie just to “claim all your holes” even though I am a Javi P girl through and through, the way that weekend is written is just bliss. (Plus the inside out t-shirt is the Joel Miller nod I think?) Anyway thank you for writing this, it was glorious and FUCK TOM!!!!! Also IRL I wouldn’t want to be in a room with Yovanna/Adria Arjona, she is so beautiful, but so sweet, you wouldn’t know whether to kiss her or hit her!!!!!

Pleased to meet you (a fairy tale)

Summary: You meet Frankie Morales. Twice.

A 20-year-old French student, you're spending the summer of 1999 in New York with your best friend. When she drags you to a party in Brooklyn, you meet an aspiring pilot and the two of you spark an instant and intense connection. Separated by unfortunate events, you waste the next 15 years of your life longing for what you've lost, only to meet him again when your new boyfriend Benny introduces you to his best friend.

Pairing: Frankie Morales x Gabrielle Tourneur (OFC)/French fem!Reader with a dash of Ben Miller x Gabrielle Tourneur (OFC)/French fem!Reader

Written in reader format but Reader is an OFC. There are sparse but still present physical descriptions, she is French and has a thorough background, and a name.

Rating: Explicit 🔞

Note: In 2023, I will stop apologising. Maybe. And anyway, I make no excuse. I'm in love with this pilot and obsessed by this movie so I'm making it everyone’s problem. This story is nothing if not a self-indulgent exploration of the soulmates ideal. Expect a lot of angst, and smut.

Every chapter is explicit and you should be 18+ to read this. The American university system remains a mystery to me, I googled "how to become a US Army pilot", and visas are not a thing in this AU. English is not my first language, but one I adore.

Welcome to the orange bedroom, hope you'll enjoy 🧡

Chapters

Chapter 1 - Lovesong

Chapter 2 - I Feel You

Drabble (chapter 3) - What lingers (you)

Drabble (chapter 4) - What lingers (Frankie)

Chapter 5 - Boy meets girl

Drabble - Proud Mary (Ben Miller x you)

Chapter 6 - That Brooklyn bathroom

Chapter 7 - Frankie

Chapter 8 - Shuffle Your Feet

Chapter 9 - The Way Young Lovers Do

Chapter 10 - The Deal

Chapter 11 - Sunday Morning

Chapter 12 - The Drive Home

Chapter 13 - Perfect Day

Chapter 14 - Love is blindness

Chapter 15 - Flaming June

Chapter 16 - Plainsong

Chapter 17 - Auf Achse

Drabble - What lingers (you&him)

Epilogue - Songbird (sometimes before mid-July, pray for me orange besties)

Headcannons

Frankie's high school locker

The TF boys' favourite things in life and how they like it done.

Reader and Benny (better read between chapter 14 and 15 to avoid spoilers)

Playlist

[imaswellkid]

Happy one week anniversary to this bad boy 🧡 I miss my puppies 😔

Pleased to meet you, epilogue

Summary: It's the dawn of a new life for you and Frankie, amidst the ruins of your former respective lives. He made a promise to you, and to himself: that he would fix everything. But can everything be fixed? Are you ready to let go, and let him? And how will you deal with your homesickness?

Pairing: Frankie Morales x Gabrielle Tourneur (OFC)/French fem!Reader

Rating: disgusting fluff & explicit fifth 🔞

TW: non-descriptive allusions to past abuse and self-harm

A/N: Dear orange besties 🧡 Happy Frankie Friday ❤️‍🔥 This is the end. I am sorry it took me so long, and if anyone is still hanging in the orange bedroom, I am sorry this is so long. It's most likely bad planning on my behalf; it's also because Gabrielle was never meant to stay. I'm so scared I'll never be able to write anything else because this story fucking drained me. It's one thing to smash the keyboard and reblog unhinged gifs, but I'm very uncomfortable expressing my feelings publicly, mainly but not only on account of my ass getting very gothic, very fast. So if I've hidden some dedications at the end 🧡 But I want to say here, to anyone who's ever read and/or interacted with me and/or this story (likes, comments, reblogs, asks): THANK YOU 🧡 From the bottom of my gothic orange heart. Thank you 🧡 I really hope you like this. *presses post now and runs to hide*

Word count: 20k (I– listen, I'm sorry)

[prev] * [series masterlist]

Epilogue: Songbird

Summer

The summer is laced with sawdust. It’s everywhere.

In your nostrils, the blond, warm, toffee-like scent blending with the smell of the overworked electric sander’s gear. It’s in the sound of his boots scraping the kitchen tiles when he comes in through the backyard screen door to get a beer in the late afternoon sun. It’s in the texture of his tanned, freckled skin, soaked in with his sweat, catching at your fingertips when you run your hands over his forearms, before you lead him to the bathroom to get him cleaned up. 

It’s in the longer curls of his hair, on his cap and all of his clothes, and more often than not, it’s on your clothes too, when you join him outside the toolshed, to make sure he’s wearing the protection goggles you bought, and the dust mask he takes off the minute you look the other way. 

And you don’t know it yet, but you will forever associate it with his kisses. Languid, unhurried, they don’t lead to anything more than simply kissing. His hold on your body loose, his large hands spanning the expanse of your skin, his plush lips teasing yours, tongue swirling inside your mouth. You float together for what feels like hours, until you’re left deliciously disoriented.

And no matter what you do, it always ends up in the bed, dusted between the celadon sheets he chose for you. It scrapes at your shoulders and the round of your ass when you arch up from the bed, bucking your hips into his face. 

But that’s August. 

July is spent mostly at your place. 

Your first days together are lost to the haze of your brain. Wrapped in the hushed, draped atmosphere of your small apartment, you let him take all that he needs. His lips only ever leaving your lips for your skin, sucking in harshly, leaving new marks, his kisses more teeth than tongue. 

His body moulded around yours, inside yours. Sweat, spit, spend and slick. His palms relentless, roaming your body. Restless fingers digging into your curves. 

On Monday morning, the drive to the bookstore is tense and silent, his brow deeply creased, that tick of the jaw you haven’t forgotten. But there’s a life for you, here. One that you are looking forward to living. One you have to be able to afford. 

In short, you need to go back to work.

Out in the street, by the double-parked truck in front of the store, his emotions bleed into his kiss, fingers threaded in your hair holding you still in their grip, his bite on your lower lip nearly drawing blood, and you have to whine yourself out of it. 

You offer Suzanne a short apology, disarming in its sincerity. 

“I’ve been very ill, but I’m better now,” you say, and she silently nods because it is quite plain to see. You are better. There is life in your face and light in your eyes. She can’t possibly miss the marks on your skin, but as usual, she chooses to keep to herself and you carry on with your tasks and your day, quietly humming. 

Going through the backlog that built up during your absence, your mind wanders back to his kiss, its urgency contrasting with your relief. Beyond the tiredness weighing down your bones, deep down, you had been waiting for him. Like you always did. Sitting at the pitch-dark bottom of your exhausted heart, the knowledge that he’d be coming.

When you leave the store in the late afternoon, you find him there, standing across the street, arms folded over his chest, his tall figure, dark and intense, leaned against the truck’s hood. 

Goosebumps break out along your arms when you step together into your apartment, chilled air hitting your skin. On one of the bedroom window sills, the ancient AC unit is softly droning. Behind you, Frankie leans down to kiss the raised skin on your nape, whispering, “I fixed it, hope you don’t mind.” Not giving you time to answer, he nips at your neck and tugs at your shirt, but you turn around and stop him with your searching gaze. 

“Please, Frankie, talk to me.”

The night slips away in whispers, two quiet voices rising from under the baby-blue sheets in the cool darkness. What went down at the bar, who said what, how he got hit. When he’s done, you press him further than you think yourself able to handle, for his sake, but all he gives you is, “I don’t regret anything” and “I will fix it.” You believe him.

In the silence between his words, you lie still. You listen, you understand. His needs, the proximity of your body and the soothing contact of your skin, to be cooped up with you in the smallest possible space for as long as it takes for him to absorb the fact that he hasn’t lost you. That he never did. That he never could. 

So, the days pass. Sweat, spit, spend and slick. Stifling heat and sleepless nights. 

You bite your tongue every time you look at his weary face, every time you want to argue that the daily three hour commute to his workplace is far too long. He’s not flying yet. So you let him. 

Until July 23rd. 

Off on weekends, he picks you up on Saturdays, but today is Thursday and a quick shudder of panic runs down your spine when you step outside into the scorching heat and find him parked there. You scrape your knuckles in your haste to roll down the iron shutters, but it’s only when you join him that you realise what’s different: he’s waiting inside the truck. 

Elbow propped on the door through the rolled down window, he starts the engine as soon as you get in and the entire hold lights up with his smile. 

“Hey baby, how was your day?” he beams from underneath the brim of his cap, “Wanna go for a ride?”

When he pulls out an hour later onto a Brooklyn street you don’t recognise, your heart is pounding too fast, already. You have a notion of what this might be about, but you can’t bring yourself to hope you are right, even when he turns to look at you with that smug grin you haven’t seen in a long while. 

“Where are we?” you rasp, your voice cracking around the words.

“Climb here, baby, you’ll get a better view,” he smiles, tilting his head down and slapping a hand on his thigh. His smile deepens, to his dimple and to his eyes hidden behind his aviators, at the familiar, tell-tale sight of your pulse thrumming wild under the soft skin of your neck. 

But your chest feels too heavy, it’s pinning you down, tears prickling your eyes at what you’ll see, so he unfastens your seatbelt, then his, and reaches to haul you onto his lap with that easy strength, that surprising softness. 

The steering wheel bites into your lower back and you can’t peer out the window, instead you crumble onto his chest, your fingers twisting his shirt and your face buried in his neck, your own personal safe place. And anyway, you don’t need to look, you know what’s out there. 

A tall brick building, its brown facade streaked with iron fire escapes. 

A dry sob quakes your frame, and you feel the pressure of his large hands on your back, their warmth flowing through you. You remain limp in his embrace until he can talk around the memory choking him. That of a young man, driving up to basic training in his sister’s VW, wondering where he would have taken you if you only had more time to spend together. Daydreaming on the promise of later. 

More time then. Now years to erase. Rewrite and live again.

“Alright baby, alright,” he breathes into your hair, “how ‘bout we go to Coney Island?”

It’s bright and busy and loud. It’s rowdy teenagers laughing over the crashing ocean’s waves. It’s neon rainbows and blaring pop music and kids’ high-pitched screams on convoluted rides. It’s his hand splayed wide and protective in the small of your back, steering you through the crowd. It’s cotton candy on his lips, and sticky sugar on your fingertips; it’s a black and white photo booth stripe underneath the Wonder Wheel, split up in two, the upper half tucked inside your wallet, where a torn paper with faded ink used to be. 

It’s your life, now, and for the second time, you’re not standing warily on the outside. 

That night, he drives back to his place. That night, he’s out of the truck in a beat and you barely have time to climb down before he grabs the back of your head and the swell of your ass. He tastes of candy apple, sweet and sour, licking into your mouth, and his scent fills your lungs. He carries you inside with your arms around his shoulders, fingers digging into the strong plane of his back. 

That night, in many regards the first, you don’t make it to the bedroom. He puts you down in the living-room and he throws a couch cushion on the floor, shoving you down onto it, kneeling between your thighs, tugging roughly at your clothes and you scramble on the smooth leather to undress him. 

Leant over you, his grip on your wrists a bruising one as he pins your arms along your sides, fucking into you at a blinding pace, sweat dripping down his sideburns, your legs entwined around his, your breasts bouncing with each thorough trust. 

“Fucking look at you,” he grunts, again and again and again, and you come so fast, so hard, your back arching off the leather at a painful angle, but he doesn’t slow down. He fucks you through your high, and when you come down he’s already asking for “another one, give me another one.”

—

The phone keeps sliding down between your sweaty fingers. You swap hands, waiting for Dolores to pick up through what feels like a thousand ringing tones. 

The relief in her voice is audible, which confirms what you expected: she’s heard about the fall-out between you and Rosie. And soon enough she’s scolding you as if you were still the schoolgirl she first met 20 years earlier, and you realise you missed the mother nearly as much as you did the daughter. 

“Dolores, I just need to find out if she’s working next Tuesday. We need to talk, but I’m scared she won’t answer if I just call her. I need to see her, Dolores.” 

Her voice drops to a conspiratorial tone. 

“Just come home for dinner on Monday night, ok?” 

You get there half an hour early and wait, sitting on the edge of the couch, the back of your thighs sweating on the crocheted quilt draped over the cushions. 

A whole month without talking to each other, the longest ever you’ve spent without communicating in a way or another. Even back when you had no money to spare for transatlantic phone calls, you had never let such a long stretch of time come between you. 

You shoot up at the sound of her keys in the lock, looking at Dolores with sheer panic, and it doesn’t help that she reciprocates your look. 

Rosie darts inside the cramped apartment, grumbling in Spanish about parking in the Lower East Side, and stops short on the living-room threshold at the sight of you. 

Your rehearsed speech remains stuck in your dry throat. She crosses the room in two strides, dropping her bag to the floor, rushing to hug you with all of her strength. 

You breathe in her scent, shea butter, white musk, eyes shut to hold back your tears.

“Oh, Gabbi! I thought you went back home, I got so fucking scared,” she whispers, and under your clenched fists, her back is heaving.

Home. Did you always have so many of those? 

There’s a lot to unpack, but neither of you will let the other one talk, let alone apologise. Strongheaded as ever, Rosie, however, makes sure you listen. The panic that triggered what she calls her “disproportionate reaction.” The guilt and regrets behind her silence. Her misplaced pride. 

Atoning has always been easy for you, too easy, in fact, but you offer her words that have never passed your lips before. Words you now feel confident enough to fathom, and pronounce out loud: “I do need you.”

The two of you speak in turns until Dolores sits you down at the dining table, and then you keep talking with your mouths full. She’s cooked enough food to feed you both for a month, but you still eat most of it. 

It’s past 11pm when the chatter subsides. Stifling a yawn, she offers to drive you home. 

“I’m not sure, Rosie,” you start, uncertain, apologetic, “it’s quite the detour. He lives way up north,” you add as a way of explanation. 

“And is he going to succeed where we all failed and get you to drive your own car, Gabrielle?” 

You giggle with sheer delight because everything is different but nothing has changed, her beautiful black eyes alight with a mischievous flicker when she pulls out her phone to type in your new address. 

—

“Wouldn’t it be cheaper to just buy a table from Ikea or something?” you risk, putting on the construction gloves he’s handing you. You look down at the solid oak planks sticking out of the truck’s tailgate the two of you are about to carry to the backyard through the kitchen. 

He huffs and pauses dramatically, with an ostentatious roll of his eyes.  

“It would be cheaper, Gabrielle, but it wouldn’t be good. My girl is not eating off some cheap wooden melamine in her own home.”

Considering his frugal lifestyle, you were surprised to find out money is not really an issue. His pilot income, while not extravagant, is still sufficient by most standards, and it adds up to his veteran pension, making for a comfortable living. However, you know there are monthly installments for the mortgage. There’s food, electricity, gasoline and all this goodman premium quality wood.

You’ve offered to pay him a rent and share the common expenses, which has earned you another huff, followed by a sarcastic, “sure, I’m gonna have you pay fucking rent. How about you keep your money and get a car, big girl from a big city?” 

The suggestion punctuated by a nonchalant wink, before his plush lips found the slope of your shoulder, with a sharp scrape of teeth. 

You’re Alice, falling down the white rabbit hole, discovering him all over again, only everything feels safe because you know you’re landing in your own private wonderland. 

His quiet confidence, his occasional cockiness. His deadpan jokes quietly delivered under his breath. And the deeper you dive, the more you learn, the more you melt. 

His humble selflessness, his kind attention to others. His practical, methodical, efficient thinking. His sharp mind and keen eye. His determination. What little remains of the hermetically sealed lid, and the hard shell underneath the soft one. The limits to his patience, too. A threshold not to be crossed, but only where others are concerned. 

His playfulness when he whispers filth into your ear at the most unexpected moment, in the most inappropriate places.

It’s all intoxicating, unknown yet familiar. 

You’re like a flower seed that has lain dormant for years, finally blooming under his benevolent care. 

Nights are short and the right kind of exhausting, and you’ve never felt better. You dress in colourful shades: daffodil yellow, marigold orange, poppy red. 

As soon as you moved in, at the end of July, it started with shelves for your numerous books to join his collection. Most of the novels in two editions: one in French and one in Spanish. The Master and Margarita now standing in view, next to Le Maître et Marguerite. 

More shelves in the bedroom closet for your clothes and shoes, and a large standing mirror to check your outfit in the morning. 

Electric shutters installed on the bedroom window, so you can sleep in the dark – your shocked gasp met by another soft huff, when you found out about the price. 

And one Sunday morning, a dusty cardboard box he brought in from the garage. The orange curtains flowed out of it in a musty puff of air, dust particles floating in a sunbeam and you smiled at each other in silence, crossed-legged on the hardwood bedroom floor. 

You closed the distance between you to straddle his lap, the position quickly becoming a habit to deal with just about anything, from joy to frustration to fear to contentment. 

At the bottom of the box sat a green plaid shirt. He pulled it out as you wrapped yourself around him. 

“Doesn’t fit me anymore,” he murmured against your temple. “You can have it back, baby.”

You handwashed the shirt and the curtains with unnecessary care, and helped him hang the latter on the bedroom window. 

They clashed violently with the rest of the room, and you stood in silence, wrapped in their orange glow, Frankie’s chest pressed to your back.

Just like your grandmother, his mother was a seamstress. She’d sewn them. 

“It was her favourite colour,“ he’d said. And he’d never mentioned her again. 

You looked at them, unsure. Hadn’t you already lived too much of your life in the past? 

“The colour’s really– loud, Frankie. Are you sure about this?” you murmured. 

He lowered his face into the crook of your neck, as he so often did, and his lips brushed at the shell of your ear, the thin hair on your nape standing with the rush of air when he spoke. 

“I can’t wait to fuck you in this light, baby.” 

He pressed his body harder at your back so you would feel just how much he meant it, expertly unfastening your button fly, his hand inside your jeans shorts, travelling down your belly where heat spread in its wake like a wildfire.

You leaned back into him, closing your eyes and smiling at his appreciative grunt when the tips of his fingers met the dampness pooling in your sensible underwear.   

“You’re gonna sit on my cock now, Gabrielle. I want to watch you come in the orange.”

Afterwards, as you basked, naked, sated, exhausted, in the familiar glow, you tried and failed to affect a casual tone to ask him about the one thing that had been taunting you since you’d first been in this room, back in June.

“Why is this bed so big, Morales? How many women have you fucked in here?”

He’d scrunched up his face, feigning hurt before flashing his dimple.  

“Believe it or not, just the one with the French accent.”

—

Some time around mid-August, you come home from work to a faint smell of fresh paint hanging in the house. The loud, now familiar buzzing rumble of the Makita guides you to the small office next to the master bedroom, where you find him looking dishevelled and bright, his grey t-shirt stained with white paint, the power-drill cooling in his hand. 

The walls are clean, freshly painted in a luminous white. Underneath the single window overlooking the backyard, where he’s hung the blue drapes, a small wicker sofa is covered with a plastic screen he hastily lifts off and starts folding. Your two Modotti prints hanging on each side of the room, one over a tiny desk where he’s placed your laptop and a round cactus in a blue china plant pot, and the other over a breathtakingly beautiful mahogany display cabinet, that already contains all your photographic treasures. 

“I didn’t make this,” he explains sheepishly, tilting his chin toward the piece of furniture as you run your fingers over the sophisticated marquetry work. “Izzy helped me find it. D’you like it, baby?” his left hand twitching nervously, the plastic screen creasing noisily. 

You shake your head awkwardly in the middle of the cosy room. It looks like you. A refuge of your own. Love and gratitude swelling in your chest, laying heavy on your lungs. At a loss for the proper words to express a feeling so simple and earnest. 

“Frankie, I never… I never had anything so beautiful. Why– what is this all for?” you murmur, your voice unsteady.

“For when you need space,” he simply answers with a sweet, puppy-eyed face.

—

With early September comes the relief of cooler nights, and Frankie launches himself into yet another building project: lounging chairs for the backyard. 

“Who taught you how to do all that?” you keep asking, and he grins bashfully, the shadow of another dimple on his left cheek, his answer always the same. 

“I don’t know, baby, I just taught myself.”

Of the two wide, sturdy chairs he’s crafted, you only use one. Evenings are spent stargazing, sipping beers and talking, your bodies intertwined, sunk into each other’s scent. Oblivious to the street noises, hiding away in a world of your own. 

When you join him in the backyard with two beers on a chilly Friday evening, nothing indicates it will be any different. Until you lay your head on his chest and feel the constricting tension inside it. 

Is it because of your insatiable fascination with everything that touches him? Curiosity killed the cat, your mother would always tell you, enough that you ended up living your life forever treading on the edge of most relationships. 

Is it because he found his own equilibrium readjusting your imbalance? 

Whatever the reason, from the moment you curl up into Frankie’s side, you can tell something’s off.

Pressing yourself closer to him, you slide your hand under the hem of his t-shirt and bring it to rest over his scar, grounding him with your touch.

Only then, Frankie starts talking. 

His childhood in San Diego, growing up with a hot-tempered sibling and the shadow of a mother, her melancholy, her obsession, her passing… all the way back to his parents getting married. The happy memories only borrowed, reimagined through faded photographs. Absence, forever unanswered, hanging over him like a chiming mobile. The father he never met.   

Holding your breath, intently listening to a story he had so far only ever told in scraps, you’re struck by the realisation that both of you grew up without a father. Gone, already, before you were born. 

Under the canopy of the purple urban night sky, Frankie, at last, confides in you about his ghosts, his fears, his rage. About the strangeness of moving through life with questions in lieu of bearings, of being older than his father will ever be.

And when he’s done talking, when his words have run dry, you take the hand he runs over his face and bring his palm to your lips. You hold on to it tight for balance as you climb on top of him. Vulnerability altering his face and it carries you back to a windy Brooklyn street on a forever ago Monday morning, it slices through your heart, bittersweet, sharp-edged. You once felt so helpless to erase the crease of his brow. But that was forever ago. 

You lower your lips to it, and with a kiss you absorb all the pain it withholds. In the still of the night, in the near darkness, a fleeting light glimmers in his dark eyes, the sliver of a swelling tear. 

You cup his face, and you whisper, “I’m so proud of you, Francisco Morales. My man.” 

He sucks in a sharp breath. It trickles down your spine. 

You tug lightly at his shirt and he offers no resistance, sitting up and letting you slide it off above his head. 

Another kiss to the side of his nose, to the edge of his jaw, to the heart-shaped bare patch of his beard. Down along his neck, and he’s the pliant one, for once. Over the slope of his shoulder and to the dip between his collarbone, his suprasternal notch, where you lick and linger. Your palm pressed to his scar. 

A scrape of your teeth over his nipple and you feel him thicken between your hips, until his hands grab hold of your legs and he rasps, “Not here.”

He carries you back inside your home, through your kitchen and down the hallway to your bedroom, your legs hitched around his waist. Lays you down onto the bed where he spent too many nights avoiding sleep so he wouldn’t dream of you. 

In the heat of your mouth, under the caress of your hands, with the sway of your hips, Frankie is whole again. 

—

Autumn 

Your happiness makes him giddy. A grown man, a veteran, and every time he looks at you, shuffling over to the bedroom, a dance in your steps, or when he hears you sing along some classic rock tune as you prepare coffee on Sunday mornings, he’s fucking giggling.

He’s done some things he would have deemed ridiculous, no, downright crazy, only a few months ago. He’s picked his T-shirt from the laundry basket after you’d slept in it a couple of nights, and wore it to work. He washed his hair with your shampoo to carry the scent of you; he kept it long because you asked him to. He’s taken this colourful thing you tie your hair with, and wore it on his wrist all day, breathing it in every time he’s alone.  

He, who’s never been late anywhere, can’t make it on time to work anymore, despite waking up earlier than ever before, because he can’t tear himself away from the sight of your tranquil, sleeping face. 

And in the evenings, he brushes your hair. He’s discovered a birthmark on your nape, a little red fleck hidden in your hairline. On some days, he can’t think of anything else, counting down the hours until he can see it again. Press his lips to it, eyes closed in rapture. 

He doesn’t give a fuck how it looks, or what his friends or anyone would think if they knew. He’s longed all his life to experience that blissful balance with you. The one you two settled in so rapidly, with such ease. 

By 4pm, he’s done with his working day and he drives home. This once was a dreaded hour, but not anymore. Evidences of your presence are scattered all over the house. 

In the bathroom of course, your French cosmetics and lotions neatly aligned in the small cabinet, two towels, two robes. The small room constantly smells of you. 

In the bedroom, in the way you leave the bed open when you leave after him in the morning, the comforter folded over, in stark contrast with his military bed-making habits. 

In the living-room, whatever book you’re currently reading lying on the coffee table. Framed pictures of you and Rosie smiling at him from the bookshelves.

Foul smelling cheeses in the fridge. Your tin mug drying on the rack next to the sink. Two knives, two plates, two forks. 

A house that feels like home, at last. 

Instinctively, he understood your need for independence and learnt to navigate it. A big girl from a big city indeed, he’s known it all along. You’ve only had yourself to rely on for most of your life. And he gets it. 

So in spite of his primitive impulse to provide for you in every way, he refrained from protesting when you expressed the will to pay for food, and gas whenever you get the chance. You can be stubborn, if you need to be. He’s learnt that too. 

You sometimes go to the movies alone, or visit art exhibitions, and there are the occasional girls' nights out in the city. 

When you come back home afterwards, it’s a real treat, one he can’t get enough of. He feasts on your buoyant tales of what you’ve seen, experienced, discovered or learned, on your eagerness to share it with him. He could listen to you for hours. He does.

Some other times, however, you feel small, your anxiety crawling back out from within, settling to the forefront. You’re still the same girl he met, vulnerable, incredibly courageous. Seeking his reassurance. 

And he’s equally happy to make sure you get both space and safety. The single most important purpose he could ever be entrusted with. 

Out in public, in the street or amongst friends, you two never hold hands. There’s a modesty about you and him. 

Still, it’s always his hand in the small of your back before crossing the street or going through thick crowds. It’s brief, stolen knowing glances, fingers intertwined under a diner’s table. 

When you think no one is watching, you tuck yourself into his side, his large hand gripping your hip. As if you can’t live in the open, yet. As if you’d rather hide your happiness from the rest of the universe, lest it be taken away again. 

And there are his eyes; they always find yours. Watchful and intent, years of training and acquired instinct put to use to protect you, keep you close. 

But your behaviour doesn’t matter, anyway. The organic pull between your two bodies is far too obvious to conceal. 

He hasn’t stopped, he never will, leaving marks on your skin. Blooming flecks of his love peeking out just barely from under the collar of your shirts, for you to carry and never forget you are his. You squirm in his hold when he pulls in your skin, hard suck, sharp teeth, squirm and whine in pleasure-plain. 

He brands you. He admits it now. His love flushes your blood to the surface of your skin. He does that to you. You let him. 

Something alien, unbridled, something he can only identify as pride has him puff out his chest whenever he sees you in his clothes. 

As if he hadn’t built rows of shelves to accommodate yours, it seems you’re always wearing his. None of his plaid shirts are safe, you even wear them to work, only to change into one of his t-shirts the minute you come home. 

He pretends to mind, knowing you love that game. Only one day, in early October, you dig up a military tin trunk containing his army stuff in the garage, and you start wearing the things you find in there too.

The first glimpse of you in a green jersey has his stomach turn. Too upset to speak, he watches you leave with it for the day, willing his disapproving glances to be eloquent enough. 

But a portrait of him in his dress uniform pops up on your desk, next, in a brand new fancy frame. And a little over a week later, on a Sunday morning, he walks in from the backyard to find you in a US Air Force shirt, one of his early ones, and the fact that it actually suits you, fits you like one of your own thrift store swag, oversized in just the right way, has his temper simmer. 

He walks straight to the stove where you’re cooking scrambled eggs, his boots thumping heavily on the tiles. A sweet smile curls your lips when you turn around to face him. However sweet, it doesn’t stop the words from shooting out of him, nor contains the anger in his warning. 

“Ok look, I don’t want you to wear those– things, Gabrielle. I don’t want any of it to touch you, entiendes?”

The Spanish slips right out of him, but you hold up your smile, and hand him a mug of freshly brewed coffee. 

“I really love the Morales name tag,” you simply state. 

He grabs the mug by reflex, thrown off by your unfazed reaction. Raising on your tiptoes, you place a kiss on the bare patch of his jaw. 

“I’m proud of everything you ever did, Francisco,” you add in earnest. “But I’ll take it off, if you don’t like it.”

The blunt honesty of your answer immediately deflates him, and he swallows thickly at the first sliver of your skin when you unbutton the shirt to reveal your naked breasts. 

—

Familiarity hasn't killed this miracle. Even when, in the intimacy of your house, you’re never more than two feet apart. Skin on skin from the moment you rush home at night until the moment he ruefully passes the door in the morning. 

On his lap is where you sit most of the time, and he fucking loves it, sliding his hand underneath the hem of your clothes, pecking kisses in the curve of your neck, under your ear, where the scent of you is heady, feeling the weight of you shift against his body when you talk. 

Your hand on his thigh when he drives, his arm on the back of the seat when you take the wheel. Brushing your teeth side by side before bed. Curled into his chest, slouched on a pile of pillows to watch movies on his computer (he’s offered to buy a television, but you declined). Your legs propped over his when you read together on the couch. 

At night, in the ridiculously oversized bed, your bodies lie entwined. You need him around you to fall asleep, need him to crush you with his weight, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“You run so hot,” you mumble with delight, seconds before tipping over into unconsciousness, your voice heavy with your day. 

You taste so good, he murmurs against that spot he likes too much under your ear, his kisses rippling in shivers along your skin; you taste so good, he moans into your mouth, never sated, never pulling back first; you taste so fucking good, he grunts into your cunt, pinning you down on the rumpled linen. 

You’re here, at last, for him to love and to revere, for him to taste, taste, taste.

He had you in his truck, pulled over to the side of the road in a rainstorm, on the way to an upstate farmers market. He had you in the garage, against the hood cooling down. He had you in a bathroom stall in the Guggenheim, his mouth fastened over yours to keep you quiet, his fingers buried inside your cunt. 

He has you in the storage room in the back of the bookstore, more often than he should, when Suzanne’s not there on Saturday afternoons and he can’t wait for you to come home. When you come around him, he calls you his good girl. 

He had you in your room; you sat him down on the wicker sofa, rucked up your pretty dress and rode his thigh clad in raw denim, “Remember the first time you made me come, Francisco?” 

He gripped your ass so forcefully your skin bore bruises for days, and you gave him that sound, that two-tone moan, straight into his ear and then you dragged your teeth along the column of his throat. He flung you down on the carpeted floor and fucked you limp. 

He had you in the bathroom, more times than he can count, and in there, whether rough or languid, he always fucks you with a delightful, ironic revenge. 

He ate your cunt on the dining table like you were the main course in a fancy dinner, and then he flipped you over and fucked you so hard you cried out his name. 

He brought your shoulders up against his chest, clasped his hand over your mouth and fucked you harder. 

You bit his fingers and clung onto his arms, your nails carving lovely pink crescents into his flesh, your entire body jerking when you came again, your cunt gripping him and you sobbed as he filled you up. 

He dropped to the floor, exhausted, chest heaving, drenched in sweat, and you crawled over him, curling into his side. 

When he fucks you with such feral rage, you’re soft for days afterwards, as if relieved by the reminder of his intensity. And just like with everything you need, he’s only too happy to provide. 

“Frankie—” you breathed out, but you trailed off and you hugged him tighter, and he thought you were about to say it, those three little words you spoke daily in a million different ways but never with actual words. 

But you stopped short, once again. 

He often wonders if you’ve ever told them to anyone. To Rosie, you might have, even Will, perhaps. To Ben, he’s now certain you didn’t. 

He can’t tell why it’s so important to him to hear them. After all, he’s never pronounced them either. Not in English. Not when you’re awake. 

But this isn’t only about a shared feeling. He knows your family never taught you how, and the thought makes his body ache. 

—

In the weeks leading up to Halloween, you grow more and more excited, decorating the house, scheming about matching costumes. It doesn’t even occur to him to deny you any of it, he’d dress as a pink bunny if you asked him to. Even though, given what you have labelled “your fascination for all things morbid,” he can tell a bunny isn’t in store. 

Here he is, falling in love with you all over again. Your childlike enthusiasm, your unabashed enjoyment, your bubbling excitement. These are the things he lives for. 

At long last, he gets to introduce you to his sister on Halloween’s eve. Out of town for most of the summer, Izzy’s invited over you for dinner, but the evening doesn’t play out in the least the way he thought it would. 

You pretend otherwise, but your silence betrays your nervousness on the drive to Manhattan. His doesn’t talk either, tense and anxious until you get out of the truck and he can splay his hand on your back, feel you loosen under his touch. 

For weeks, months, he imagined the two of you vibrantly sharing your similar views on politics, when in fact the interaction remains polite and policed, at first, nearly distant. 

Until you zero in on a couple of old pictures displayed in his sister's apartment, in the hallway to the bathroom. 

Izzy’s entire demeanour shifts. She’s delighted to provide you with embarrassing anecdotes on “babyface Frankie.”

“Look at this lanky teenage boy,” she grins, and Frankie, a grown man, a veteran, Frankie feels his heart skip a beat and trip over the sight of your wide eyes filling with tears. 

Back at home, in the dark bedroom, you open up. Tucked under the comforter, wrapped in his arms, with your head resting on his chest. Those are the moments in which the words you had to swallow down all your life come easy. 

“It’s because of the dead,” you begin. “It’s almost like a promise. That they can come back and walk amongst us for one night. I know it’s childish of me, but I would— I would like to see my grandparents again. Especially now. I can’t even lay flowers on their grave.”

He pulls you in closer. Waits for you to keep going, hoping you will. Guessing you are being mindful about his own ghosts. Adamant not to press, he simply gives your hip a light squeeze. 

When you resume, your voice drops lower. And you tell him everything. 

Your mother got pregnant during her senior year in high school, and sought an abortion her mother didn’t let her get. Taking you in when you were born, she watched as your mother left home in rebellion. 

“It was wrong of her. My mother had the right to decide,” you say in a little voice, and the implication makes him physically sick, a foul taste sitting in the back of his throat at your resignation. 

You go on to describe your happy, albeit short years with your grandparents. The orange curtains, summer vacations by the ocean, your grandfather teaching you how to read a map and ride a bike. 

And how it all ended abruptly with your grandmother's death. 

You had to go live with your mother, then, and as you briefly recount some of your most difficult moments, you make excuses for her. It wasn’t that bad. I was too sensitive as a kid. I wasn’t her choice. She was only 23 then. 

Your father had long bailed, and again you provide reasons and excuses. You chuckle sadly when you mention two half-sisters. “Strangers,” you say. 

You’ve long severed ties, with all of them, and it’s probably better, you say. For your mother, anyway. For you too, you have to believe. Some days, some days still, you can’t help it. You look her up on social media. Just to see. Make sure she’s ok. 

Frankie listens. His heart bleeds inside his hallowed chest. Pieces of you falling into place to the muted sound of your voice, your words crawling under his skin. 

I’m sorry. 

Please. 

I never had anything so beautiful. 

And when your voice dwindles at the evocation of a step-father coming into your life when you were seven, when you finally fall quiet, what Frankie hears in your silence makes his inside curl and burn up with a vengeful rage. 

But you’re done talking for the night. You circle his waist and soon, your breathing evens out, your body easing into sleep with little, jerky movements. 

Frankie lies in the opaque darkness of the room, clenching his jaw until the physical pain takes off a bit of the edge. Eyes wide open to the memory of the first time he touched your breasts, on loop in his brain. 

Is the man still alive? You certainly are wise to keep that part to yourself. You really do know him well. Because that would be the one kill he would never regret. 

The following morning, he stays in bed until you wake up, and you don’t question his presence, even if he should already have left.   

He follows you into the bathroom, steps with you into the tub and washes your body, towels you off, brushes your hair. 

You let him. 

—

“How old is Santi, again?” you ask from the bedroom. 

Frankie spits the mouthwash into the sink and straightens up with a heavy sigh. 

You know how old Santi is. But there’s something else on your mind, something that’s been eating at you, causing you to be distracted since the invitation to the party arrived in the mail. Something that’s compelled you to avoid eye contact since you came back from work, today. Something you’re keeping to yourself, probably trying to protect him, if he had to guess.

“He’s turning 37, baby,” he answers, imperturbable, buttoning up his worn denim shirt, leaving the last two buttons open.

“Oh yeah, right. Yovanna told me she invited Rosie,” you continue, “but she didn’t mention who else’ll be there—” you trail off.

There it is. Who else will be there. Or rather, who won’t be. 

“Too many people for comfort, that’s for sure,” he chuckles, stepping out of the bathroom to join you.

Standing in front of the large rectangular mirror he’s built for you, you’re fiddling with the little strings tying your dress at the waist, and the sight of your silhouette in profile has his breath hitching. You don’t often dress up, but tonight you’re wearing a black wrap dress that looks like an oversized smoking jacket, with a plunging neckline and a whole lot of leg. 

You wore dresses all summer, short or long, but as the days got shorter and the air got cooler, you went back to jeans and pants only. 

“I don’t like tights,” you explained once. 

And whatever you wear is fine; he can snap your fly open with two fingers, but seeing your legs clad in the sheer black material does something to him. Something that shoots straight to his cock.

“Damn, baby,” he whispers, and it’s all he manages.

“I don’t know,” you wince, “I have those smart black trousers, perhaps I should chan–” but you fall quiet because he’s come to stand behind you, his broad frame towering over your tall one, his head dipping into your neck. 

His mouth stops half an inch short of your throat, and the magnetic pull it exerts on your skin lifts his lips in a satisfied grin. He draws back, the movement imperceptible, and it’s as though your skin reaches out. Like witchcraft. 

“Frankie, would you like me to wear fancier clothes?” you ask in a small voice, finally looking him in the eyes through the looking glass. 

You lean your head back to rest against his shoulder, and he reaches for your legs, his palms lightly trailing down over the smooth fabric.

“No, baby” he starts, and he watches the goosebumps breaking along your neck at the sound of his voice. “What I want is irrelevant, you wear whatever makes you feel good. Only tonight, I won’t mind if you decide to wear that,” he finishes. 

His calloused fingers span up your thighs, catching at the thin material, all the way to your mound. The tights press into it, and it’s fucking delicious. When you close your eyes, two of his fingers travel downward along your constrained folds, and the low grunt that rumbles from his chest is met by a whimpering sound you can’t hold back. 

His left hand slithers under the side of your dress to find the swell of your breast, teasing your nipple with his thumb.

“We’re gonna go to this party, and everyone there will be looking at you in this dress. Your breasts… your legs… your eyes… your smile…” a stroke over your seam with each word whispered into your ear, and your eyes flicker, you buck into him, “and I’m gonna look at them looking at you while I decide how I’m gonna ruin you and these fucking tights the minute we come home.”

He dives into your neck, pressing his plush lips to your soft skin, giving it a hard suck for good measure. 

Santi and Yovanna’s place stands out from the row of neatly aligned houses. Light pouring out from every window, music, warmth and laughter spilling into the bleak November night. 

His hand finds your back when you climb out of the truck and join him on the sidewalk. You’re wearing shiny black heels he didn’t even know you had. They make you taller, slightly shifting the familiar landmarks of your body at his side, and he thinks the entire party will be able to see it on his face. 

Pride, like the sun reverberating over the surface of a placid ocean.

It’s that ability of yours to overcome your fear, to go headstrong against it. He won’t ever get over it. You’re more courageous than some men he’s fought alongside, and he often wonders if this could be the main reason why Will held you in such high regards. 

And yet, you’ve chosen him to be the one who gets to hold you when you can’t be brave. Most of his life now revolves around being worthy of that.

But tonight, you carry your head high.

All of Pope’s friends and colleagues will be here, save for three of them, and their absence will, most certainly, noticeably stand out. 

Yovanna personally called Frankie to inform him she had taken it upon herself not to invite Tom. Ever the suave diplomat, Santi kept loosely in touch with him after the incident at the bar. But he knows from Santi that Yovanna strongly disapproves of the lasting bond between them.

On the subject of the Millers, however, Santi remains tight-lipped. Frankie assumes they still hang out on a regular basis, probably on Friday evenings, at the bar, where himself has become persona non grata. And he bears no resentment for that, not towards anyone.

However, and even if he would never admit it to you, he misses the two men. He misses the bar, and perhaps most of all, he misses the fight nights. Benny’s jokes and Will’s expressive silence.

He’s texted Benny. Back in September, for his birthday, and his message remained not only unanswered, but unread. He tried again, a week later, and then a third time, to no avail. 

He tried Will, next, and the phone rang out for what felt like a whole minute before he got sent to voicemail. The next morning, Will called him back during his morning commute. A smooth move for a clever man, Frankie thought. He hung his head as he listened to the short, non-committal voicemail that didn’t require any follow-up. Not exactly a rejection. Definitely nothing of an invitation. 

He can tell you miss him too. Miss them. Small telling details permeating your daily life. You change the station every time CCR comes up on the radio. A wistful sigh that punctuates your impressions of an art exhibition. 

So when the invitation came, he picked up his phone again. 

But he knows your presence tonight implies a choice on Pope’s behalf. You’re smart enough to have it figured out, and he doesn’t need to ask you how you feel about it. He hears it in your short replies, sees it in the taut line between your shoulder blades, feels it in the tight squeeze of your small hand around his —a first, in public. 

And yet you step into that party with your chin up and he wills his confidence to seep into you through his touch, to convey it with the pride lighting up his eyes whenever they set on your beautiful face.

Trust me. I will fix it.

The front door is open and you step together into the crowded living-room, where the furniture has been taken out or pushed against the walls to make space. 

Santi rapidly walks up to you to greet you warmly. Beaming, clean-shaven, sharply dressed in a black suit, black shirt, no tie, he looks perfectly at ease in this social setting. But then again, he’s at ease everywhere, whether it is a luxuriant jungle or a parched desert.

Behind him, Yovanna flutters from guest to guest, shining bright as a Tuscan summer sun with all the standing lamps bouncing over the golden sequins of her short, long-sleeved dress. In his peripheral vision, Frankie catches your relieved smile. When she rushes to hug you, you hand her the bottle of champagne you bought two days ago. 

“I don’t know the first thing about champagne,” you’d said, “I just took the most expensive one,” an apologetic shrug he eased up with a lingering kiss. 

Yovanna takes your jackets, complimenting your outfit, and you slowly small talk your way through the crowd over to the other side of the room, where a bar has been set up and a young woman with short dark hair and tattooed hands mixes drinks. Frankie recognises her from the bar, where she sometimes works as an extra. 

He watches over you, intently, through the endless parade of familiar faces coming up to him for a chat. Veterans, friends, vague acquaintances, and nearly all of them enquire about Benny’s whereabouts. 

Your tense body feels small, pressed up against his side, and your grip on your glass is white knuckled. Every so often, he gives your waist a discreet but hard squeeze, and flashes you a reassuring wink.  

Rosie walks in about an hour later, cheerful and bright in her deep-green jumpsuit, moving with confidence through the room to join you and turning heads along the way, as if it were her own birthday. 

A quick peck on your lips, on Frankie’s, and she turns her attention to the barmaid to order a mojito. You untangle yourself from him, and begin to sound more like yourself as you chat with your friend. Soon, you’re too absorbed in your conversation to notice his glance darting toward the front door across the room every time someone steps in. 

A couple of hours into the evening, the alcohol helping, people get loser and louder, and Pope cranks up the stereo. Frankie hangs down his head to hide his grin at the familiar, aggressive playlist, that Yovanna promptly changes. 

Rosie has left your small group and is chatting animatedly with a young officer he’s seen working with Will at the VA, confirming Pope’s invited everyone he’s ever met. 

You’ve already had two whiskeys while he’s still sipping on his first beer, when he feels your hand travelling down from his side and sliding into the back pocket of his jeans. 

Your gentle grasp on his ass broadens his dimpled smile, and he basks in your gaze for a brief moment, before he turns to you. 

“You’re so pretty, Francisco Morales,” you whisper, and he gets the feeling that you waited for him to look at you to tell him just that. 

“Ok,” he chuckles, “are you drunk?”

“Just a little bit,” you concede. “But I don’t need to be drunk to appreciate what I see.” Your voice drops along with your smile when you continue, “I— I look at you, and I can’t believe you’re mine. Are you really mine?”

Frankie takes your glass and puts it down on the bar next to his bottle, so he can grip your hips and steer you toward the wall. You may be a couple of inches taller than usual, but he still towers over you, and his broad shoulders hide you from the rest of the room. 

“I’m yours, baby,” he murmurs. “All yours.”

His lips brush your cheekbone, and he cherishes the slight tremor of your skin under the tickle of his whiskers. It is new. It belongs to your new life together. 

“Would you still ask me to leave with you?” you ask again, bunching his shirts with shaky hands. 

“I would ask you over and over again a million times, Gabrielle,” and he presses his forehead against yours, “I wouldn’t change anything. Except for the rain.”

He places his palm over your collarbone and his thumb comes to rest on your pulse. 

His fingers slide and curl around your nape. Time stills, fading out the sounds and lights of the room around you. He presses his lips to yours, pulling you flush to his chest, and you immediately open up for your man. 

The smooth, malty taste of the whiskey blends in with yours, it goes up to his head and shoots right down to his cock as he licks into you with the same need and hunger he once did on the fire escape, swallowing your doubts along with your moans. 

He does want to leave with you, he wants to leave with you right now, spare you the pressure and the plastered smiles, take you home, brush your hair, feed you. Massage your body from your feet up to the crown of your head, rub your legs through those goddamn tights, feel your slick dampening them, have you come in them once, twice, if he can pace himself, watch your legs twitch in pleasure in the sheer black fabric.  

But he has to wait. Wait just a little longer. There might still be a chance. 

His self-control wears thinner yet when you push away from the wall to mould your body into his, when you whine as you meet the growing bulge in his pants, your leg hitching up along his. Is it a trick of the mind, that he can feel the smoothness of your tights through the thickness of his denim? 

Fuck he can’t give in, he has to wait, stall for more time, the injunction coming from the back of his brain, barely reaching his consciousness. 

He’s already fucking your mouth with his tongue when Pope’s voice rings out on his right, music and lights leaping back into focus, like sandpaper grating his senses. 

“¿Qué haces, pendejo? Jesus! Get a room! It’s not that kind of party.” 

Frankie quickly pulls away from you with a gritted “fuck,” but not so far that you can’t bury your face into his neck. 

Pope’s smug laughter drums on his nerves, adding to his frustration, and he’s about to lash out when he feels you giggling.

As if summoned by Pope’s sarcasm, Rosie appears beside him. 

“They’re unmanageable,” she quips, “you just can’t leave them unattended.”

“Oh, yeah, you’re one to talk!” you retort with a smirk. 

Drawing away from you, he’s reaching for your glass when he sees your features drop. Your eyes widen, strained on the front door, and in an instant, it’s all over your face. Your mouth falls open, you suck in a sharp breath. He doesn’t need to turn around to check what —who— you’re looking at. He knows. He understands. He no longer has to wait. 

Rosie and Pope see it too, whipping their heads to the left to follow your gaze, but you're already walking forward, quick, steady steps. Frankie pivots slowly, in time to see you fling yourself into Will’s open arms.

Oblivious to the couple of men coming to greet him, he picks you up with ease, splayed fingers across your back, and one of your heels drops to the floor. He closes his eyes, for the briefest moment, squeezing you tight in his brawny embrace. 

Frankie doesn’t hear you, but he catches his friend’s answer, spoken through a wistful, brotherly smile that transforms his entire face. 

“I missed you too, Elle.”

—

The dam breaks. The minute he parks in the driveway, the fucking dam gives. 

“Keep your seatbelt fastened,” he orders and he kills the engine. 

With a quick, deft gesture, he unbuckles and slides next to you over the truck’s bench, caging you with his upper body, sinking his face into the curve of your neck to inhale, deeply. His breath pushes back out of him with a grunt like a threat. It rumbles in his chest first, before it rattles inside his throat and fans over your skin. Your skin that raises and reaches out for him. It’s your scent, your smell, and he wants it to be his. 

In your sitting position, your folds feel denser, trapped inside the black nylon material of your tights, and you grab the door handle when he starts rubbing fast circles over your clit, threatening grunts into your neck, scraping teeth, lapping tongue.  

You come in a matter of minutes, head shoved into the headrest, lips pinched to bite down your throaty moans, breathing heavily through your nose, the windows blurred with a transluscent fog. 

He carries you inside, swung over his shoulder, it’s playful but it’s not, it’s a want, it’s a need, a fire that flares in his loins, a dam that finally gives.  

He tosses you onto the bed and you bounce with a little shriek. He takes off his boots and climbs onto the mattress, kneeled before you, strips you down to your tights, knocking your hands away every time you try to undress him, until you understand what he needs and you lay back on the bed, become soft and pliant and let him take it. 

There’s an indentation at the base of your throat where he sank his teeth while you came under his hand in the truck, and the heat in his loins settles down a bit. 

The nylon of your tights brushes smooth and sleek when you rub your legs together, pressed knees, shifting hips. 

Framed by the dark halo of your hair, your face looks pale and eerie, like the slippery ghost he used to dream of, sunk into a restless sleep after rage-fucking women he did not see. 

He parts your legs with his frame, spreads your hips with his breadth. The nylon is dense and brushes louder under his calloused palms and digits, heavy and hot and underneath, your skin too is burning. 

The need to feel you is too heavy, the scent of you heady, he wants it to be his, his scent oozing off your skin, organic evidence that you’re his. He slides off his t-shirt, unbuckles his belt to ease off the pressure of the scorching hunger, it burns in bright anger between his hips, he doesn’t know how to tame it.  

He crawls above you, dives onto you, teeth and tongue and spit and need, scraping your earlobe, your jaw, your lips, biting into the column of your throat, biting new marks and new indentations, would you still ask me to leave with you?

His in every scenario, every dream, every reality. 

Between his lips, the hardened peak of your nipple is hot, still cooler than his mouth when he wraps it around the hard bud and sucks it in, squeezing your other breast, calloused palm, calloused fingers, his.

His teeth find your hip, the soft swell of your flesh, the hard bone underneath and you writhe and arch up into it, his name rumples your lips, the K rips from your throat, ripe, hot, thorny. 

His forehead presses through your tights and into your belly, the little swell of it below your navel, sweat dampened curls of his hair leaving a sweat dampened spot, his scent permeating the fabric, infusing your skin. 

He pulls back, calloused fingers hooked under the back of your knees catching at the nylon, sliding your calves over his shoulders, smooth fabric, hot skin, bright need. He spits on your clothed cunt and rubs it in, blends his saliva with your slick, hot, liquid, sticky.

His strokes are not gentle, they’re rough and needy, your fingers gripping his wrist to ease the roughness and he frees it with a twist, strong hand raising your arms above your head to pin them into the soft mattress. His face right above yours, sweat beading at your temples, on your pinched brow, his sweat dripping into your mouth, opened slack, your tongue pulled out and greedy. 

You come as rough and hard as his strokes, your head trashed back, corded neck, folded in two, twitching legs like squirming snakes of nylon wrapped over his shoulders. 

His forehead pushes down on your collarbone, infusing you with his sweat and his scent, where he can feel your orgasm blazing through your bones and your flesh and your skin.

The heat grows brighter between his legs, angrier, consuming, swelling along his cock, thickening. The urge to taste, and he pushes up from your heaving chest, releases your arms, your fingers a frantic scrabble over the white sheets. He’s pulled back in, instantly, drawn to the wet spot between your legs, dark and leaking nylon covering your cunt. 

He dives in to cup it in his mouth, too hot and burning, to taste it, claim you, and it’s a bite, instead, rough and needy, and you jolt, his name scratching your throat like sand, “Frankie!” and he sucks in, rough and needy, saliva and slick, too hot and burning, would you still ask me to leave with you? 

He sits back to undress your legs, the nylon a smooth drag along your skin when he peels it. He’s holding his breath, holding his spit, the taste of you and him swirling around his tongue, coating his palate.

His mouth travels up your leg from ankle to hip, in bites and licks, your skin hot, hot and smooth and tense between his lips, hot skin and hot lips, and he bites into it, sharp, unrestrained. 

He sees it flicker across your face and in your eyes, wide and glazed, the moment you register what he’s doing, when he twists the sheer black fabric around your wrists, tugs on it, elastic, raising your arms above your head, shuffling along your body, your head caged between his thighs, and ties it to the headboard.

He hears it from the outside, the voice that comes from the back of his skull to ask you if “You ok with this?” and when you nod, the voice insists. 

“Words, Gabrielle,” a warning and a need. 

“I’m ok, I want it, please–” you breathe, sand in your throat. 

“You don’t ever have to say ‘please’ to me.” 

He steps off the bed to get rid of the rest of his clothes, eyes strained on you, hot and flushed and tied up and burning under the dark halo of your hair, bruises and marks of bright red scattered over your skin, you can leave all the marks, high-pitched two-tone moans of your want and your need carving his chest, his. 

“Fuck, you’re so wet,” more growls than words, kneeling between your spread legs, spread folds shining and slick, pressing on your knees, down on the mattress with both hands, calloused palms, calloused fingers, smooth, burning skin. 

The back of his two middle fingers slides along your seam, liquid and sticky and it’s an easy glide into your pretty cunt, hot and burning, deep and slow and then rough and curling, dark eyes sunk into your dilated pupils.  

“Wanna taste how good you did for me, baby?”

You nod and he growls, curling deeper inside, so you nod again and you “Please, please Frankie please—“

“Don’t fucking say please to me, Gabrielle, I’ll give you everything you need,” and he pushes his fingers into the heat of your mouth to smother the word, calloused fingers, hot tongue gliding and swirling, a sharp bite of your teeth and he hisses, would you still ask me to leave with you? 

“I got you, I got you,” more grunts than words, and he lines himself up, doesn’t wait and sinks in, sinks his thick cock into your tight cunt, down to his base, rough and needy, sweat dripping down his back, high-pitched moans. 

Large hands framing your hips, keeping you still under his thrusts, bruising, sliding over your belly where he’s shoving his cock into you, Frankie, can you feel yourself inside me? Slowing down just enough to feel you trembling around him, soft walls, warm cunt, grinding deeper inside under his palms.

“You feel so fucking good, Gabrielle, I can feel your sweet pussy fucking squeezing me,” his eyes drawn to the odd angle of your shoulder blades poking under your skin.

His hands find the headboard, bracing forward, lying heavy into you and he thrusts in and out, rough and needy, your legs bracketed around his waist, your knees hitched along his torso, hot, smooth burning skin, sweat dripping, “oh god, Frankie.” 

“That what you needed, baby? For me to fuck you like this?” ramming into your cervix, tight cunt clenching, hot, wet, his. 

Your head pressing into the pillow, you push away from the comforter, clutching his cock, hard and thick and ramming, and you nod, and you remember, you say “yes, Francisco,” and he’s fucking losing it, pounding harder, sinking deeper. 

Calloused fingers curled around the headboard, white knuckled, taut muscles shifting under his skin. 

Your high rips through you, through a cry, two-tone moan, eyes rolling, empty bound fists clenching, arms jerking against their binding, hot tight cunt gripping him in its endless flutter.

“Frankie, Frankie—“

“That’s it baby, just like that,” growls and grunts and words, “just like that.”

Years spent and wasted wishing he could carry you inside him, before he started wishing he could rip you out like a poisonous seed.

Your heartbeat pulsating under his chest and your cunt thrumming around his cock, the air you draw in gulps filling his own lungs, limbs entangled, sweat on sweat. This is as close as it gets to slicing his chest open to fit you inside it. 

Static fills his brain, the room spins around him in orange waves and he comes like a whip, hot, liquid and sticky, pumping his seed into you, further, deeper, teeth clenched, eyes shut, a hissed curse in Spanish, through waves of orange. 

His. 

—

Winter

Everything you once dreaded, everything he once hated, you are now looking forward to experiencing, side by side. 

It’s not your first Christmas with Dolores and Rosie, but it’s the first time you don’t feel like a rescue puppy, stepping inside the camped apartment with your arms full of presents and your man at your side. 

Everywhere you go, you feel legitimate. 

Everywhere he goes, he feels at ease. 

For once, Izzy’s in town for New Year’s Eve, and he doesn’t think twice before accepting her invitation to what she promises will be a quiet and cosy family dinner at her place.  

She ends up so drunk, Frankie has to put her to bed before you can go home. 

Fairly tipsy yourself, you sober up fast when he carries you over to the bedroom and bluntly declares he’s going to fuck you into the next year.

“Which one?” you joke, “cos technically it’s already next year, big man Morales.”

“2050, baby,” he answers with a cocky grin, unbuckling his belt. “Now get naked and spread those legs. I wanna see everything.”

January brings snow and icy northern winds along with the prospect of flying again, his six-month probation drawing to an end. 

And one evening, it brings you home late, freezing cold, and particularly irritated. 

“I had to wait 15 minutes for that damn bus because of the snow,” you fume, hanging your damp coat on the wall rack by the door. “How does this fucking country get so fucking hot in the summer, and so unbearably cold in the winter?” 

He briefly considers arguing it’s not as much the whole country as just some states, but he wisely opts for compassionate silence. 

You turn to face him, pointing a menacing index in his direction.

“You know what, America? You win. I’m getting a fucking car.”

“Don’t call me America in front of Izzy, if you wanna live long enough to drive that car,” he advises you with a raised eyebrow, his smile widening to his dimple.

He takes the following Tuesday off, and the two of you head back to Autoland, where a blond woman about your age welcomes you and introduces herself as Julie. 

A brief conversation is all it takes to ascertain that Julie is far more competent than Gary could ever dream to be, but the sheer idea of having to explain what you’re looking for once again prompts you to enquire about him. 

“Oh, Gary’s in jail,” she tells you with a hint of a smile. “Embezzlement. Didn’t end well,” she adds, and her lips stretch into a satisfied grin. 

Twenty minutes later, you leave the dealership with a decent bargain and a pre-owned Ford Fiesta in forest green. 

It’s only when you come home the next evening, your hands warm and your clothes dry, that Frankie measures just how relieved he actually is. 

And you won’t admit it, in fact, he’s fairly certain you make a point of complaining about finding a place to park near the bookstore, but he can tell you’re happy too. Happy and proud, because the following weekend, he catches you calling Will to tell him you’ll be picking him up at his place to drive together to the Met.  

A four-month hiatus hasn’t altered the tightly woven fabric of your relationship with Will. You fall right back into your cosy routine of monthly trips to the city to visit exhibitions, followed by drinks and endless talks at McSorley. 

Emboldened by his blunt questioning habits, you don’t walk on eggshells the first time you find yourself alone with him.

“How is Benny doing? Does he know we’re seeing each other, today? How does he feel about it?” you ask after quickly gulping down your first half-pint. 

His steel blue eyes dive into yours and you do your very best not to shrink on your wooden chair.

“Benny’s fine, ok? He’s good. He–” he seems to consider his next words before he continues, “We had a few conversations about it. It’s not easy, he doesn’t really wanna talk. I told him about your history with Fish. He’s still a bit angry, but he’s coming around. I think deep down he understands.” 

He pauses, and when you don’t say anything, he keeps going. 

“But I don’t think he’ll be able to hang out with him for another couple of months, at least.”

Hang out with him. No mention of you, there. As often with Will, what lies within the silence matters as much as his spoken words. 

You get it. You can’t have it all. But you are genuinely relieved to know he’s doing well. And that there’s hope for the two of them. 

It doesn’t occur to you that you only hear what you want to hear.

—

The first banging noise jolts you out of sleep. You sit upright in the bed, dishevelled, confused, not quite awake. Your heart is pounding painfully inside your rib cage, pulsating in your eardrums.

Instinctively, you reach for Frankie. Your hand fumbles under the comforter, only to find an empty spot where he should be lying next to you, and you whip your head around to his side of the bed.

It’s the middle of the night, yet it’s not as dark as it should be. The living-room lamp is on, casting a feeble light inside the bedroom, enough for you to distinguish Frankie’s dark silhouette standing awkwardly by the bed, slowly opening the drawer of his night stand.

Another rattling sound comes in from the kitchen. Metal on tiles. Your sleep-dazed brain identifies the noise as that of one of the bar stools being dragged across the floor. Frankie tilts his head in your direction and silently brings his index finger to his lips. 

Now you’re wide awake. 

Panic trickles down your lungs in icy streaks at the realisation that someone has broken into the house, but it doesn’t compare to the horror that seizes you when Frankie stealthily pulls out a gun from the open drawer. 

He’s still looking at you, the yellow glint from the hallway reflected in his ink-black eyes, his finger pressed to his lips. 

Before you can process what’s happening, Frankie’s moving toward the corridor, his gait precise and absolutely silent, broad shoulders hunched and tense in his downward hold of the gun with two hands. You want to protest, tell him to stay here with you, but your entire body has gone rigid, disconnected from your brain. You’re glued into place. 

Eyes opened so wide they might pop out of your skull, you watch him disappear into the hallway, and in the dead of the night, you can hear the door of the fridge being opened. 

Years from now, you will still remember thinking that this is a fucking nightmare.

You brace yourself for gunshots, a fight, more clatter, but it’s Frankie’s voice that comes in next, resounding into the January night, angry, loud and… surprised?  

“What the fuck, man?”

It snaps you out of your trance. Untangling your legs from the heavy comforter, you climb down the bed and slip on your sleeping shorts before you dash towards the kitchen, and you’re still walking down the short hallway when you hear him.

“Oh fuck, ‘m sorry, Fish, ‘d’ I wake you up?”

Benny’s booming baritone. Audibly shitfaced. 

You see Frankie first, standing in his black boxer briefs, his gun hanging from his hand. Following his angered stare, your eyes fall on Benny, who’s tall silhouette is partly hidden behind the opened fridge door. His face peeks out from above it, a nasty-looking bruise blooming red and purple around his right eye, accentuated by the angled shadows. 

His gaze is unfocused, dazed, and when he sees you, an unfamiliar melancholy blurs it a deeper shade of blue. He closes the fridge, a tall boy of IPA in his hand, and he straightens up like a little boy at Sunday school, his lips curling around a drunken smile.

“Hey, baby. How are you?” he slowly slurs. 

“Jesus fuck,” Frankie grits, hanging his head, and your mind reels, you’re not sure how to handle the situation. In fact, you have no idea how to deal with it.

Walking up to your man, you curl your fingers around his forearm, and the tension you find under your touch does very little to temper down the alarm flaring in your chest. Your hand slides to his wrist, his own hand a tight grasp around his weapon. You don’t dare lower your eyes to it. And it’s probably just a trick of the mind, the way you can see it shine from the corner of your eyes under the crude ceiling light. 

You don’t dare look at Frankie either, so you keep your eyes strained on Benny, who’s swaying on his legs, and ask in a shaky voice you don’t recognise, “Hey Ben. What are you doing here?” 

“He still got a spare key,” Frankie growls in his direction, and you hold on to his wrist a little tighter. 

“Won my fight, tonight,” Benny drawls with pride, as if this were a perfectly rational explanation for his presence in your kitchen at 3 am, and, visibly satisfied, he proceeds to crack his beer open.

“And how the fuck did you get here, Benjamin?” Frankie asks, his tone so aggressive it makes you jump.

Benny takes a long sip before he simply shrugs, “Drove my car, the fuck is this question…”

“Oh god,” you breathe out, and between your clutching fingers, Frankie’s muscles loosen. 

Finally looking up at him, you’re shaken by the emotions playing across his face, far more complex than the upfront annoyance in his voice. 

Frankie himself is not sure how he feels. 

Relieved, at first, to find Benny instead of someone else, something worse. Fuck knows he could have shot down a stranger on sight, had they tried to come anywhere near you, and he’d rather you never see what he’s capable of with a gun.  

Why, then, is he shaking with anger? Is it, deep down, the relief to see him at all? Could it be because Benny came to see you, and not him? 

Most of his jealousy and resentment towards his friend had been drained out of him when you curled up on his naked chest, back in your apartment, over half a year ago. 

He’s well aware of the lasting affection you continue to harbour for his friend, that the concern plainly etched on your face at the moment only serves to demonstrate further. And if it’s not exactly pleasant to think about, his confidence and the daily evidence of your shared love sweetens that bitter knowledge. 

What’s a lot more difficult to stomach, however, are Ben’s lingering feelings for you. He can’t blame the man, he himself never got over you, and he had fifteen years to try to. 

“He’ll come around,” Will had promised. Only Ben’s little stunt tonight makes it impossible to ignore any longer the one thought he has so far deliberately avoided. He broke his best friend’s heart, with a self-righteous determination, without an ounce of regret. 

Benny takes a step in your direction, beer dripping on the tiles from the can, askew in his bruised hand, and Frankie sighs heavily. 

As you release his arm to go to Benny, he tries to slide the gun in the back of his jeans before realising he’s in his underwear. He sets it down on the kitchen table, where it hits the wooden surface with a muted thud. 

“Aww baby, I really missed your face,” Benny mumbles as you grab the can from him, handing it to Frankie. 

“Ok, let’s get some water into you,” you answer, holding his shoulders straight to deflect the incoming hug. 

You lead him to the couch on the other side of the room where you sit him down, while Frankie fills up a tall glass with tap water, and you wait for him to join you to whisper, “We can’t let him go home like that, baby.”

Benny’s muttering incoherently, and Frankie bends over him, taking his legs to pivot him into a sleeping position, his feet sticking out of the couch. 

“No, of course, not. He’s gonna sleep here. I’ll drive him home in the morning.”

He lets you take off Benny’s sneakers while he returns his gun to the night stand drawer, but when you don’t come back to the bedroom, he can’t resist the urge to go see what’s going on.

He’s still in the hallway when he stops short at the scene before him. You’ve draped a plaid over Benny, already fast asleep, and you’re threading your fingers through his hair. A token of your affection, a tender gesture he saw you demonstrate before. In public. You lean down to place a soft kiss on his forehead, and when you stand up and turn around, your eyes find his, instantly. 

He doesn’t wait for you, he can’t, not when he knows you’re seeing right through his gritted teeth, right through the nauseating guilt sitting at the back of his throat, and he goes back to bed, where you soon join him. 

He opens the comforter to let you in next to him, and as you slide underneath it, you tell him, “Scoot over, Frankie baby, tonight I’m the big spoon.”

—

If there’s one thing Frankie has always envied Ben for, it’s the speed at which he pulls through any type of hangover. Mild, brutal, soul-destroying, it makes no difference. The man’s up at the crack of dawn, and by 8am sharp, he’s out the door for his daily run.

Maybe it’s the age difference. But Frankie was never this prompt to recover, even when he was younger. Maybe it’s good genes. He’s seen Ironhead getting shot and still complete the mission with dashing excellence. 

Today, however, as Frankie leaves the safe-heaven of your body, warmly tucked under the duvet, and walks into the living-room with a pack of Tylenol, a little after 6 am, he finds Benny quietly snoring. 

His bruised eye has turned a violent shade of purple, bloody crusts flacking around his injured knuckles. 

Frankie knows exactly who Ben was up against last night. A bulky giant of a man, a force of nature, a major household name in the MMA circuit. 

He’s been keeping track of Ben’s defeats and successes. This victory is one that counts. Important enough for him to get hammered in celebration. So important, he had to get behind the wheel and come to tell you about it in person. 

It’s another two hours of aimless silent roaming around the house, brooding, mulling over what he’ll tell him when he wakes up, if anything, before he decides to start cooking breakfast. 

When Benny begins to stir on the couch to the clanking noise of the frying pan, Frankie focuses on the stove, keeping his nervousness in check. In his peripheral vision, Ben sits up with a hissed curse, and gulps down two tablets with water.

He’s just done lacing his boots when Frankie places a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon in front of him on the coffee table. 

Keeping his eyes to the floor, Benny mumbles in a thick voice, “Thanks, but I’m leaving.”

Frankie’s answer shoots out of him before he can think it through. “She’s gonna want to know you ate something.”

Benny tilts up his head toward him in slow motion. He meets his eyes with a cold, hard stare, and Frankie wouldn’t be surprised if he leapt from the couch to take another swing at his face. 

He holds up his gaze, until Benny lowers his head and starts eating up. Cleans up his plate in complete silence and drinks up to the last drop the mild coffee Frankie’s prepared for him.

And when he’s finished, he gets up without a word and walks towards the front door to pick his jacket from the floor. Fiddling with the breast pocket, he pulls out a keychain and places it on the kitchen table as Frankie observes him, jaw cocked to the side, arms folded over his chest. 

His hand is on the doorknob when Frankie speaks again.

“You had 5 hours of sleep, man. I don’t think you’re sober enough to drive,” he says, pushing up from the counter. 

“Yeah, right,” Ben huffs, “I’m not leaving my car here. Not coming back to pick it up.”

“Alright, let’s take your car, I can ride the bus home,” Frankie says, grabbing his cap from the coat rack.

—

Somehow, he can always tell whether you’re awake or asleep if he’s with you inside the house. Today, he knows you hear them leave together. 

The drive is tense, to say the least, Ben’s leg bouncing up and down nervously as he shifts, restless, in the passenger’s seat, darting sideways glances at him, most likely waiting for an opportunity to lash out. 

But the early Sunday traffic is fluid, and Frankie a smooth driver, leaving him nothing to grasp. 

When Frankie pulls out in front of his house, Ben’s out of the car before he kills the engine.  

In turn, Frankie unfolds slowly from the low seat. The crisp January cold bites his cheeks when he gets out and locks the door. He risks a glance in Ben’s direction. 

“Hey, Ben, wait up,” he calls, white puffs of his breath swirling from his lips.  

Benny stops and reluctantly turns around to face him.

“Congrats on your win, last night,” he offers. 

Ben answers with a dismissive, “Sure,” and Frankie throws him the keys across the roof of the Mustang. 

He snatches them mid-hair in a smooth catch. A bittersweet reminder of their past synchronicity. Their ability to communicate wordlessly. 

“You wanna talk about it?” Frankie asks quietly. 

“What, the fight? Which one?” Benny sniggers. 

“Ok,” he nods, ducking his head under the brim of his cap.  

Ben takes a step towards his front door, but immediately turns around.  

“You wanna know what really hurts?” he barks, his loud baritone thundering in the empty street. “Why didn’t you say anything? After that first night at the bar? You let me fucking parade her to you, guys, and you didn’t say shit.”

“Yea, I don't know, Ben,” he whispers, hanging his head. “I’m sorry. I really am.” 

“That’s all you gotta say? I’m sorry?” Ben retorts, crossing his arms. 

“Look, it’s complicated—“ he starts, but Ben interrupts him.

“I was supposed to be your best friend, that’s pretty fucking simple to me.”

“Ok, listen,” Frankie counters, raising his head and looking straight at him, “I don't know what you know, or what Will told you, but I thought she’d forsaken me. I guess I didn’t see the point of telling you. And by the time she–” he reconsiders, tongue darting to lick his bottom lip, careful not to imply your responsibility, “by the time I found out what really happened, it was already too late.”

“Yeah, well, it still doesn’t add up, Fish,” he argues, prepping his forearms on top of the car roof. “If a girl ghosts you, why wouldn’t you warn your best friend?”

Because she’s not that kind of person. Because she seemed happy with you and you with her. Because I never quit loving her. 

Because I could never give her up. 

“Like I said, man, it’s more complicated than–” he tries again, but Ben cuts him off, again, adamant to get it all off his chest, and if his tone is not exactly aggressive, it’s not particularly friendly either.

“Ten years. Ten years we’ve known each other. We went through fucking hell together, and you still fucking chose her over me. Twice.”

“Yea well, I went through another kind of hell for losing her, Ben, you just gotta take my word for it,” Frankie states with a pointed finger at him and a warning in his rising voice that Ben seems to hear, because he leans back just a bit. 

He softens up to add, “But it’s done. So now what?”

“Fuck, Fish,” Benny answers, softer, “if it was that bad, why’d you never say anything? You never mentioned her, not once! I’ve seen you wasted, high as a kite, buried in pussy and you don’t share that?”

“No, Benjamin, I do not share that. Not with you. Not with anyone.” 

He marks a pause, inhaling the cold morning air to maintain control before he can continue. 

“Look, I'm sorry I did you in like that. I let you down and I feel shitty for handling the whole situation like I did. You were my best friend. You still are. But I’d do it all over again to get her.”

He winces at his poor attempt at an apology. 

Benny remains still for a beat before he leans again over the car roof, joining his hands. 

“So it’s like, true love, and shit?”

“Yea. True love and shit,” Frankie nods.

“Well, this I understand,” Ben concedes, unusually quiet. “She’s something. You lucky son of a gun.”

—

Everything you once dreaded… 

Well, you’ve always dreaded January. It once freed you from Éric, but you still associate the dark, short days with loneliness, and a fast, spinning downward fall into depression. This year, however, you haven’t thought about it once. Not until this morning, that is, when the looming dread rose anew, expanding inside your constricted chest, hindering your breathing. 

The fluffy duvet drawn up to your chin, you’ve lied still as the dead, your ears strained to the sounds coming from the other side of the house. 

You fully woke up when Frankie left the bed, depriving you of his reassuring heat, after three hours oscillating between sleep and consciousness, always acutely aware of his unnaturally stiff body lying wide awake between your arms. 

You mentally followed his barefoot stride, amplified by the early morning peace, the events from the previous night flooding back to your tired brain like rising waters. 

Listened to nothing but silence for an excruciating long time, the growing tension emanating from him thrumming along the walls all the way to your hiding place. 

Hiding, is what you were, and once more your mother’s reproachful tone rang out in your head, “tu ne fais que t’enfuir.” 

“I’m a big girl from a big city,” you murmured to yourself. You were not hiding, they needed to talk, you were merely giving them the necessary space, but nothing you told yourself could ward off your anxiety. 

When you walked into the living-room, after they’d left, you scrunched up your nose at the acrid smell of alcohol. And something else. Something you didn’t want to remember, so you pulled the curtains and opened the two large windows to let in the brisk winter air.   

That’s when you noticed his phone, face down on the console by the front door, where he leaves it when he comes home. 

You disposed of the leftover coffee in the sink and prepared a fresh pot, strong, to your taste. 

While it brewed, you folded the plaid and straightened the couch cushions. You cleaned the stove and washed the dishes, wiped them dry and returned them to their cabinets. 

When there were no more traces of Ben’s presence in your home, you stood by the counter, staring blankly at the microwave, double dots blinking between the red digits. 

Now, it’s nearing 11am. You’ve been alone for three hours. 

Uncertain about the distance between Frankie’s house and Benny’s place, you’ve no idea whether Frankie’s absence is too long or perfectly normal. You could put your mind at rest, even just a bit, if you only checked it out on your phone, but the idea itself irritates you. You’ve lived here just a few months shy of three years. When will you be as capable of navigating the city as you are in Paris, going about the metro and streets on sheer instinct, visualising entire neighbourhoods and calculating routes without the support of technology? 

Driving your own car is bound to achieve that, you tell yourself, stepping gingerly into the tub. 

Why does the entire house feel colder when he’s not there? This is nothing unusual, he’s rarely home when you get ready for work on weekdays, and it’s a beat before you realise you’ve left the living-room windows opened. 

The water runs over your face, set to scalding hot and high-pressure, and you wish it could drain out your thoughts. Perhaps, if you’d see them floating at your feet, you might be able to sort out your feelings. 

When he pulls out in the driveway 20 minutes later, he steps in through the front door to find you sitting by the kitchen table, arms crossed and shivering in one of his sweaters. There’s little to no difference in temperature between outside and the room, he notes with a frown, and his eyes land on the table in front of you, where his black gun stands out against the clear wooden top. 

He stills, fingers on the brim of his cap, elbow raised mid-air. 

He’s in so much fucking trouble.  

“Hey, baby, how–” he starts, before you cut him off sharply. 

“Are you ok?” you ask, more briskly than you intended. 

You clear your throat, willing your hoarse morning voice to sound softer when you ask again, “You’re not hurt or anything, are you?”

“No, baby, I’m good,” he answers, taking a few long strides towards you. “I’m sorry, I meant to call you before I got on the bus, but I think I left my phone here. And the ride home took forever, I don’t know how you had the patience to…”

He trails off, standing in front of you in his jacket, awkward and rigid. For the first time ever, he’s not certain of what you need. And something tells him he’d better step back until you’ve expressed it yourself.

The tension hangs heavy between you, but once your eyes have scanned his face and confirmed he’s alright, your lungs open up just a notch. 

Unfolding your arms, you lower your hands onto your lap, rubbing your clammy palms dry over your denim. 

His eyes quickly flicker to his gun and back to your face, and he takes another step closer.

“Ok,” you shoot, straightening up in your chair, your gaze plunging into his, “can you please tell me why we have a gun in the house?”

It’s not the question that’s driven you mad since they left the house earlier, but this one is considerably easier to formulate. 

His demeanour shifts immediately. He straightens up, planting his hands on his hips. 

“Listen, baby, it’s perfectly legal, alright? I got a permit, and you know I know how to use it.” 

He has the good sense not to point out the gap between your respective cultures, fully aware of your position on the matter of gun control anywhere in the world, but you’re standing up already, stubbornly facing him. 

“Whether or not you got a permit doesn’t make any goddamn difference to me, Frankie. I want it gone.”

He lifts off his cap, slowly runs his fingers through his hair, and you falter. 

This is not going the way you imagined, you didn’t intend to come at him with such aggressiveness, and your tone doesn’t reflect your confusion, certainly none of your fears, it only gives away your conflicted feelings. 

Sucking his teeth in, he tilts down his head, and his eyes disappear. 

“The gun’s not going anywhere, Gabrielle,” he hears himself state, and his point-blank refusal to comply derails you completely. 

“What kind of threat is there that requires that you keep this thing in here?”

“Intruders, burglars, some junky high on bath salts…” he enumerates, shaking his head.

You mirror the movement before you counter with what you expect to be a foolproof argument.

“And what if Benny did something stupid? He was drunk, what if he’d jumped you, for a joke? What if you’d hurt him?” 

Frankie's head shoots up, dark eyes devoid of all light staring you down with a hard gaze that has you swaying on your feet. He’s never looked at you like that, except… Except that first night at the bar. 

And like that first night at the bar, he can’t stop his mind from reeling into the wrong direction, despite your face telling him something entirely different. 

“Is this what this is about? You’re concerned I might have hurt him?” 

“Of course I am!” you answer, puzzled by his reaction. “Look, I’m sure you don’t need a gun. If ever someone breaks in, you can probably subdue them–“

“That’s Ironhead’s thing,” he cuts in.

“Well, you can knock them out, then–”

“That’d be Ben,” he all but spits out.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Frankie!”

You throw your palms up in irritation, tears gathering at the corner of your eyes that only fuel your exasperation.

Back in June, in his truck, he’d told you that he’d been too quick on the trigger, more often than not. Is that what you’re hinting at? Are you doubting his ability to keep you safe?

“Gabrielle, just drop it, ok? I’m asking you to drop it,” he warns, his voice a low threat that brooks no argument, and in turn you dig your heels in. 

“I can’t just drop it, Frankie, I’m sorry but–”

“Please,” he grits through his clenched jaw. 

Something gets stuck in your throat. You’re trying to breathe underwater. It’s escalating too quickly. 

You try to blink the tears off your prickling eyelids before they start running down your cheeks, you want to stab your nails into the back of your arms and draw blood, but the urge to touch him overthrows everything and you place your hands on his chest, palms down, splayed fingers, anchoring your body to his, grounding him to yours. 

“Frankie what’s happening, are we fighting?” you articulate around a repressed sob. 

His hands go to yours instinctively, covering them entirely, and he can’t tell which one of you is shaking, can’t explain how what he means to say is so far removed from the way he expresses it.

“No– no baby, no we’re not fighting, I just need you to understand–” he tries, but it’s too late, your words spill out in moving waves.

“Please, I don’t wanna fight, please, Frankie, I’m sorry, I’m sorry Benny barged in like that, I’m sorry, I don’t want him to hurt you anymore, I don’t want you to hurt yourself—“

“Baby, I’m fine, I’m ok,” he says, comprehension downing on him as your first tears roll down in rivulets to hang from the line of your jaw.

He closes the distance between you, cupping your face to rub them off with a stroke of his thumbs, standing so close your eyes flicker between his. 

“I’m sorry I overreacted—”

“Fuck no! You didn’t over— hey, listen to me Gabrielle, you didn’t overreact, I did,” he says, holding your head up when you try to hide. 

Your hands slide underneath his jacket and find the plane of his back, you bunch up his t-shit in your fists. 

“You just gotta let me watch over you the way I know how, baby, that’s all I ask, that’s all I need, for you to let me take care of you. I know you’re a big girl from a big city—“

“Oh but I’m not,” you cry, pressing your face into his neck, your next words muffled against his collarbone, “I’m scared, you left the room and I got so scared, and I don’t know if I’ll ever fit in here, there’s always something to remind me I don’t belong—“

The spectre of your departure resurfaces and Frankie hisses a sharp breath, a Pavlovian reaction to a pain stimulus. He focuses on the shape of you between his arms, the scent of you enveloping him, the taste of you only a kiss away. 

Broad hand cradling the crown of your head, he leans into your ear, his voice dropping to a low, soft murmur. 

“Last night was scary. You’re exhausted, we both are. We can talk about it later, ok?”

“Don’t leave me, Frankie, don’t leave me alone, I need—” you sob. “Merde, I feel so fucking stupid.”

His lips brush a smile against your temple, eyes closing at the contact of your skin. 

“Hey, I got an idea,” he says. “How about we take a trip to Paris, this spring? You can show me around the city? What do you say?”

He’s been thinking about it for a while, but has so far found himself physically unable to discuss it with you. The whole idea could backfire. What if going back there reminds you of everything you still miss? 

You’d said a purpose. And a goal. 

Between his large cupping hands, your face feels like an evocation, and he’s drawn in, endlessly, on a loop, back to you, to your skin. 

To the way it trembles between his pursed lips. A peek of his tongue to harvest the salty beads of your tears, to swallow the fear and sadness he vowed to see disappear, and you cling onto him with a murmured plea. 

“Take me to bed Frankie, plea–“

“Don’t you fucking say it,” he growls, and he crashes his mouth onto yours. You open up for him, sliding the thick jacket off his frame, knocking the worn-out cap off his head. 

—

The weak January sun, white and crisp through the treasured curtains, fills the bedroom with a hushed shade of orange, weaving together past and present. 

His first thrust inches into your tight warmth slow and measured, and he pauses between your hips to let you adjust. 

His hand a gentle grip around your jaw, he turns your face to the side and traces open-mouthed kisses down the column of your throat, a tender suck at the base of your neck, a hard bite on the slope of your shoulder, it makes you writhe underneath his body, crushed into the mattress by his weight, and you keen, legs bracketed around his waist, knees folded high around his torso, heels digging into the meat of his ass, urging him deeper. 

You need him rough and you need him now, you want to feel sore tomorrow and the day after, you want his girth remodelling you into the shape of him, only him, forever him.

But he controls the pace. Attuned to your reactions and the sensation of your clenching walls around him, clutching him, blending pain and pleasure, your entrance catching along his length. 

He shifts above you, tilting your head further to the side, the hardened tips of your nipples a soft drag against his skin, and you can’t breathe with his chest crushing your chest and he knows it, knows you want it this way. He moves inside you. Just a bit, not enough. You moan and you hear it through your need, through your want, like you’re running a fever, like a tiny, needy animal.

“Shhh baby,” he purrs in your ear, forehead to your temple, “I can’t move, I have to open you up for me.” 

The words scorch your skin. You burrow your nails into the taut muscles of his back, eyes shut so tight under your pinched brow you see stars, his lips raising goosebumps all over your body on their trail along your jawline.

“Frankie Frankie Frankie–” you say Frankie like you say please, and your cheek sinks deeper into the pillow.

“Shhh, you're gonna get it, baby, you're gonna get it.”

Your hips buck against the restraint of his mass, and it slips out of you, inaudible, weak and quick, too quick for you to stop it.  

“You looked so hot with that fucking gun, I–”

He stills with your earlobe trapped between his teeth, licks it better before he lets go.  

“What did you say?” 

The unwilling confession, making sense of your earlier fury. You shy away from the truth, a whining “non” stuck inside your throat, you try to hide from it, from him, the heels of your hands covering your eyes when you breathe out, “Nothing.”

His smile curls into your skin through a scrape of his whiskers, and he sinks into you, sudden, rough, deep, all the way down to the centre of you. 

You bite down your moan, pleasure-pain, head trashed back into the pillow, clenched teeth corded neck, pinned down underneath the overwhelming weight of him and everything he means to you.

“I heard you,” he groans, grinding into your heat, “I heard everything.” 

Everything you once dreaded. The contour of your fears, retraced, redefined. Innocuous, beyond the confines of his arms. 

—

Spring

“Can you fly this plane?” you whisper excitedly, adjusting your seatbelt. 

His eyebrows disappear in the overgrown curls hanging low on his forehead. He stills in his seat to stare at you.

“Baby, it’s a Boeing 767.”

“So yes?” 

The stewardess announces the imminent take-off for Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle, her words nearly unintelligible through the buzzing noise of the overhead speakers.

“No, I can fly military aircraft, like C-12 Huron or MH-60 Black Hawk or–”

“So you could probably fly this one too?” you cut in. 

“No, Gabrielle, I can’t,” he huffs in disbelief.

“Have you ever tried?” 

The crease between his brow deepens, his eyes searching yours, scanning your face for any trace of teasing. 

“I– what? ‘Course not!”

“Aha!” you exclaim, triumphant. “So you probably can. You just don’t know it.”

He watches you bend forward to place a thick book in the seat-back pocket in front of you, and shifts his hips once again, trying to accommodate his breadth into the seat, before his eyes fly back to your face. 

His heart leaps into a painful somersault, like a punch in the sternum that radiates up to his neck and down to his gut. Backlit by the plane’s oval window, your dark profile looks like the Victorian cutout portraits in your treasure cabinet, and it’s like he’s known you his whole life and the ones before, like he’d find you in every reality he’s ever known, and all the ones he hasn’t. 

He lowers down his head, remembering to breathe. Something settles down inside him. A gnawing anxiety that had been steadily flaring since he’d book the tickets. He’d find you. In every reality. 

“Do you really need to be this fucking cute?” he mutters.

“I’m not cute, Frankie, I’m serious! Now tell me, how do you feel about spending the next 7 hours crammed into this seat?”

A flash of pink as the tip of his tongue peeks between his parted lips. A wink.

“It’s ok. I’m used to fitting into tight spaces.”

—

Small. 

Everything looks small. 

The entire city has changed. New, modern infrastructures, subway lines extensions, bicycle lanes everywhere, roadworks on every corner and a new mayor.

All of it, small. 

The streets are too narrow, the ceilings hang too low, the cars look like toys and the buildings like doll houses frozen in time because nothing measures up to Frankie’s height, breadth, or dimple. 

The man shrunk your old world when he expanded your horizon.  

You walk down the streets that saw you becoming who you are through happiness, loss and pain, strutting about like you know something no one else does. 

The Airbnb you picked is on the south side of the place Gambetta. The Marais was appealing. More expensive but more central, fancy but not too much, but you finally decided against it. The 20e arrondissement is your neighbourhood, your home. It’s where your grandparents are buried. 

There’s something incongruous, bordering on comical, about playing house with him in the tiny, typically Parisian apartment overlooking the Père Lachaise. The kitchen’s a corridor, and there’s no way for him to fit comfortably inside the shower cubicle. The bed is a full size, and if you knew not to expect anything bigger, Frankie’s eyes widened in bewilderment at the doll-sized bedding. 

“Gonna break that thing,” he grunted, testing the mattress. 

The first time you step into the métro, you take in the particular stench, and the realisation that you missed even that pulls at your chest with a sharp pang. But the nostalgia is smothered by the sight of Frankie squeezing into one of the narrow seats of the line 3.

The first couple of days are spent sightseeing the touristic landmarks of the capital, following the military schedule you’ve drafted. You don’t even try to hold back as you recount the many anecdotes behind every famous church, park or building, giving him what you self-derisively label, “the leftist historical tour of Paris.” 

If there’s one place where you’ve always had enough space to be you, unapologetically so, it’s with him. 

Here, you don’t need any maps, apps or directions, and Frankie diligently follows, listens, asks follow-up questions that prompt more thorough explanations, drinking up your self-confidence. 

Sure, Paris is nice. But it’s not the buildings he's looking at. 

His big girl. Growing up on her own in this big city.  

Hiding, yet standing tall on that fire escape, your heart rabbiting under the pulse point of your neck, bravely withholding his gaze. Leaving the party with him, your smaller hand squeezing his bigger one as he parted the crowd for you, for the two of you. 

He’s only ever had eyes for you. From the very beginning.

With his preference for modern art in mind, you’ve arranged the third day around the visit of Beaubourg, then the MaM halfway across town, which will bring you near the Eiffel Tower, you announce over breakfast, and that’s when he gently puts his foot down. 

“Baby, take me to Orsay, will you?” he asks softly. “I wanna see that blurry painting you told me about. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don't really give a— I don’t really care about the Eiffel Tower and all that stuff. I’d rather go to the cemetery. Or see your high school.”

You look up from your tartine, a toasted piece of bread stuck in your throat that you try to gulp down, and you stare at him blankly. A fixed, intense gaze that has him flinching, creasing his brow, has he fucked up the whole thing now?

“You wanna see my high school?” you repeat, and when he nods, you add quietly, “Do you really need to be this fucking cute, Morales?”

Your high school, your university, the bars in Pigalle and Ménilmontant where you hung out as a student, your favourite bookstores, antique stores, bridges, museums, artist’s studios, paintings… 

It’s been decades since you’ve walked the narrow, quiet lane where your grandparents rented a three-room apartment. Years of repressed emotions have confused your recollection, and you breathe uneasy and short because you don’t recognise the grey stone building where you supposedly spent your first years. 

Frankie holds your hand. You lean into it. 

Later, walking in silence towards the family grave along the pebbles alleys on the east side of the Père Lachaise, you keep your head down and the tendon in Frankie’s jaw is pulled taut, ready to snap. 

But his gaze, strained on you, is warmer than the late March sun that draws pale, ephemeral patterns under your feet through the lush green foliage of the century-old chestnut and lime trees. 

His arm wraps around the haunched slope of your shoulders. It’s heavy. Grounding. He draws you in to his side, and pecks a kiss on the crown of your head, your hand sliding inside the back pocket of his jeans. 

You look up at his sharp profile, and he’s more beautiful than any of the works of art you’ve shown him this past week, more beautiful than anything you’ve ever seen. 

The bare-patch on his jaw calls to your lips, but instead you reassure him, “I’m good, Frankie,” because his bashful, dimpled smile makes you, because in his arms, you are. 

The sprawling, romantic necropolis has remained the same to you, a place of solace, a refuge, a hideout. 

The wardens are blowing their whistles to signal closing time when you reluctantly leave the cemetery. It’s cold now, the sun has given up and recessed behind pearly grey clouds. 

Back in the small rental, Frankie follows you to the cramped bathroom when you go wash your hands. He watches you, leaning against the sink counter, crossed ankles, crossed arms. Tense muscles and knots.

“Where’s your mother now? Does she still live in Paris?”

Your eyes dart to the door frame on your left, on instinct, but Frankie’s massive frame is preventing any form of deflection or escape. Your body stiffens, you focus on your hands.

“Last I heard, they moved to a new fancy apartment they bought in les Batignolles. That’s in the 17e arrondissement,” you add, like that means anything to him. “But I’m not taking you there, Frankie, I can’t.”

“Not asking you to, baby. I want to know if he is still around.”

Your chest hollows under his words, hands clutching the beige towel. The faded scar tissues on the back of your arms itching like a million microscopic blades picking them open.

Everything you never said, never told anyone. Everything you convinced yourself never really happened, or wasn’t really that bad. Everything you kept inside, thickening the walls of your heart, weighing you down, because the only person you needed, and who you asked for help, had called you a liar. 

Under his creased brow, his eyes are black as midnight sky. They’re looking straight into you. Contemplating that thing you lost, like a constituent piece that fell off and you replaced with something else. Aloofness, distance. Orange curtains. 

He pushes himself up to his intimidating full height and you recoil involuntarily, but he doesn’t let you. He grips your face with both hands, his palms scorching your cold skin, and between them, you’re fully exposed, bared, left with nowhere to hide, nowhere to bury your secrets.  

“I will hurt anyone who tries to hurt you, Gabrielle. Do you understand? Say that you understand.”

His words are quiet. Firm, steady, collected. 

“I understand,” you whisper, and you clasp his wrists so you won't feel the ghost weight of his gun between your hands. “I want you to.”

He nods. 

“You are mine.”

You nod. 

You know you are. 

—

Everything looks smaller. 

Shrunk down by his height, breadth and smiling eyes. 

The city hasn’t changed. But you have. You know something no one else does. 

—

The day before you fly back, you meet for lunch with Laura outside the Hôtel de Ville. 

She hadn’t minced her words –she never does– expressing her disappointment when you’d announced you wouldn’t come back at the end of your hiatus. But everything has long since been forgiven. 

Sitting across the dark-haired woman in her early fifties, you chat excitedly over sushi you forget to eat. Crammed into a ridiculously tiny metal chair on your left, he feels the bespectacled gaze of your former boss scrutinising him.  

Within hours after you landed in Roissy, your accent had thickened. Today, it has reached an all-time high. It’s the longest Frankie has ever heard you speak in your native language. 

Your voice sounds higher, in French. You speak so much faster, with a lot of hand gestures punctuating the throaty sounds cascading from your pretty lips. He focuses on his chopstick skills, trying his very best to ignore the growing bulge in his pants. 

It’s clear the two of you are more friends than colleagues. You had described her as your mentor. And from the dynamics he observes, there is obvious mutual respect. Which partly explains your instant hatred for Tom. 

Laura thinks you look different. You might have put on some weight, you say. She shakes her head, grinning knowingly. That’s not what she meant. 

Under your shirt, nested in the curve of your neck, sits a bruise in the shape of his teeth, blood underneath the surface of your skin blooming like a red peony. 

The waiter clears the dishes and Frankie walks up to the counter to pick up the tab. 

Laura leans closer to you over the narrow table. 

“Je comprends que tu n’aies pas voulu rentrer [I understand why you didn’t want to come home],” she starts, and with a tilt of her chin towards Frankie’s solid figure, she adds, “Bien joué, Miss Tourneur [Well done, Miss Tourneur].”

She gladly agrees to give Frankie a tour of the Bibliothèque, a historical institution situated on the fourth floor of the central city hall. In the elevator, your heartbeat gallops up your throat. The life you chose, the life you once led. 

The spacious reading room’s concave wooden ceiling is like the upside-down hull of a ship. When you step in, you’re overwhelmed by the faint musty smell of old books, mingled with that of the dusty carpets. You missed that too, but the feeling no longer tears at your chest. 

A few former colleagues come to greet you, and you watch Frankie and Laura from the corner of your eye as she explains, in her approximate English, what your work as a librarian entailed, praising your skills and knowledge. 

Frankie watches you too. He knows he’s doing a poor job of concealing his pride. He couldn’t care less. 

Before you leave, you lead him up to the rooftop of the building through narrow metal stairs. Culminating at a 48 metres height, in the very heart of Paris, the vantage point offers a breathtaking 360° view over the urban canopy of tin roofs. 

“Whenever I’d get a chance,” you tell him, “I’d come here for my lunch break.”

“Hiding again?” he grins. 

“Hiding again,” you admit, “but not only. I’d look up at the clouds, and if I was lucky enough to see a plane fly by, I would pretend you were flying it.”

Years of chasing the shadow of him, years of searching for traces of you. 

—

“Thank you for bringing her back!”

Rosie’s attempt at casualness is not fooling either of you. Frankie flashes a mock military salute and hauls the luggage into Rosie’s car trunk, hiding his grin behind the decklid. In all fairness to Rosie, he wasn’t so smug himself, on the day Pope drove you to the airport. 

It’s not a long drive from Newark, but the car progresses slowly through the late afternoon traffic. The New York City skyline stands out in orange hues. Everything is too big again. Too large. Too tall. But it’s fine. Everything’s on scale. 

The keys to the house jingle in your hand before Rosie exists the New Jersey turnpike, and you’re first to pass the front door, Frankie heaving the luggage behind you. 

You’re so exhausted you could sleep for days, but you’ll have to open the store tomorrow at 10am. 

Frankie goes straight to the bedroom and you hear the heavy thud of your suitcase hitting the floor, followed by the softer one of his rucksack. 

When you join him, bringing two glasses of water, you find him lying on the gigantic bed, arms sprawled, staring blankly at the ceiling. 

On scale. 

“Did you enjoy yourself?” you ask him, crawling onto the bed next to him, curling into his side. His arm wraps around you. 

“I sure did. That tour guide really knew her shit. Easy on the eyes, too.”

You chuckle tiredly, his chest rising and falling slowly under the palm of your hand. 

“Could we go to Rome, next year?” you ask. 

“We can go wherever you want, baby.”

“Even— even San Diego?”

He pauses for a beat before he answers. 

“Sure. Anywhere you want.”

You scoot closer to tuck your face into his neck, and you lie together in silence for a little while. A pleasant heaviness is slowly claiming your weary limbs. 

“Why does the trip back always feel longer?” you mumble. 

“What are you talking about?” he shakes his head, a smile in his voice, “You slept the whole flight.”

Your cheek resting against the slope of his shoulder, your hand on his thigh, one day he would tell you, that being airborne with you had been the best part. 

“It’s true,” you shrug, “I guess I just couldn’t wait to come back home.”

***

Bonus: Frankie & Gabrielle 🧡

Source

****

Dedications 🧡

Kelli. You started all this, but where do I start? I don't know if you remember the first letter you ever sent me, and what it said, and I don't know if you remember when I first told you about this orange bedroom idea, last summer. But I do. You’ve held my hand, like you always do. Your guidance and validation and support saw me through. Because you’re impossibly generous, with your time and patience and advice, you’re unbelievably kind, intelligent, talented and insightful. I’ve learnt so much from you already, about writing, about myself. You inspire me to reach higher. It's exhausting, but I love you for it. Oh yeah, and you beta-read this fucking monster too! Everything that is good in me this story, is good thanks to you. You turned my black heart orange. Kelli, I love you 🧡 @frannyzooey

Dreamy bby, my purple beauty, my beloved, my angst master genius, how many times have I come to you crying and whining and complaining, telling you I was giving up? Please don’t answer, it’s too fucking embarrassing. You kept my head above water, with love, kindness and humour. What did I do to deserve you? Beats me. Also I'm sorry but I love you more. Ha! Thank you 🧡 @dreamymyrrh

Ren, you’ve pulled me out of the ditch in a heartbeat more times than I care to count, because you are a genius and a wonderful friend. You are the reason I found a home in this fandom. You are my Reine, and I adore you. Thank you 🧡 @the-ginger-hedge-witch 

Nicole my love, I know I’m repeating myself, but you are the first person ever to read the first chapter of PTMY. I sent it to you for your opinion, but really for your encouragement because I was absolutely terrified, and you delivered, you always do, you beautiful, beautiful friend. Thank you for your investment in this story and its characters. Watching you go from team Benny to team Frankie to team Benny and team Frankie again is seriously one of the greatest achievements of my life! Thank you 🧡 @nicolethered

Cee my darling. You gave me the final push to press post and you haven’t stopped encouraging me and supporting me since. You've lent a patient and kind ear to my doubts and fears, you’ve given me the most thoughtful feedbacks a friend could ask for, you let me stand on your shoulders, you give me strength to stand up for myself. In many ways, I carried on because you gave me the validation and self-confidence I so desperately need(ed). Thank you 🧡 @fuckyeahdindjarin 

Deadmantis. Girl, Frankie really owes you one, because Gabriele stayed mainly thanks to you! I owe you an even bigger one for the love you’ve given them, and the orange bedroom. You know them like no one else. Your asks have fuelled me, they still do. I could never repay you, but please know that I am infinitely grateful to you. Thank you 🧡 @deadmantis

Lua. You rascal. You gave me the levity I so badly needed in a thick river of ANGST. I’m very selfishly hoping you never stop making me guilty by dropping Benny into my ask box. A million thank you 🧡 @pedrit0-pascalit0

And to my two favourite Anons, 🍻 and 🥖, I fucking love you to pieces. Thank you thank you thank you 🧡🧡🧡

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