“Oh, I gotcha.” Frankie winks. She’s been giving me hell about Rian for a while now.
We shoot the shit about nothing important. I fill her in on the shop. She asks about the arm and the accident. Jolie and Rian have fun making cookies.
I head into the kitchen to get Frankie a coffee, where I catch a glimpse of the cookies. “I thought they’d look like monsters?”
Rian pours out a container of sprinkles on top of the drops of batter she already has on the cookie sheets. Jolie watches on with wide eyes.
“No, they’re just big cookies with a lot of sprinkles and candies.”
She really is great with kids. Another damn checkmark for Rian.
Frankie and I chitchat the entire morning. Once Jolie gets bored baking cookies, she pours the contents of her bag on the table in front of the television. Soon the news gets replaced by a talking dog show.
Frankie and I move to the kitchen to help Rian with the cookies. Mostly Frankie though.
“So what’s he paying you to nurse him back to health?” Frankie asks Rian.
“He’d prefer to be left alone. You know how he thinks he always has everything under control.” Rian rolls her eyes.
“Oh, I can only imagine. What’s he had you do so far?” Frankie asks.
Rian tells her about the bathroom and how she had to close her eyes after my shower, then tells her about the sweatshirt situation, not mentioning the sexual tension. Unless maybe she didn’t feel the thick as smoke pull in the air.
They like to talk about me as if I’m not there. I guess Rian knows me the best out of all the girls we hang out with and Frankie is stuck with me at work, day after day. They openly complain about me when we’re all around each other.
Right before Frankie packs up Jolie because she has to take a nap, Jax walks in with his laundry bag over his shoulder. Frankie eyes him as he stops just inside the door, his large duffle falling to the floor in front of him.
Jolie runs over, her feet sliding to a stop in front of him. “Who are you?”
Jax peers down at Jolie, then at us standing around the kitchen. “Did I just walk into the wrong apartment?”
Rian laughs. “Jax, this is Frankie.” She places her hand on Frankie’s shoulder as Frankie nods a hello. “And that’s her daughter, Jolie.”
“I’m Jax,” he says to Jolie, picking up his duffle and swinging it over his shoulder. He walks to his room.
“Friendly guy,” Frankie says.
“He really is a nice guy,” Rian adds, which bothers me to a degree I’m not comfortable with.
“Oh, Rian.” Frankie puts her hand on Rian’s shoulder and shakes her head.
“What?” Rian asks, packing up cookies for them to take home.
“We’re just different. You always see the good in people and I always see the bad.” Frankie puts her purse over her shoulder.
That’s all I need to hear. Rian sees the good in me, and she won’t see my bad until I’ve already hurt her. Without even asking for it, Frankie gave me the advice I needed to hear.
“I’m going to walk them out,” I say to Rian.
Frankie hugs Rian goodbye. “Don’t let him talk you into any sponge baths or anything.”
Rian’s cheeks redden. I love that look on her. Before I was restricted to only using my right hand, I’d imagine telling her all the things I wanted to do to her and that blush hijacking her body when I beat off.
“Thanks, Rian.” Jolie hugs Rian while consuming a cookie that’s bigger than her face.
“Bye, Jolie.” Rian hugs her tightly. “You’re welcome any time you want, okay?”
Jolie nods, hugs my knees, and I tug on one of her pigtails.
Outside in the hallway, Frankie lets Jolie have her phone and sit against the wall so we can talk.
“So what’s really up?” she asks.
“If I don’t find anyone soon, I’m going to ask Jax”—I nod toward my apartment—“to come in on a temporary basis.”
“Wait.” She shakes her head. “Who is that guy?”
I blow out a breath. Frankie wouldn’t be impressed by the people Jax has tattooed. She’s strictly does it for love, not money. But she follows enough artists that she’ll know who he is.
“Jax Owens.”
Her mouth drops open. “Shut the front door!” She moves to beeline by me, but I grab her arm and pull her back. “Why didn’t you introduce me to him?”
“Rian introduced you.”
She cocks her hip. “No, Rian introduced me to a new roommate of yours named Jax.”
I shrug. “Not my fault you didn’t recognize him.”
Technically it’d be Jax’s. He’s not big on his picture being on Instagram. He showcases his artwork more often than not.
“So you’re going to have me manage him?” She points toward the door.
I nod.
“You’re insane. And please tell me why you’re allowing the business to suffer when the solution is right inside that apartment?”
I stare at her for a moment. “He went to high school with Knox and me. We aren’t exactly on the best of terms.”
She pats my shoulder. “Time to kiss some ass, Dylan. And since I was going to bring this up later anyway, you should be kissing Rian’s ass too while you’re at it. Literally.” She glances at Jolie, who’s watching something uber loud that echoes through the hall.
“My mind is so fucked up right now.”
“Good.” She smiles sweetly.
Frankie isn’t a sweet girl. She’s the girl other girls are afraid of. She’s got a sharp tongue and her insults cut deep. She can come back with a snappy retort within a second and she honestly doesn’t give a shit what you think of her.
That’s why she says, “I’m going to be your working mind for the time being. You’re going to go in there and ask Jax to come work at Ink Envy. Give him whatever the hell he wants. And then you’re going to tell Rian exactly how you feel.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Make a good deal. Tell him you want a percentage of who he brings in. It happens all the time.”
I shake my head because the Jax thing I can handle. And she’s right—I’m sitting on my gold mine, fiddling with my limp dick.
“And the Rian thing.” She places her hand on my heart. “It’s a good thing. You’re a good guy. Stop pretending you don’t like her, because if I had to guess, this experiment of the two of you together day in and day out, alone? It’s gonna blow up in your face if neither one of you will talk about it, and it’ll kill the friendship. Be mature and talk it out.”
“You seriously want me to tell her ‘I like you’ as though I’m some twelve-year-old adolescent boy who just got his first boner?”
She laughs and shakes her head. “You have to get out of your own head first. For now, save your company. No one wants to date an unemployed loser,” Frankie playfully smacks me on my cheek. “Let’s go, Jolie.”
They disappear into the elevator, and I walk back into the apartment. Frankie’s words aren’t helping me in the slightest. When I get inside, all the baking stuff is put away, replaced with her work stuff on the kitchen table now. Rian smiles at me, and I beeline across the apartment, knocking on Jax’s door before I lose my nerve.