“You look gorgeous,” I blurt out.
Walker laughs, Colleen smiles, and Clark, who walked up at the same time Frankie did, whistles low under his breath.
“Guys got it bad.” Clark hikes a thumb at me, and my brother and cousin nod in agreement.
Frankie, for her part, blushes furiously. “Thank you.”
We’re in this weird space, a purgatory, if you will. There isn’t much anger left between us, though I know there is still distrust. We have lunch or a meetup, usually once or twice a week. But aside from texting about the baby, we don’t communicate more than that. It’s been about three weeks of this, this … middle space. We’re not enemies anymore, but we’re not allies. I’m not her partner, her lover. I’m scraping away the ice block she put around her heart, it feels like I am inch by hard-fought inch, but we’re nowhere near where I wish we could be.
“You asked for it, Frankie. We’ll just leave you lovebirds alone,” Walker insists, pulling the other two away until it’s just her and me.
“I’m sorry if they are trying to be all up in your business,” I apologize, not knowing that my family had that much contact with her.
She waves a hand in front of her face. “Don’t worry about it, I was just kidding. It’s actually kind of growing on me, having so many people around and caring about me. I’m just not used to it.”
Last week at our lunch, where I took her to a taco joint two towns over that I kept a secret, or my family would swarm it, she told me about her mom, how their relationship is solid but somewhat distant. It sounded like Frankie never really had a family, not one like mine that was enormous and always way too nosy. Her mother barely kept in touch, and although she knew about her pregnancy, she hadn’t really been all that involved.
She spent eighteen years as a single mom, making sure I was clothed and fed, and I think she’s just tired. That’s what Frankie had told me. My heart ached for her. My parents wanted to know everything about my life and were a huge part of my sobriety journey. They didn’t yet know I was going to have a son, but when they do, after the initial shock wears off, they’ll be over the moon. It will be a task trying to keep my mother from buying every baby item within a fifty-mile radius.
“I’m glad they’re here for you, though. You’re going shopping with Hannah this weekend?” My sister-in-law let it slip.
As we start to make our way around the carnival, Frankie talks to me. “Yep, she wants to give me the full baby registry immersion.”
Something low in my gut roils. I wish I was doing that with her.
“If you want some more company, I’m around.” I’m too chickenshit to express how much I want to be there, for fear she’ll shoot me down.
“You don’t have to come, it’s just boring shopping.” She shrugs.
“For items that our son will use. I-I bought him a blanket last week. One with tiny little dinosaurs all over it.”
I’d ordered it from an ad that popped up on my Facebook. Damn, those social media bots really know how to do their job well.
“You did?” She sounds surprised. “I didn’t know … I guess, should there be a nursery at your house, too?”
She’s six and a half months, these are things we should be talking about. How do I tell her that I want one house, with both of us in it, with one nursery?
“We can make the main one at your house. I’ll come over, take the night shift, draw you a bath, make bottles. Whatever you need me to do.”
We’re getting looks as we walk around. I think it’s the energy around us, the way I can’t keep my eyes off her. The way Frankie keeps drifting into my side, our elbows bumping as we pass the ring toss and balloon dart popping booths.
“I guess this is something we should be thinking about.” The look she gives me is far too intense to be platonic.
My hand on her elbow stops our forward progress, and I shift her slightly so that we’re almost standing chest to chest. It’s too intimate for this venue, but I don’t care. I’m tired of playing it safe, of not saying directly what I want. That’s not who I am. I need the black sheep Sinclair to come out of hiding, the guy who dared to bring the controversial things into the light.
“I want to do the registry with you. I want to pick his crib and his sheets and all of those useless toys babies barely even play with. I want to come to your appointments and be the one you call if you don’t feel well. I want to build our son’s crib with you and struggle to put up his wallpaper. I want to … to be there with you when he comes into the world. I want to get you ice chips and harass the nurses about taking the best care of you. I want … I want it all, Francesca.”
The truth is, I want to do a lot more than that. When I say I want it all, I mean all of her. I mean a house and the kids and a ring on her finger. It’s daunting, knowing that I’m ready to take that leap. But we’ll start there when it comes to expressing those things to her. I hadn’t mentioned the birth yet, but now it’s out there. And I’m not sure she’s going to agree with me being there.
“Okay.” Her answer is simple and comes with a smile.
“Really? I thought you would fight me more on this.”
Frankie shrugs. “I want those things, too. The birth … that’s one we can talk about further. But, I’m craving a caramel apple and they’re right over there and the smell is driving me insane.”
I wrap my arm around her shoulder, and she lets me. “Then it’s my responsibility to buy you a caramel apple.”
It might just be for half an hour that she lets me touch her, that she lets me spend time with her and buy her something, even the smallest thing. But I feel the obstacles waning.
With enough patience and perseverance, maybe I can actually have, and give her, all the things I want.
29
Frankie
“Two more reps. Come on, Garrett, give me everything you’ve got.”
I clap in the hotshot rookie’s face, jarring him a bit. Sweat beads at his temple and there is a ferocity in his eyes through the sheen of exhaustion.
I’ve worked him to the breaking point today, but this kid needs a reality check. He’s been walking around the facilities like he owns the place, just because he had eight strikeouts last playoff game. Then he strolled into his training session with me, fifteen minutes late, acting like some millionaire asshole. Which he is. But I’m not about to let him get away with that.
So I scrapped the workout I had planned and decided to kick his ass instead.
He struggles through the last two reps, then drops the bar with a thud.
“You’re a dictator, Kade. That’s what they say about you. Even pregnant, you’re a ball buster.” He pants through his teeth.
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You know, after you have the baby, we could go out for—” I tried to kill him with weight training, and the player is still trying to wink at me.
“Get the hell out of my weight room, Chester.” I point a finger to the door, not wanting to hear any of his bullshit pickup lines.
“Yes, ma’am,” Garrett drawls in his thick southern accent, then whistles as he strolls out.