And then she stiffened and pushed away from me.
“Lucas, stop,” she said, turning her back on me before turning to face me again.
Her face was sad and I hated it, I hated the look in her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, shoving my hands in my pockets and rocking back on my heels, preparing for the blow I knew was coming.
“What are we doing?” she asked, throwing her hands in the air.
“What do you mean?” I asked, frowning.
Frankie growled low in her throat. “You kissed me.”
“O-kay, but I’ve been kissing you—“
“Exactly. You’ve been kissing me when there are people around so that we can play the ‘young and in love’ couple we’re supposed to be, but there’s no one here. No one’s watching. There’s no reason for you to kiss me.”
I looked around, making sure no one could inadvertently overhear the conversation we were having.
“But maybe there is,” I said, looking at her through my lowered lashes. “Maybe there is a reason for me to kiss you.”
Frankie shook her head. “This is all fake, Lucas, remember? We’re pretending. We agreed that this was just fake. We’re best friends, not whatever this is turning into.”
“What if I don’t want it to be fake anymore?”
Frankie took a step closer and my heart rate picked up in anticipation. She ran her hand down my chest, smoothing my shirt and her lips turned down. Now my heart was racing for a completely different reason.
“You might think that,” she murmured, “but you’d be wrong.”
“How can you tell me what I’m feeling is wrong?” I asked.
“It’s this place,” she said with an exasperated sigh. “It’s this place and these people and the situation. You’re a long way from home and this is all unfamiliar and out of your comfort zone and I’m the only familiar thing in your life right now.”
“So what you’re saying is that I’m clinging to you as some sort of security blanket?” I asked in disbelief that she could dismiss my feelings so easily.
“We’ve been friends for a long time,” she said.
“Right,” I replied with a nod. “So?”
“So, we’ve never once been tempted to go beyond friendship. Don’t you think that says something about our relationship? Don’t you think that it proves that this—“ she made an encompassing motion with her hands “—is an anomaly?”
“Maybe the change of scenery had the added benefit of casting each of us in a different light?” I replied hopefully.
“No, I don’t think so,” she replied. “I don’t want to lose you as a friend Lucas, and I’m afraid if we keep going the way we are, that’s exactly what will happen.”
Before I could say anything in my defense, she was walking away. I stood like an idiot watching her go and feeling the separation tangibly.
I swore quietly under my breath and turned back to the view, no longer seeing it. Just when we’d overcome all the weirdness between us, I made it weird again. How many hints did I need before I got it? Frankie didn’t want me like that. Hadn’t she already made that clear?
But she kissed me back. That had to mean something, right? Her body responded to mine, I felt it. I did not imagine the way she pressed against me or the way she returned my kiss. And Frankie had never actually told me she didn’t want me.
There was also the way she had been looking at me all night through dinner. She had to feel something for me, didn’t she? Friends did not look at each other the way she looked at me.
I ran a hand through my hair and groaned. I was hopeless at this. I was so completely clueless about women I didn’t even realize Clarissa was pulling away from me. I thought all those Instagram posts about engagement rings was a hint for me, but I’d been wrong. She’d been trying to hint at whoever the other man was she’d fallen in love with.
And now with Frankie, I thought she might be starting to fall for me like I was falling for her, but no. Frankie had made that pretty clear. She was redrawing the friend zone line in the sand and I was firmly put on the other side of it.
Chapter 19
Lucas
Three weeks had passed since that night in the garden and Frankie was doing a stellar job of avoiding me. Oh, she wasn’t avoiding me completely; I saw her every day, multiple times a day, she just made sure we were never alone.
But I couldn’t just blame Frankie. I was busy too. I’d been working on the co-op plan with Jamie and Dorian and even the elusive Evan from time to time. The Komis of Alethia was so much of a recluse that the first time he walked into a meeting I thought he was a homeless man who’d found his way into the palace somehow. His black beard was thick and bushy and hid half of his face. This was more of a wild bushman beard than a hipster beard. His thick, dark hair was tied into a messy man-bun—and I really hated to use that term because, ew, but there was just no other way to describe it—at the nape of his neck. He watched from his chair and barely said a word and then left without so much as a goodbye. Thankfully, the next time he joined us it wasn’t such a shock, and he actually had some helpful suggestions.
While the king couldn’t always join us, Dorian was my constant companion and even though we were chalk and cheese when it came to personalities, we actually complimented each other in our work. He did the schmoozing of the members of parliament and concerned citizens, and I did the numbers and the negotiations with Effie.
But despite all the busyness, there was a part of my brain that focused solely on Frankie and working out ways that I might get her alone. I needed to talk to her. I needed to lay all my cards on the table because even though she thought my feelings for her were some construct devised by my anxieties, I knew different. I had fallen in love with Frankie and it had nothing to do with her being the only familiar thing in my life. I’d even made a spreadsheet about it and a pros and cons list and a timeline of my feelings, all of which I intended to show her if only I could get her alone long enough to explain it all to her. But she was avoiding me with the dedication of an Olympian. I was getting desperate. It would only be another couple of weeks before she had to go back to America and Boston and her life and I wanted her to know where I stood before she did. I wouldn’t force her to stay, but I wanted her to at least know she had a choice.
I was so desperate, in fact, that it overrode all my anxiety about baring my soul to her. I wasn’t worried about her turning me down; I was more worried about never being able to tell her. Short of going to her room when everyone else had gone to bed, I didn’t know how else to make the conversation happen. We were both existing in this weird limbo where our friendship wasn’t quite what it used to be and it wasn’t yet what it could be—and I didn’t know what that new normal would be yet—and I hated it. I hated the fake smiles she gave me and the way she dodged me and the fact that I was obligated to the king and couldn’t just blow off work and go after her like I wanted to.
“Lucas? Are you going to join me or are you going to continue to stare into space?” Dorian asked.