Following Pazza out onto the deck, Frankie watches her run down to the sand and wander the shore, sniffing and digging. I’m right behind her, plugging my phone into the speakers.
Frankie turns and glances up at me, then at the speakers. “What’s with the music?”
I bow, straighten, and offer my hand. “Madam. May I have this dance?”
The line between her brows vanishes as she belly laughs. “You were totally born in the wrong century.” Stepping closer, she fists my shirt, yanking me close. I cup her face, leaning to kiss her. “Wait.” Frankie sets her hand on my chest.
I pull back. “What?”
“You shouldn’t kiss me—” She pauses, biting her lip.
“Last I checked, allergies aren’t contagious, Francesca.”
“Don’t ‘Francesca’ me, Søren,” she grumbles. After a beat of silence, she meets my eyes. “Okay, I might have a small cold, all right? Now please, please don’t go nursemaid on me. This is what I meant that day when we got lunch. When this all started, Ren.”
I hold her eyes, then press a kiss to her cheek. Closer to the corner of her mouth.
“Ren—”
“If I don’t have whatever this sickness is by now, I’m not getting it, Frankie. Just let me kiss you.” I sweep my lips over hers, a faint teasing touch as my thumbs gentle her cheeks. She tastes sweet like chocolate, and her lips are decadently soft.
As I deepen the kiss, the breeze wraps around us, a blanket of sea air and the faint wisp of flowers. Frankie drapes her arms around my neck and leans in.
“You have my heart, Søren Bergman,” she whispers against my neck. “Please, please be careful with it.”
I wrap my arms tight around her, swaying her with me.
“Always.” Pressing a soft kiss to the corner of her mouth, I slide my grip down her waist, my other hand tangling with hers. “Same goes for you, Francesca. Or else I’ll be reduced to writing maudlin amateur poetry.”
She sets her head on my shoulder and sighs happily as I lead us in a slow sway across the deck. “Such a good dancer,” she mutters. “You’re annoyingly good at everything you do.”
“Well, not everything. I can’t do a backbend to save my life. I’m horrible at long division. And I’m still learning how to be good at something else.”
Frankie peers up at me. “Like what?”
I snort softly, feeling a blush creep up my cheeks. “You’re going to make me say it?”
“Ohhhh.” She waves a hand. “No worries, there. You’re the best lover I’ve ever had, Zenzero. Hands down.”
My heart twists. Not out of an ego boost, but because I tell myself it has much more to do with what Frankie feels when we’re together. In her heart, not just in her body. That for her, as it is for me, it’s not just sex. It’s making love.
“I’m sorry if I haven’t told you,” she whispers. “It’s not for lack of me thinking it. A lot. Frequently.”
I press a soft kiss to her lips.
Her eyes meet mine, and she stares at me curiously. “You know how you told me to get into Shakespeare Club, you have to recite verses that mean something to you?”
“Mhmm.”
“If I were standing at the entrance for your meeting, determining whether or not you got in, what would you say to me?”
The wind sends a swirl of dark hair across her face. I slip it safely behind her ear, tracing my fingers down the shell of her ear, the smooth line of her neck. “Francesca, are you trying to say you’d like to be wooed?”
She smiles up at me. “I was attempting to be coy. How’d I do?”
“Nailed it.” I pull her closer, feeling her heart beat hard against my chest. “Let’s see. Ah, just the thing.”
Clearing my throat, I search her eyes. “‘Doubt thou the stars are fire, doubt that the sun doth move, doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt I love.’” I peer down at her, giving her a soft kiss. “How’s that?”
Frankie’s smile deepens as she kisses me back. I hold her close in my arms under the night sky’s canopy of fiery stars.
29
Frankie
Playlist: “My Body Is a Cage,” Arcade Fire
There’s a restless energy among the team. Ren’s features are uncharacteristically tight, like he’s only half present, distracted with worry. Worry that I hope isn’t directed at me. Even though I’m a fair candidate for it. I feel like shit stuck to the bottom of a beat-up sneaker.
I went to bed last night feeling under the weather and woke up knowing I was heading straight for the eye of the storm. My chest is heavy. I keep stifling a wet cough in the crook of my arm. And when I used the restroom just ten minutes ago, my pee was dark, my skin sallow as I stared at my reflection over the sink. I know I need to drink water, but I can barely get it past my throat.
Worst part is, I’m not even the saddest looking one in the room. Andy’s quiet—which he never is—Tyler’s cranky, Lin’s heart’s not in it. Rob’s got a scowl going, which my memory has filed away under the label “I had a fight with the wifey,” and if François were any more stressed, I’d slip him one of my emergency Ativan.
Like always, the team’s gathered in a warehouse corner of the arena, where trucks back in with all kinds of stock you wouldn’t think is necessary but is apparently vital to running a sports rink. It’s where the guys do their usual soccer ritual that’s just supposed to keep them limber, connected, and distracted before they suit up for the game.
Their version of soccer isn’t a game, per se. It’s just the guys in their warm-ups, circled around, volleying the ball. The sole aim of the exercise is not to let the soccer ball hit the ground. It makes you careful with your touches, aware of your teammates. It’s a smart pre-game activity.
They’re just sucking at it.
Ren stands on the opposite side of the room, amid the circle, a head taller than either guy surrounding him, hands on his hip. He’s staring at me, clearly lost in thought. I tip my head and jerk my chin. Pay attention.
When Kris drops the ball, Ren finally blinks and breaks away from watching me.
Rob sighs and scoops up the ball. “Again.”
“Why?” Tyler says. “We’re losing tonight, at which point the playoffs are over, and you know it.”
Ren drops his hands, and gestures to Rob. Rob volleys it to him. As Ren chests it, then easily uses his thigh to send it back to Rob, he yells, “Scapegrace!”
Rob’s eyes narrow as the ball sails his way, but when he heads it toward Lin, a grin lights his face as he hollers, “Rapscallion!”
Half of the guys’ gazes swivel over their shoulders to me. I studiously focus on my phone, so they don’t feel intruded on. I’m having a hard time focusing my eyes, and out of my peripheral vision, I can see them all passing some kind of inscrutable look between themselves, like they’ve been caught doing something they shouldn’t.
I cough thickly into my arm as Lin says his word, so I miss it. But when François cracks it toward Andy, his bellowed oath echoes in the room: “Base-court apple-john!”