Can't Stand the Heat - Louisa Edwards [101]
Jess, who had never lost the habit of noticing every minute detail about Frankie, saw the way his brows tightened as if warding off some remembered pain. In the midst of his own agitation and gut-deep disappointment in his sister, Jess stared at Frankie and realized that he wasn’t giving advice based on some self-help book or movie of the week.
“You lived this, didn’t you?” Jess breathed.
Frankie’s immediate flinch was all the confirmation he needed. He got more when Frankie curled up from their nest on the floor, hitching his black jeans over his narrow hips and padding barefoot to the jacket he’d discarded by the door. Jess watched the search for cigarettes with impatience.
He waited until Frankie’d lit up and taken one good drag to bounce up on his knees. “Come on! Tell me.”
Frankie puffed a couple more times in intense silence. A thought struck Jess like a dart letting the air out of a balloon.
“You don’t have to talk to me about it,” he offered, unable to completely keep the tremor out of his voice. “Not if you don’t want to.”
Blue smoke streamed out of Frankie’s mouth on a frustrated breath. “It’s not that, Bit. I don’t mind you knowing. It’s the telling part I don’t fancy.” He cocked his head at Jess. “You see the difference.”
Jess got off his knees and walked over to where Frankie was standing. After last night, it didn’t feel so daring to put his arms around Frankie’s waist and hold on, or to bury his face in the taut silk of the skin stretched between Frankie’s jutting shoulder blades.
Not so daring, but oh so right.
“No pressure, no guilt,” Jess said. “I swear. But I’m here. Anytime you want to tell me, I’m here.”
The noncigarette-holding hand stole up to lie across Jess’s tight-hugging arms. Frankie’s velvet-soft answer was better than a kiss.
“Not right now, then. But sometime.”
“Sometime,” Jess echoed happily. He squeezed Frankie’s ribs and reveled in the sense of continuity, of future, that word implied. Nothing concrete, oh, no. Frankie didn’t work like that, and Jess knew better than to try and pin him down.
But it was a promise, all the same, a pact between the two of them.
And in that moment, Jess knew he’d do anything, defy anyone, to keep his part of the promise.
Her first emotion when she caught sight of Jess was annoyance that he didn’t have the courtesy to look as miserable as she felt.
Part of her had hoped that a night sleeping under whatever rock Frankie Boyd habitually occupied would’ve cured Jess of his infatuation with the bohemian lifestyle. However, it didn’t look like things were going to be that easy.
Jess sauntered up the path toward her looking terribly young and carefree. He was wearing his same clothes from yesterday, but if the lack of freshness bothered him, his loose-limbed stride and neutral expression didn’t show it. His short hair glowed dark red in the buttery summer sunlight. When she’d gotten home, she’d been grimly unsurprised to find the apartment empty. Jess had answered his phone promptly, however, even though it was clear he was still with Frankie. She’d asked Jess to come home; he’d countered by inviting her to meet him in Central Park.
Miranda understood, and could even respect, the desire for neutral ground. She also suspected that Jess was hoping a public meeting would curtail her desire to rant and rave and make a scene.
She agreed to meet Jess at the Turtle Pond. She got there early and then had nothing to do but stand and try not to stare at the many partially clothed sunbathers littering the grass beside the pond, scant inches from the path. The banks of the Turtle Pond weren’t as packed as the Great Lawn, she was sure, but the glaring heat of midday had called the sun worshippers out in full force. Every summer, as soon as the mercury topped seventy, the city dwellers left their glass-and-concrete caves and gathered in Central Park to bare their pasty, winter-white skin. Bathing suits were almost never employed; instead it was deemed preferable to wear skimpy