Can't Stand the Heat - Louisa Edwards [45]
Frankie arched a brow, the one with a curve like a scimitar. “Not too busy now for a nice little chat, is it?”
Jess gulped, hoping it wasn’t audible. “No,” he agreed. “My tables have all cleared.”
There was the smile again, and Jess watched, fascinated, as Frankie flashed the trademark tip of tongue between his front teeth. There was no earthly reason that should be so ridiculously sexy.
And yet.
Jess cast about for a topic of conversation while Frankie leaned hip-shot against the wall, smoking contemplatively and staring into the sliver of night sky visible between the tops of buildings. Shifting his weight from side to side, Jess let his eyes wander from Frankie’s kick-ass black boots, up the black denim-clad legs to the greyhound-lean chest encased in yet another T-shirt, a white one with the black outline of a woman’s face surrounded by a pouf of eighties hair.
The sleeves had been ripped out, and Jess noticed again the tattoo that had caught his eye that first day. A skinny figure with shoulder-length dark hair lounged against Frankie’s bicep, wearing suspenders and a collared shirt. A pair of dark eyes smoldered out of the tat. Jess wondered with a sudden pang if he was looking at someone who’d been important to Frankie.
“Who’s the guy on your arm?” Jess blurted, and could’ve smacked himself for how completely noncasual he sounded.
Frankie clamped his cigarette between his teeth and twisted his arm so he could see his own tattoo. “Guy? Are you cracked? That’s Patti Smith, you plonker.”
Jess could feel his face coloring. “A chick. Seriously?”
Frankie took the Dunhill between his thumb and forefinger and pointed it at Jess. “Not just any chick, Bit. Patti Smith is the Godmother of Punk. She’s a genius, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, fucking Commander of the French Order of Arts and Letters.” He shook his head despairingly. “Sweet suffering saints, what are they teaching you young squirts nowadays?”
Jess scowled. He hated it when people referred to his age. It’s not like he could help being nineteen. “I’m not that young,” he said, fighting to keep the sullen out of his voice.
Frankie pushed off the wall and sauntered closer. Jess felt trapped by his own magnetic attraction, as if Frankie were the planet he was revolving helplessly around, and yet he didn’t exactly want to escape. Frankie leaned in, and Jess was suddenly enveloped in his scent, the rich tobacco tang from the Dunhill clashing with the savory smoke from the grill. He breathed in as deeply as he could without gasping aloud.
“I bet you’d like Patti’s music, Bit,” Frankie said, his sexy lick of an accent rasping over Jess’s nerves. “There’s this one line of hers makes me think of you every time I hear it, about your youth being for the taking. Makes me want to take your hand and run away.”
Frankie shook his head again, laughing at himself, but there was something shadowy in his eyes that made Jess wish for broad daylight so he could puzzle it out. “Don’t be so quick to cast off your youth, Bit. Once it’s gone, you can’t ever get it back.”
And then Miranda made a racket entering the alley, and Jess came back to reality with a bump.
Jess sank onto his pillow with a sigh. If she hadn’t come outside then . . . but she had. And God, she’d almost seen—he didn’t even know what, but something. And that would’ve been awful, he reminded himself, in spite of the ache of unfulfilled anticipation that still throbbed below his breastbone.
His late night had gotten even later because, of course, he’d had to come home and download every single Patti Smith album he could find. Including the one with the cover he recognized immediately as being the basis for Frankie’s tattoo. It turned out to be a Mapplethorpe photograph, which gave Jess shivers when he found out. Robert Mapplethorpe was one of his favorite artists.
Jess twisted and reached to grab the iPod off his bedside table. Fitting in the earbuds, he scrolled to the song Frankie had referenced last night, which Jess had finally pinned down after several hours of intensive listening. By the time he went