Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 154525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 773(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 773(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
He couldn’t bring himself to share his thoughts. Not when they were so insecure and sad, and fearful.
“Are you scared to love me?” she asked, reading him like an open book once again.
“No,” he lied.
“Well, I’m not scared to say I love—”
“Don’t do that,” Nico interjected, his gaze snapping to her in the next breath. “Don’t do that in a car while we’re driving down the road, and it’s been a great day. Don’t tell me that when everything feels good, and perfect and right.”
Frankie swallowed thicky, asking, “When should I say it?”
“When I need it,” he admitted, finally letting some of his fears bleed through. “When I really fucking need it, you’ll know. Okay?”
Saying nothing once again, she only nodded.
“Because that’s when I’ll know, Frankie. That’s when it’ll really feel like you mean it when you say it to me. Maybe that doesn’t make sense, I don’t know. It’s just how it is for me.”
“Have you ever been in love before?”
“Have you?” he shot back.
“No,” she said easily. “Now, you.”
“I thought I was. Once. I was fourteen, she was fifteen.”
Her teeth started abusing her lip again, and this time, her fingers squeezed his hard enough to make his knuckles creak. Nico didn’t say a word about either thing. She asked, after all.
“What happened?”
Nico laughed weakly. “She fucked my brother, in my bed.”
Now that grip of hers loosened immediately.
“Jesus Christ.”
“She was fifteen. He had no business doing—”
“That’s not what you felt at the time, though, was it?”
“No,” he replied honestly. “It tore me up. I had a bad spell for a couple years after. I never had another girlfriend. Just...people I fucked.”
That sounded so bad. He knew it did.
The girl next to him barely let a soul touch her. She put worth in herself that he’d never managed to find for himself. He knew it without her even needing to say as much.
He could tell the first time she laid next to him in bed, fully clothed and after she started shedding more pieces of clothing each time after. He could tell she wanted more between them each time she crawled into his arms, her confidence in herself and him growing. How she lost those silent insecurities easier each night.
He could tell.
Nobody made her feel safe enough before that she gave those pieces of herself to them. He was not the same. He couldn’t give her what she would freely give to him, if he just took it from her.
And she wanted him to. God, he wanted her, too.
“There you go again, somewhere else,” she said softly.
“Home sweet home,” Nico mumbled, using the arrival at their destination as an excuse to drop the conversation and hopefully a distraction. “This is it, babe.”
Frankie barely glanced at the two-storey colonial style home with a detached two-door garage that had been gifted to Nico from Big Mike as part of his payment for the Carcoli situation. The quiet neighborhood flickered with life as a couple strolled down the street, lights overhead flooded the sidewalks, and a cat crossed the road two houses down.
“Look at me,” she demanded.
He did.
“Maybe you don’t want me to say it,” Frankie said, reaching out to brush the back of her hand along his cheek, “but you still know it. And I know it. That can be enough.”
“Yeah, it can.”
“Can’t you tell me what’s wrong, though? Like right now. Because something is.”
“Every time I look at you, there’s a little piece of me that keeps thinking I’m just gonna ruin you. Like I always do. Like I’ve done with everything, even myself.”
Frankie smiled in that knowing way of hers. “Nico...”
“You asked.”
“Nico.”
“What?”
That came out sharper than he intended.
She didn’t even blink.
“I don’t know why you’re so scared of ruining me,” she told him, “you already did, and I’m telling you right here and now, there will never be another person who does for me what you do. Never. Keep ruining me. Please. It’s the best fucking thing that ever happened to me.”
“You say that now, when it’s good and we’re like this, but—”
“I’ll say it every day until you believe it.”
“Frankie—”
“Every day, Nico. Good, bad, and in between. Watch me.”
He did. His fingers drummed against the steering wheel. His heart fucking hurt. He wished the demons in his head didn’t matter like they did.
“It’s supposed to be a good night, not like this,” he said, laughing darkly.
Frankie unbuckled her belt and crossed the middle of the car to kiss him so hard it hurt. He swore he tasted blood from the force of her soft lips seeking his again, until his chin trembled and his jaw ached.
“You fucking idiot,” she breathed against his parted lips. “Thank God you’re my idiot. It is a good night. It will keep being a good night because I’m with you. You’re nineteen, following a curfew because my father says so. You hunt down a painting of my dead mother’s like it’s nothing. You bring my dog to my fucking graduation. What do you mean, not like this? I want it like this, Nico. I want you.”