A poetic plan snapped Frankie’s brain back to the task at hand. One so swoony it had to mean she’d recently received a head injury. Otherwise, there was no way she’d consider such a sappy action.
If Marcus could risk his life to hand her his truth, she could risk her pride to hand him her heart.
He’d groveled for her in the middle of Gi Gi’s Square.
She’d grovel for him in the middle of Times Square.
“Ms. Birdie, I’m going to need a billboard man.”
Chapter 46
Marcus hadn’t seen Frankie since the day she’d tried to bolt from Gi Gi’s Crossing without a goodbye. In hindsight, he should’ve let her go…saved himself the humiliation and the emotional hangover.
Instead, he’d chased her and gotten sucker punched by her fury and his own damn hope.
The final insult? His grand exit…in a rhinestone-bedazzled golf cart.
He grimaced at the memory. He’d made it as far as Chantilly Falls before pulling over and calling George to find his damn keys and bring his Jeep.
They’d swapped vehicles like fugitives in a spy movie, and then Marcus had hightailed it back to Manhattan.
That had been two weeks ago. Fourteen days of licking wounds—not from the senior kink prank, he’d earned that—but from realizing his grand gesture had been a grand failure. He’d left her a confession of love, doubled down on it for the whole town to hear, and she’d laughed. So yeah. He was alone, doing whatany self-respecting idiot with a bruised heart would do…recalibrating.
The first thing he’d done when he got back? Blocked her number. Not because he hated her—God, if only—but because every buzz of his phone sparked a hit of irrational hope. And when it wasn’t her? It felt like rejection all over again.
He’d blocked her. And then pretended he’d moved on.
Fuck me.
Thankfully, his assistant was off sipping something tropical on the vacation he’d gifted her, blissfully unaware that her boss was spiraling into broken-hearted teen drama territory. With the office shut down for the month, there was no one to nag him about trivial things like showering, sleeping, or calling the girl.
Not that his phone had stopped ringing.
The infamous sex ad Frankie had plastered around town had made him wildly popular with the over-seventy crowd.
He still hadn’t changed his number. Couldn’t. Because even though she was blocked, if he ever unblocked her…she could reach him.
But hey. Hope.
Hope that received CPR via a damn billboard.
He never would’ve seen it, being too committed to the art of wallowing, if Ms. Birdie hadn’t sent a courier with a note that read:Get your ass to Times Square and look up.
Naturally, he’d resisted. For a whole ten minutes.
Then curiosity strangled his pride, and he found himself shoulder to shoulder with camera-happy tourists, craning his neck skyward.
He hadn’t realized how many billboards were in Times Square until his retinas burned and he started questioning every life choice that led to scavenger hunts in tourist hell.
And then he saw it.
It didn’t scream. It whispered.
Mr. Uptight: You hid your truth. I hid my feelings. We are even. Or we could be. Meet me tomorrow at our coffee shop at 3 pm. ~FP
A secret broadcast to thousands that only he was meant to understand.
Bold. Discreet.
