“And your moms tried to kill each other over something that happened before any of us were born?” he asked.
“Pretty much,” Frankie muttered, with a little shrug. “Though, I’m fairly certain we can say it’s as much about today as then, and I think Mrs. Standish has the right considering where my mother and I are living.”
I watched her carefully. She looked steady, but not calm. It told me she was holding herself together with duct tape and grit. Her words didn’t wobble, but her fingers trembled. If I hadn’t been watching for it, I might have missed it entirely.
Archie noticed it too. He brushed his fingers against the back of her hand once. She turned her hand, palm up, and he settled his hand over hers and their fingers interlocked. The movement and the grip were both natural.
Too natural.
That did something ugly and sharp under my ribs.
Jake
Okay.
So.
The vibe in this room?
Not normal.
Not bad.
Just…different.Maybe too different.
Archie wasn’t hovering, but anger simmered beneath his calm facade. Frankie wasn’t avoiding any of us, but there was something so inexplicably sad that it was killing me not to do something about it. Beyond all of that, there was a charge between them that hadn’t been there last week.
Deeper.
Less flirty.
More…involved. Not just on Archie’s part. I wasn’t blind, he’d been into her from the first day we met him.
I didn’t hate it.
But I wasn’t blind to it either.
“So what’s the plan?” I asked, because if we didn’t move this forward it was going to get weird.
Okay, weirder than it already was and I’d long since dug my own damn grave in the middle of our friendship. I needed to keep filling that hole in and rebuilding that foundation.Repairing my relationship with Frankie was more important than some fleeting irritation.
After squeezing her hand, Archie leaned back then draped his arm across the back of the couch. Not around her. Just near enough.
“We’re not telling Edward tonight,” he said.
Frankie glanced at him.
“We?” Bubba asked mildly, and his eyes were narrowed as he focused on Archie. I didn’t doubt that he wasn’t as aware of Frankie as the rest of us, but there was an unspoken level of communication going on between Bubba and Archie that I couldn’t quite interpret.
Archie didn’t flinch. “We.”
There was a beat following his confirmation, then I looked at Coop.
He was watching them both like he was puzzling through a math equation he didn’t like the variables on.
“You sure that’s smart?” Coop asked and I had to admire how diplomatic he sounded.
Frankie answered before Archie could. “No.”
