Jake leaned back slowly. Bubba didn’t blink. But Coop held my gaze.
“And you?” he asked.
“I’m not stepping back,” I admitted, because this was important. Frankie meant everything to me. I wouldn’t be cut out. As long as she wanted me, that was where I would be.
Jake muttered, “Well. That’s subtle.”
Bubba shot him a look.
Coop exhaled through his nose, but he didn’t get angry or rage. He just maintained a kind of calm that I used to envy. “You planning on pushing us out?” he asked.
“No.” I didn’t even have to think about that answer, even if I knew damn well they needed to ask the question.
While Jake actually looked stunned, I didn’t take that as an insult. Jake was an all or nothing kind of guy and that had nearly cost us all. So, he could be surprised. If he sank his chances with Frankie, that would be on him—not me.
Coop, however, merely narrowed his eyes and continued to study me. “Then what are you planning?” he asked quietly.
There it was. The real question. The one I’d been waiting for. The one they’d needed to ask since they got here but held it off for Frankie’s sake.
I considered lying. Considered softening it.
Then, didn’t do either. “I’m planning on being what she needs,” I said. “And I’m not making her choose. Not now. Not ever. What Frankie wants and needs—that’s what she’s going to get.”
The words sat there.
Bubba nodded once, apparently, he and I were on the same page. Maybe that shouldn’t seem as wild to me as it did, but it was also a relief. “Good,” was his only comment.
Jake, on the other hand, stared at me like I’d just announced I was joining a monastery.
A combination of relief and frustration cascaded across Coop’s face. “I don’t know if that’s good or not,” he said, seemingly choosing his words with care. “You’re different…something’s changed.”
“Yes,” I replied because he wasn’t wrong. Something had changed. I’d learned a lot about myself in the past weeks and days since learning Frankie had a boyfriend, since discovering she’d thought we were punishing her somehow—and I’d made a discovery when Edward and Maddy tried to sell me that bullshit that she was my sister.
I wouldn’t apologize for any of it.
Jake tilted his head. “Different how? Because from where I’m sitting, you look like a guy who already won.”
I shrugged. “Probably.” But this wasn’t aboutwinning.
“That doesn’t scare you?” Jake pushed, like he was trying to figure out his own feelings on the subject.
“Look, I’m not that evolved. It does scare me.”
That surprised them. Good.
“But not enough to walk.”
The room went still.
Bubba broke the silence first. “She said she’s not choosing,” he reminded me.
“I heard her.”
“And?” At his challenge, I got the odd impression he already knew my answer but he was just saying it to make sure we all heard it.
“And I respect that. Respect her.”
Coop leaned forward. “Respect and handle aren’t the same thing.”
