I threw on a clean shirt—well, cleaner than the last one—and shorts. Stood there staring at my apartment key for a long second before I grabbed it.
Mom’s voice floated from the kitchen as I headed out. “Where are you going?”
“Out,” I said.
“Out where?”
“Just out.”
She didn’t push. But when I glanced back, she was watching me with that same look—like she wanted to say something but had already decided I wouldn’t listen.
Maybe she was right.
I knew where I was going.
Frankie.
She hadn’t answered any of my texts, but maybe if I showed up, if Ilooked her in the eye—she’d at least let me explain. Let me apologize. Hell, even if she slammed the door in my face, it would be better than this silence.
It wasn’t like I had to go far, she was three doors down. She’d been three doors down for most of our lives. My heart was still rabbiting by the time I got there.
Tiddles sat in the front window, watching me like a tiny, judgmental gargoyle.
I knocked.
No answer.
I knocked again. Louder. “Frankie? It’s me.”
Footsteps.
Relief surged up for half a heartbeat—until the door swung open.
And it wasn’t Frankie.
It was Edward Standish.
Archie’s dad.
Standing there in a pale blue button-down with his sleeves rolled and a watch that probably cost more than my mom’s car, looking every bit the guy who wasnotsupposed to be at Frankie’s front door on a Saturday morning.
I froze. My brain, already running on fumes, short-circuited.
“Mr. Standish?” I said, my voice cracking like a middle-schooler’s.
His gaze swept over me, cool but not quite cold, like he’d been expecting me—or at least expectingsomeone. “Cooper,” he said smoothly, like we were shaking hands at a fundraiser instead of me standing on Frankie’s porch like an idiot.
I blinked. “Uh… hi. I—uh—is Frankie here?”
Something flickered in his eyes. Not annoyance exactly. More like… ownership. A boundary. “She’s not available right now.”
“Oh. Okay. When will she?—”
“That’s not really your concern at the moment.”
I swallowed hard. “Right. Yeah. Sure. Uh…”
This was weird.Soweird. Archie’s dad at Frankie’s door. Telling me she wasn’t available. Like he lived there. Like he had some claim.
