Surprised, I looked at her.
Her gaze was on the cocoa, not my face, like saying it out loud had cost her something. “Don’t go.”
Something in my chest loosened and tightened at the same time.
“Okay,” I said, like it was simple. Like it didn’t matter. Like my whole heart hadn’t just shifted in my ribs. “I’ll stay.”
Frankie let out a small breath, almost relieved, and then she glanced toward the bathroom.
“I should shower,” she murmured. “I feel… gross.”
“You should,” Rachel said immediately, gentler than her face suggested. “I already got out the clean t-shirt and sleep shorts. I’m going to assume the bathroom’s stocked. Do you want me to go get you anything?”
“No,” she said, then looked at Rachel for a moment then at me again. “Don’t leave. Either of you?”
“I won’t,” I promised. You couldn’t get me to move with a tractor. If Frankie wanted me there, then here I would stay.
“We’ll be right here,” Rachel murmured as Frankie carried her hot cocoa toward the bathroom, pausing only long enough to scoop up her change of clothes.
She disappeared into the bathroom and closed the door. A beat later, the shower turned on—water rushing, steady, loud.
The room felt different without her in it. Still warm. Still safe. But… missing.
Tabby hopped down and started circling like she was patrolling. Tory moved closer to the bathroom door and sat facing it, guard-cat mode engaged. Tiddles sprawled right where Frankie had been sitting like he was claiming the lingering warmth.
Rachel watched all of it, then looked at me.
Really looked. There was no escaping the guarded assessment in those eyes. This was the moment where I either became useful or got murdered in my sleep.
“She’s been through hell,” Rachel said quietly.
“Yeah,” I said, voice rough. “I know.”
Rachel’s gaze flicked to where Tory stared at the door. “She’s trying to be tough,” she continued. “But she’s… hanging on by a thread.”
I swallowed. “She always does that. She thinks she has to.”
Rachel’s jaw tightened. “Now her mom has literally taken away her home.”
My grip tightened around the mug. “Maddy always did this thing where she… reorganized Frankie’s life while calling it help.”
At least twice I could remember when we were junior high, Frankie came home to find all the furniture replaced. Or all her old clothes tossed out and new ones in there. Didn’t matter that her favorite t-shirt was gone. Maddy wanted to be rid of it, so they were.
Hell, I’d gone dumpster diving with her to find it. Fortunately, we found it in the second one and it didn’t smell too bad and it washed up just fine.
Rachel let out a short, humorless breath. “That’s a kind way to put it.”
Silence stretched for a second.
I stared at the cocoa like it might offer wisdom. “I feel like I made it worse,” I admitted.
Rachel’s eyes sharpened. “How.”
Because Rachel Manning didn’t let you vague your way out of accountability.
I exhaled. “This summer. All of it. The stuff Sharon—posted. I could blame her, but she hardly held a gun to my head.” The word tasted like ash. “I didn’t think Frankie cared. Not like that. I told myself she wasn’t interested in anyone. It let me pretend it wasn’t betrayal.”
Rachel’s expression didn’t soften, but it shifted—more understanding, less condemnation.
