“Frankie! You’re a messy bitch! You said you would stop!”
Listen, I was planning on stopping. And I still do!
But… it’s been a long few weeks okay? He’s training for some big game and I’ve been gearing up for the game awards ceremony plus working on other projects that aren’t going the way I expected. So… whenever the pressure builds too high, we…help each other out.Very efficiently. And frequently.
Nothing too mad.
Besides, it’s just easier than finding someone new. We respect each other enough to not overwhelm our own careers by trying to be more than what we agreed to. I’d even dare to say we’re acquaintances now.
Which is how we’ve ended up here—on mine and Za’s monthly trip to Smiths, replenishing our physical media like it’s 2009. (We like to pretend streaming never existed).
I stop beside him.
He doesn’t look up. “If this magazine mentions ‘legacy’ one more time, I’m gonna kill myself.”
“Buy it, then,” I say. “You seem emotionally invested.”
“Frankie. You know I don’t give money to journalism.”
I shrug my shoulders. “I’m just shocked you know such big words.”
“Cute.” He glances up, one brow lifting. “What are you even doing over here?”
“Supervising,” I correct. “Za’s orders.”
A white lie.
“Mm.” He closes the magazine. “I feel safer already.”
I roll my eyes—but I don’t move away. I haven’t seen him in a day or two because of press conferences. We talked on the phone like we did last night but finally seeing him in person feels comforting. Unfortunately, I can’t do anything about it because Za’s with us. But what would I do if she wasn’t.
“How’s the build going?” He asks.
“Build?” I blink myself back to the conversation.
“Last night on the phone,” he manspreads so that I am standing directly between his legs. “You said you were working on it…”
Did I say that to him or on stream?
“Did I? I can't remember.”
His mouth flips in as if he misspoke but he quickly regathered. “I must’ve misheard you. It was pretty late at night.”
“Maybe I did say something, I mean I definitely worked on it last night. I fell asleep at my desk.”
“I know,” he grins. “You snore.”
My face screws up. “You stayed on the line with me?”
“Yup. Til your phone died.”
“Creep.”
His mouth jerks up under the fiber covering it.
“What’s that you’ve got there then?” Jabari asks, nodding toward the stack of books in my arms.
“Want a closer look?” I say.
