Gregory’s eyes nearly burst from their sockets. “You and me? We got married last night?”
“No, no, Ezra and me.”
Gregory’s hand thumped over his chest. “Oh, thank sweet Jesus. You know I’m fully out now, right? Not that my mother wouldn’t have been thrilled.”
Frankie smiled. “Yes, I know. And I’m sorry about your mom.”
His shoulders rose then flopped. “You can’t choose your family.”
And Frankie nodded because that was the truth. Then the weight of what she asked seemed to sink in for him.
“Wait?You guys got married?”
Frankie shoved her hand between them, Ezra’s grandmother’s ring still stuck behind a swollen knuckle. “Ezra said that Alec Barstow is, like, ordained or something?”
“Jesus Christ!” Both of Gregory’s hands flew over his mouth. Then he turned toward the hotel entrance and then back toward Frankie. “And she... and you... and... holy shit! This is incredible!”
“No,no. It’s not incredible,” Frankie said. “Between my head and his intoxication...” Her voice wandered. Then: “So to be clear, you donotknow if we’re married?”
“I left you guys at Lemonhead,” Gregory said. “You werehurt. I was hurt. We headed there to get some ice for the both of us. When I last saw you, you were barely speaking. You were definitely not married.”
Frankie exhaled and sank into what she expected to be relief but was also unsettling confusion. The image she had of the two of them, her and Ezra, while Gregory spoke into the mic at Lemonhead’s entrance was just that: a passing glance of a moment that she had seemingly misread. She was leaning on Ezra, his arm slung around her, because he was literally holding her up. Not because they were heady in love, not because things had been rekindled. Still though, she considered, it was gracious of Ezra to be that foundation, to come to her rescue. Frankie had never ever asked to be rescued, never even wanted it. She thought of their kiss again, of the way that it turned something feral on inside her. Would it really be so terrible if Ezra rescued her every once in a while?
“Shouldn’t I have gone to the hospital?” Frankie only just considered this now.
“We tried! You think we didn’t try?” he said. “You kept going on about this one time in Bangkok, and how you were totally fine the next day, and in fact, you started singing that—” He shook his hips, shimmied his shoulders. “One Night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble, not much between—”
“Gregory.” Frankie cut him off.
“Right, sorry. Anyway, we tried, and also neither Ezra nor I were exactly in good shape to make a case for you at the ER.” He grimaced. “I think the booze I brought may have actually been, like, legitimate moonshine. Hoo boy. Also, that Xanax he took. In hindsight, an idiotic combination. Oh, and he wasranting and raving about Mimi canceling and how it wasn’t even snowing yet, so why would her flight be canceled.” He flung open his arms. “So yeah, it was like a level-five shitstorm, and if you didn’t want to go to the hospital, we weren’t going to drag you.”
Frankie chewed all of this over and found that there were no holes in the plot. Gregory, blessedly, appeared to be telling the truth.
“And Alec? What happened to him?”
“Oh, that boy bolted.” Gregory laughed, like this was in any way hilarious. “Ran back inside, tossed the keys at us, and fled. He could be in Canada by now.”
Frankie rubbed her temples. “So we didn’t hook back up with him after Lemonhead?”
“Well, I stayed.” Gregory made a face like he knew that had been the wrong decision.
“You stayed?”
“Uh, yeah. The bartender who gave me the ice pack also threw in a shot of tequila, and I thought I was getting a vibe.” He flopped his hand. “It turned out that his vibe was just his general vibe and not necessarily a Gregory vibe, but who could have known that at the time?”
“Not your shining moment.”
“Your definition of ‘shining’ is subjective,” Gregory said with a grin. “Most people really do like me.”
Frankie wasn’t going to argue, because he was probably right, and she’d never been granted such a social luxury: to simply be well-liked as soon as she made an entrance. She’d never tried to be well-liked; she’d never tried at all actually.For a long time, maybe right until this moment, she’d worn that as a badge of honor. But what would be the harm, to have a bartender like you just because, to be amiable because it was the generous thing to be? She looked again toward the hotel. Ezra was almost always amiable because it was the generous thing to be, and Frankie had always thought of this as a weakness. Maybe that was just another lie she told herself because confronting how diametrically opposite she was to that graciousness was too onerous a task.
“And her? Mimi?” Frankie asked.
Gregory sucked in his breath, the air whistling past his teeth. “Well, Ezra really can pick them, that’s for sure.”
“Hey.” Frankie scowled. She thought of the kiss again.
“You decimated his heart.” He shrugged. “Just because you don’t see yourself as the bad guy doesn’t mean that you weren’t.”
