Dog Collar Knockoff (23 page)

“Yes.”

She thought back to that night, back to Joey busting her on the porch with Tim. Keeping her eyes above his shoulders, she pointed at Joey. “That’s where you were coming from that night?”

“Yeah. But I’m not talking to you about this. It’s not your business. I don’t talk to you about Frankie.”

Lucie opened her mouth. Shut it again. He was right. All these years, he’d never once butted into her relationship with Frankie.

“He’s right, Luce,” Frankie said.

Ro moved in front of her, drawing her full attention and Lucie got a whiff of Joey’s soap, musky stuff that wasn’t half bad. But it was on Ro’s skin. This would take some getting used to.

Ro grabbed her hands and squeezed, refocused her.

“Luce, I’m okay. All of this is okay. He’s always been good to me. I promise.”

She knew that. Mostly. Joey always treated the women he dated with respect. Never talked about their sexual proclivities or badmouthed them to his friends. He just never wanted to grow up and commit and eventually the women moved on. No hard feelings. Her brother was a master at no-hard-feelings.

But this was Ro and they all had a lot to lose. Ro hadn’t let go of her hand yet, so Lucie gave it a gentle squeeze back. “I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Sometimes, sweetie, that’s just inevitable. Who thought Tommy would wind up being a cheating bastard? He was supposed to be the safe bet.”

Yes, he was. Tommy was the rebound after Ro had dumped Joey.

Lucie glanced back at Frankie. For Lucie, he’d been the holy grail of jackpots. With him she had love
and
the safe guy. The one who would never hurt or betray her.

And yet, they couldn’t figure out how to make their relationship work.

Obviously thinking she wanted his opinion, he held his hands out. “You gotta stay out of it, Luce.”

Yeah. She did.

Whatever this was—lust, love, or anything in between—Joey and Ro would have to figure it out. Hopefully, they wouldn’t kill each other in the process.

Ro and Joey. Together. This town might not survive.

She went back to them. This time meeting Joey’s gaze, making sure he knew she wasn’t messing around. “Ground rules.” She held one finger up. “I don’t want any of the gory sexual details. From either of you.”

“Jeez. Even I wouldn’t do that.”

She turned to Ro. “That goes double for you. I don’t need to know how you feel about”—somehow, God help her, her gaze went to Joey’s crotch and she slammed her hands over her eyes—“his parts.”

Joey threw his arms up. “Luce!”

“I’m sorry. But she likes to talk about stuff like that and I don’t want to hear it.”

“You guys talk about that?” Frankie wanted to know.

“Don’t worry, Charm Pants,” Ro said. “She gave you an A rating.”

Cripes. Lucie bared her teeth. “Ignore her, Frankie.”

“Don’t I always?”

Point there. Whatever. Back to business here. “Second…” Lucie held up another finger. “If you have a fight, I will not take sides. Unless, of course, one of you does something completely stupid. In which case, I will kill you because I don’t need that kind of stupidity around me. Got it?”

They both nodded.

“Third.”

“That’s a lot of rules, Luce,” Joey said.

“This is my last one. I never, ever, want to walk in on what I just walked in on. Locks were made for a reason. Lock. The damned.
Door
.” She flapped her arms. “Do you have any idea what it’ll take to wash that image out of my head? I might need counseling after this.”

Joey waved her off. “Who invited you here? I told you I’d be busy.”

“Because you had painters here! I figured you were looking at paint samples. I certainly wouldn’t have shown up if I’d known you two were reenacting early European porn.”

Frankie stepped forward and raised his hands. “I wanna know what this wheelbarrow thing is.”

“Dude,” Joey said, “you won’t believe it. I’ll give you the website.”

“Sshhh!” Lucie hissed. She spun toward the door, started to leave and stopped. “I came here to tell you that plumber you hired blew me off.”

“That son of a bitch. I’ll call him.”

“Fine. Whatever. I’m out. I may need Valium after this.”

*

Frankie held the
door open for Lucie and she breezed out into the hallway. The sharp smell of polished wood reminded her of the pride Frankie took in taking care of the house. Every weekend he cleaned three stories of oak rails and spindles until they gleamed. From the day he’d bought this house, he’d done the same routine. Sometimes she’d even helped him and found the task so tedious she’d thought she’d throw herself over the railing.

From the third floor.

Where Joey and Ro just did the nasty.

Blech.

Even more reason to go over the railing. Frankie though? He’d told her cleaning the rails was his therapy. He’d put his headphones on and zone out. If she didn’t think too hard about the tediousness of the task, she could see where the repetition and the quiet would be relaxing.

She hit the first step and made her way down. “You called me this morning. What’s up?”

“Uh, nothing. We can talk about it later.”

She knew that tone. That not-quite-confident edge his voice took on when he had something—not necessarily good—to share.

Terrific.

She paused on the stairs, turned back, and Frankie halted on the step above her. His dark eyes were shadowed, something she’d just now noticed. She wondered if he’d worked late last night. But this wasn’t the normal Frankie-is-tired look. This was more than that, and her fingers suddenly turned to icicles. She flexed them in and out to get the blood moving and work away some of the tension curling up her arms.

What now? They were already broken up so that wasn’t it. What if he was sick?

“Frankie, I know you. What is it?”

“It’s not important.”

“If you called me, I would think it is.”

He paddled his hand, motioning her forward. “Let’s—uh—go into my apartment.”

“Is this bad news?”

“Luce, please. I’m not gonna stand on the steps and talk to you.”

She moved down the stairs, her pace quicker than it had been a minute ago. “This can’t be good,” she muttered.

At the first floor, she swung around the banister and headed into Frankie’s apartment.

“Have a seat,” he said.

This is bad
. She lowered herself to the leather, hand-me-down sofa she’d sat on thousands of times, yet none of it seemed normal. Or comfortable. Maybe she just didn’t want to be in Frankie’s space unless they were a couple. She missed him too much and being here reminded her of their failures.

Lately, everything about Frankie brought sadness and fear and…questions.

And, God, she didn’t want this heaviness anymore. This always thinking and wondering and hoping. What the hell had happened to them that they’d forgotten to have fun?

Frankie sat in the matching chair across from her and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I don’t know how to do this.”

It’s bad.
Maybe he was sick. Cancer. Please. Not that.

“Whatever it is, just say it.”

He nodded, ran his hands together, slowly rubbing. Finally, he looked up at her, met her gaze. “I got a job in New York. At ESPN.”

It hit her like a bomb blast, rocking her upper body back, forcing her to squeeze every muscle to stay upright and not sink back.

New York. ESPN.

Did he really just say that? After years of begging him to move out of Franklin, possibly to New York where he could work as a sportswriter and she on Wall Street. After all those conversations when he’d told her—definitively—he would
not
leave his parents.

For her, he wouldn’t leave his parents.

For ESPN?

Sure. Why not?

Talk about cutting to the bone.

“New York,” she said, desperately trying to keep her voice level and contain the frustration and—yes—the flat-out anger consuming her.

He sat back, held up his hands. “I know. I know. I’m a shit. We had countless fights over moving and I never would. I’m sorry.”

Lucie swallowed, blinked a couple of times, but couldn’t manage one word. Not a single word. After all they’d been through together. Nothing.

“Luce, it’s a good offer. It’ll get me closer to being on air.”

His dream. Being a television announcer. Well, really, his dream had been to play professional baseball, but chronic concussions had destroyed the hand-eye coordination that had made him such a good ball player. Instead, he’d studied journalism and had been working as a columnist, but really, his goal was to be in front of a microphone.

“I see.”

But, really, no, she didn’t.
I asked him for this a thousand times.
And each time he’d told her no.

“What would you think,” he said, “about going with me?”

Oh. Six months ago, she’d have dropped to her knees and thanked the stars above. Now? Now it set something off in her so wild and cold she clutched the sofa cushion with both hands, her fingernails ripping right into the leather. After all the debating, arguing and breaking up, he wanted her to shut down her growing business, just put a halt to her life to go with him to New York.

And oh, right, they were broken up.

She shook her head, cleared the surging disappointment. This was Frankie, always trying to find a work-around to make her happy. Somewhere in his twisted mind, he thought finally giving her the thing she’d been begging for would make her not mad at him.

Well, wrong. She wasn’t about to pick up her life to relieve his guilt.

Particularly when she wasn’t even sure he still wanted her. The three months of being apart certainly didn’t indicate that.

She looked down at the floor, at his sock-clad feet. “Well, I guess I should say congratulations on the job.”

You rat-effing-bastard.

This was Frankie. Never had she considered referring to him in that way, but what was it with the safe guys lately? Ro’s safe guy turned into a stripper-banger and now Frankie—steady, reasonable Frankie—had lost his damned mind and expected her to give up everything without the promise of a future together.

“Thank you,” he said. “I know it’s a shock.”

She laughed, but the lack of humor should have bludgeoned him. “That’s one way to put it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what? For doing something you would never do for me, but now suddenly expect me to give up a growing business to follow you across the country when—oh, hang on—you
broke up
with me.” She dug her fingers into her forehead. “God, even saying it out loud it sounds insane.”

“I thought maybe we could start over.”

Brilliant plan. “Again? What will be different this time? Other than the fact that I will once again be without a job and starting over while you get to chase your dream. If we were still together, if we were engaged or married, I wouldn’t hesitate. But we’re not together right now. You can’t expect me to give up my life for a maybe.”

“Luce, I’m trying. I don’t want to lose you.”

“Frankie! You broke up with me three months ago. I’ve been sitting around, waiting for you to decide what you wanted. Now, it seems, you’ve decided New York is what you want. Fine. Great. Good for you for making a decision.”

“I had to do something. This tension with my father is killing me. And my mom keeps asking why I don’t come around as often. I feel guilty as hell over that, but I’m not about to tell her what he did. Nuh-unh. I don’t see why her life has to be torn apart just for me to make a point.”

Of course he didn’t. This was the problem. His parents came first. Always. Even when he was mad at his father. And now, he was doing it all over again. Running away from the situation because he didn’t want to disappoint anyone or upset his mother. Good old, Frankie, still trying to stay loyal.

At Lucie’s expense.

A crushing weight landed on her shoulders, bowing her body. She slumped back into the sofa.
I’m so tired of this.

Everything hurt. Her body, her mind, all of it.

She closed her eyes, drew air through her nose, and let it out. She didn’t have the energy for this. After all these years of loving him, a love she’d probably always cherish, she couldn’t do it anymore. Couldn’t live with this constant drama and carrying the entire Falcone family on her back.

Now, she was done.

She stood, stared down at her sneakers, and blinked back the moisture filling her eyes. So many tears she’d unleashed over the years and it all came down to Frankie doing the thing she’d always wanted. Leaving Franklin. Only he was doing it alone.

She lifted her head, walked to where he sat and put her hand on his shoulder. “I can’t, Frankie. I’m sorry.” She looked up at the ceiling, let out a sarcastic laugh. “Ironic, isn’t it? You’re moving to New York and I’m staying in Franklin. Who’d have guessed that one?”

But Frankie stood, grabbed onto both her arms, and held tight. “Don’t decide now. Give it some thought. I don’t leave for two weeks.”

Two weeks. “Wow.”

“Yeah, they wanted me out there ASAP.”

“That’s good, Frankie. They’re excited to have you.”