Page 17 of Say You Will

He adjusts his glasses and shakes his head. “The violin isn’t going particularly well. I like cooking when I have the time, though.”

When I laugh, he frowns in apparent confusion.

“Sorry. It’s just that you’re good at everything you do. It makes you seem more human to imagine you struggling with the violin.”

His frown only deepens. “You see me as inhuman?”

“Not at all. But you’ve always seemed bigger than life to me. Above things like struggle or failure.”

His eyebrows lift. “That’s an inaccurate perception.”

“It’s the nature of hero worship, I guess. It lacks nuance.”

“I’m not a hero.”

I dip my chin in acknowledgment of his words, but I refuse to agree with him.

When we were kids, I’d told Henry everything that made me smile and made me cry. I imagined myself carrying a shield intomy “adventures,” and that shield, more often than not, was the sound of Henry’s voice in my head saying,“You’re a warrior, remember?”When I became a teenager, Henry’s voice in my head also became the occasional“Fuck ’em, Franki.”He was my hero.

For Henry’s part, he told me things about himself that I wasn’t supposed to know. Never details of specific missions, but enough for me to come to a general understanding. That, alone, would have been enough for me to admire him, but, of course, there was more. His kindness. His resilience. Even the unique way his mind works.

I shift my weight and wiggle my toes.

He glances down at my feet, then back up to my face. “You’re in pain. The wedding photos are complete. What would you say to ditching this place and finding somewhere a little quieter to talk? We could go to my place. You’ve never seen my penthouse. I think you’d like it.”

I hesitate, not because I’m going to say no, but because I’m trying to work out logistics in my head.

“I’ll cook for you,” he coaxes.

“It might be easier to stay here at the hotel and order room service. Oliver is upstairs with a sitter, and I can’t leave him alone for very long.”

Henry smiles. “You brought him with you.”

Charlotte and Arden have done enough by allowing me to stay with them. I wasn’t about to ask them to babysit my dog when I wasn’t there. “I take him pretty much everywhere. My mother nearly had a stroke when she realized you gave me a dog, but he was the best thing that could have happened to me.”

“Good.”

“I should warn you, he might be a little territorial. He’s well-trained, and his behavior is perfect in every other way, but he gets really protective when men come near me.”

Henry’s lips twitch and something that looks bizarrely like satisfaction lights his eyes, but all he says is, “Lead the way.”

five

Henry

Eight | Sleeping at Last

Franki shakes her headas she shifts in her chair and looks down at Oliver where he sits near her feet. “I can’t believe how well he’s behaving with you. He doesn’t normally let men get near me.”

I slide my foot slightly closer to Franki under the small room-service table in her hotel room, lean down, and give him a scratch behind his ear. Oliver thumps his tail. “He probably remembers me from when I trained him as a puppy.”

She was in a boarding school surrounded by haters, and I wanted to give her an animal that would double as a guard dog. But, she found Oliver at a shelter and fell in love. I’d been fully prepared to bully or bribe the school administrators to allow Franki to keep him with her. Instead, her mother showed up for her winter break and took her away at the end of it.

I straighten, move my place setting aside, and take a sip of water. Clear my throat. Tap my finger against my water glass. “We’ve known each other a long time.”

She props her elbow on the table and puts her chin in her hand. “We have.”

Franki smiles like she knows all my secrets. Her eyelashes flutter over warm, dark amber eyes, and my heart rate picks up for no reason, whatsoever. I take another sip of water. I can’t think when she’s looking at me like this. “You and I each have something the other needs.”

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