Page 60 of Craving Francesca

“Sorry I didn’t want to talk it over or boohoo about it. I didn’t want to explain how Scott the slimeball was pretending to wear condoms and then taking them off mid-fuck, or how I’d switched birth controls without fucking worrying about it because as far as I knew Iwasusing other forms of contraceptives, or the fact that I had to wait days to find out if he’d given me an STI, and that wasafterI found out I was pregnant.”

“Frank,” Myla said softly, her face falling.

“No,” Frankie barked. “I’m so fucking selfish? Cool. Get out of my house then. This isn’t the part where we hug and make up. Fuck you.”

“You didn’t say anything,” Myla sputtered. “I didn’t—”

“Was I unclear about any of that?” Frankie asked Cian. “You can leave, too.”

She pulled away from my hand and strode down the hallway and out of sight.

“You knew?” Myla asked, her eyes filling with tears.

“Saw her at the clinic the first time. Drove her home afterward.”

“That’s why you cleared out the protesters,” Cian murmured under his breath.

“You guys should probably go,” Lou whispered, glancing over her shoulder at the kitchen. “I’ll call you in a while, okay, My?”

Myla nodded as Cian led her out of the house.

Lou turned to me as soon as they were gone. “I shouldn’t have called around. I was just getting really worried when I hadn’t heard from her. With Scott showing up here all the time, I thought maybe he’d done something or—”

“She’s not mad at you,” I assured her. “It’s been a long day.”

“I had no idea,” Lou muttered, pressing her fingers against her eyes. “I knew about the Scott stuff, but after the STI screening came back clean I thought it was over.”

“I don’t think she was plannin’ on tellin’ anyone.”

“Why? I mean, she knows we would’ve supported her.”

“I didn’t want this to be some defining moment for me,” Frankie said, standing at the end of the hallway. “Because it wasn’t. It was an unfortunate situation that I took care of. That’s it. I didn’t need support. I didn’t need hand holding.”

“I still wish you would’ve told me.”

“I’ll remember that next time.”

“I’m sorry I got everyone all worked up about you being missing. I fucked up,” Lou said with a grimace.

“You didn’t. I love you for worrying enough about me that you called in the goon squad. I should’ve texted you to let you know I wouldn’t be home today. I just didn’t want to explain everything, so I was putting it off.”

“Let’s just make a deal, if one of us isn’t going to be home we let the other one know—no questions asked. If you want to tell me why, cool. If not, no worries.”

“That works for me,” Frankie said.

“But we should probably have a code word or something,” Lou mused, tapping her finger on her chin. “So we know it’s you or me and not some psycho with our phones.”

“You two worried about bein’ kidnapped?” I asked, my lips twitching as I held back a smile.

“Try being a woman for aday,” Lou replied, still tapping her finger with a faraway look in her eye. “Then come back to me with that question.”

“What aboutyankee doodles?” Frankie asked with a smile.

“That works.” Lou dropped her hand. She looked over at me and then at Frankie. “So, what’s going on here?”

“We’re friends,” Frankie replied before I’d even formulated an answer. “Besties. BFFs.”

“That’s an interesting turn of events,” Lou said blandly as she walked over and dropped down onto the couch.

---