Page 77 of Craving Francesca

I just grinned. It wasn’t a true question. She knew exactly how the garage worked—which is where she assumed I spent most of my time. There wasn’t a single person who would blink at me taking off on my bike for a week or two.

“I—yeah,” she breathed, closing her eyes for a moment as her shoulders slumped. She opened them again. “If you’re sure?”

“Fuck yeah,” I said immediately. “Let’s do it.”

“I need to pack.”

“Pack light.”

“I’ll try,” she hedged.

“Notryin’,” I replied with a chuckle. “We’re on the bike. You need to fit your shit in a backpack.”

“You have saddlebags.”

“Woman, where the hell do you think I’m supposed to putmyshit if the saddlebags are full ofyourshit?”

“Good point,” Frankie said.

“You already look a little better,” I muttered, reaching up to run a finger under her jaw. “Tension along here is gone.”

“I’m going to get a complex if you keep talking about how horrible I look.”

“No, you won’t,” I scoffed. “You know you’re gorgeous—just need to get some sleep and eat a fucking meal.”

“Why do you even care?” she asked, her voice small.

“I care about you.”

“Since when?”

“Probably since that night you wiped out and hit your head on the corner of the pool table, and it knocked you out for a couple seconds.”

“That was like two years ago.”

“Yeah.”

“You’ve never given any indication—” she stopped and swallowed hard. “Right.”

“We weren’t in the right place then.”

“Are we in the right place now?”

“No, but we’ll get there.”

Someone knocked and tried to open the door.

“What?” I barked, irritated that they were interrupting us. Frankie shook with a silent laugh.

“Food’s out,” my dad called through the door. “Tell Frankie to put her pants back on, that girl needs to eat somethin’.”

“Fuck me,” Frankie groaned, dropping her head to my shoulder.

“Might be a while,” I called out jokingly.

“Yeah, in your dreams, kid,” my dad replied with a laugh.

“I cannot believe you just said that,” Frankie said, jerking to her feet.

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