Page 46 of Summer Breakdown
“How Andrew was looking at you. How he was talking to you. The fact Cam won’t break up with him even though she doesn’t like him. I can’t get Kai to do what I want him to do in our next match, my landlord is being a wanker, I need another doctor’s appointment to get my meds even though I’ve been on the same ones for a decade, and … you.”
“Oh.” They come to Jasmine’s front door, and she doesn’t even know how they got past the front gate. It’s like when she listens to an audiobook in the car and somehow makes it through three roundabouts without dying.
Frankie looks nervous, and Jasmine wants to help.
“Well,” Jasmine starts, “why are you stressed about me?”
Frankie sighs. “So many reasons.”
“Any I can help with?”
Jasmine doesn’t know if Frankie knows she needs help or if she just doesn’t want it. Perhaps this level of comfort is her base. Jasmine’s not ridiculous enough to think Frankie hasn’t figured out a way to cope with her illnesses for the entirety of her life. It’s not like Jasmine has read too many romance books and thinks the warmth of her palm is enough to cure her.
But Frankie is kind and sweet, and someone that Jasmine is letting herself realise she wants to be friends with. She wants to help her, if she can. Frankie might want to be her friend too. They don’t have to kiss. Jasmine can put the one night of sex behind her.
Frankie shakes her head. “Probably.”
Jasmine smiles. It’s almost enough.
“Too many thoughts in that beautiful mind?” Jasmine asks.
Frankie’s eyes are wide, like she’s never thought of herself like that. It’s too big a conversation for Jasmine and her three shots. Instead, she opens her door, and pulls Frankie in.
“Shoes,” she says, when Frankie goes to walk past the porch. Savage.
Frankie’s hand lingers against Jasmine’s waist as she toes her trainers off. Jasmine moves away the moment her shoes come off, because if she lets Frankie touch her in the low light of her kitchen, she’ll kiss her, and she’s not allowed to kiss her. She doesn’t even want to kiss her.
“Are they the daisies I gave you?” Frankie asks, as they walk through the kitchen. She has to know they are.
“Maybe.”
Jasmine grabs a blanket from the front room and calls for Frankie to follow her when she unlocks the back door. Frankie looks confused, but this is the only thing Jasmine can think of to help.
“We can’t kill Andrew,” she says, as she lays the blanket out on the grass. “Cam is stubborn as fuck, and the doctor’s office isn’t open until the morning.”
“Okay,” Frankie says, with a frown. The stars are blindingly bright tonight. Jasmine wishes she could draw like Frankie. In every universe, she’d draw Frankie.
Jasmine stands in the middle of the blanket. “Okay. So show me the move.”
“What move?”
“The move you want Kai to do.”
Frankie’s eyebrows hit her hairline. Jasmine wonders what she used to look like. She has such a striking face that hair would be wasted on her, but Jasmine wants to see it anyway. To know if she was happy then.
“Frankie,” Jasmine says, when she hasn’t moved. “Teach me.”
In the dark of night, Jasmine has thought about Frankie teaching her other things too. She wants to know how Frankie wants to be loved. What makes her smile. What she needs to do so Frankie wants to kiss her again. How she could get her to spend the night, but only because shewantsto.
Frankie huffs out a laugh, moving closer. “I don’t know how.”
“Okay, let’s break it down. Who is the person on—it’s the Groundhogs next, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. So who is the player most like Kai?”
Frankie hums, her lip caught between her teeth. Jasmine should have laid some ground rules. Frankie can’t do anything with her mouth under the moonlight. Frankie can’t flex her forearms under the moonlight. Frankie can’t look at her under the fucking moonlight.
