Page 7 of Summer Breakdown
“What’s funny?” Frankie asks.
“Hmm?” Jasmine replies, taking a sip of her drink. She pulls the straw to her mouth with her tongue, and Frankie wants to take her home so badly she almost moans. She looks at the shine of her lips. What was her question?
“I don’t know.” She frowns, her hand sliding down Jasmine’s back and then back to her own lap. “You distracted me.”
Jasmine laughs, and it warms her to her core. Jasmine lifts her hand from Frankie’s thigh to take the pen. She’s about to dominate this final round, but Frankie misses the warmth of her palm. She wonders if the table will forgive her for making them lose just to feel Jasmine’s thumb tapping the beat of the music against her leg again. Then, Jasmine’s other hand reaches behind her back and taps Frankie until she hands over her hand. Jasmine places it around her waist.
“I’m right-handed,” she mumbles. She’s cute. Not thinking, Frankie presses her lips to her bare shoulder, then leans back against the booth as the final round of the quiz starts.
Jasmine scribbles answers down. Occasionally, she’ll confer with Mali and Cam. They high-five when Mali finally figures out the song title she’s been mumbling to herself for the last ten minutes.
Ezra keeps looking over at Frankie, but she’sfine. She avoids his gaze as Jasmine turns to look at her, her hand against her thigh again. She gave the pen to Cam.
“Do you know that song that goes ba-ba-ba?”
Frankie frowns. “Youhave to know I don’t.”
Jasmine hums, then leans back against the booth with her. “It’ll come to me. I need a minute to go through it in my head.”
Frankie nods with a smile.
“No distractions,” Jasmine whispers, and Frankie tries not to laugh again. “You have to turn the other way. Your face is too pretty.”
Frankie laughs loudly, and she likes the way Jasmine smiles at it, as if she said it to make her happy. She’s stupidly charming, and despite Frankie being on her A-game, she’s still only spoken to Jasmine a little. Jasmine is terrifying. She’s nice, hot, and way too clever. Frankie’s fingers itch to sketch her. Jasmine might have a bet going with Ezra, and he doesn’t speak to anyone new for weeks. He never learns the names of Frankie’s dates because he’s rude as fuck and correct for thinking he’d never speak to them again.
Also, they never get involved. Jasmine threw herself into the group with an ease that only comes from being sure of herself. And she’s unreasonably cool. Frankie wants her to be impressed by her. She wants to break the sacred quiz-night rules of no shoptalk. Perhaps Jasmine would think she was cool too. She wants Jasmine to like something about her that’s not her tongue.
Jasmine looks at her lips, then back to her face. “Do you want to walk me home?”
Holy shit.
“What about the rest of the quiz?” Frankie asks, but yes. The answer is yes.
“I can’t take more of Ezra’s money without feeling guilty,” she replies, and he rolls his eyes.
“I got more answers correct than you.”
Jasmine turns to the table. “Mal, Cam,” she says, writing her number on a napkin that Frankie will try and steal. “Here’s my number. Please let me know who won.”
They laugh, Ezra frowns, and Frankie panics about being alone with her.
Jasmine says her goodbyes, and Frankie traces the light through her curls as Mali kisses her on the cheek.
Jasmine turns to face Frankie with her hand out. “So?”
“Yes.”
Frankie thinks about holding Jasmine’s hand as she walks home. She doesn’t do it, but she thinks about it the entire time they walk along the river. Frankie rarely thinks about flirting; it usually comes to her. The same things please people. She’ll look at their lips, then their eyes, and look away. It works every time.
It’s difficult now. Not in a bad way, but in a she can’t remember how to be alluring, sexy, or mysterious kind of way. Frankie doesn’t think she’s any of those things, but the people she takes home don’t know that. Frankie doesn’t show people her real self. She barely knows what that would look like. She can’t think about it right now, though; she’s trying to figure out how to hold Jasmine’s hand without looking like a loser who wants to hold her hand.
“Tell me something,” Jasmine says. Jasmine has been asking her questions ever since they left the pub. Well, she tells Frankie to tell her something, and when Frankie’s still thinking about something to tell that would make her like her, Jasmine asks her a silly question instead. What her favourite film is (The Wiz), who her celebrity crush is (Beyoncé), what she likes to read (Nothing. Jasmine frowned at her, so she might get a library card tomorrow).
Still, Frankie wants to tell her something to see the different expressions she’ll make. If she’ll say something thatmakes her pull her lip between her teeth. So, she immediately flicks through the things shecouldtell her.
She’s a rugby coach—that could be interesting. But then Jasmine might ask her who she trains, and maybe a low-league rugby team that might make the premiership one day isn’t good enough. Jasmine will smile at her politely, and Frankie will tell her the papers ran a story about her last week calling her aggressive, but she wasn’t doing anything the other coach hadn’t done. How she never knows if negative thoughts about her are true or because she’s Black. Or a woman. Or gay.
She might tell her that Ezra is the older sibling, but that doesn’t seem all that interesting. Then, Jasmine will look at her with her wide, deep-brown eyes, and Frankie will tell her how everyone in her life likes Ezra more than her. They look similar, but he looks manly, and people like that, and she looks manly, and people don’t like that.
