Page 32 of Rules, Roses, and Rivals
“Oh,” she murmured, closing the door behind us once we were in. I didn’t have to glance back to know she locked it. Locking the door after she was inside was a habit. “Oh, it’s so nice and cold right here.”
I glanced back to find her standing just under the vent, head tilted back as the air conditioning pushed all the cooler air out. I’d bet her eyes were closed under her sunglasses.
“Cold drinks this way,” I reminded her with a verbal nudge and she made a playful groaning sound before she trudged after me.
Once in the kitchen, she pushed her sunglasses up and made a face. “I’m here. Give me cold libation and tell me what we’re doing.” The additional drama to the statement just made me snort.
I tugged out my phone, muted the messages app entirely so it wouldn’t keep sending notifications, then pulled up one of the songs I recorded. “Have your drink, and listen to this.” I hit play and put the phone and soda in front of her.
Music had been my passion project for the past couple of summers. The guys knew I played but I didn’t really talk about the songs I wrote or the music I recorded. The only one I shared that with was the gorgeous angel now sitting at my kitchen table.
Her intent expression told me she was listening to the music. I had to make myself look away so I didn’t try to read anything into every move she made. Frankie was the best critic for my songs. She told me when she didn’t like something or if it sounded off. When she made suggestions, they were almost always solid.
I’d get her to sing with me, but someone had convinced her she couldn’t sing so she lip sync’d along and just hung out when I played. Someday, I’d find the person who sold her that bullshit and I’d kick their ass. For now, I tried not to fidget.
This past summer I’d written and discarded easily a dozen songs. A couple of really morose ones about missing her. While I had absolutely missed her, the melancholy was a little too dark. This one held memories of who we had been and what we had done. Still balladic, but not so depressing.
“Bubba,” she said on a long exhale and I locked my gaze on hers. “This is amazing.”
“Yeah?” My palms were sweating so I wiped them off on my shorts before I dragged a chair out to sit near her. “You really like it?”
“Like it? Iloveit.” It was impossible to not believe her when she used that tone. “It’s a head and shoulders, hell, it’s a whole body above your old stuff. When did you write this? And what is it called?”
“Doesn’t really have a title yet, it’s just one of a few I wrote this summer. The melody was in my head and it wouldn’t go away.” Mostly because I couldn’t stop thinking about you, but I kept that part to myself.
“So I go away for a few months and you make magic.” She widened her eyes at me. “Maybe I should go away more often.”
“Bite your tongue,” I said, catching her hand in mine. “Seriously. I’d rather have you around than write a song ever again.”
“Bubba…”
“No,” I said, giving her hand a firm squeeze, but not looking away from her eyes. “I mean it. Imissedyou this summer. Missed you like I’d miss my damn arm. Worse, because I had no idea why you were so determined to stay away from us. To stay away from me.”
If I were one hundred percent honest, I was hurt too. That was more about me than us.
“I’m serious, Frankie. You’re important to me. You’ve always been important to me. Not having you around, sucked. Not having you to talk to sucked more. If all we do today is hang out, swim, maybe order a pizza—then I’ll be happy.” Especially because we’d be doing it together.
“What about calculus?” She raised her eyebrows even as she squirmed a little in her seat. But she didn’t pull her hand away from mine. I’d take all the progress I could get.
“Okay, I might have to cave on that because I would like to graduate with a decent grade this year.” Though I had time to drop if I really needed to get rid of it.
Not that I wanted to drop. The stupid math class was the only one I had with her. This year sucked for how different all our schedules were.
“I think we can make that work,” she told me, and when she would have pulled her hand back, I wanted to tighten my grip and hold on.
That was why I made myself let go. As much as I wanted to push everything, I needed her to be on board with it. “Thank you.”
“Do you have more songs recorded?”
“Yeah, but not sure I want to play those for you.” They were all so dark the more I thought about it. “What do you say we throw ourselves in the pool? Take an hour where we just play. Then we can do homework and stuff.”
“And stuff,” she murmured, glancing to the side as if she needed to think about this. I held my breath when it seemed like this was an idea that she really seemed to struggle with. Her phone buzzed and she shot me an apologetic look before she tugged it out.
Her scowl was epic. Whoever just messaged her had pissed her off.
“What’s wrong?”
“Just more double standards,” she muttered, clicking her screen off and turning it face down. “You know what, I do want to swim. I didn’t get to spend as much time in the pool this summer.”
