Muffin Top

She laughed, the carefree sound carrying over the water. “Good, because I’d hate to be the only one who remembered.”

“Next time, we’re going to be somewhere that I can keep you all night so I can roll over and wake you up in the best way possible.”

“Next time, huh?” she asked, relaxing against him as they snuggled closer and looked up at the stars. “Isn’t that rather presumptuous of you?”

“Nope.” Not if he had anything to say about it. This was only the first of many times.

She pushed up from resting against him and twisted so they faced each other, a teasing grin curling her lips. “Your ego is even bigger than your—”

“Cock,” he interrupted.

She threw back her head and let out a throaty laugh. “I was going to say car, but yeah, it’s bigger than that, too.”

He answered that bit of impertinence with a kiss, and she settled back against him. They sat in companionable silence, watching the stars twinkle above. Frankie wasn’t a stranger to post-coital cuddling. Usually his brain was spinning out ways for him to leave sooner rather than later. This time, though, he just wanted to let the world go on by. So when Lucy started to make a move to pull away, he tugged her tighter instead and wracked his brain for something to talk about to get her to stay longer.

“No matter what your dad says,” he started, not sure where those words were going, but the need to keep her here like this under the stars where it seemed like the rest of the world was just a dream was too strong. “I’m not afraid of real risk.”

She looked at him, the ends of her dark hair tickling his chest. “You talked to my dad about your ‘thing’?”

“You mean my stupid idea to stop having sex?” Because holding her like this right now, he was convinced he’d never had a worse idea than to put an obstacle between them.

“When did it become a dumb idea?” she asked.

“The minute you got in my car.” Yeah, that was about the reality of it.

She kissed the spot on his chest where he could feel his heart beating and then rested her cheek against that same spot. “What did you talk about?”

“Well, he talked. I just kept telling him I wasn’t going to talk.”

“And that shut him up, did it?” She chuckled against his bare chest, the puffs of hilarity tickling his skin.

“No. He’s kind of like you that way.” Okay, he was a lot like her that way. “He said I was afraid of real risk, of emotional risk.”

“But you’re not?”

“No.” He wasn’t an idiot. There were things in his life that scared the shit out of him—most humiliating among them was his bone-deep fear of clowns and talking squirrels. “I just don’t want to do to someone I love what my dad did to my mom.”

The breath left his chest. He’d never said those words out loud. To anyone. It was the dark secret he’d carried for so long, he didn’t realize how heavy it had become until he offered it to Lucy. He felt a little dizzy with the lightness invading his body, but maybe that’s just because he’d forgotten to breathe. He took a deep breath and focused on the woman in his arms.

Lucy, always a woman in motion even when she was sitting, went still. “What are you talking about? They are the happiest couple I know.”

From the outside, that’s exactly what they looked like. Frank and Kate, married for decades with a raucous, close-knit family who didn’t know the truth. Didn’t understand what kind of man they sat down with every weekend for family lunch. But he did, and the one thing that scared him more than clowns or talking squirrels or talking squirrel clowns was the chance that he could turn out like the man he was named after.

“That’s what I thought, too,” he said, keeping his face turned up toward the stars, but he wasn’t seeing them anymore. “In high school, I went down to the firehouse and caught my dad kissing one of the secretaries from headquarters.”

They’d been pressed together. His dad had his back to the wall and the other woman, Becky he’d thought her name was, had been glued to his dad from toes to lips, clinging to his old man like he was the oxygen she’d needed to breathe. Just the mental image of it all these years later hit him like a gut punch by Godzilla that left him gasping for breath again.

“What did you do?” Lucy asked, her voice soft, comforting.

He’d raged. He’d cursed. He’d wanted to take his dad’s head off. But he didn’t. Once the red cleared, he thought of his mom, his brothers, his sisters. What would they do if his dad left? It would break their hearts. And if there was one thing he’d never let happen, it was to let them hurt. He’d distracted Finian with a bullshit mission to get something from the corner store before his brother caught sight of Dad sucking face with Becky. Then, he’d confronted his old man.