His touch.
His smell.
His laugh.
Everything.
There was so much joy in my life and so many good things happening between him and my family, that I began to take most of it for granted. I hate that I did.
I had slept over Frankie's house for a girly sleepover. I normally did the sleepovers with her when Mom and Dad had to work late on the weekends.
We’d graduated three days ago and were ready to take on the world. It was funny—in school, we didn't care too much about popularity or fitting in. At the end of the day, we were our own crazy duo, and we loved it.
I will admit that Frankie was boy crazy. She had a new boyfriend every month. If I thought I was a rebel, she put me to shame. She'd dyed her hair a bright green, even when her mother had told her not to. She didn't have a father figure in her life, and her mom traveled for work often, which may have played a big role in why she wasn't very disciplined. She grew up spending a lot of time on her own, had set her own routine. She was smart and sweet when she wanted to be (had to be with a full-ride scholarship to University of North Carolina), and she loved her mother to death but, well, most of the time, Frankie just didn't give a fuck.
I opened my MacBook, going to YouTube to watch a new music video by Laura Welsh. “I still can’t believe he bought you that expensive-ass Mac!” Frankie flopped down beside me, belly flat on her twin-sized bed.
I looked over at her. Her dark brown, almond-shaped eyes were pinned on the screen, the naturally tanned skin on her face covered with a green organic facemask.
"It was a gift,” I laughed.
"Well, next time he’s feeling gifty, tell him to buy me one too!" She bumped my arm.
“Have you asked your mom for one?”
She gave me a dull glare. “You know my Mom isn’t going to buy a damn Mac, K.J."
She had a point. Her mom ran a popular traveling and food blog and had articles featured in magazines and popular websites. Didn’t matter that her mother made thousands monthly, she was still deep-rooted and refused to drop big bucks on expensive devices for an eighteen-year-old.
Frankie was the only person to call me K.J. She'd been calling me that ever since fifth grade. She claimed she didn't like the name Kandy, because it was too sweet for my bitchy personality, so K.J. it was.
“How did Cane make it to your graduation anyway?” she asked. “You never filled me in about that.”
I stopped scrolling, crisscrossing my legs and sliding the laptop back a bit. Frankie sat up with me.
"I don’t know. He might have wrapped up early on what he was doing or had someone else handle it.” I shrugged.
“I think he’s fucking into you,” she guffawed. “Why else would he just magically show up? Graduations are important, yeah, but business is business.”
I rolled my eyes, fighting a smile. "He was being nice, Frank. He told me he wouldn’t have missed it for the world. He ate dinner with us, didn’t rush the evening or act like he had to be somewhere. He wanted to be there for all of us.” I said that, but deep down, I felt he was really there to make me happy more than anyone else.
"You should have told him to kiss you. A graduation kiss. Totally harmless.” Her tone was nonchalant as she shrugged and then climbed off the bed. She walked to her bathroom and turned on the faucet.
"You are crazy!" I busted out laughing, climbing off the bed and following her, pressing a hand to the frame of the door. "Ever since that night, it’s worse, though. No matter what I do, I can't get him out of my head, Frank. It's been like this ever since I was a little girl. I've always been attracted to him. It's fucking weird because he's supposed to be, like, family to me."
"He's sex on a stick, K.J. He's super successful and handsome and he gives you chocolate and notebooks. It’s also hot as fuck when a guy shows up unannounced. That is any woman's dream. There's nothing weird about liking someone like him."
Hmm…yeah. When she put it that way…
Someone pounded on the door and Frank turned quickly when her brother, Clay, barged in. Clay was tall, well-built, and shirtless. His blond hair was damp, like he'd just gotten out of the shower. If Clay wasn't such an asshole and always grabbing his crotch to show off, I would have found him hot.
He wasn't really Frankie's brother. They had been adopted siblings since she was six and he was eight. She was the adoptee.
"Where the hell is the charger for my Beats Pill, Frank?" Clay snapped, tossing her pillows off the bed. He turned for the stuffed animals on her recliner next, snatching them up and throwing them on the floor.