Gloria

She couldn’t let him leave when he was obviously so mad for something that, at the time, she thought wouldn’t be harmful at all. She searched for some way to explain, scrabbled a bit because she was suddenly panicking that whatever they had—friendship, or something more—was crumbling around her, then said the first thing that popped in her head.

“It’s not what you think. I didn’t go down there with a plan to make Bailey tattle on you or something. Christmas just came up and she was surprised I didn’t already know about your mom. That was it. It was innocent, and we didn’t even talk about it for long,” Gloria told him. “Actually, we talked way more about other things.”

“Yeah?” he dared. “Like what?”

“Well, she told me all about that chained off spot in the mountain—”

Franklin glowered.

So, yeah. That probably wasn’t the best way to smooth over the situation. Hey, at least she managed to refrain from mentioning Deputy Walsh’s visit to the garage like Bailey told her to.

Didn’t matter. She’d already said enough.

“And what? About how I’ve never been?”

Bailey definitely hadn’t said that. “What? No—”

“Anything else? Did she tell you about the time at the Hamlet Church when I split my pants when I was kneeling by the pew? Or when one of my school friends brought me to his dad’s bar for my twenty-first birthday and I threw up in front of the whole evening crowd down at Thirsty’s?”

“Franklin, no—”

“Maybe she told you about how I tried to chase after my mom to bring her back and, despite living in Hamlet my whole damn life, I got lost in the woods and Sheriff McKinley had to lead a search party to rescue my sorry behind?”

Gloria thinned her lips, keeping the “Oh, Franklin,” she desperately wanted to utter from escaping. As angry as Franklin was, she didn’t want to upset him more by showing him any pity, even if tears for the teenaged boy he’d been were welling up in her eyes as he snapped.

No wonder he was so mad. Now that she was thinking more like his friend and not the woman who, well, lusted after him, she totally got it. Especially since it had to be painful for him. But he had to understand that she wasn’t doing it to be mean or nosy. She honestly cared about him.

“It wasn’t like that,” she tried to explain. “I didn’t even mean to snoop on you or anything, and Bailey wasn’t gossiping just because she was bored. I just asked her about your whole hating Christmas thing and she told me. Now I get it and I’m sorry. I won’t bother you anymore, I promise. But,” she added, because as sad as his history was, she couldn’t help but think he might be overreacting just a little, “is it really so bad that she told me?”

“Yes!”

“Why?”

“Because you went around my back to ask my little sister about me,” he retorted. If she didn’t know better, it was almost as if Franklin growled his response. “Why didn’t you just come to me? Ask me?”

“I have!” Gloria didn’t mean to raise her voice, but the words burst out of her. “So many times, so many ways… I’ve asked you and you’ve always shut me down!” She took a deep breath—or maybe it was a gasp—and tried anxiously to calm down. Her pulse was pounding, her stomach in knots. Were they really having this argument right now? “Franklin, from the day we first met, all I’ve wanted to do is get to know you. I’m not being nosy. Prying into your life was the last thing I’d ever do… it’s just, I tried to ask.”

“Why?” He spat the word out through a clenched jaw and gritted teeth. He looked torn between being angry and hurt, and that made the whole thing ten times worse. “Why did it matter to you so much?”

“Because you matter to me,” she blurted out.

“Oh.” Franklin fell back a few steps, his face closing off at her sudden admission. He lifted his hand, ruffling his hair, knocking off the snow that had landed against the dark strands. “Oh.”

Okay. So that wasn’t the reaction she’d been expecting.

For the last couple of weeks, she had done everything short of just coming out with it, admitting to Franklin that might have started out as gratitude for her mechanic neighbor helping her out with her car and quickly blossomed into something more. The longer he acted as if he didn’t notice her affection for him, the more Gloria thought she’d either have to keep it to herself forever or, once and for all, just put it out there.

After Bailey let slip that Franklin, in his own understated, careful way, was into her, too, Gloria figured she might as well go ahead and take the plunge.

From the dazed look on his face, plus his stunned reaction, she was beginning to think that, like Bailey, she should’ve kept her big mouth shut.

Poor Franklin. He couldn’t run away from her confession fast enough. He rocked back on his heels, taking one purposeful step, then the next, eating up the snow-covered ground as he made his strategic retreat.

Gloria felt her heart breaking just watching him go.

“Franklin. Frank… where are you going?”

“Home, Gloria.” Pausing about ten feet away from her, he jerked his chin in her direction. “Go back inside. You’re shivering.”