Hold on to Hope

“I’m good.”

Frankie and I watched Seth head back to his cruiser.

Tension bound the air, something unsettled and wrong.

When he pulled back out onto the street, Frankie moved to get onto her feet, still bent over and extending a hand. “Come on, let’s get you inside and cleaned up.”

I took it, groaning a bit as I forced myself to standing.

Warily, I followed behind her, our fingers loosely threaded as she slowly made her way up to the house. Neither of us touched the railing, and we were careful to sidestep the letters the best that we could. She opened the door to Milo who looked like he’d been scratching at the window the entire time, frantic and worried himself, trying to get out to do a little protecting of his own.

I scratched his head when he did a circle around my legs. “Good boy.”

I followed Frankie through the great room of her house to a small hallway that opened up to two bedrooms on each side. She led me into the one on the right, not slowing as she started toward the bathroom attached at the back.

My gaze jumped around to take it all in.

It was so completely Frankie Leigh it was ridiculous.

A pink comforter and purple sheets and a ton of mismatched pillows piled on her unmade bed. Bright pictures covered every inch of the walls. Covering the floor was about everything she owned, the room a disaster, clothes strewn everywhere, clearly the girl trying things on and tossing them to the floor before she went to digging through her closet again.

A whirlwind.

A tornado.

My unicorn girl.

I followed her the rest of the way into the bathroom. She flipped on the light and I finally got a good look at myself in the mirror. I cringed.

“Do you get it now?” she demanded. No question, the words had come out mad.

“Get what, Frankie? That I would do anything for you? Protect you? Fight for you? Love you? Whatever the hell it takes?”

She went to gnawing at her bottom lip, and I was having to fight the urge to do it for her. She reached into the cabinet under the sink, grabbed a hand towel, and ran it under water. She didn’t look at me for the longest time, the energy thick in the small space, banging against the walls.

Finally, she turned and peeked up at me, dabbing the towel on the corner of my mouth where I had a cut.

I winced as she cleaned it.

“I can’t stand to see you hurt,” she murmured.

My head shook, and I grabbed her by the waist so I could set her on the counter. I planted my hands on either side of her, dipping down so we were close enough that our noses brushed and our breaths mingled and I was inhaling all the sweetness that was this girl.

She tried to look down, and I reached out and tipped up her chin, forcing her to look at me. Roughness scraped my throat, fragments of aggression still twitching through my muscles. I brushed back the hair that was matted to her face. “You always thought you were supposed to take care of me, Frankie Leigh, when it’s always been my job to take care of you.”

She shook her head. “No. It’s . . . it’s not safe for you to get yourself in the middle of what just went down. God, Evan, what would have happened if—” She stopped mid-sentence like she couldn’t bring herself to say it.

Figured I would finish for her. “If my heart stopped?” I swallowed down the bitterness. The feelings of inadequacy. “Don’t you get it, Frankie? Don’t you get that was part of the reason I had to go? I couldn’t stand to live my life with you thinking you had to take care of me. Thinking I was weak. Like I was some sort of pathetic kid.”

I spread my hand across her cheek, holding her, praying she could feel the truth of what I was trying to say. “All I ever wanted was to love you right. Be enough of a man to do it. To stand for you. To protect you. To take care of you. I never wanted you to see me as a burden. As a weight.”

Her fingertips fluttered over my jaw, barely touching my lips. Thing was, I didn’t give a fuck about a few scrapes or bruises. Only thing I cared about was making this right.

Protecting my family.

Loving her the way she needed.

Those fingers kept tracing my face. “I never thought that, Evan. Not even once. You were my hero. The one I looked up to. You were the one I needed most.”

I dipped down lower, inhaling the girl, nose running the length of her jaw.

Cotton candy and sugarplum drizzle.

“Then let me take care of you, Frankie. Let me stand in the fire. Let me be the one who fights for you. For Everett. For us.”