Hold on to Hope

On top of that?

I could feel the way Frankie was suddenly a little wary as she held onto my hand tighter as we headed for the french doors at the back.

“You okay?” I asked, glancing down at her, watching for her response.

“More than okay. I just can’t believe we finally are.”

I shifted so I could take her by both sides of the face. “We’ve always been. Now it’s time for the world to know it.”

Her smile was tender, this girl touching me deep, and God, I was having a hard time believing that this had become our reality, too. “Come on, let’s go show them exactly what that is.”

Taking her hand, I pushed open the door and led Frankie out behind me.

Was funny how you could tell when every single pair of eyes landed on you. Like it was catching. A domino effect.

Every single one of them felt the shift in the air.

A statement being written in the sky.

Everyone was there. Frankie’s family. All of mine. Aunt Nikki and Uncle Ollie. Their kids, too.

Not like we hadn’t been seen holding hands before. But I think they all knew this was different.

Think they heard the proclamation.

The declaration.

Could feel the force of my parents’ gazes, Frankie’s parents coming to stark attention.

I squeezed her hand a little tighter, and Frankie waved her free hand. “Hey, guys.”

Mom popped up, holding Everett, and she came our way. “Oh good, Frankie is here.”

She gave us a soft smile as she approached, and Everett was going crazy, babbling away as he reached his arms for Frankie.

Frankie immediately took him, held him to her chest, kissed his cheek as she started whispering words that I knew were nothing but adoration. Pure devotion.

Mom gave me a look that promised she’d known it all along.

That she was happy for us.

Frankie glanced back at me as she headed for her parents and Aunt Nikki and Uncle Ollie where they sat at a table under an umbrella, this look on her face that blew me away.

You wouldn’t think one look could say it all.

Love. Love. Love.

Infinite. Definite.

My broken heart expanded, making space that I didn’t think was possible.

And I knew . . . I knew.

I’d finally found what I’d been meant for all along.

* * *

“Your dad hates me.” I licked the vanilla cone as I smiled at Frankie where she sat across from me at the ice cream parlor. We’d left the barbecue forty minutes before, wanting a little time to ourselves.

She held out her cone for Everett, kid’s face completely smeared with the pink concoction, adorable as all hell.

Frankie giggled a little as he tried to bury his entire face in it and she tried to keep the situation under control.

Thought if Everett was given the chance, he would swallow it whole.

“My daddy does not hate you,” she said.

“Uh, I beg to differ. He shot daggers at me the entire afternoon. Was waiting around for him to push me up against a wall and tell me to stay away from his baby girl.”

Truth? He’d done it when I was seventeen.

Couldn’t say I blamed him.

Of course, when he’d done it then, he’d patted me on the cheek and told me I was a good kid and to watch myself because he wouldn’t want to have to hurt me.

Frankie tsked. “I’ve long since stopped being his baby girl. He was just . . . speculatin’.” With a shrug, she took a lick of the same cone she was sharing with Everett. That was cute, too.

“Speculating?” I asked, amusement filling the question.

“You know, to engage in a course of reason based on inconclusive evidence. To conjecture or theorize. Speculatin’.”

It was all a casual ramble.

So, it was hell having to watch her lips so closely when we were in a public place. I had this crazy urge to lean over the table and just kiss her.

Or maybe it was that we had Everett right there in a high chair.

No doubt, the poor kid was going to grow up subjected to constant PDA because I couldn’t help myself. Leaning up and over the entire table, I kissed her soft and slow, just little plucks of her lips, the tiniest fleck of my tongue. “Mmmm . . . cotton candy.”

She giggled against my mouth. “You like?”

Felt the words vibrating my skin.

“Very much. And did you just quote the definition of speculating to me?”

She giggled some more, this sexy tremor that rolled down my throat. I angled back so I could take in her eyes and her face and that mouth. “I might have. Seemed you were having trouble figuring out its meanin’.”

“No trouble. I was just disagreeing.”

“Okay, so my daddy used to be a tad bit overprotective. He’s over that now.”

“He glared at me over his beer the entire barbecue and didn’t say one word to me.”