“That’s true, I guess.”
Silence filled the air as Mack just continued to look at me. He never broke his stare.
I finally spoke. “Would you eat some eggs if I made some?”
“Hell, yeah. I’m starving.”
“Do you think Moses would mind?”
“Go for it. If he gets mad, I’ll let him touch my abs.”
“So…you know that he’s…”
“Gay. Yeah. Figured that out pretty quickly. It was the way he was watching me take a piss one day. His fucking pupils were dilating, wouldn’t stop staring at my junk.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh, my God.”
“I don’t care. He’s good people.”
“He is.” The fact that I was no longer freaking out around Mack wasn’t lost on me. He was actually pretty easy to talk to. “How do you like your eggs?”
“Over hard.” He had a smirk on his face when he said it.
“Is there a sexual joke there somewhere?”
“Let me think.” He scratched his chin. “Over hard…kind of like your hand last night.”
“You’re gross.”
“You asked.”
I sighed. “Well, I like mine over easy. I’ll make yours first. Hard eggs for a hard ass.”
“Over easy. I’d call you easy, but I don’t think you are. You’d have to like people to let them near you.” He winked.
When I noticed him scrolling through his phone with a smirk, I asked, “What are you doing?”
“I’m looking up the meaning of Frankie.”
“What does it say?”
Mack looked like he was trying to stifle a laugh when he said, “She who breaks wind in the night.”
He was totally pulling my chain. He’d heard me pass gas! I wanted to die.
“You heard that?”
“Yes. It’s what woke me up.” He grinned. “It doesn’t matter. We all do it. Maybe not as robustly as you.” He looked down at his phone. “Hmm.”
“What?”
“Honest. It says Frankie means honest.”
“What do you make of that?”
“It’s freaky, actually.”
“How so?”
“I think if there was one word I had to pick to describe you based on first impression, it would be that. You’re a little different but you own up to it all. Just like you didn’t even try to pretend that it wasn’t you who cut the cheese. You could’ve pinned it on Moses or denied it. But it’s not in your nature. What you see is what you get. You’re a lot of things, but ultimately, you’re honest about it all. See…I knew the name Frankie fit you.”
Mack ended up devouring his eggs. That was the first of several morning classes I’d “accidentally” skip in order to have breakfast with him.
And he never referred to me by my real name again.
She was late. Either that, or I was being stood up.
On my second cup of coffee, the caffeine was starting to give me the jitters. I wasn’t nervous so much as energized and determined.
When Frankie finally walked through the door of The Gourmet Bean, my heart started to beat faster as I stood up to greet her.
She unraveled her scarf then settled into the chair across from me. I took a moment to just take her in as I sat back down.
Fuck, she looked beautiful.
Static from the cold outside had caused pieces of her pin-straight, red hair to stick up in the air. Her pudgy little nose was red, too. She was so freaking cute, still Frankie in every way despite everything that had happened. An ache developed in my chest because there was just so much I wanted to say.
“Sorry, I’m late. I got caught up talking to the principal after school.”
“It’s okay. I’ve just been meditating.”
Ruminating. Same thing.
“What can I get you?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m just going to have coffee. I’ll go up and order.”
I held out my palm. “I insist. Stay here. Take a load off. You’ve had a long day. You still like hazelnut with extra cream?”
“Yes.” Her smile was hesitant. “I’m surprised you remember.”
I remember a lot of things you probably wish I would forget.
“I’ll be right back.”
In line, I would turn around from time to time to sneak peeks at her. Her back was to me, but I could see she was rubbing her palms together nervously. I hated that she was uncomfortable, hated the idea that she might have been dreading this.
When I returned to our table with the coffee, she took it but stayed looking down into the steaming cup. I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Look at me, Frankie.”
Her tone was curt. “What do you want to talk about, Mack?”