Page 55 of Unwanted

“I don’t know,” I answer nonchalantly. “Is the guy you’re seeing a secret?”

“No.” She pushes herself off the counter. “Because it’s a girl.”

“Wait.” Putting down the almost empty bowl of pasta, I catch Clem’s wrist before she leaves the kitchen.“Do you want to talk about it?”

She tugs herself out of my hold. “Do you?”

Knowing I’ve been beaten, I drop her arm and raise my arms in surrender. “Sorry,” I concede. “Talk to me when you’re ready.”

She nods. I think she’s about to leave me alone in the kitchen when she stops right beside me, shoulder to shoulder. “It’s new,” she says. “Me and this girl… I didn’t even think I was into girls.”

Appreciating her version of an olive branch, I do the same.

“We kissed,” I confess. “We kissed and I don’t know what comes next.”

* * *

After a few hours of us all lounging around, the house was empty; Lennox and Samuel leaving to drive Rhys home and Clem and Remy off to do their own thing.

Frankie and I were alone for the first time since the kiss and the need to do it again sat like an ache in the pit of my stomach.

“This is really impressive,” I say, picking up a few empty bowls off the coffee table and taking them to the kitchen.

“What is?” Frankie asks.

“This.” I gesture to the whiteboard Frankie has sourced and the endless number of printed handouts he has stacked in a pile. “You’ve gone all out for him.”

Glancing around at the makeshift classroom he’s created, Frankie sighs in defeat. “I couldn’t do this part without Rhys. He’s determined. But it doesn’t feel like enough. I feel like I’m missing something.”

Returning from the kitchen, I stand in front of Frankie, the urge to touch and comfort him too impossible to ignore.

Clasping his head between my hands, I hold his gaze. “What is it?” I ask. “What is it you’re really feeling?”

“What if it’s all an act? What if he’s really struggling and in a few weeks I’m going to find him locked in a room refusing to come back out?” he says, panicked. “What if down the track he refuses to live?”

His concern, while not expressed until recently, is valid. Lennox had a history of occasionally slipping into purgatory when things got hard. He got stuck between the then and now and struggled to move forward.

Sometimes all he needed was time, and other times he needed something a little bit more.

“You know what I learned in the last four years?” I say, brushing my thumbs up and down his cheeks, giving myself permission to continue to touch him. “Take one day at a time.”

Frankie’s eyes search mine. “And it worked?”

“Eh.” I shrug, trying to keep the mood light. “But eventually you stop thinking about anything past the day you’re in.”

His hands circle my wrists. “So, no future plans?”

I inhale deeply, knowing we’re no longer talking about Lennox. “I haven’t thought about the future in a really long time.”

The truth slips easily from my lips as he moves forward, his face closer, his mouth almost touching mine.

“What about now?” he whispers, his warm breath sending a shiver down my spine. “What about our kiss? Have you thought about what comes after it? Have you thought about doing it again?”

I’d thought about nothing else, and the look on his face said he knew it.

“You always push me to show my hand before I’m ready,” I confess. “I’m trying to play it cool and you always say just the right words…”

My voice trails off, my eyes darting down to his lips, my tongue licking my own.

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