Page 23 of Winning You
There were bumps along the front, and he couldn’t help but smile. “It’s in fucking braille.”
“Wha’s fuh-king braille?” Elodie asked.
Of course, the one word she’d say the most clearly was the f-word. “Never mind, Bugs. That’s a bad word.”
“Braille? I has some.”
“Just eat your cereal,” he said tiredly before pulling up the app on his phone to decipher the text Lucas had left him. He identified all the dot patterns, then closed his eyes and touched each one with the tip of his finger. He couldn’t tell the individual dots from one another, and it boggled his mind how anyone could.
Lucas had written it in contracted braille, so it took him another minute on the app to figure out what words were what—but eventually, he had the note scribbled out on the back of his electric bill envelope.
F- Thanks for the A plus. Hope you like cinnamon. It’s one of my favorite spices. -L
Something about the way he’d written that—the way he put the words together like that—made him feel warm all over. Like it wasn’t entirely friendly, but it also wasn’t meant to be cruel. He had no business feeling this way, but it wasn’t like anyone else was able to crawl into his mind and see his thoughts.
“Hello?”
He jolted at the sound of his brother’s voice and collected himself before turning to smile at Fallon, who was hovering in the doorway wearing his usual T-shirt, jeans, and holding his camera strap over his shoulder. Frankie hadn’t heard the front door open, which was not a good sign.
“Be careful with your camera,” Frankie warned. “She’s been a lot today, and I don’t have the cash to replace anything she breaks.”
Fallon rolled his eyes and walked over, laying a kiss on Elodie’s temple. “She knows to be gentle, right?”
“I can be gentle,” she parroted dutifully.
Fallon smiled and leaned against the counter, turning to face Frankie. “You look weird today.” Frankie absently touched the side of his face, and Fallon shook his head. “Weird vibes. Why are you weird?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s a weird answer to my question,” Fallon insisted. “What happened?”
“It’s been a bad couple of days at work. I’m trying to adjust back to normal.” Not a total lie. But he wasn’t about to tell his twenty-three-year-old brother that he was lusting after his neighbor who was probably the same age as him.
Fallon gave him a look that said he didn’t entirely believe him, but that was fine. Frankie could work with that. “What is on Bugs’s agenda?”
“PT and OT. They’ll be by around twelve thirty, but if you want to help her with her tactile shapes box, that would be great.” He pulled up the planner on his phone. “She has an eye appointment next Wednesday. She has a retina scan, and they’re hoping to get some idea about what her brain is processing.”
Fallon wrinkled his nose, though Frankie knew well that wasn’t his brother’s annoyed face. It was his thinking face. “Do I need to be there for that? I have two photoshoots that day?—”
“No, bud. I was mostly just reminding myself out loud. Thank you for taking her today.”
“She’s my favorite bug apart from the Sphynx moth,” Fallon said seriously.
“I don’t like it,” Elodie said. She was not a fan of bugs. She couldn’t see them well, and the creepy-crawly sensation on her skin made her upset.
“It’s okay. No bugs here,” Fallon promised. He glanced at the wall clock. “I think you’re going to be late.”
“Shit.”
“Shit!” Elodie parroted.
Frankie slapped a hand over his face. “She’s also been repeating swear words. It’s been a morning.”
Fallon reached over and squeezed Frankie’s wrist. “You should go.”
“I—yeah.” He glanced at the cinnamon rolls. “Help yourself to those if you’re into cinnamon these days, but save me one. Elodie can have a quarter piece.”
“Did you bake?” Fallon asked with wide eyes.
