Page 28 of Winning You
Frankie almost choked to death on his sandwich. “Why I—? You draggedmeout here.”
Lucas waved him off. “You see it one way, I see it the other. Consider this repayment for those amazing cinnamon buns I made you. How much did you love them?”
“I didn’t try them.”
Lucas coughed. “I’m sorry? You…didn’t…I left them fresh baked on your doorstep. Oh my god, did you step on them? Whyare sighted people so shitty at looking for things before they step down. I swear to god you all need canes too. Every fucking time I?—”
“I didn’t step on them,” Frankie said quietly. Lucas’s jaw snapped shut. His hands, which had been flapping slightly, stilled midair. “I was late for work, so I didn’t have time. I told my brother he could share one with Elodie while I was at work, but he’s forbidden from eating them all.”
A grin spread across Lucas’s face, and Frankie’s stomach did a little flip. “You’d better tell me all the praises he sang for me.” Then he curled his hands into fists and dropped them very quickly into his lap. “Also, sorry about that.”
“Baking for me? You do not need to be sorry about that.”
Lucas’s entire body stiffened. “No, the…” He lifted one hand and did a half-flap with it. “It’s…I stim. Um…it’s a thing, but I know it’s annoying, so?—”
Frankie cleared his throat. “My brother’s autistic. I get it, and it’s in no way annoying.”
Lucas dropped his elbow to the table and put his chin in his hand. For a moment, Frankie forgot those big, wide eyes of his couldn’t see him. “Blind sister, autistic brother? You’re really ticking all my boxes, aren’t you?”
Frankie was about ninety-eight percent sure that wasn’t meant as a dirty euphemism, but the two percent left kind of hoped he was at least flirting. But that also felt wrong to hope, so he swallowed it down and pushed his empty sandwich container a few inches away from him.
“So anyway?—”
“About the food—” Lucas said at the same time. His cheeks pinked. “Sorry. You go first.”
“No. What were you going to say?” Frankie had just been trying to fill silence because the longer they were quiet, the more he kept indulging in looking at Lucas. Right then, he wasdistracted by a slightly curly wisp of hair that had broken free of his hair tie and was floating by his temple.
Lucas sat back and folded his arms. “I could cook for you. Or actually, I could teach you to cook. It sounds like your skills are tragic.”
His chest felt warm. “Oh, um…”
“I actually do know how to teach someone to cook, in case you were worried about that,” Lucas said, his voice a bit sharp.
Frankie snorted. “Definitely not worried about anything with you. But I’m not sure I know how to learn. I was never the best student.”
“I have the patience of a saint,” Lucas said, and when Frankie scoffed, he grinned wider. “Okay, the patience of a mostly full lion?”
“Only ready to eat me if I start looking like a snack?” Frankie chanced.
Lucas burst into laughter. “Oh my god, I’m starting to not totally hate you, and that is really annoying.”
Frankie shouldn’t have taken that as a compliment, but he did. “I could go back to insulting you if that’ll help.”
“Nah. Your kid already won me over. I am being serious though. I can show you how to put stuff together with actual vegetables in it that don’t take a hundred years or a culinary school education to figure out.”
Frankie bit his lip, then blew out a puff of air. It was a bad idea. A terrible idea. A no-good, life-ruining idea. “Yeah. Why not.”
Why was his mouth such a traitor?
Lucas brightened. “Really?”
“I can only make excuses about why I suck as a parent for so long,” he admitted. “I’d better start figuring my shit out now.” And he meant that. Truly. He’d gotten Fallon and Fenton to adulthood by sheer luck alone.
He was too old now to do it that way again, and he didn’t want to fail Elodie.
Lucas’s face went through a journey, like he wanted to say more but was choosing not to. Eventually, he pressed his hands to the table and pushed himself up. “Tomorrow night?”
“Yeah. I’m free tonight though, if?—”
