Page 70 of Winning You
Lucas smiled a little and shook his head. “This week has been nice.”
And it had been. He went to work in the morning just like always. He came home in the afternoon and took his shower and unwound with an audiobook or played a few hours on his online campaign. But then he’d gather things from his kitchen and walk a few hundred feet down the hall and had officially made himself cozy in Frankie’s kitchen.
The man had even let him reorganize so Lucas didn’t have to hunt for so long to find silverware or cooking supplies.
Frankie took his hand, lifting it to his mouth, and kissed the inside of his wrist. His lips were soft and lush and so warm. “Are you sure?”
“Have I given off the wrong impression?” Lucas asked. “I know sometimes I make weird faces or look tense when I’m not. I spent years practicing, but I don’t think I ever got it quite right.”
Frankie sighed, and Lucas knew what was coming next. He let his body go pliant as Frankie lounged backward and pulled Lucas on top of him. The position was ridiculous but also fucking wonderful.
Lying on Frankie’s chest was the most comfortable Lucas had ever been in his life. He let his hand hang off the side of the couch, fingers grazing the floor, tracing grains in the wood.
“What do you mean by practice?” Frankie asked.
Lucas rubbed his nose along Frankie’s pec. “You know, like…we live in a world of gestures, right? I read about them in books. He nodded, she shrugged, they grimaced. Whatever.” Lucas mimicked the gestures. “I had no idea what half of them were. Obviously, some stuff came naturally to me. Smiling, laughing, crying. But I didn’t make faces on purpose. I didn’t know hand gestures. When someone said thumbs-up, I thought it was this…” He turned his open palm sideways and lifted his thumb toward the roof.
Frankie laughed, then sobered. “I’m sorry. I’m not mocking you, I swear.”
Lucas grinned and propped his chin up on Frankie’s sternum. “I know that. And I know it looks ridiculous. When I was in school, I had a couple friends in our dorm who had some sight. And one kid who was recently blinded in an accident. So me and two of my friends asked them to teach us how to, youknow, be like everyone else. I didn’t want to go off to college and not know how to flip someone off.”
“That makes sense. I didn’t realize how much we pick up just by watching.” Frankie drew lines up and down his spine. “What was your favorite?”
“Flipping people off, obviously,” Lucas said.
Frankie burst into a fit of laughter and squeezed him. “Of course it is.”
“It comes in way more handy than a thumbs-up. That shit is for old people.”
“Wow.”
“Not you,” Lucas said, sitting up further. He smiled down at him, and then his cheeks relaxed. “Does my smile look weird?”
Frankie touched Lucas’s cheek with his palm, then grazed his skin with the tips of his fingers. “No. You have very small dimples, which I love. And your smile is really natural. A lot of people your age—I think they have a very…cultivated smile. They’re always on their cameras—always being seen on social media, so they spend hours trying to look a certain way. You don’t. I like that.”
“Does Gage do that?”
“I couldn’t tell you. He doesn’t seem fake,” Frankie said quietly. “I used to catch Fenton in the mirror pulling faces at himself, trying to look suave or sexy.”
Lucas wrinkled his nose. “Oh. That’s…I don’t know what to think about that.”
“Neither did I,” Frankie said with a quiet laugh. “And neither did Fallon. He didn’t really give a shit. He didn’t even care if he was passing, you know? Not until he started taking a lot of heat from the assholes at his school. That’s when his dysphoria got really bad.”
Lucas felt his stomach twist. He was angry for the pain Fallon must have felt. He kind of got it. He knew what it waslike to step into a world that saw him as weird and different and uncomfortable.
“Lucas?”
“Mm?”
Frankie was quiet for a long, long second. Then he said, “I want to ask you something, but I’m afraid it’s going to cross lines.”
“You can’t wipe my ass. I promise I know how.”
Frankie squeezed him hard, then kissed him. “Oh, princess, you really love being a brat, don’t you?”
Lucas grinned and shivered with joy at the sound of the name that was just for him. “Kind of. I like the noises you make when I say stuff like that. They’re happy brain scratches.”
“Rumbles and groans?”
