Page 69 of Winning You
Frankie almost choked on his own tongue, and it took him a second to recover. “Uh…”
“Or that you already did because your bed was messy and there were boxer briefs on your floor that were not yours?” Fallon pressed.
Shit. Shit shit shit shit…
“I won’t tell anyone,” Fallon said quietly.
Frankie set the salad down and ran both hands through his hair. “I’m having a big enough crisis about falling for a man your age. And it’s complicated because we both agreed it isn’t dating.”
Fallon sighed. “So is this the part where you two flirt and act gross and pretend like you’re not halfway in love with each other?”
“I’ve known him for six days.” Okay, a bit longer, but not much.
Fallon rolled his eyes. “Six weeks, then? Before I can stop pretending I don’t know?”
“I’ll keep you posted,” Frankie said dryly. He started to reach for the salad again, then stopped. “I could use a hug.”
“Are you sad?”
“Overwhelmed.”
Fallon nodded, then threw his arms around his brother and held tight. “You know we’re here for you too, right? It’s not just you that has to fix everything. It’s not just you that has to be okay all the time.”
He did know that. Most of the time. But it was easy to forget when he’d been fixing everyone and everything for so, so long.
“After the adoption hearing, I think I’ll be able to breathe and decide what I want.”
Fallon stepped back. “I like him. I like him with you, and I like him with Elodie. I think it’ll be okay.”
That was permission, of sorts. The only kind of blessing Fallon would give, but it was everything to him. He smiled, grabbed the salad, then headed out the door with his brother at his heels.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
LUCAS
He thoughtfor a while he might miss Gage so badly he wanted to pull his own face off, but Lucas realized he was incredibly—and very happily—distracted for the entire week Gage was with Adele and Kash. There was a lot of doing kid shit—not that Lucas minded. He and Gage had always been the unofficial-official babysitters of the group, so he had plenty of ideas to keep Elodie entertained.
And since Elodie was working on her pre-braille skills, most of her books were accessible to Lucas, which meant he could help out with things like reading bedtime stories and helping her identify her shapes and letters and numbers.
It brought back weird, fractured memories from when he was a kid. His teacher guiding his hands into buckets and bins filled with different textures that made him want to scream and cry because they felt so awful against the pads of his fingers.
His teachers had labeled him stubborn back then. They’d told his dad that if he didn’t push Lucas, he’d never learn to read. They told him that Lucas was attempting to control things in a world that felt entirely out of control.
They hadn’t realized yet how things made him feel, so they forced him. His dad thought he was doing it for Lucas’s owngood, and it took a good therapist who realized that not all of Lucas’s rocking and head shaking and hand flapping were blindisms. That his refusal to eat mashed foods or be around anything that smelled like lemon or orange was a him thing.
An autistic thing.
That he was complex and occasionally very different from the other kids in his class.
That he wasn’t just throwing tantrums or trying to find a way to take charge of his life.
He was just tired and overstimulated.
And it was easy being with Elodie because Frankie listened to her. He understood when she was tired or fussy or overwhelmed. He took her into his arms without hearing whispers from therapists telling him that he was going to spoil her with too much affection.
Which was how Lucas realized he’d been starved for kind touch for a lot of years. He just hadn’t realized it yet. His dad had—sort of. He was trying to make up for it now, but there was no erasing the past, and there would always be a tiny void in his chest of what he hadn’t been given all those years ago.
“You’re quiet tonight,” Frankie said after Elodie had been given her muscle relaxants and sent to bed. The sofa shifted beside him, and Lucas turned to face Frankie as he settled. “Have I done something wrong?”
