Page 12 of Gravity of Love
Tristan cheated on her.
She left him.
Her mom was dating Dr. Sterling.
She saw Liam again.
He changed his name.
He worked thirty minutes from Yaya.
She needed to call her one of the twins to get intel, the question was which one. Whoever she chose, the conversation would be so much easier if she could debrief with Zee first, but she would have to go into this cold. She scrolled through her phone, debating Niko or AJ. Growing up,allof Frankie’s friends had crushes on her brothers, sometimes both, but usually one or the other, it just depended on what type they went for.
Her brothers were mirror twins, meaning they were identical if they stood facing each other. Unlike her, they’d inherited the traditional Greek/Italian dark hair, with golden skin and hazel eyes. Nikolaus Dimitri, better known as Niko, had a dimple onhis right cheek, and Adonis Josiah, or AJ, had one on his left. Also, AJ was half an inch taller than Niko. Their personalities, however, were polar opposites.
AJ was what the world considered the strong-silent type. Frankie’s friends thought that made him broody and mysterious. It was as if him not speaking left a blank slate of which they projected onto whatever theywantedhim to be. They created a narrative of his personality, not taking the time or putting in the effort to get to know who heactuallywas. It was their loss because he was the best person she knew.
He didn’t start speaking until he was three, whereas Niko began to speak before he was one. Then a few months after their dad passed away, AJ became non-verbal at school for almost the entire school year. Thankfully, the staff and teachers were amazing. In high school, sophomore year, he was diagnosed with Asperger’s and retroactively with selective mutism pertaining to his ‘year of silence.’ As an adult, his diagnosis has been changed to Level 1 Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) with savant syndrome for his high intelligence.
AJ hadalwaysbeen one of Frankie’s favorite people. Not only because he was the smartest person she’d ever met, he alsoneverlied, which wasnotsomething she could say for most of the people in her life. If anyone asked him something, he always told the truth, without any filter. Frankie knew if she called him and asked him about Liam, that’s exactly what she’d get: the raw, unfiltered truth. Also, AJ would never tell Liam that she asked about him, unless, for some reason, Liam directly asked that question, which he never would.
Niko was the yin to AJ’s yang, He oozed charm and charisma. Flirting was in his DNA. Her friends often referred to him as Casanova or Romeo.
He was a storyteller. In a single sentence, he had people eating out of the palm of his hand. If she called him, she wouldget more detailed information. But he woulddefinitelytell Liam that she’d asked about him. And she would run the risk of him mentioning to Liam that she was in Hope Falls, because she wasn’t going to tell him not to. If she did, he would ask why, and there was no way she was ever going to tell himwhyshe didn’t want Liam to know she was in Hope Falls.
Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner. AJ!
Frankie moved the phone to her ear, pressing so hard she could hear her own pulse thumping in her jawbone. It’d been months since she and AJ had talked. He’d been out of the country on a deployment somewhere…she never knew where. His job was classified. He worked as a cybersecurity analyst for a highly classified cyber security branch of the Air Force that often supported CIA operations.
She glanced at the clock and tried to calculate the time difference to Langley, Virginia, where he lived, in her head, but her brain was too scrambled to do math. Right now, she needed answers, and out of her whole family, he was the only one who wouldn’t try to shield her with a well-intentioned lie or, worse, a clumsy attempt at comfort, if he even knew about her and Tristan. If he did, he found out from someone else, not her.
He picked up on the second ring. “Hey.”
“Hi, it’s Frankie,” she said, even though his phone was probably set to display her entire genetic code.
“I know,” he said, the words short and unembellished, not mean, just factual. Background noise filtered through faintly, the hum of electronics, maybe, or a powerful air conditioning unit. Tech stuff.
She hesitated for a second as it slowly dawned on her that he didn’t sound right. His tone was much moremonothan usual. “How are you?”
“I’m… fine,” he replied. His pause was almost imperceptible, but it was there, like a comma in a sentence too short to need one, which, for AJ, was probably as vulnerable as he got.
Concern wrapped around her like the snap bracelets she used to wear when she was twelve as she leaned forward in her seat and grabbed the steering wheel. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Her brow furrowed, and she regretted not FaceTiming him. If she had, she’d be able to see his eyes, the windows to his soul. Her current issues melted away, suddenly becoming frivolous. Her brothers were her life. She might be younger by two years, but she wasveryprotective of both of them. If anything was wrong with one of them, she would fix it. If anyone hurt one of them, she would fix them, meaning they would be un-alived.
She knew there was only one way to suss out whether or not he was actually fine. Throw out the joke bait, if he bit, then whatever it was couldn’t be that bad. If not, she was on the next plane to Virginia. “Are you sure? You haven’t been, like, kidnapped by North Korean hackers, or decided to join a cult, or started drinking soda, or joined aCrossFitgym?”
It had been a running joke between her and her brothers that they’d lost good friends to CrossFit because once people started, they wouldn’t shut up about it. It became their entire personality. They’d even had mock memorial services for their friends.
A small sound—almost a laugh, except AJ didn’t laugh so much as acknowledge amusement, like it was a fact to be marked and moved on from—sounded through the speaker. “No kidnapping. No cults. No soda.”
“So, itisCrossFit.”
“I go twice a day,” he reluctantly admitted, and she instantly relaxed because she knew he was kidding, something hewouldn’t do if he was really upset. He would just repeat that he was fine again.
“Wow,” she sighed. “Well, all I can say is that it wassonice having you as a brother. Do you wantmeto break the news to Niko, or are you going to tell him?”
