Page 13 of Whispers and Wishes (Untouchable 4)

The next time I opened them, she was poking me. “I gotta pee,” she said by way of explanation, and the faintest of snores rose from behind her. Archie was probably dead to the world.

“Yep,” I said, rolling off the bed and to my feet so she could scoot out. I wasn’t making her climb or do anything awkward. She winced as she unfolded, though she wasn’t moving as stiffly as she had the last few mornings. Smothering a yawn, I debated falling back on the bed, but if she was up…

Tiddles yowled at me.

Then Tabby and Tory threaded around my legs. I swore that Tory only came out when food was involved, otherwise, the little hermit played hide and seek.

“Got it, you want to eat.”

Bubba was asleep on his pallet in the corner, the notebook closed next to him. Hopefully, he’d gotten some actual sleep. Leaving the room, I headed for the kitchen with the cats following and yowling all the way. Coop sprawled on his stomach on the sofa, also dead to the world. What the fuck time was it?

The clock in the kitchen said it was five minutes before the alarms would go off.

Heh.

Fine.

I fed the cats and got the coffee started. Frankie surprised me when she padded into the kitchen.

“Not going back to bed?”

She shook her head. “I’m still tired, but I’m kind of tired of sleeping.”

“K.” I kind of got that. “Want to work on homework after we kick the bums out and send them off to school like good little boys?”

She snickered, and I grinned. Then her smile faltered. “I kind of thought I might try to go, but my face still hurts and so does my throat.”

“The doc gave you a pass for the whole week,” I reminded her. “You might be better off just sticking to the plan. It’s not just going back to school.”

It was all the assholes there.

“But if you want to,” I continued, even though I would prefer she didn’t. “We could give it a shot. You’ll have one of us with you all day.” There were only two classes we didn’t have with her, and Rachel was in one of them. That just left finding a way to cover her TA period. Maybe they’d let her sit that out.

“I want to, but I won’t,” she said, scooting over to lean against me when I lifted an arm. I wrapped it around her and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I start off being all ‘I can do this,’ and then I get tired thinking about it.”

That was because my Frankie was an overachiever from hell. She did not like sitting anything out. Even when she got sick for real, she kept trying to do stuff. It could be maddening. Course, it didn’t help that she seemed to embrace the concept of guilt when it came to blowing off shit and just taking a day.

Especially when she worried about things—like her job and money. Fuck. Her. Mom. I worked and helped my mom out, and she’d never in a million years put this kind of responsibility on me. Even if I could stand it. Even my dick of a dad wouldn’t pull this crap.

Ugh, I hated that woman.

“Then we do homework here, watch YouTube videos, eat ice cream.”

“Cheesecake,” she corrected me, and I grinned.

The coffee filling the pot hissed to its conclusion as Coop’s alarm went off, and then the others began to sound through the apartment. Not mine, I’d turned that shit off, but hey, look where we were.

The next hour drifted by with coffee and cinnamon rolls—Frankie and I made them and got those going in the oven. She hadn’t had a fritter in a few days. I’d get up extra early the next day and do a donut run.

The guys drifted through, morning kisses deposited with care and no pushing whatsoever. Except Bubba, he just gave her a side hug. Again, not pushing.

“What do you want for dinner?” Coop asked.

“Oh, and Jeremy will probably be by with the laundry later,” Archie said as he looked at his phone. There was something up, because he frowned but swiped out of whatever message before he focused on the rest of us. Yeah, I’d ask him about that later. If Frankie noticed it, she didn’t say anything.

“We have so many leftovers in there,” she protested. “I say potluck so we can clean out the fridge.”

“Potluck works,” I agreed. Coop and I had taken turns working on this schedule, too. Archie and Bubba could both be there in the evenings, but if I could slip in a few hours of shift that was extra dollars in the pocket. At the same time, I didn’t want to be away from her.

---