Bar Crawl(23)

I laughed once, loud enough to scare a few birds out of a nearby bush, before growling. “No. Jesus. No.”

Georgia took an audible breath; I could nearly feel the relief extend the three thousand miles between us. “Care to catch me up?” she asked with a hint of her own anxiety.

“It’s Frankie. That girl I told you about.”

“The one you stalked?”

“What is it with women and that term? I just—”

“Stalked her at work. Continue,” Georgia chuckled, “did she call the cops on you?”

“No. I’m at her house. I came here this afternoon, and we had dinner, and I read her some of my book.” I said it all in one breath, and I still couldn’t believe I was stringing all of those words together.

Georgia was silent for a long few seconds. “You. I. Your. What?”

“See?” I nearly begged. I wished so badly that she was sitting with me on our old stools at Dunes, talking through this.

“I don’t… I don’t really know what to tell you. You told her about the book. That’s… Wow. It took you a year to even tell me that you liked writing, CJ.” She had a resigned and almost cautionary tone. One I wasn’t familiar with.

“What? What’s with that tone?” I pushed.

“Are you ready for this?”

“For what?”

Georgia sighed, and the waves crashing in the background on her end told me she’d stepped outside. I’d have bet anything she was sitting on the split-rail fence across the street from her bakery. She liked to think there. “For being an adult. A relationship.”

“Whoa,” I stood, “who said anything about a relationship?”

“You did.”

I looked around in confusion, knowing Georgia often spoke in riddles a la the Mad Hatter, but was still off-balance. I definitely never used the word relationship. It was taboo.

“Stop pacing,” she instructed as if she were right next to me. “You’ve spent more than a few hours with her, shared a meal with her at her house and have read her some of your book? Why is it that you call me to spell things out for you that you’re perfectly capable of reading yourself?”

“I don’t…ugh,” I grumbled. “I don’t know. I like her.”

“Yep. Hence all the date-like things you’ve done with her. Sigh,” she said. “My little CJ is growing right the f*ck up.”

The tension broke in my chest as I chanced a glance back through the door and into Frankie’s living room. She was sitting on the couch, picking her nails as she seemed to make an effort to look anywhere but where I was standing.

“Wait,” Georgia interrupted. “Where is she now?”

“Inside. I’m outside in her backyard,” I admitted sheepishly.

“You know, Kane,” she huffed. “Why do y—no. It’s okay. You’re going to clean this up and apologize for however it was that you exited her house, because I know, knowing you, it was far from graceful, then you’re going to hang the hell onto her until Regan and I can get there to check her out, okay?”

Georgia was set to marry my cousin in two weeks in a wedding on the Cape Cod beach. Georgia didn’t have much family to speak of—besides her mom—and all of Regan’s family still lived on the peninsula. Being the best man was really the best of both worlds. I felt like I would be fully standing up there for the both of them.

“Well, I don’t think we need to turn your wedding weekend into anything but that. Your weekend.” I smiled broadly at the thought of seeing Georgia marry the only guy in the world good enough for her.

“Whatever,” she snipped. “Just go back in her house and un-make an ass out of yourself.”

I laughed again, not surprised that she vocalized the same thought about my behavior I’d assigned to myself. “I miss you.”

Her typically sharp voice softened. “I miss you, too, CJ. I’ll see you soon, k?”

“Yeah. Say hi to Regan for me.”

I walked up Frankie’s back steps and quietly reentered her house. She was still sitting on the couch, looking quietly patient.

“Hi,” she said, lifting her eyebrows. “Everything…okay?”

I took my seat next to her and clasped her hand. Her skin felt cold, which was impossible on this extra-warm day. I cringed internally at the thought of how sweaty my palms must be. Amazingly, a talk with my best friend was exactly what I needed to reassure me that my compass was, in fact, oriented correctly.

“I’m sorry,” I started. “I just had a little freak out there.”

“Who were you on the phone with?” she questioned innocently.

“Georgia.” I didn’t hesitate to say her name. I wasn’t hiding anything from Frankie. Especially about Georgia. I knew lots of girls found it weird—or threatening—that my best friend was female, but I’d already been honest with Frankie about G’s gender, and her importance to me.

Frankie nodded slowly. “Did she help? With…whatever was going on?” I could tell there were a million follow up questions brewing on her tongue by the way her eyes were lit up, but she was holding back.

“Don’t expect too much from me,” I blurted out, feeling sweat form between my shoulder blades. “I mean, I won’t sleep around, but—”