Muffin Top (Page 59)

“What is this, some kind of touchy-feely intervention?” he asked, putting plenty of snarl in the question.

None of the other men in the room flinched. They just looked at him with matching you-big-dumbass expressions. That’s the way they wanted this to go down? Fine. He didn’t give a shit.

Finally, Ford broke the silent pissing contest. “So what’s it going to take to get you to go after her?”

Yeah, because it would be just that easy. “She doesn’t want me.”

Ford crossed his arms over his chest and rolled back on his heels, like he couldn’t decide if he was good cop or bad cop in this interrogation. “From what I’ve heard from Gina, that’s a bunch of shit.”

“Yeah, well, it doesn’t matter anyway,” Frankie said, sinking back into the couch and giving into the agony eating away at his gut that made him feel like a man who was suffering from the flu, a hangover, and the mother of all migraines at the same time. “It’s all over.”

Finished.

Done.

Kaput.

“So you’re just giving up?” his dad asked.

Up until that moment, Frankie had been doing his best to pretend his old man wasn’t in the room. He didn’t see any reason to change tactics now, so he ignored the question.

“Son,” Frank Sr. said. “I raised you better than to act like that to someone you care about.”

To act better than that? The words hit him like a lead weight dropped overboard. To act better than that? Years’ worth of denied resentment, of bottled-up anger, boiled over, rushing through him like a back draft. He turned his attention to his dad but forced himself to keep his ass on the couch or else he wasn’t sure what would happen.

“You are the last person,” he said, not bothering to hide the disgust in his voice, “the very last person in the world I want to have this conversation with.”

His old man didn’t say shit after that. He just sat there like a stone, staring at Frankie with an inscrutable expression on his face. Frankie didn’t need to say any more. His dad knew exactly what he meant.

“Whoa,” Ford said, looking between Frankie and their dad as if he’d never seen either man before. “What’s all that about?”

“Why don’t you ask him?” Because Frankie was done keeping his old man’s secrets.

Finn and Ford both turned their dad, who sat leaning forward in his chair, his elbows planted on his thighs in an exact replica of how Frankie was sitting. Like father, like son.

Finally, he let out a long, weary sigh. “Is this about Becky Rimwald?”

The way he said it, as if it was just some silly thing, made something snap in Frankie and made his pulse roar in his ears. He jumped off the couch. “It’s about the fact that you couldn’t keep your dick in your pants even though Mom loved you more than anything and you always acted like you loved her.”

Everyone in the room tensed. Wild, frenetic energy pulsed through Frankie, and he had to move. It wasn’t a choice. He started pacing the length of the living room from the front door to the far wall.

“What. The. Fuck. Is. Going. On,” Ford asked, his voice low and deadly.

Finn let out an annoyed snort. “Dad didn’t screw Becky Rimwald.”

Of course that’s what his twin would say, Frankie had sent him away to the store the second he’d turned the corner and seen Becky and his dad.

“You didn’t see what I did. I protected you from that.”

Finn got up from the couch and stalked over to Frankie. Mr. Even Keel’s cover was finally blown. His hands were curled into fists, and his entire body radiated wrath. But he didn’t take a swing. Instead, he got right up into Frankie’s face.

“You are such a moron,” Finn said. “I’m surprised you can chew gum and walk at the same time.”

“Wait.” Ford shoved himself between the twins, giving each of them a hard shove in opposite directions. “Rewind. Who is Becky Rimwald, and why in the hell would Frankie think that about Dad?”

“Because Frankie saw me kissing her,” their dad said, his voice uncharacteristically flat.

Whatever Frankie had been expecting when he’d imagined this moment, his father finally admitting his transgression, it hadn’t been this. There was no relief. There was no happiness. There was only a sick, gut-churning wave of disappointment that knocked his knees out and forced him to lean his ass against the windowsill or go down for the count. And that’s when he realized there’d always been a part of him that hadn’t believed, had hoped that he hadn’t seen what he’d seen.

“When?” Ford asked, breaking the heavy silence.

Finn shoved his fingers through his thick, dark hair and sat down on the couch. “Our senior year in high school.”

“I tried to tell you then, and I’ll tell you now,” Frank Sr. said. “It wasn’t what it looked like.”

“Really?” Frankie all but snarled. “Her tongue wasn’t stuffed down your throat?”

His dad looked like there was nothing more in the world that he’d like to do at that moment than reach out and cuff his oldest—the Hartigan temper was as legendary as their ability to go wild—but he didn’t. Instead, he closed his eyes, let out a breath, and then focused his attention on Frankie.

“Do you remember the string of warehouse fires we had that year? Andy Rimwald was one of the firefighters who died in them before we caught the firebug.”

That summer had been awful. Ten firefighters had been killed in the fires, which had been rigged to do the most damage once everyone was on the scene. Katie Hartigan had spent most of the nights their dad was on shift sitting at the kitchen table polishing and polishing the set of silver utensils her great-great-grandmother had managed to sneak out of Ireland when she’d run off because the English had threatened to hang her for stealing. Frankie had organized it so that there was always one Hartigan kid sitting up with her, at least until she sent them to bed in the wee hours of the morning. He wasn’t sure if she ever slept while Frank Sr. was working that summer. The second he’d walk through the door, though, she’d collapse against him and allow herself thirty seconds of holding him before straightening up and starting a huge breakfast with all of his favorites. They’d all been keyed up and on edge.

After a few seconds, no doubt to make sure everyone was thinking the same thing as Frankie, his dad went on. “Well, you’ve been on the job for some time now, Junior. You must have seen families go through hell after something like that happens. They cry. They scream. They fight against the darkness. They go a little crazy.”

Maybe there were other jobs where things were like that—the military, cops—but in the firehouse they really were a family. When one went down, they all mourned. And the wives and kids of the fallen firefighter? They did whatever it took to make sure they were taken care of, something that occasionally crossed some lines. Something started the tingle on the back of Frankie’s neck, that oh-shit signal that had saved him more than once in the middle of a fire.

“Becky came into the firehouse to collect Andy’s things even though we told her we’d take them out to her,” Frank Sr. said, his shoulders hunching forward as if even this many years later he needed to ward off the blow of what came next. “She said she wanted to take a look at the place he loved. And before she left, I gave her a hug. She was a lost widow grieving, and I was a friendly port in a storm. She didn’t mean it. I had been just extricating myself when you walked in.”