Muffin Top (Page 62)

…

Frankie was going to puke his guts up.

Okay, he wasn’t really going to do that—he hadn’t been able to eat since the whole Frankie-is-a-dumbass intervention yesterday—but his stomach was still rocking one way and shaking the other. He’d never been nervous to talk to a woman in his life. Ford had been right, everything had come too easy for him before. But getting Lucy to agree to talk to him again, let alone to give him a second chance? He was definitely going to have to work for it.

Shannon poked her head into the supply closet. Was he hiding from Lucy so she wouldn’t walk out the door as soon as she spotted him? Hell yes, he was.

“She just walked in, you ready?” she asked.

He wiped his sweaty palms on the sides of his jeans. “I don’t know.”

“Frankie Hartigan, you tripped and fell hard, didn’t you?”

He had. So bad he probably had a concussion or twelve. “But what if you were right, and I’m not the guy anyone wants for happily ever after?”

“Honey, you may not be the kind of guy who could deliver a happily ever after to me or a dozen other Waterbury women, but you were meant to do so for Lucy.”

It sounded good, but it was hard to shake off the doubt that he’d fuck things up in the end. “How do you know?”

“You get scared running into burning buildings?”

“No.” Why did people always ask that question? With the right training, the fear didn’t factor in. “It’s more of me knowing what I need to do and doing it.”

“Uh-huh.” Shannon brushed back her long dark braids, which had fallen forward when she nodded her head. “And using that big saw thing they call the jaws of life?”

“Not a big deal.” It was just a tool. One that could sever a limb, sure, but it was still just a tool.

“And showing up at the total insanity that is your family’s version of a nice Sunday lunch?”

Okay, now that wasn’t dangerous at all. “What’s insane about my family’s lunch?”

“Exactly. None of those things make you think twice.” She gave him a pitying smile because she must have sensed that he was totally fucking lost. “But when it comes to telling Lucy you want to be her man, you are scared out of your giant head. That’s how you know it’s important. That’s how you know you’re going to do whatever it takes to be her happily ever after—because you love her.”

He let Shannon’s words of wisdom wash over him and register in his brain. She was right. He was freaked the fuck out, but it was for the right reasons, not because there was some part of himself still half-convinced that he wasn’t the kind of guy who could be a part of a real couple. Even more important, he was going to be a part of Lucy’s happiness.

All he had to do was convince her that he was just the man for the job.

That realization cut through all the bullshit worry filling up his head, and all of the nerves sending his stomach into panic mode faded away.

“So, Frankie, are you ready?” Shannon asked, holding open the supply closet door.

Yeah, he was. Finally.

“Do you mind doing the honors?” He held up his phone.

“Who’s that? And is that a dog humping a stuffed animal?”

“It’s Lucy’s dad. I just need you to hold this up so he can watch. The dog is Gussie, and that stuffed animal is…well, that’s a discussion that requires beer.”

Shannon shook her head and chuckled. “Nothing about that is weird at all.”

“It’s perfectly natural for all of the creatures in the animal kingdom to have sexual urges.” Tom’s voice came out from the phone’s speaker. “And your advice right now was spot-on. I’ve always said that bartenders make the best therapists.”

Shannon’s eyes went round, but she gave Frankie a nod and followed him out of the supply closet and out into the crowded bar.

…

So busy looking for Frankie, it took Lucy a minute to realize Marino’s wasn’t exactly Marino’s. As she did a slow three-sixty, her heart sped up until it was banging against her ribs like it was about to make a break for it. Processing it all was almost too much for her.

“Frankie did this?” she asked, already knowing the answer but still too awed for that fact to make an impact.

“Yeah he did.” Fallon nodded.

“For you,” Tess said with a dreamy sigh.

Gina linked her arm through Lucy’s and led her forward into the bar. “All for you.”

And it was a lot. She gawked as they walked through the crowd. There was a cornhole contest going on in the corner. A pie-eating contest was going on at the bar. A pillowcase three-legged race was happening on the stage. It was the decathlon. He’d brought it to Waterbury.

She turned to Gina. “How?”

Her bestie gave her a knowing look and leaned in close so her words would carry in the crowded bar. “When it comes the Hartigan men, I’ve learned that there’s not anything they won’t do when it comes to declaring their intentions.”

A swirl of emotions whipped through her, and she nearly collapsed in the chair marked Lucy Kavanagh at an empty table in front of the stage, which had been vacated by the racers. “That’s what this is?”

“Don’t start crying now,” Tess said, giving Lucy’s back a quick pat before sitting down beside her.

“Crying? I’m not…” She reached up and touched her cheeks, her fingers coming back damp.

Shit. She never cried. But here she was, crying because Frankie Hartigan loved her.

That’s when her shit-is-about-to-go-down alarms started blaring. She opened her mouth to ask more questions, but then the bar lights dimmed and a single spotlight illuminated the stage. She was still trying to unravel what was going on when Frankie walked into the circle of light.

Damn he looked good. Was it wrong that that was her first thought when she saw him? Well, too bad, because it was. He wore the same suit he’d worn the night of the high school reunion dance but had added a big round button to the lapel that read Job Applicant No. 1. Her pulse picked up, and the butterflies in her stomach went nuts, zooming and swooping and doing figure eights.

“Don’t worry,” he said, looking right at her. “I’m not gonna sing.”

Someone from the clump of Hartigans standing behind her table yelled out a good-natured “Thank God.”

Frankie didn’t even give a half-second glance at the people behind her. He just kept looking at her. “I’m here for a job interview.”

At his words, she clamped her jaw shut tight enough that her molars hurt, because she was not going to cry even more in front of all these people. But it wasn’t sadness making her blink faster to keep the tears away. It was the realization that if Frankie was willing to do what she thought he was about to, history—neither hers nor his—would not repeat itself. They were going to write their own story.

Frankie crossed the stage, his long legs eating up the distance between them. Instead of jumping off and coming over to her, he reached out and handed her a piece of paper.

“That’s my job application to be your guy, the one who’s a keeper, the one who won’t leave, who’ll stay true, who will always be there to win ridiculous decathlons with you. The one who is declaring himself totally and completely in love with you in front of God and everyone. I realize my résumé is a little thin in prior experience.”