No Regrets

It’s the first day of summer, and Cal's brown eyes are shining, his easy smile replaced with regret.

"I'm sorry, Frankie, but I can't keep doing this." He shakes his head, lifts his duffel from the foot of the stairs. "It's over."

Frankie's chest tightens and she thinks: Five months. A record.

She waits, watches the door for a full ten minutes.

She doesn't cry. It doesn't re-open.

Frankie picks up the phone.

***

Joe's hugging her before she has the door fully open, the embrace so tight she can barely breathe. She lets her head fall after just a few rigid seconds, her nose pressing into the side of his neck, and he smells nothing like Cal. She already knew that, but it's this that makes tears prick her eyelids finally.

It takes three deep breaths before she lifts her head, manages to slip back out of his embrace. "I shouldn't have called you."

"I'm glad you did."

"But this isn't the way it's supposed to go, is it? Who calls their boyfriend's brother--" she stiffens, corrects herself "ex-boyfriend's brother when he breaks up with them?"

"Someone who needs a friend." Joe's face is earnest as ever, wide blue eyes looking too closely. "I'm not just his brother, Frankie." His face darkens. "Hell, today I'm not sure I want to be his brother at all," Joe growls.

It shouldn't make her feel better but it does, so she tugs him inside and shuts the door.

"Yeah, well, I'm kind of a screw up. Guess I'm just surprised it took this long."

"You're challenging," Joe says, diplomatic to a fault.

"I'm selfish.”

"You're spontaneous.”

"I'm an emotional headcase.” She winces. That one was Cal’s.

"You're worth it," he says, with not even the slightest of pauses.

Her breath catches and she freezes, watches Joe flush and bites her lip, hard, until the pain distracts her from the stupid emotions welling up inside her. Mostly. "I'm glad you're here," she whispers.

He slings an arm around her and starts walking them down the stairs. "C'mon, get your poker deck. I'll let you beat me for the first few hands."

She focuses on walking, their hips bumping as they try to navigate the narrow staircase. But it’s only three steps before she lifts her head and cocks an eyebrow at him. "Let me beat you?"

***

The summer passes in a blur of card games and bad movies and bar crawls. Joe becomes as permanent a fixture as her leaky pipes (which he insists on trying to fix one Sunday, managing only to soak the both of them and flood her kitchen floor before he finally surrenders and calls a plumber). They’re attached at the hip, but somehow Frankie, who is restless and impatient by nature, doesn’t mind. She forgets, sometimes, that he’s Cal’s brother at all.

They fight about everything and nothing, the bickering so second nature that their friends, who’ve begun to reference them in one breath Frankie&Joe, just roll their eyes. Joe starts spending more nights on her couch than in his own bed halfway across town, and half of those end up with Frankie slumped against his side, drooling on his shoulder, as the credits of a horrible sci-fi schlockfest scroll across her TV screen.

One of those nights she wakes up when the room is only bathed in the garish glare of a Sharktopus attacking a Piranhaconda, and lifts her head to find Joe watching her, wide eyes bearing no trace of sJoep.

“You could’ve woken me,” she murmurs, blinking as she stirs.

“No, you looked…” he pauses, “peaceful.”

She chuckles. “You make a good pillow.” And she shifts to sit up, but the arm around her tightens suddenly and then there’s a hand cupping her jaw and then there are lips on her lips. Joe is kissing her, not like a friend and certainly not like a one-time almost future brother, and she forgets how to breathe because she’s too busy kissing him back, not like a friend, and definitely not like a one-time almost future sister.

When she finally remembers that air is essential to living and pulls her mouth away, they’re both panting and Joe curls his fingers behind her neck, tilting his forehead to hers. “I could be so… much… more,” he breathes, and then pulls back, bright blue eyes searching hers, questioning.

The words send a ripple down her spine and Frankie doesn’t have to think. She already knows the answer. So she kisses him again, and pushes him back down to the couch and lets her hands and mouth and her body sliding against his speak for her.

***

Frankie sneaks up behind Joe and slips her arms around his waist. He’s smiling as he flips the burgers sizzling on the grill and the smile turns into a smirk when Frankie whispers in his ear, “If I have to listen to another story about your Aunt Ida’s hammertoes, you are so gonna regret it later.”

He laughs and says, “Better you than me,” then twists to kiss her. It turns into two kisses, then three, because after six months of this, they’re still not out of the honeymoon stage. Secretly, Frankie hopes they never will be.

Someone calls for Joe on the far side of the lawn and he hands her the spatula. “You’re on burger duty. Burn them and you’ll be the talk of the next three Diamonte End-of-Summer Blowouts.” He winks and she salutes and slaps his ass as he turns to stride away. She flips the burgers, nearly sending one spiraling onto the lawn but a quick hand slides a plastic plate under it to catch it.

“Thanks, I’d never hear the end of it from Joe—” and she stops, because her eyes have traveled up to reach the face attached to the arm holding the plate. “Cal,” she gasps. He’s supposed to be camping in Canada right now. “I- I didn’t think you’d be here.”

“Me either,” he smiles easily, and it flashes through her mind suddenly how that smile used to weaken her knees once upon a time. It’s a nice smile, but she’s still standing straight and tall. “You look different,” he says, his forehead crinkling as he scrutinizes her. “You look…” he tilts his head slightly and then the line in his brow smooths out, “happy.”

She looks away, wondering why she feels the tinge of guilt when he’s the one who broke things off. Her gaze falls on Joe standing over by the garage, where he’s cornered now by Inescapable Ida, but he’s nodding patiently, giving the annoying woman his full attention, like there’s nowhere he’d rather be. Frankie smiles and looks back to Cal. “I am.”

“I’m glad.” His eyes are wide and sincere.

They stand companionably, the hiss of the grill filling the silence, until Joe returns, a trio of beers in hand. He replaces the spatula in Frankie’s hand with a bottle. “Sorry that took so long. I was just riveted by the tale of a stubborn bunion.” Then he wraps his free arm around her and leans in to kiss her, and Frankie smirks a little against his lips, because she knows that kind and patient though he may be, Joe’s also got a competitive streak a mile wide. She’s pretty sure that there’s a bit of pointmaking aimed towards his brother in this kiss, but when they break apart, he just passes the other beer to Cal and slaps him on the back. “Welcome back, bro.”

Cal’s gaze flicks back and forth between them for a minute and then his face relaxes into another easy grin, and there’s no hint of anything but mischievous humor in his voice, when he says, “So, Frankie, my brother ever tell you about the first time he stole my girlfriend?”

Joe swats him with the greasy spatula and Cal protests about his shirt getting dirty and Frankie offers a silent thank you up to the heavens and doesn’t regret a thing.