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“My parents have always tried to protect me,” I explained, moving over to the chopping board and dicing up the vegetables. “Even now, he’d lie so that I wouldn’t freak out. He doesn’t know that his lying voice is obvious.”

Hayden chuckled quietly. “Lying voice?”

“Yeah,” I said. “His voice goes all cutesy, like he’s talking to a toddler. He swears he doesn’t do it, but when I went home for dinner last month he tried to convince me he hadn’t been eating his weight in fried food by saying ‘I pwomise Dad didn’t do that’.”

Hayden laughed a little more that time, and some of the tension in my chest eased. I kept my eyes on the diced vegetables, scraping them off the board and into the pot with practiced ease.

“And he believes he doesn’t sound like that?” A bit more life had wriggled its way back into her voice.

“He honestly does.” I chuckled. “Mom tried to convince him but he told her she was biased against him.”

“Your parents sound wonderful,” she said.

I smiled. “They are. They’re something special, even though they’re characters straight out of a comic book.”

“Your childhood must have been straight out of a comic book too.”

“Oh, God, it was insane.” I laughed. I hovered over the stove, stirring mindlessly and launching into one of my favorite stories.

Hayden laughed, her shoulders slowly relaxing, the pain in her eyes receding. I wondered, not for the first time, if Hayden was a lot lonelier than she let on.

Chapter twenty-seven

One Chance

Frankie

“Areyousureyouwant to do this?”

I stared at my hands, my fingers laced together between my knees.

“Yeah, I am,” I told Nikkie.

She nodded from her spot on my sofa, her legs curled beneath her. She hugged one of my fluffy pillows to her chest, her mug of tea cooling on the coffee table between us.

It was early; early enough that her usually perfectly styled hair was still wrapped up in a haphazard knot on top of her head, her thick-framed glasses perched on the end of her small nose.

“I’m just asking.” She yawned, covering her mouth with a sweater paw. “I know she’s hot and everything, but she really hurt you, and I don’t want to have to go to jail for murdering one of the richest women in the country.”

I rolled my eyes and she spoke through another yawn.

“I mean, I’ll do it,” she mumbled. “But I won’t be happy about it.”

“You’re alarmingly happy about being given a motive to commit actual murder,” I accused her.

She offered me a lazy smile in response. “You, my darling, know me too well.”

“But back to the point,” I said, curling my hands around my half empty coffee mug. “I think she’s been through a shit ton of, well,shit. What if all she needs is someone to show her that she’s worth more than her money?”

Nikkie pouted at me, her brows furrowed unhappily. “You’re too much of a romantic, Frankie,” she accused. “I don’t want you to get hurt, and I’m worried that the next time will be even worse.”

“I know, and I get it,” I assured her. “But how would you turn out if you’d been used your entire life and then cast aside once people were done with you?”

“You don’t know for sure that that’s what happened,” she countered.

“Could you stop playing the devil’s advocate fortwo seconds, Nikkie?” I groaned. “You’re the one who’s always setting me up on dates, some of which, may I remind you, were awful. Hell, that’s the reason I met Hayden in the first place!”

“Yes, and wonderful women don’t just fall out of the sky and into your lap!” she exclaimed. “Trust me, I know.”