Page 37 of Summer Breakdown (Training Seasons #2)

Lani wraps a pink curl around her finger, her voice quiet.

“Daddy didn’t want to have me overnight.

” Jasmine’s chest cracks open so fast that it’s a wonder her insides aren’t staining the limestone tiles.

Frankie looks so sad. She might put a hit out on him.

Ezra would do it. Every person here would fight for the opportunity to look after Lani and Marcel – but it wouldn’t matter who they were.

She wants her father. Marcel looks down at the table but it’s not his fault.

He stopped wanting to go to his dads months ago, but he still packs a bag to go with Lani anyway.

He still takes her in the pool to distract her from Mike not showing up.

“That’s not true,” Mali replies. “Sometimes adults get busy. Everyone wants to hang out with you.”

Lani smiles as she looks up at her. “But Mama is never too busy.”

Jasmine smiles. It’s not something she wanted Lani to ever figure out.

Sometimes, Marcel gets her flowers on Father’s Day, and he writes that she’s his only emergency contact at school.

But she wanted Lani to have longer with two parents.

She wants her to know that parents are busy, but Jasmine arranges her life around her children like parents are supposed to do.

Lani shouldn’t have figured this out until she was older.

It’s like a rite of passage to find out one parent did the heavy lifting and then feeling guilty over not realising it before.

Lani should be thinking about what book to read at bedtime and what she wants as a snack tomorrow and if they can get in the pool.

Not that Mike isn’t able to just put her first.

“Is that because she wants to hang out with me most?” Lani asks. Jasmine rests her elbow on the table, her chin in her hand. She catches Frankie smiling at her in her peripheral vision. She’s probably going to draw her overnight and never show Jasmine because she’s rude.

“The most!” Mali replies. “That’s cool, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Lani whispers, leaning against her again. “I want that all the time.”

“That would be nice,” Mali says quietly, stroking the back of her head. Lani has tried her best, but she’s wiped out .

“Yeah,” she mutters, her eyes closing. “Mama, Marc and Frankie.” Jasmine’s heart thumps at the casualness that Lani uses to include her.

“We could just steal her,” Mali whispers to Zach. “Marcel can fit in the boot.”

Jasmine throws a crumpled post-it note at her.

Jasmine leans against the doorframe, her curls illuminated by the porch light.

She truly could be on a museum wall and not look out of place.

Frankie knows she should leave, but she doesn’t want to.

She wants to know what pyjamas Jasmine will wear to bed tonight.

She wants to know if she finished her book. She wants to know her inside and out.

There’s a terrifying thought circling her brain that she might want to be known that well too. Jasmine keeps talking to her, and she wants to know how long they can drag a conversation about nothing out for.

“Tell me something,” Jasmine requests. They’d been looking at each other for a beat, and Frankie felt surface-level nerves, but it didn’t feel like her life would end. Jasmine makes her feel like she can share her fears. Like they wouldn’t be the end of her here.

“I want to be better at talking to you,” Frankie says. “I know you’ve read books on being bipolar, and I can’t explain how much I appreciate it. I want to tell you things too.”

It felt easy saying it, but the terror swims in her stomach all the same.

Frankie thinks it’s rude that she’s anxious about being thrown to the curb when she’s never even talked to anyone about it before.

Why does her mind always think the worst will happen, when she’s never done it?

Ezra was there when she was diagnosed. Cam found out as she did.

She’s never had to talk about it before.

Not for real. Not outside of a therapist’s office. Not to someone who could leave.

“Okay,” Jasmine replies. “I’d like that.” Her posture remains the same, her hands behind her back as she leans against the door. She’s open, how she always is. Frankie wants to tell her anything.

“I’ve been diagnosed for a while,” she says. “Uhm, like, fourteen years. It’s type two, and I’m medicated.” Jasmine nods, and Frankie pulls on her lip. “Day to day, my life is the same as most people’s. I just take some pills in the morning and have a little more structure.”

Jasmine hums, her head tilting in question. She wants more.

Frankie takes a deep breath. “But it does make me question everything. Mainly relationships. It takes me a while to figure out if I’m happy because it’s true or if it’s an episode.

I haven’t had a big one since I was diagnosed, but it’s always a worry because I feel like I’m not in control.

I wait for everything, even if I’m desperate for it, because I want to be sure it’s real and not something my mind is making up. ”

“Is that why you like to be asked things?”

Frankie frowns. She never thought about it like that. “Maybe. I never thought about it until you started doing it. Then I know you want to know, or you want me to do something. I don’t have to worry that you don’t.”

“Okay.”

“I know that’s a lot, though. I know I have to ask for things too.”

Jasmine smiles at her. “Well, now I know it’s not a big deal.”

Frankie knows she’s hard to love. That she makes it difficult for even the simplest of things. “It’s not?”

“Nah. If I know you want me to ask, that’s enough for me.”

Frankie believes her, truly and honestly.

“My anxiety doesn’t bleed into work that much.

So, it’s difficult to explain why I can or can’t do things when I’m fine there.

It’s just different for me. At work, if I didn’t do something, nothing catastrophic would happen.

I think of it like a quest. I have to do x, y, and z, or no one in the team moves on.

Everything outside of that is a choice. I don’t know if that makes sense. ”

Jasmine smiles. “It does.”

“I’m having trouble with my new doctor right now,” she says.

“He’s not taking my illness seriously because I’m doing well at work.

” It feels good to talk about. Being Black and needing medical help is a trauma in itself.

“I don’t know if it’s just that or because I’m Black, or gay, or a woman, but every time I tell him something, he looks at me like I’m crazy, which is the entire reason I’m there.

It stresses me out that there are so many factors that could be attributing to why he’s being difficult, and I’ll never know which is true. ”

Jasmine frowns. “Do you need a new doctor?”

“Probably.” Frankie sighs. “He wants me on new pills, but they’re not as strong.

It’s like he wants to see if I’m telling the truth, even though I have a decade of medical notes.

It’s like there’s a thrill to him seeing me breakdown.

But it took so long to get this appointment.

I don’t think I have time before my pills run out to start again. ”

“You can see the family doctor,” Jasmine says casually. “They’ll get you in this week.”

“They will?”

“Yeah.”

“How?”

“You don’t have to wait to join because the family already goes,” Jasmine says, as if Frankie is family. “Lani has an appointment on Monday; we can go with her. Her doctor’s not a specialist in mental illness, but she’s kind, and she’ll figure something out. She’s also Black.”

Frankie smiles. She wasn’t anticipating Jasmine fixing it—she just wanted to tell her—but the idea that she cares enough about her to have a solution makes her chest feel tight .

Frankie takes a deep breath. It’s not just Jasmine that she has to look out for. “I’m not dangerous or anything.”

Jasmine frowns. “I didn’t think that.”

“What do you think?”

Jasmine smiles, holding her hand out in front of her, and Frankie takes it without blinking. “I think you’re brave for telling me. I think I like you.”

Frankie smiles brightly, and Jasmine watches her mouth move. Her voice is low when she speaks again. “I think I want you to kiss me.”

Frankie moves the moment the words leave her lips.

Jasmine sighs as Frankie pushes her against the door, and gasps when she pulls her against her.

It’s slow, a little messy, and the most alive Frankie has ever felt.

Jasmine whimpers when Frankie traces her lip with her tongue, her hands fisted in her top pulling her even closer.

Frankie slides her knee between Jasmine’s in a desperate attempt to touch her everywhere.

“Frankie,” Jasmine moans, as she slides her hands against her waist. Frankie’s thumb brushes the underside of her boob, and her vision goes white like she’s never touched a woman before. Jasmine tugs at her waistband, her fingers hooking over against her hipbones. Fuck, Frankie wants to touch her.

Frankie pulls back, resting her forehead against Jasmine’s. “I have to go.”

“What?” Jasmine asks, her fingers caught in her top. “Why?”

“I get overwhelmed, and I don’t—I never want to keep it from you, and I don’t want to leave the way I did before.

” She wants to stay. Everything about her wants to stay.

To figure out a way to wake up with her, but she knows she has to leave.

Frankie thinks about sleeping in the bathtub, or on the sofa.

It would count. It would make her happy, but it’s not something she can reasonably ask.

“Okay,” Jasmine pants. “Okay. ”

Her lips brush against Jasmine’s, and she may not be strong enough to go. “I’m sorry.”

Jasmine kisses her again, but it’s softer. She pushes her away, her fingertips light against her stomach. “Don’t be, my girl.”

Frankie groans. “Don’t call me that.”

“You don’t like it?” Jasmine asks. Her eyes track Frankie’s face with a light smile. But Frankie knows Jasmine too. She’s disappointed. Frankie wants to know specifically why. If it’s because they won’t have sex or because she wants to fall asleep with her too.

“I like it too much,” Frankie says, “and I already feel like I might die if I leave you here.”

Jasmine laughs, crossing her arms over her chest. “Get out, bro.”

“Did you learn that from Mali?” Frankie asks, shoving her hands into her pockets so she doesn’t claw her back. Jasmine is looking at her lips. Frankie’s not even sure she’s doing it on purpose.

Jasmine moves slowly, pushing her against the wall this time. She kisses her again, just once, and then sighs. “Maybe.”

Frankie closes her eyes, her head resting against the wall. She tries to figure out a way to stay. If she slept in her car in the driveway, would that work?

“Get out of your head,” Jasmine whispers. When Frankie opens her eyes, she’s so much farther away than she’d thought. Her face falls a little.

“I don’t want to go,” she whispers.

Jasmine smiles. “I don’t want you to leave. But if you have to, it’s okay. I understand.”

Frankie chews on her lip. “I—I don’t think I can have sex tonight.”

Jasmine frowns, but she’s not upset. “That’s okay. ”

“I want to,” Frankie says. “It’s mainly all I think about as I go to sleep. It’s ruined nighttime fantasies for me. But if—if you wanted to kiss for a little while, I would want that too.”

Jasmine’s hands flex against her thighs. Not an immediate yes, but not a no either. Frankie crosses her fingers.

“What do you get overwhelmed with?” Jasmine asks. “The thought of kissing progressing to something?”

“Sort of. I’ve never wanted anyone as badly as I want you, and the thought that I could hurt you like I did before weighs on the back of my mind.

I just—I know that you would stop. I think you’d figure out if I needed to stop before I did, but I don’t want to put that pressure on you, and I don’t want to push myself and then run. ”

“But you don’t want to go home?”

Frankie shakes her head. Jasmine chews on her lip and then does something on her watch that Frankie can’t figure out.

Then, she walks towards her, her nose brushing hers as she kisses her slowly.

Frankie’s mind turns inside out, and Jasmine hums like she’s not taking her apart with the soft flick of her tongue.

Frankie’s not panicked; she trusts Jasmine.

“I’ve set an alarm for twenty minutes,” Jasmine says, kissing her again. The kiss is slow, but hungrier than before—not in speed, but in depth. The kind that aches. The kind that leaves a tremble in the chest. “And then you can sleep in the guest room.”