Page 4 of Summer Breakdown (Training Seasons #2)

“And this is Frankie.”

Frankie leans back against the booth and gives her a closed-lip smile and a nod. Jasmine can’t tell what her vibe is. Annoyed that Mali invited her over, perhaps, or she’s playing it cool. Jasmine has no idea but every intention to find out.

“Wait, I didn’t ask you what your name is. That’s so rude,” Mali says.

“Jasmine,” she replies, with a smile. Mali smiles back, and it feels comfortable, but Jasmine’s attention is taken by Frankie.

“Jasmine,” Frankie replies, like she’s tasting the name on her tongue.

The syllables sound different when she says them—less like a name and more like the first line of a story she very much wants to read.

She sits up a little, looking right at her.

A shiver flows through Jasmine’s body at her tone.

Or the look in her eye. Or it really might be her arms. “Cute.” Oh, she’s bold .

“Keep it in your pants until the end of the quiz,” Cam says, and Jasmine wants to know how often Frankie flirts with people here, in this bar, maybe in this very booth. She also wants to ask Cam how she did her hair. “We need you if we’re going to beat those guys.”

Jasmine smiles, letting her gaze linger on Frankie, until she turns back to speak to the group. “If it helps,” Jasmine says, “they were complaining about not knowing what Love Island is. ”

“Thank fuck,” Cam replies, typing frantically on her phone.

“Swear jar,” Frankie says, but Cam flips her off and continues.

“I’m surprised they managed to talk about anything other than how hot you are. They spent the entire time staring at you.”

Jasmine laughs again. “I looked at one of them, and I think he stopped breathing.”

“So that’s what happened! We thought he’d had a heart attack. Frank almost called an ambulance.”

“Shame,” Jasmine replies. “We might have had a chance if we’d rendered them unconscious.”

Frankie smiles at her. Kind of. She smiles, then immediately ducks her head to the table.

She’s so pretty. Jasmine doesn’t have a type, but if she had to describe someone under pain of death or something, Frankie would be it.

Jasmine researched being a lesbian in the dark of night, so she knows there’s types .

Masc and femme, and a plethora of other terms she tries to hold in her mind but loses the moment a hot woman looks at her.

Jasmine decides she likes muscles and a nice smile.

The rest doesn’t matter to her. The attraction to Frankie hit her the moment she watched her walk to the bar.

The sure confidence she has, the way she doesn’t shrink down, those bloody arms. But now she’s here.

Close enough Jasmine can see the small scar on the side of her face, the dimples on her cheeks, and the white of her smile. She’s so goddamn pretty.

Jasmine is about to tell her as much as they look at each other, but Mali starts talking.

“Jasmine, what’s your last name? My parents are going to want to know if they know you.”

“Kieta.”

“Hot,” Cam replies, writing on their quiz sheet. “I’m so glad you’re normal. I was terrified you were a weirdo. You’re on your own, and people with faces like yours are always a bit weird.”

“Cam,” Frankie admonishes, but Jasmine laughs.

“What’s wrong with my face?”

Cam frowns. “Nothing,” she says, then her brows rise. “Oh! I meant people as pretty as you are usually weird! Like Tyra Banks.”

Jasmine smiles and places her elbows on the table, her chin in her hands. “What’s your weird thing, then?” she asks. Cam beams at her.

“Girl, quit playing!”

“Cam’s not the two,” Frankie says in a sing-song voice, then Cam replies, “I’m the one!”

Laughter flits around the booth. Suddenly, Mali says, “Yay, Zach is here!” Jasmine shudders. Men. “And I think he brought Ezra.”

“Kai really didn’t come?” Frankie asks, and she looks away from Jasmine, which Jasmine doesn’t love, but she’ll get over it.

“You scared him,” Cam replied.

Frankie snorts, and Jasmine’s about to ask what they’re talking about, but two of the largest men she’s ever seen turn up.

She’s not sure which one is Zach and which is Ezra, but even as a lesbian, she can appreciate their attraction.

She glances over them both, stopping for a moment on the one with dreads.

The hairstyle has always worked for her, though she thinks they look better on women.

She won’t tell him that, though, because it’s rude.

Mali stands up, puts her hands on the cheeks of the one with dreads, and pulls him into a kiss.

She’s guessing it’s Zach, because she’d said his name with such love a moment ago, and he got a yay .

Ezra didn’t get a yay . Maybe that’s why he frowns at the table.

But Frankie and Cam wave, so Jasmine assumes that’s just what he looks like.

He’s massive. Bigger than anyone she’s ever seen before.

She wonders if they play sports, but that’s only because half her mind is on sports at the moment.

It’s the only thing Marcel wants to talk about.

If this quiz asks which footballer was sold for the highest price last year, she’ll be all over it.

She could slyly take a photo and send it to him.

If they were footballers, he’d tell her who they were.

Jasmine looks back at Frankie. She’s kind of adorable.

Her muscles are defined, and Jasmine wants to learn how to paint just to figure out the perfect way to replicate them on canvas.

Lani would help her. She loves beautiful things.

Jasmine is delighted with the way Frankie is already looking at her.

Not her face—her eyes are tracking something else.

Maybe her collarbone, maybe her boobs, she’s not sure.

She’ll wait for her gaze to come back around to her face, though.

Jasmine sits and watches. It takes Frankie a moment, and a lip bite, and Jasmine doesn’t care if it’s all for show.

She’s the one who’s watching. Frankie’s gaze falls back on her face, and if it was all for show, Frankie is a bad actress, because she blushes the moment she realises she’s caught.

She screws her nose up, and Jasmine smiles at her—a true smile.

A slight giggle that she’ll curse herself for later kind of smile.

She keeps her lips closed, but it’s a struggle.

“Hey,” Zach says to everyone. Jasmine smiles at him with a small wave, but his attention doesn’t stay on her.

He kisses Mali again. At the table. Like teenagers.

Ugh. Jasmine is so jealous. She loves love, but she’s been without it for so long that it’s made her a green-with-envy hater, on the inside. Outwardly, she’s smiling.

“Don’t hate them because they’re overly gross,” Frankie says quietly, leaning over the table to talk to her. Oops. Perhaps she wasn’t hiding her face all that well.

Jasmine looks at the thick muscles in her forearms, the way they twist into the most insane biceps she’s ever seen outside of her dreams, and almost sighs.

“They’re cute,” Jasmine replies, with a shrug.

She wants to look at Frankie again, but she’s caught on the way Frankie’s fingers tap against Jasmine’s drink.

Her rings clink against the glass, but Frankie doesn’t touch her.

Jasmine assumes that’s all part of it. The lure, the effect Frankie must have on any woman she looks at. It works.

Frankie ducks her head a little, like she’s looking for Jasmine’s gaze. “Tell your face that.”

Jasmine looks up at her and smiles, teeth and everything. Frankie is funny. It’s also funny when her jaw drops a little.

“God, you’re so beautiful,” Frankie says, her voice soft. Jasmine knows Frankie says this to everyone she chats up. Cam has made it clear. Still, her heart thumps in her chest all the same. Frankie has a confidence Jasmine wishes everyone had. She clearly sees what she wants and goes for it.

“You think so?” Jasmine asks.

“I do.”

Jasmine hums, then slides closer to the middle of her side of the booth. She looks down at the space next to her. “Wanna sit here?”

Frankie looks down at the table when she smiles, and Jasmine wishes she was closer so she could tilt her face back up to her. She forgives her, though, because she slides out of her side, and before Jasmine knows it, Frankie’s sitting right next to her.