Page 31 of The Ex Effect (Meet Cute in Minnesota #1)

EIGHTEEN

MORGAN

So, Frankie wasn’t married anymore. Like really not married. No reason to grab a local priest and confess my lusting after another person’s wife or bury my face in shame. But also no reason to go to bed thinking of her every night.

Three weeks had passed since we talked at the farm until the moon filled the sky, and a couple of things had happened.

One, we made so much progress on the farm that I had solid hope on the horizon.

Two, our relationship settled back into the friendship we once had.

Three, I was slowly, quietly, heartbreakingly, falling back in love.

Was that stupid? Absolutely. But this time I knew what I was getting myself into.

Frankie had been nothing but upfront and honest about moving back to New York, and I couldn’t blame her.

The opportunity at Birch & Willow was beyond all dreams. And even if Frankie didn’t get that opportunity, it was clear Frankie had made a life out there.

Last week, she mentioned I should come visit her sometime.

She said she’d take me to all the spots, the Twin Towers memorial, Times Square, and Central Park, of course.

But then she’d show me the real city. Frankie would take me to her favorite place in Spanish Harlem for apparently the best homemade horchata ice cream of my life.

We’d go to an Italian restaurant, Louie & Giovanni’s, that looked like a hole-in-the-wall with nothing more than red-checkered tablecloths and uncomfortable wooden chairs.

But Frankie said the place took at least a month to land a reservation and the rigatoni was the best in the city.

Then we’d swing by a queer art gallery in Queens that only had a black door, no signage, and you had to walk up a hidden cement stairway to enter.

The first time Frankie visited, she said she thought she was being led to her death.

After that, we’d have a tarot card reading in the basement of a cigar shop with a ninety-year-old woman who was so gifted Frankie was sure she could read her soul.

I skipped up the three porch steps to Peaches’s house, knocked twice, then cracked open the door. “You decent?”

“Depends on your definition.” Frankie rounded the corner, carrying a large box and, of course , wearing her signature T-shirt that somehow perfectly accentuated her forearm muscles.

Was it normal to have a “thing” for forearms?

I couldn’t ever remember being attracted to this random body part, and here I was, salivating at the sun-kissed skin, with the deep ridge carving all the way to the elbow.

That’s it. No more jokes. I really needed to get laid.

“Dang, you made a ton of progress since yesterday.” I looked at the twenty-plus boxes stacked against the wall. “We didn’t even leave the barn until after seven last night.”

“I know.” Frankie plunked the box on top of another, pushed it against the side of the wall, and breathed bangs out of her face. “Got my second wind and packed until midnight. Hyperfocus for the win. Doesn’t always happen, but when it does, ya gotta seize onto that shit, baby.”

When Frankie had finally opened up about being diagnosed with ADHD, the puzzle pieces had connected.

Sure, she was always hyperactive. Honestly, I thought that’s what made her such a tremendous athlete since she had an unlimited supply of energy to burn.

From study sessions where Frankie couldn’t focus and I’d get so pissed, to being late due to “losing track of time,” to Frankie constantly interrupting me, making me feel like my opinions didn’t matter… it all made sense.

“I texted Olivia last night, and we’re going to mark each table with an aged photo.

” I followed Frankie into the kitchen and helped her roll packing paper around glasses.

“Table one will show a picture of each person when they were a year old. Table two, two years old, etc. I think it’s going to be really cute. ”

“That’s a good idea.” Frankie stretched to reach the top shelf and pulled out the last two glasses. I tried hard not to notice her perfect ass as she did it, but I failed. As per most of our interactions. “Adds something interesting for people to look at while waiting for dinner.”

I peeked at the towers of boxes, several of them with the word Photos splashed across in Sharpie. “Dang…I can’t believe all these boxes. How many photos did Peaches collect over the years?”

“A gazillion. Funny enough, it took me until now to realize my love of photography was probably inspired by Peaches.” Frankie stuffed newspaper into the box. “You can look through them if you want. There’s a ton of Quinn and me, but surprisingly a bunch of you.”

I snapped my gaze at Frankie. “Me?”

“Yeah. I mean, not solo pics of you, but pics of us. Proms, homecoming, my sports, when we graduated…” Frankie’s voice went low.

High school graduation, both a high and a low point in my life.

No matter how close me and Frankie had become over these last seven weeks, we’d avoided talking about what actually happened that day.

Because clearly I didn’t have enough to occupy my time between planning the wedding and getting the barn ready, I spent my downtime reliving my last year with Frankie.

Sure, that night was tattooed on my brain as the greatest devastation I’d ever felt, but it wasn’t like everything was perfect until that moment and it snapped.

Even though it was easy to look back and think that graduation was when everything collapsed, that wasn’t the truth.

Frankie stepped into the hallway and returned with a plastic tote that I swear was large enough to hold a king-size bed. She set it on the floor next to me and returned to sifting through the kitchen cabinet drawers. “Here’s another one. She’s got more in the basement, but you can get started.”

Inside the tote were maybe a half dozen photo albums, and the rest shoe boxes overflowing with hundreds and hundreds of photos. “What are you going to do with these?”

“I’m not sure. I can’t throw them, but I don’t have the time to sift through them.

I was going to ask my parents to hold on to them, but they’re as responsible as a pack of ferrets, so I’m not sure I should.

” Frankie ripped tape across the box and scribbled with a marker.

“I might just hire someone to scan them. Dig through and take any that you want.”

I sat cross-legged on the floor and shuffled through.

God, so many photos. Peaches’s small garden, her grandkids, plants, and animals.

There seemed no rhyme or reason to the organization, except that the pictures were roughly separated by decades.

I opened the Frankie and Quinn box. A smile passed my lips at the dozens of photos.

“You were such a cute little kid. What happened?” I grinned and ducked as Frankie balled up a sheet of newspaper and threw it at me.

Photos of Frankie with a chocolate-smeared face, riding a bike with a lopsided helmet, her and Quinn in a strawberry field with gap-toothed smiles holding up red-stained hands. More and more pictures. I smothered myself in the nostalgia.

More pictures, Frankie growing older, skating on the ice rink, running on the field. Frankie with a huge Nike headband on her forehead, soccer ball tucked under her elbow, her arm slung around a teammate.

“Oh my God, I remember this place.” I held up the picture of Frankie and Quinn sitting in their hoodies around a firepit. “Did Peaches keep her Brainerd cabin?”

Frankie leaned forward and squinted. “Nah. She got rid of that like twelve, thirteen years ago. Too bad, too. That baby would be worth a fortune by now.”

No doubt. I thanked my lucky stars I bought my small townhouse when I did, back when home prices were affordable and interest rates were next to nothing.

I sifted through more pictures when I found the box .

Maybe it was because they’d grown older and Quinn was doing her own thing, but soon Frankie and Quinn pictures morphed into Frankie and Morgan pictures.

Thickness built in my throat as I flipped through dozens of photos.

Frankie and I running through sprinklers, having a sleepover in Peaches’s house with a plastic gallon ice-cream bucket filled with buttered popcorn.

More photos of sporting events, standing outside the movie theater after Peaches dropped us off.

Of course, I distinctly remembered telling our parents we were going to watch some PG movie, then sneaking in to watch an R-rated horror movie.

We stuffed ourselves with so many grape pixie sticks that I threw up after I got home.

I kept flipping. More pictures of us as we grew older, both of us holding up our driver’s licenses with a big thumbs-up, and of course, prom.

The prom photos nearly made my eyes prickle.

Frankie had her long hair slicked back in a tight ponytail and wore an oversized suit with a tie.

I vaguely remembered Frankie’s parents throwing a fit and begging her to wear a dress, which Frankie, always the tomboy, had scoffed at.

But I had felt like a princess that night.

Floor-length, dark blue, spaghetti-strap, draped dress with a sequined corset top and matching blue heels.

I’d spent the two weeks prior learning to walk in heels and had loved being nearly as tall as Frankie that night.

As Frankie’s shipping tape screeched, adhering another box, I kept sifting.

And then, the picture of high school graduation.

My breath froze. The before picture was full of hopeful smiles, glowing with the energy of people ready to enter the real world.

My pinkie flicked the top corner of the photo, lost in the memory of that day, a swirl of cap throwing, cheering, and sobbing while saying goodbye to friends.

“What are you looking at over there?” Frankie asked as she tossed utensils into a box.

“Oh, um…” I cleared my throat and tossed the photo into the box. “Nothing.”

I needed to address our relationship, and soon.

The closure we both deserved lingered like a droopy, gray cloud.

No matter how much the conversation was digging into the tip of my tongue, I just couldn’t release it.

I wasn’t ready to hear the confirmation that I wasn’t good enough for Frankie to have stayed back.

“Hey, you good if we swing by the donation center and drop off a load on the way to Zoey’s Bakery?” Frankie asked.

I checked my watch and lifted myself from the floor. “If we don’t leave now, we won’t get to the bakery a proper ten minutes prior, then we’ll be late.”

“Heaven forbid.” Frankie smirked, then paused. She shifted, her expression serious, and took a quick breath. “So sorry. I didn’t mean that. Of course we’ll make sure to get there early. That’s important for you, so…it’s important to me.”

Wow. Frankie really had heard me the other week about punctuality. A warmth spread through me.

“Hey, maybe after Zoey’s we can…” Frankie started to say but closed her mouth when she heaved a box and moved to the front door. “Oh shit, that’s heavy. Can you grab the door?”

I scooted to the door and opened it, being super helpful by following Frankie to the truck, armed and ready to call out if any rogue squirrels ran in her path.

After she dropped the box into the bed with a heavy thud, I walked with her back into the house.

“What were you saying, about after Zoey’s? ”

Frankie lifted a box and squinted. “Oh. Sorry. Who knows? I’m like a fish, I swear. If it didn’t happen two seconds ago, I have no idea.”

Those were her words, but her avoided eye contact conveyed something else. I lifted a smaller box, my insides unsettled, and trailed Frankie back to the truck.