Page 76 of The Worst Best Man

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Frankie hadn’t exactly meant to let him spend the night. But lounging in her bed with naked Aiden Adonis wrapped around her was too decadent to put a stop to. Plus, the heat that his ridiculously perfect body pumped off was more than enough to keep her warm in her Arctic breeze apartment. The windows were drafty, and the building’s furnace had been on its last legs for years. But the rent was affordable, and it was close to her parents.

So she dressed in layers and piled blankets on her bed. The bed that Aiden had dominated last night with his large frame. The bed that he’d been too polite to complain about with its lumpy mattress and sagging box springs. It was on her list of things to replace when she was finally done paying for grad school. Sure. She’d have some student loans, but for the most part, she’d shouldered the burden up front, paying as much of her tuition as she could out of pocket.

Frankie poked her head out of the bathroom and eyed the damage a vigorous night of lovemaking caused while she brushed her teeth. Her blankets were in a pile on the floor, and at one point, someone’s foot or arm had swept the nightstand clean. It looked as though she was going to need a new lamp.

Worth it.

Aiden had pressed a kiss to her forehead on his way out at the ungodly hour of five.

He had early meetings and needed to get home to shower and change.

She, on the other hand, had lounged about in her bed on sheets that smelled like him until her alarm sounded two hours later.

She’d showered, leisurely, and then decided to treat herself to a coffee—the expensive kind—at the hipster café on her way to work.

“Good morning,” Frankie said as she breezed through the glass door of the office. Brenda, the receptionist and part-owner of the Brooklyn Heights Small Business Development Center, shivered at the draft of winter air that followed Frankie inside and huddled closer to the space heater under her desk.

It was a cheery if not chic space. Just last year Frankie had come in on a Sunday to help Brenda and her husband Raul paint the industrial gray walls a nice, clean white. They’d decorated with art by local Brooklynites. Paintings of storefronts, sketches of the skyline and streets. Brenda had added a veritable garden of plants for pops of green and “air filtering.”

“Girl, you are going to freeze to death walking to work,” Brenda tut-tutted.

Frankie laughed and unwound the wool scarf from her neck, looping it over the coat rack. After last night, she felt she had heat to spare for the six-block walk having taken so much of Aiden’s.

“Ilikewalking to work. Because the walk allows me to do this.” She handed over the small green tea she’d picked up for Brenda.

The woman wiggled her fingers and reached for the cup. “Gimmie! Forget what I said. Walk all you want. Who cares about frostbite when you bring me green tea?”

“How did Daisy Scouts go last night?” Frankie asked, shrugging out of her coat and carrying her bag over to her desk.

Brenda had been called to babysit her granddaughter’s Daisy troop when the scout leader—Brenda’s daughter—came down with a case of front row seats to see Bon Jovi.

“I drank half a bottle of wine after they left. Thirteen seven-year-olds.” Brenda shook her head and then patted her hair to make sure it was still in place. She wore her dark hair in dozens of tiny braids coiled in a bun at the base of her neck. “My dining table looks like a glitter bomb went off.”

“I warned you not to do sparkly or sticky crafts!”

“Lesson learned,” Brenda sighed. “What about you? How was your mysterious dinner date?”

Frankie had been cagey about her evening plans, which had raised Brenda’s red flag immediately.

“It was uh… good.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Brenda said.

Frankie felt the color on her cheeks rising. She’d donned a turtleneck today to cover the bruise between her neck and shoulder where Aiden had gotten just a little overzealous with his mouth.She’d have to lay down the law before next time: No visible hickeys.

The thought that there would be a next time? Now her cheeks were flaming.

“Girl, the shades of pink you’re turning are making meverycurious.”

“I had dinner with… the guy I’m… my boyfriend?” That’s technically what he was. Wasn’t it? It was too much of a mouthful to say the guy I’m seeing temporarily and enjoying naked.

“Boyfriend?” Brenda perked up. She popped the lid off her green tea and blew on the steam. “Details, please.”

“Don’t we have to get ready for the social media workshop?” Frankie asked hopefully. She pulled her laptop out of her bag and booted it up.

“The one you have giver every month for the past year? I think we’ve got it down to a science. Spill.”