Page 181 of Made in Love and Blood

“Yeah.”

“Don’t be scared, baby, he loves you.”

“I don’t know why.”

She did awful things. Selfish things.

Her tears started anew.

“Oh, Frankie...don’t cry, please.”

She tried not to, but the only thing that finally made the tears dry up was when Nico got deep under those blankets with her, laid side by side, tangling their naked legs together, and his arms just swallowed her whole. Her head found the safe spot under his chin where he always smelled like honeyed vanilla because of her perfume.

“He does everything for me, he gave me everything, and I just...said fuck it.”

“No, you didn’t,” Nico assured, “and he doesn’t see it that way.”

“You don’t know that.”

He held her tighter. “I don’t have to. He loves you.”

“Love doesn’t change what I did.”

“No, but it counts for a lot in the meantime. It softens the blow.”

“Did it ever soften your father’s blow?”

“That’s not love,” Nico whispered back, holding her tighter, “and I know that now.”

•••

“How have you still not slept?” she asked Nico.

Reading a book where he sat against the headboard in nothing but boxer-briefs as it neared noon, Nico didn’t seem at all bothered by her question. “I can’t sleep.”

“You can any other night. You love naps with me.”

“I can’t sleep,” he repeated.

“Why not?”

Dragging a towel through her damp hair from an earlier shower, she waited for Nico to explain whatever troubled him.

“I haven’t been sleeping for the last couple of weeks,” he admitted then.

Frankie stilled, the towel still scrunched against her head and hair. “You haven’t?”

“You’ve been sleeping like a log. I just enjoy watching your face when you dream.”

“Nico...”

“Can you grab my jacket on the chair over there?” he asked, nodding at the item in question in the corner. “I need something in it.”

“Are you going to tell me why you’re not sleeping?”

“A couple of things, actually.”

“What?”