Page 97 of Made in Love and Blood

He laughed. “Jealous, really? Over a fetus?”

“I’m being serious. I mean, I’ve been an only child my whole life. I’m eighteen, so what am I even going to do with a sibling that’s basically two decades younger than me, right? I don’t get why it matters to me at all.”

“You know what you’ll get to be?”

“What?”

He smiled. “The best fucking big sister a kid could have. The coolest sister ever. Imagine showing up to a soccer game with you. Or getting dropped off to school in the cars you drive. And you get to give them something you didn’t have. Another person who gets it. You understand what it’s like to live in that house with those people, even if those people are doing better than they used to.”

Not that her father and Carina were, but...it wasn’t the point.

“You get to be their person,” he added. “Maybe you had a person in a way. Your dad. Sissy. I’m telling you, it’s not the same. You can’t understand right now because the baby is not really here, and kinda, sorta there. When it’s real, you’ll start to get it, Frankie. I’m telling you.”

“Is that how you feel about your little sister?”

“You had to go right for the gut punch, huh?”

She just shrugged.

Nico kept his attention on the road, needing the distraction to talk about Carmen, given his feelings about her safety and place in the world had been shifted recently. “It’s not the same with me and her. Well, it is...but it also isn’t.”

“Why?”

“Because up until recently, it really felt like that little girl was the only person in my whole world who gave a shit about me. Who loved me regardless of the rest. Like she would care if I fell off the face of the planet.”

“Recently, huh?” Frankie whispered.

His gaze darted her way.

She stared back, teeth pulling at her bottom lip.

“Stop it,” he said, grinning, “you look at me like that, and it makes me want to—”

“What? Love me?”

Love her. Fuck her. Keep her.

All three, on repeat, each second of every day, for the rest of his life. He didn’t know how to how to cope with such intense emotions when they warred for attention, time, and space in his mind and body every time he had this girl within arms reach.

She couldn’t possibly know what she did to him. She couldn’t feel the same way he did. She was so much better and beautiful and everything that he just wasn’t. She didn’t even have to try.

Frankie couldn’t possibly—

“You’re hurting my hand,” she told him.

Instantly, Nico loosened the grip he hadn’t realized was too tight. “Sorry.”

“Where’d you go just then? Your eyes stayed straight ahead, but your face...”

He couldn’t bring himself to share his thoughts. Not when they were so insecure and sad, and fearful.

“Are you scared to love me?” she asked, reading him like an open book once again.

“No,” he lied.

“Well, I’m not scared to say I love—”

“Don’t do that,” Nico interjected, his gaze snapping to her in the next breath. “Don’t do that in a car while we’re driving down the road, and it’s been a great day. Don’t tell me that when everything feels good, and perfect and right.”