Always Only You by Chloe Liese (z-lib.org).epub

“Have you ever felt like I treat you that way?”
“No,” she says immediately.
My heart does a celebratory somersault.
“But…” Frankie spins her necklace and watches me carefully. “We haven’t
been in a relationship.”
“But I’ve wanted to be.”
Her fingers pause. A blush pinks her cheeks. “It’s not the same.”
“You’re right. So let me promise you, here and now, that I will never view
you as a burden or a problem to be surmounted. You’re a person, Frankie, one
that I’m wild about. And any hardships, anything difficult in your life, well, I’ll
just be grateful that I get to be with you as you weather it.”
“Until it gets old,” she says flatly. “Everyone starts out talking like you,
Ren.”
I try not to let it hurt. I have to remind myself that her doubt and distrust
aren’t about me. They’re about her past and how it hurt her. For someone whose
thinking is as analytical and pattern oriented as Frankie’s, the past is the best
predictor of the future.
“Okay,” I concede. “I know that it might be hard to trust me, that I will never
see you that way. I understand it might require time to experience that. So, if
you’re willing to give me a chance to earn your trust in that capacity, I’ll be
content. We can go slow, take our time. The only thing I ask for is exclusivity.”
She balks. “Of course, I’d be exclusive.” Reaching, she smacks my arm.
“What kind of asshole do you think I am?”
“Well, I don’t know what the kids are doing these days.”
“The kids? Ren, I’m older than you.”
“By a whopping one year.”
She rolls her eyes.
“I just…” I sigh. “I just need faithfulness. That’s it.”
Frankie snatches a roll from the bread baskets, rips it open, and smashes
some butter into it, entirely focused on her task while she mutters under her
breath.
“What are you grumbling to yourself?” I ask her.
Frankie gives me a withering stare and says around a bite of bread, “As if I’d
want anyone else if I had you.”
Affection unfurls inside me as her words settle, warm and deep in my heart.
“That’s a very nice thing to say, Francesca. And you do have me.”
The way she looks at me, her fear and vulnerability gut-wrenchingly close to
the surface, is like a blow to the chest. As is so often the case with Frankie—and
I’ve noticed this with my sister, Ziggy, too—her mind sees the world incisively,