“It’s a face mask, Frankie. It’s supposed to make me beautiful.”
“I hate to break this to you, but they lied. You should have read the small print.”
Eva smiled and the mask started to crack. “How was your date? I mean dinner,” she corrected herself quickly. “Dinner. I know it wasn’t a date.”
“It was—” how could she describe it? It had been magical, exciting, terrifying “—it was different.”
“Different ‘good’, or different ‘get me out of here’?”
“Good.”
“Where did he take you?”
“Central Park. We walked, we talked and then we had dinner.”
“Was it stressful?”
“It was pretty much perfect.” Apart from the point when he’d invited her to Puffin Island, but she was trying not to think about that. And he hadn’t kissed her.
Dammit, why hadn’t he kissed her?
“Thanks for the loan of the purse. I’ll have the tunic cleaned.” Distracted, Frankie handed over the purse and took a closer look at Eva’s face. “Did you get some of that stuff in your eyes? They look bloodshot.”
“Oh!” Eva lifted her fingers to her cheek, flustered. “Maybe. Clumsy me. Do you want to come in? We could hang out for a while and open a bottle of wine.” She opened the door wider but Frankie shook her head.
She was about to ask where Paige was and then remembered that she was with Jake. Which meant Eva was on her own with plenty of time to brood. How could she have forgotten that? “Paige is staying with Jake tonight. Are you going to be all right?”
“Of course! I’m enjoying a quiet night in on my own. I’d forgotten how good it feels to do that once in a while. I’m going to rinse this thing off my face and settle down with popcorn and Netflix.”
“What are you going to watch?”
“I don’t know. Something you would never watch in a million years. There will be kissing. And happy endings. We both know romantic movies are your idea of hell. See you tomorrow!”
The door closed between them and Frankie returned to her apartment, wondering why she felt uneasy.
Eva was an adult. If she’d wanted company she would have said so.
She took a shower and settled down with her book but for once the words, even those written by Lucas Blade, didn’t hold her attention. She kept thinking about Matt and mingled in there was concern for her friend.
Eva had said she was fine, but what if she wasn’t?
If Paige had been home, she wouldn’t have worried. Paige was so much better than Frankie was at delivering emotional support when it was needed. Not that Frankie considered herself a bad friend because she didn’t. She was rock-solid, loyal and deeply caring in her own way, but she was the first to admit that in an emotional crisis, she wasn’t good. An excess of emotions unnerved her. It always had. Whether she’d been born that way or whether it had been created on the blustery seas of her parents’ divorce she didn’t know, but whenever emotions were intense she wanted to slide into a dark hole and hide until the storm passed. She felt inept and useless.
But tonight there was no Paige, which meant that Eva was on her own.
The thought nagged at her, preventing her from relaxing.
She reached for her phone, wondering if she should text her friend, but then put it down again.
What good would that do? She’d say “Are you okay?” and Eva would reply “Yes. You?”
She was probably deep into a romantic movie.
Impatient with herself, Frankie tried to read her book but she couldn’t focus. Ten minutes later she glanced at the clock.
What if Eva wasn’t watching anything?
What if she’d poked herself in the eye again trying to remove the face mask? Her eyes had been red and—