Chapter 99: Chapter Ninety-Nine

Frankie stumbled into his bedroom, stripped off his shirt, and flopped down on the bed, bouncing slightly as the forty-year-old mattress protested his disrespect. He groaned as he rolled onto his back and patted around the bed for any notes Gloria may have passed through the slit above his headboard. When he found none, he pulled his phone out and squinted at the piercing light of the screen. Uggghhhh, he’d had way too much to drink.

After his father insisted on taking him to try on a tux, he told Frankie there was one last errand to run. His father proceeded to take him to his weekly poker tournament. Frankie was stunned, to say the least, that his tight-collared, Catholic father would gamble on a weekly basis. Even more so… he was good at it. Even more so… he was better than Frankie.

It was as he was puzzling out how his father was living this double life that he’d started accepting drinks from every old man sitting around the table. It turned out most of the men, though their livers had forty years on him, could hold their liquor far better. A couple hours in and Frankie was singing old sailor songs with them, toasting to his lifelong happiness with his future bride. His father had suckered him into an old-school bachelor party, just without a slut shaking her knockers in his face. Being grateful for that was the only thing that hadn’t surprised him that night. There was only one slut he wanted shaking her knockers in his face… and she wasn’t answering his fucking calls.

Frankie pulled up the tracker app on his phone, but after three failed password attempts due to his state of inebriation, he realized he’d need to find her another way. He shoved up from the mattress, dead set on figuring out why his little vixen didn’t have her phone on hand. He staggered a bit, placed a hand to his head and fell back onto the bed. This wouldn’t do. He had vixens to hunt. Then he heard her. He felt part of the sickness ease at knowing she was safe. He could take a few minutes to gain his drunken self and then…

Frankie’s train of thought stalled as he heard her knocking into things and then unleashing a fit of giggles. He wasn’t the only one who got drunk. Then the thought struck him: what exactly had she been up to that night? Another round of giggles from her side of the wall had him ripping out a sheet of notebook paper and scribbling furiously to figure out where she’d been when he heard the thwick of a paper falling from the slat in the wall.

He grabbed the paper from his bed only to realize it wasn’t a paper at all, it was a photograph: a Polaroid. Frankie flipped the picture over. His brain short-circuited. He couldn’t remember what he was mad about. He couldn’t remember what day it was or what his name w… Okay, he could figure that one out. The picture was very tasteful. It was taken from above. Soft lighting illuminated the glassiness of her eyes while casting the background in shadow. She was wearing a robe, but had pulled it off her shoulders, holding it up with one hand just below her breasts. He was rock-hard. And he was done waiting. Frankie shoved the photo in his pocket and grabbed the piece of paper he’d been writing on. He ripped the original section off with his teeth and wrote a new note, two words:

Car. Now.

Frankie didn’t wait for a response. He left the room, slamming the door behind him, not caring if he woke up the neighbors five houses down. He stomped down the stairs and pulled his car keys from his pocket. Two strides from the door, he heard the shuffling of feet against linoleum. He gripped the doorknob in his hand and turned enough to see his father watching him from the kitchen doorway, Alka-Seltzer tablet still dissolving in his glass of water.

“If you tell me to go back to bed or if you stop her from following me, I will fucking fight you, Dad,” Frankie warned. “And I’m too drunk to know if I’m hitting too hard.”

As if sensing his son meant every word, Frank Senior merely turned his back and raised the glass to his lips. Frankie nodded and left the house. As he walked to the car, his phone buzzed. Thinking it was Gloria set on arguing against him, he answered without looking at the ID.

“Get your fucking ass out here, now,” Frankie growled.

“So you know,” an Irish voice stated, fear lacing his words. Frankie stopped walking and glanced down at his caller ID: Malcolm. Frankie put his phone back to his ear as Malcolm’s frantic voice broke through the quiet of the night. “... tried to stop them. As soon as I learned they were here, I made them leave, I swear! And they did! Right away!”

Frankie clicked the key fob and the lights on the SUV illuminated the street around him. “What the fuck are you talking about, Malcolm?”

“I… uh… The girl you told me that wasn’t allowed in Mirrors… She showed up with Nora tonight.”

Frankie’s hand paused on the door handle and he chuckled darkly. “Is that so?”

“I swear, I tried to get them to leave before…”

“Before? You said two minutes ago they left when you told them to.”

“I did?”

“Hmm,” Frankie hummed as he got into the second row.

“I… uh…”

“What did they do at your establishment, Malcolm?” Frankie asked, his voice deadly.

“I… I don’t…”

“If you tell me you don’t know then I’ll have to assume you can’t handle the day-to-day of your own establishment and rectify that situation in one of two ways: burning it to the ground as promised, or seeing a new club owner installed.”

“They had a show in the green room. The guy was only there for about ten minutes.”

Frankie thought of the last show he’d seen there that lasted ten minutes. “Who?”

“I don’t know. Really, I don’t!”

Frankie’s attention turned to the front door as it came open. Gloria was still in the robe she’d worn for the photo but now she held it tightly closed by her throat. She looked around the yard before scampering down the front walk and across the street, looking both ways like a good girl.

“I’ll be in touch, Malcolm,” Frankie said, ignoring the man’s pleas as he hung up the phone.

Thanks to the tint of the windows, Gloria didn’t realize Frankie wasn’t waiting for her in the driver’s seat. She hopped in, excitement painting her face a blotchy red.

“So, I take it you like…” Her head turned and he watched her face twist in confusion at the empty seat beside her.

Frankie launched forward. Her scream was muffled behind his hand as grabbed her from the opening of the center console and dragged her back to the second row. Her feet flailed and her arms fought to get out of his bear hug until he pulled her flush against his chest.

As if she’d memorized the planes of his body, she immediately stilled and liquified. Hand on a bible, he would have sworn she moaned as she stretched her body back to mold against his. Her neck folded back against his shoulder and her legs wrapped around his. For a moment, he gave in and ran his nose up her throat, inhaling her scent as if he’d been denied her flesh for a decade rather than five days. She was primed and ready for him. Then he remembered the call he’d just received and wondered if she was primed and ready for him.

Frankie clamped his teeth against her earlobe until she whimpered. “I heard you did something naughty tonight, Vixen.”

Her breathing stalled for a moment, then picked up at a faster rate. She shook her head and ground her hips against him.

“Don’t distract me. Tell the truth and I’ll make the sentence light. Did you have fun?”

She nodded.

“Ohh, wrong answer,” he said, pulling his hips away so she couldn’t rub herself against his straining erection anymore. She whined. “Was his dick bigger than mine?”

He could feel her tense and sense her hesitation. Already not a good sign. Then she nodded. Frankie growled. He lifted her up and threw her down on the seat so that she was lying on her back, her throat clasped in his hand while he kneeled above her, one foot on the floorboard, one knee propped up on the seat by her hip. Her hands gripped the forearm of the arm he was using to keep her pinned but instead of having the desired effect of making her nervous, her pupils dilated and her hips rose up as if in encouragement. At least she didn’t seem satisfied, he thought.

“You saw his dick?!” he roared.

She nodded and licked her lips.

His eyebrows rose to his hairline. She certainly wasn’t acting like she had something to atone for. “And you think he’s bigger than me?”

She shrugged and gargled something out that sounded like, “Let me see yours again so I can compare.”

Frankie loosened his hold but lowered himself down. “I can assure you, Gloria, this is no laughing matter. I made my possession of you quite clear and if I find out another man…”

“Don’t worry, Frankie Donati, you’re still the only name on my list,” she whispered with a grin.

“I want to know exactly what…”

“He was Polly’s brother,” she interjected again. Frankie pulled back slightly.

“You cannot still be mad about that,” he rationalized.

She gave him a look of dubious disbelief. “I had a bachelorette thrown for me where a guy danced near me and you’re in a rage. Yes, I’m still mad that you let that woman put your dick in her mouth.”

He exhaled a laugh. “Did he touch you?”

She shook her head.

“Were you attracted to him?”

She took her time and the smirk pulling at her lips told him she was dragging out her answer to purposefully goad him. Eventually she shook her head slowly back and forth.

“I’m still going to beat him to a bloody pulp. Him and Malcolm,” Frankie informed her.

“It’s really not necessary,” she assured him.

Frankie scoffed. “I believe it’s incredibly necessary, Vixen. I deserve to have my own bachelor party, don’t I? Don’t take this from me.”

She shrugged and nodded.

“Now,” Frankie said, letting out a steadying breath. “Back to what brought us out here in the first place.”