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Frank was in a bit of a jam. As he walked up to McKay, he tried to appear confident. Confidence was key in these types of situations, he knew. McKay glanced up at his arrival, a pleasant expression on her face. Once she’d fully looked at him, though, McKay frowned. “What’s got you looking so nervous?”
Well, it seemed that confidence was out and begging was in. Frank mused that this had become a general theme of his life during the last year and a half. But if he couldn’t put his baby blues to good use, what was the point of even having them? With that, Frank switched tactics. “Cassie, I need your help.”
McKay was now looking at him like she’d swallowed a bug. “I don’t know what you’re trying to do with your face right now, but it’s not working for you.”
Frank needed nicer friends, actually. That was now officially on his to-do list, penciled in right below getting someone to accompany him to a bar with Mel and her stupid friends. McKay was the obvious choice, as they could both be sober and—possibly—miserable together. On top of that, McKay was his cool, older friend. Collins would probably have tried to score him a bed up in psych if he’d asked her to go out for drinks with their 20-something coworkers. It would also maybe be a little inappropriate now that Collins was no longer a resident herself. Either way, Frank had skipped over asking her entirely.
“Don’t be mean to me right now, Cass, I’m in distress,” Frank whined.
McKay did not look particularly concerned by this and Frank realized, with a little bit of horror, that her bangs were at a six-point-eight out of ten on his soon-to-be-trademarked scale for measuring how frazzled McKay was at any given time. Oh, he was fucked. “Frank, what do you want? Do you need to switch shifts? Expecting a difficult NA meeting? Custody pep talk? Just tell me.”
As McKay listed out these possible topics, Frank felt even more dread. She was in a mood and was not going to like this at all. But McKay was now looking at him very expectantly, like she wanted an answer from him in the next five seconds. So Frank blurted out the first thing that popped into his head. “You know Mel.”
McKay stared at him for a long moment before squinting back down at her tablet, as if she was too busy for wherever this conversation could possibly be going. “Yes, Frank, I do know our coworker, Mel.”
Okay, that was a start. Not a great one, but it was something. “I think she—.” Frank cut himself off because, while Mel hadn’t told him this directly, he was almost certain it was the case. “No, I know she thinks I hate her friends.”
During the ten months Frank was missing in action, Mel had somehow befriended Santos and, by extension, Whitaker. Frank had gathered that those two were roommates now from Garcia, though he hadn’t exactly asked for that information—Garcia just sometimes complained about “the little Victorian ghost” who floated around Santos’ apartment when she was there for a booty call and it wasn’t particularly difficult to put two and two together.
That wasn’t the important part, though. When Frank returned to the ED in July of last year, he and Mel had kind of picked up where they left off. Mel had been so genuinely excited to see him that it immediately derailed all of his plans to stick to himself that first day back. And she never really stopped being excited to see him, which was very—well, it was way more than Frank deserved after how he’d left things.
Frank honestly had never met anyone like Mel, which sounded cliché and heavy-handed but felt closest to the truth of things. Mel was compassionate, funny, and stronger than anyone he’d ever known. She liked rap music that Frank couldn’t play in front of his kids, gushed over the babies that came into the ED in a way that made his chest feel tight, and hated Elf with an intensity usually reserved for war criminals. Mel was special. That wasn’t an opinion unique to Frank, but Mel also seemed to think that he was special, which actually might have been an opinion unique to Mel.
This was why Frank had been perturbed by the trio’s existence. It obviously wasn’t Frank’s place to dictate who Mel hung out with, but he couldn’t help feeling just a tad territorial over her. Before Frank had even clocked those feelings for what they were, though, they had managed to seep into his interactions with Santos and Whitaker. Mel was more perceptive than people gave her credit for so she’d definitely noticed, but Frank was pretty positive she chalked it up to him disliking them instead of it being based in jealousy. And, yes, Frank knew the whole thing was fucking weird. He was working on it with his therapist. Greg had it handled, or whatever.
“Well, do you?” McKay asked and, at Frank’s slightly dazed expression, let out a long-suffering sigh. “Do you hate Mel’s friends?”
“I don’t hate Whitaker,” Frank blurted out, without considering the implications of that statement. He scrambled at McKay’s raised eyebrow. “And I don’t hate Santos, either. Not exactly. It’s a strained dynamic, sure, but she’s…growing on me?”
“What a glowing endorsement,” McKay remarked dryly. Her tablet was now resting on her hip and she looked at Frank with thinly-veiled impatience. “How exactly am I supposed to help you with that, Langdon?”
Frank thought it might be better to rip off the Band-Aid instead of dragging it out any longer. If McKay was truly as busy as she seemed, she was going to murder him if he kept her any longer than strictly necessary for something frivolous. And while Frank did not consider this to be a frivolous request, he had a sneaking suspicion that McKay was going to disagree with him. Frank winced a bit in anticipation as he spoke, “By going to a bar with us? Tonight?”
McKay laughed before he’d even finished asking. “Frank, you cannot be serious.” At his dismayed expression, though, her laughter suddenly dried up. “Oh god, you are serious.”
“I’m guessing that’s a no?” Frank ventured, embarrassed enough by her laughter that he was immediately ready to accept defeat.
“Of course it’s a no,” McKay responded, looking at him like he’d grown a second head. “I’m not going to a bar with the children.”
“You do know that Whitaker is probably five years younger than me, at most,” Frank told her, now offended that McKay thought he was getting drinks with children.
McKay chuckled. “Frank, I don’t know how to tell you this, but you are one of the children.”
“I’m thirty-two, McKay,” he objected. “I have two children of my own and I’m divorced. I’ve been to rehab. I’m a fucking adult.”
McKay’s expression was fond as she patted him lightly on his shoulder…like one would console a child. “I hope you have a lot of fun tonight, bud.” She began walking away before turning back to call out, “Hey, why don’t you ask Samira if she wants to go? She really needs to get out more.”
“Langdon already asked me,” Samira said, without looking up, and everything Mel had been planning to say suddenly became obsolete.
Mel floundered a bit. “Oh?”
Samira did look up at her then, her expression kind but firm. “And I told him no.”
“Oh,” Mel said again, completely unsure of how to proceed. She considered just leaving it alone for a moment. It would probably be fine. But then Mel remembered the awkward silence that had fallen over the locker room the last time it was just her, Frank, Santos, and Whitaker in there. It suddenly felt like a real crisis. “What if I asked really, really nicely for you to reconsider?”
Samira sighed and looked up to the heavens as if she was requesting assistance from a higher power. She glanced at Mel again, eyebrows raised. “Why do you both want me there so badly?”
Mel couldn’t speak for Frank, obviously, but she assumed their motivations were similar. Mel suspected that Frank didn’t like Santos or Whitaker very much. For months, he had been standoffish with the two of them in a way he wasn’t with any of their other coworkers—excluding Robby, but that was an entirely different can of worms Mel was trying not to open. If it had just been Santos he was weird around, Mel would have assumed it stemmed from the same leftover resentment Frank had toward Robby and not worried about it too much. But Whitaker? He had been clueless about the whole stealing drugs thing.
The longer it went on, the more Mel was sure that Frank just disliked them. And that would have been fine if Mel hadn’t liked Frank so much. It—it was embarrassing, she knew, to have had a crush as quickly as she did. And it was even more embarrassing to adore him so much now that she regularly thought about what it would be like to grocery shop with him, wait in line at the DMV together, or bring him along for dinner with her friends when their schedules all magically aligned.
So it was really quite important to Mel that Frank came to appreciate Santos and Whitaker. Mel had recently noticed Frank trying to make an effort with the two of them, but it had been a little painful to watch. It was clear that Frank felt obligated to be friendly for her sake but didn’t really want to be doing it. It seemed to agitate him, making his already biting humor even worse than usual, and then he would accidentally offend one of them, and—Mel just wanted tonight to go well. And that was where Samira came in. Mel needed a buffer, and she and Frank both liked her.
Samira was now in her last year of residency and Frank had been forced to restart his own, so the two had fallen into a camaraderie that never existed back when Frank was more senior. Mel thought the mutual exasperation toward Robby also helped, but she would deny that if anyone ever asked.
Mel had bonded with Samira over a car crash case involving a father and daughter veering off the road. The father had died on impact, but the daughter made it out with mostly minor injuries. Mel found it very upsetting because of her own father’s death in a car crash—almost twenty years ago now, god —and had tried to escape to the stairwell to cry for a minute. But Samira had already been there. Samira had tearfully told Mel about her own father’s passing and Mel offered up her phone so they could both look at the lava lamp app together. Samira had seemed a little bemused by this proposal but the two had sat there, silently staring for several, long minutes before their pagers went off. Mel and Samira had been work buddies since then. Samira was a lot like Robby, though, in the way that friendship didn’t extend past the doors of the ED for her. But that was okay. Mel didn’t want to push too hard and unintentionally violate Samira’s boundaries.
Well, that was usually Mel’s approach. In this moment, though, Mel really needed Samira to come out with them. “We both enjoy your company?” Mel hesitantly answered. Even though that was true, Mel decided that honesty was always the best policy once confronted by Samira’s unimpressed look. “I want everyone to have a good time together, okay? And Fr–Langdon doesn’t really like Santos or Whitaker, I think. So I need you there to help ease the tension.”
“You want me to go out tonight when you’re openly admitting it will be tense?” Samira asked, eyebrows now furrowed. “You’re not really selling it to me, Mel.”
“Please, Samira,” Mel begged.
Samira’s resolute expression wavered a bit at Mel’s tone. “Why is it so important to you that tonight goes well?”
Mel couldn’t answer that without potentially putting both Samira and Frank in an awkward position. For Samira, it would just be the knowledge of Mel’s feelings, but for Frank? His divorce had only been finalized three months ago and he was so close to a full year of sobriety. Mel sometimes thought he might return her feelings, but she wasn’t interested in adding any further stress to his life just so she could find out. It was her burden to bear.
Mel realized she was going to have to use the nuclear option to get out of this. She took a deep breath. “I hate to do this to you, Samira, but I’m invoking Dead Dad’s Club privileges.”
Samira’s mouth dropped open in shock. “Mel, c’mon, that’s for emergencies!”
“This is an emergency,” Mel insisted.
Samira narrowed her eyes at Mel—and Mel was this close to taking it all back because she was suddenly certain she had really hurt her feelings—but then Samira started grinning. “Well played, King.”
Mel let out a very, very relieved breath.
Frank’s shift was over a few hours earlier than Mel’s was scheduled to end, so the only additional information about what was in store for him that night came through a somewhat ominous text message from Mel containing only an address. It kind of reminded Frank of his pre-rehab activities, which made it a little thrilling in a way he wasn’t going to examine too closely. He’d leave that one to Greg.
From what Mel had previously told him, Santos and Whitaker weren’t scheduled to work today so they would all be meeting up at the bar. And based on Frank’s quick Google search of the address, it was a fucking karaoke bar. If Frank didn’t care about his job, children, and overall well-being, he would probably be getting high right now. Frank supposed that was another one for Greg. At this point, Greg really should be thanking him for providing such steady business. Greg wouldn’t find that joke funny, though. He’d have to workshop it before their next session.
It had been an unseasonably warm week, meaning only that it was just above freezing, but that was enough to have more people out and about than usual for this late on a Wednesday. By the time Frank made it to the bar, he was forty-five minutes late and had a knot of anxiety in his gut because he kept thinking about the potential disappointment on Mel’s face.
When he finally hurried into the bar, it was also busier than expected. He looked around for a moment, expecting to see Mel, Whitaker, and Santos somewhere in the crowd. Instead, his gaze caught on—wait, was that Samira? Frank felt the tension in his shoulders ease a bit. A little annoying that she’d turned him down when he asked, but Frank was incredibly relieved to see her. The night might be slightly less awkward than he expected.
Samira took a small step backward and he finally saw Mel. God, she was pretty—and, fuck, that was a wildly inappropriate thing for him to be thinking right now. But Mel’s hair was down, she had on a soft yellow sweater that made her look like literal sunshine, and her face was a bit flushed—Frank didn’t think anyone could blame him for being a little mesmerized. He stared for a couple of seconds longer than he should have, but before he could do the normal thing and walk over, Mel’s eyes were suddenly on him.
Mel grinned brightly, her arm shooting up to wave at him with an enthusiasm that put Frank into a good mood almost instantly. She looked a bit insane, actually, but it made Frank feel such a strong surge of affection that it left him breathless. Samira saw him then and turned to grab Mel’s wrist. She started marching the two of them over with the same determination Frank saw from her when a trauma rolled into the ED.
“You know Les Mis, right?” Samira demanded once they made it to Frank’s side. Frank leaned back a bit, caught off guard by her intensity. His eyes immediately darted over to Mel, who looked a little nervous but also kind of pleased. Like she was having a good time. Frank wanted to keep her looking like that forever, maybe. But, on second thought, that was crazy intense of him. Frank quickly looked back over at Samira like that could possibly save him from his own fucking brain.
“Of course I do,” Frank scoffed. “What do you take me for, Samira, uncultured swine?”
“Let’s do ‘One Day More,’ then,” Samira said, gesturing to the stage where a very intoxicated woman was performing a Shania Twain song. She started bouncing a bit in anticipation, and Frank started wondering how many drinks Samira had downed while he’d been stuck in traffic.
“We’d be performing, like, ten different parts between the three of us,” Frank pointed out.
“Yeah?” Samira responded, unconvinced by this logic. “That doesn’t sound like fun to you?”
And she was right, it honestly did sound like a lot of fun. Frank grinned at her. “Hey, if you’re sure, let’s do it. Mel, you're cool with that, right?”
Mel nodded, actually looking a little excited at the prospect, which Frank hadn’t expected. “If we put our names on the list quickly, we can maybe get it done before Santos gets here and blackmails us with the video footage for the rest of our lives.”
“Ooh, good call,” Samira enthused. “I can probably flirt a little bit with the karaoke jockey and get us up even further.”
Frank snorted. “I’m not sure if that’s necessary, Samira.”
“He was kinda cute,” Samira assured him, going up on her tiptoes a bit so she could see over the crowd to reassess the guy. “Yeah, I’ll do it for free.”
And then Samira was darting off into the crowd without another word. Mel watched her go, a bewildered expression crossing her face. “Did I miss the part where we agreed to compensate her?”
“She’s flirting with a karaoke jockey, Mel.” Frank smirked. “For that task, payment is assumed.”
“Do you have something against karaoke jockeys?” Mel asked, smiling. “He’s just trying to make an honest living, Frank.”
Frank chuckled, holding up his hands in surrender. “No, you’re right, who am I to judge a man spending his Wednesday night sharing the joy of music with the world purely out of the goodness of his heart?”
“Samira told me before you got here that you used to share the joy of music,” Mel told him with a little smirk. “I can’t believe you were a theater kid back in the day.”
Frank laughed, remembering that he and Samira had discussed that once. Right before Frank’s life went to complete shit, a Hamilton tour cast member had rolled his ankle while prepping for an upcoming stint in Pittsburgh, ending up in the ED. Once he’d realized Samira was trying very hard not to fangirl, Frank had started making musical theater jokes to her until she looked at him very suspiciously and asked how he knew so much. While Frank wouldn’t necessarily classify himself as a theater kid, he had been in a few productions in high school, so why not go with it? He grinned. “I am a man of mystery, as they say.”
Mel rolled her eyes at that. “I always pegged you as more of a jock.”
“Well, I was both in high school,” he told her. “But I kept doing cross country in undergrad, so the jock side did win out in the end, if it makes you feel any better.”
“You know, Troy Bolton managed to do both in college, so you’re kind of an underachiever,” Mel teased.
“Not many of us can live up to the lofty standards set by High School Musical, Mel,” Frank replied, though he wasn’t entirely sure he remembered the characters going to college in that one. Frank was a couple of years older than Mel, so maybe it was from a sequel he’d missed after aging out of the whole Disney Channel thing, though.
Mel giggled and looked over his shoulder at the door for a moment, before glancing back down at her phone. Seeming disappointed by whatever it was she saw, Mel sighed. “Santos and Whitaker should be here by now.”
Frank had kind of forgotten they existed and wasn’t particularly happy to be reminded of them. But he was trying to be nice, or whatever, so he tried to look interested. “Oh? The traffic was bad. Maybe they’re stuck in it.”
“They live close enough that they should just be walking over,” Mel told him, a little worry sneaking into her voice. “The last I heard, they were pregaming at their apartment but with Trinity, that could mean a glass of wine or alcohol poisoning.”
“I’m sure they’re fine,” Frank assured her, though he really had no way of knowing that. He barely knew them, honestly. “Don’t let it ruin your night.”
Mel pursed her lips slightly. Frank contemplated whether her annoyance was with the two of them for causing her to worry in the first place or with him for being flippant about her worry. But before he could start working himself up over that, Samira was rejoining them. “Okay, we’re up next!” she reported brightly.
“Such quick work, Slow-Mo,” Frank teased. “Robby would be so proud.”
“And my patient satisfaction score has never been better,” Samira quipped with a carefree laugh.
Frank snorted before turning back to Mel. Her expression was a bit vacant and one of her hands was clamped tightly around her other wrist. When Mel noticed him surveying her, she tried to dodge his eye contact but he dipped his head to follow her gaze. “Hey, what do you need? We can try calling them. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll march right over to their apartment for a wellness check. I’m happy to do either.”
Mel shook her head a little frantically and blew out a heavy breath before forcing a smile onto her face. “No, it’s okay. I’m giving them thirty more minutes before I start freaking out.”
Frank carefully chose not to comment on the fact that Mel was already freaking out. Samira’s eyes darted between them, confused in a way that made him think she’d also forgotten Santos and Whitaker existed. Eventually, though, Samira just shrugged. “Plenty of time for us to crush ‘One Day More.’” The guy currently onstage was over halfway through his rendition of “Friends in Low Places,” and Frank thought Samira might be right, but only if they were being graded on a curve.
“Do you want to do a shot before we go up? For bravery?” Samira asked Mel. Frank weirdly appreciated not even being asked. He was fine with an addict joke here or there because that felt safe in the same way that joking about the awful shit they saw every day in the ED did. Like there was a barrier between him and the actual emotion of it. But it still felt a little raw for someone other than his sponsor or McKay to ask even general questions about his sobriety, a casual reminder that it wasn’t a joke and he really was a fucking addict. Maybe he’d feel differently about it once he’d been sober for a couple of years and the sting of it had lessened—or once he started to actually believe the shit Greg told him in therapy—but it felt nice to be given this space.
He assumed that Mel had warned Samira not to ask. Last night, Mel had talked to him about the boundaries of his sobriety for almost an hour without giving any real explanation for her curiosity. It was fine at first—uncomfortable, but fine. As the conversation had gone on though, Frank had felt more and more defeated. He’d finally asked her, voice pinched with emotion, “What is this? Do you—do you think I’m using or something, Mel?”
“Oh my gosh, no.” Mel’s eyes had been wide as she hesitantly reached out to touch his arm. “I’m going out with Santos and Whitaker tomorrow night and I wanted to invite you, but I thought it might be insensitive of me to ask you to go to a bar, so I just—I’m really sorry, I went about this all wrong.”
Frank had let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding, body kind of drooping from the relief of it, as Mel squeezed his arm reassuringly. He’d then laughed at himself and told her that Santos being there was more concerning to him than the booze. Mel had given him a look and said, “Be nice.” And that had been that.
Mel was now shaking her head. “No, I’m okay.”
Samira shrugged, flouncing off into the crowd again, and Frank shot a pointed look in Mel’s direction. “She’s in a very good mood.”
Mel still seemed tense, but she smiled softly at Samira’s retreating figure anyway. “I didn’t know she liked tequila shots this much.”
“So you were doing tequila shots before I got here?” Frank asked, both infinitely pleased by the idea of Mel taking tequila shots and a little bummed to have missed seeing her do it.
“No, I’m not drinking tonight,” Mel said, her hands twisting together nervously. “I do kind of feel bad for making Samira drink alone, though, since Santos and Whitaker still haven’t shown.”
Frank watched Mel’s hands very closely, wanting to hold them until they relaxed in his grip and her mind calmed. But that would be inappropriate, he reasoned. So Frank just kept smiling at her instead. “You can always fix that. I’m sure the bartender has a tequila shot with your name written on it, King.”
Mel’s expression was contemplative, like she was considering whether to share what she was thinking or to leave it unsaid. She finally sighed. “I’d feel worse about you being sober alone.”
Frank didn’t know what to think about that. It hurt to know that Mel had to consider him, to alter her own behavior to accommodate his weakness, but it also felt warm and comforting to know that she would. That he mattered enough to her to do that. Frank rubbed the back of his neck roughly, not sure how to reconcile those feelings. “You don’t have to do that, Mel.”
“I know I don’t have to,” Mel said softly. “I want to, Frank.”
And that would have been it, would have been the moment that Frank was very, very stupid and very, very reckless. The moment when he was finally a little bit honest with her—and himself—about how desperately he wanted her. The moment when Frank did something Mel would ultimately regret because it was almost inevitable that he’d hurt her, just like he did everyone else. It would have been it but then Samira was back, grabbing both of their hands to tug them toward the stage, giggling the entire way.
It took Frank a moment to adjust once they were up there, but he snapped back to himself as Samira pressed a mic into his hands. Samira turned to do the same for Mel, who looked just as shell-shocked as he’d felt a moment earlier.
“You ready?” Samira asked them both gravely, in the same tone she used when a case was going south. Frank thought she should be awarded some sort of Karaoke Medal of Honor for the seriousness with which she was treating this activity. Maybe Samira should be a karaoke jockey. Maybe she and the actual karaoke jockey were soulmates after all.
“If you know the words, feel free to sing along!” Samira yelled into her mic and it took every single ounce of Frank’s willpower not to laugh at her because “One Day More” was not going to be the crowd-pleaser Samira was apparently expecting it to be.
And then the music started. He glanced over at Mel, who looked like she wanted to die, which he couldn’t blame her for at all because they were going to completely embarrass themselves. Frank impulsively reached out to intertwine their fingers together and give her hand a reassuring squeeze. Mel looked down at their joined hands for a long moment before lifting her head back up to beam at him and Frank thought his entire fucking year might be made just from that one expression.
They were genuinely awful. Samira was jumping all over the stage, Mel wouldn’t move an inch, and Frank wouldn’t have left Mel’s side even if someone put a gun to his head. There had been no discussion whatsoever on who would tackle which part, so some lines were entirely missed. The crowd stared up at them with real dismay for the entire performance. It was the best time Frank had had in ages.
When the song was over, all three were laughing raucously as they left the stage. Mel’s hand was still in his and her face was very pink. Frank was utterly captivated by her. But then there was a muffled yell coming from the bar’s entrance and Mel’s head shot up, eyes trained in that direction. She squinted for a moment before her face fell slack in horror. “Oh no,” she whispered before darting away.
Frank and Samira stared after her until they, too, saw what made Mel sprint toward the door. Santos, yelling at the bouncer with a concerningly feral smile on her face. Whitaker, clutching onto Santos’ arm to try to drag her away and looking like he’d rather be anywhere else.
“Trinity’s energy has always been very aggressive,” Samira said, conversationally, like he was supposed to know what the fuck that meant. Frank groaned before heading over to see if Mel needed any help. Fucking Santos.
Mel walked back into Santos and Whitaker’s living room from the kitchen holding two glasses of water, her hands only slightly trembling. Because why did Santos and Whitaker hate her? The one time she’d convinced Frank to hang out with them and her friends were being—well, embarrassing would be an appropriate descriptor for their behavior tonight. They had been incredibly late arriving, they were hammered, and they'd been kicked out of the bar before they’d even really walked into it.
Frank and Samira had taken it well, Mel thought, but she also suspected they were both thinking Santos was a nutcase. And that was correct, Santos was insane, but she was also incredibly perceptive and loyal. Once someone made it clear that certain jokes crossed a line, she’d usually cool it. She cared about those around her a lot more than she let on. Mel really liked her, and she liked Whitaker just as much. But, right now, Mel was very displeased with both of them.
Santos had insisted the two would just walk back to their apartment but it had made Mel so anxious that Frank offered to drive them and Samira home. Santos had refused until Samira told her, very firmly, to get in the fucking vehicle before she suggested to Robby and Abbot that Santos’ beside manner might improve if she was assigned to chairs more often. Santos kept grumbling, but had finally acquiesced. Frank had discreetly given Samira a fist bump.
When they dropped Samira off at her place, she had thanked Mel for inviting her and, surprisingly, said she’d like to go out again soon. The car had been eerily silent the rest of the way to Santos and Whitaker’s apartment. Once Frank parked, Mel had needed to turn around in her seat to glare before Whitaker elbowed Santos and she’d exclaimed, “Fuck, Whitaker—alright, alright! Langdon, would you please do us the honor of joining us upstairs?”
Frank had looked less than thrilled about the prospect of this, but Mel had turned to him with the most beseeching expression she could muster, and he finally agreed. “Just for a couple of minutes, though,” he’d said. It had now been half an hour.
Santos was still a little heated from her confrontation with the bouncer so she was telling inappropriate stories because, for some reason, that was something Santos did when she was angry and drunk. Whitaker was half asleep. But they both desperately needed to drink some water, so Mel was doing her best to make that happen. “Drink,” Mel instructed firmly as she handed Santos and Whitaker each a glass. Thinking that she might have sounded rude, she tacked on a small “please” after a moment of hesitation.
“Okay, Mel, sure.” And though Santos’ tone was slightly mocking, she did take a long drink of water. Progress was progress, Mel decided. Whitaker mouthed “thank you” to her as Mel rejoined Frank on the couch. Though rejoining was probably not the right word when she was sitting on the opposite end from him. But it was the same piece of furniture. Still a bit of a downgrade from Frank holding her hand earlier, but it felt like a win after all the pandemonium.
Mel was feeling a little jittery. She wanted to blame that completely on Santos and Whitaker fighting the bouncer, but she had been almost vibrating the entire night. And a lot of that had to do with Frank. Mel wanted this night to go so well and, in some ways, it had. Mel had honestly enjoyed spending time with Samira outside of work, and Frank was— well, he was the most important person to her on this planet, outside of Becca. He always made everything better. But now Mel was sitting on Santos and Whitaker’s couch, counting down the seconds until Frank left, and she was desperately worried that the night had not been good enough and he was never going to want to do it again.
Santos was now telling a story about a particularly insane night out that she and Whitaker had experienced a little over a week ago. Mel winced every time Santos even slightly slurred a word, which meant that Mel was flinching every couple of seconds. She could feel Frank’s eyes on her, but Mel didn’t want to look over at him because maybe she would see something in his expression that she didn’t want to acknowledge. Like confirmation that Frank hated her friends and she would never see him outside of work again.
Suddenly, Santos started giggling to herself. This caused Whitaker to become, out of nowhere, fully alert. He looked over at Mel with true alarm and Mel braced herself for whatever was coming next—she hoped it would be a swift death. Santos was almost gleeful as she asked, “Did I mention that me and Whitaker almost had a threesome with Nurse Kim?”
Everything was very still and very quiet for a single moment. Then Whitaker hissed, “That was supposed to be a secret, Trinity!”
And Mel squeaked out, “Please drink your water.”
And Santos cackled.
Mel slowly turned her head to look over at Frank, feeling like she was in a horror film. Frank’s mouth was slightly ajar but he didn’t look as unmoored as Mel currently felt. He made a curious little “hmm” sound before gesturing between Santos and Whitaker. “Are you two—?”
Santos gagged. “God no.”
Whitaker was very, very pale, which was saying something because he was already quite pale to begin with. His gaze was trained on the carpet as if eye contact was simply too much to bear. In that moment, Mel understood Whitaker completely. He let out a shuddering breath. “The focus would have been entirely on Kim.”
There was a long pause before Frank snorted, dissolving into laughter. After a few moments, he paused, seeming to realize that no one else was laughing. “Well, good for Kim, I guess.” After a couple more seconds of complete silence, Frank spoke again. “Tough crowd. Okay, so, um—that might be my cue to go. Lovely time as always, everyone.”
Frank stood and Mel thought she might actually die. She sank further into the couch as if it might swallow her whole, which would have been a blessing if it meant she’d never have to think about this awful night ever again. But then Frank was speaking to her. “Mel, do you need a ride? I can drive you home.”
Mel’s response was an immediate, slightly breathy, “Yes, please,” that had Santos not-so-subtly rolling her eyes. But Mel was incredibly annoyed with Santos right now, so she could keep her opinions to herself. Mel surveyed her two friends as she and Frank headed for the door, feeling a pang of anxiety at Santos’ state and a little bit of relief at Whitaker, who seemed to be faring a bit better now. Mel sighed, directing her final request to Whitaker. “Can you please make sure she drinks her water?”
“Sure,” Whitaker grumbled. “But it’s not going to matter anyway since I’ll be smothering her with a pillow after you leave.”
“Oh, don’t whine,” Santos whined.
“Okay, well.” Mel was not getting involved in this particular dispute. “Please don’t die and have a good rest of your night.”
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” Santos called out before the door could shut. It cut off the sound of her laughter, though a muffled version could still be heard through the walls.
Frank paused before barking out a laugh of his own. “I don’t think that significantly limits us, Mel.”
Mel didn’t completely understand his meaning, or maybe some part of her brain did understand, but she had just had such a long and stressful night that she wasn’t processing new information anymore. She and Frank walked silently back to his car. Once they were fully outside and Mel felt assured her friends wouldn’t somehow overhear them, Mel came to a sudden stop. Frank turned back to look at her, a little concerned, and Mel’s voice wobbled a bit as she said, “I’m really sorry about all of this, Frank.”
“Why are you apologizing?” Frank asked with a fond smile. “I have great blackmail material now. Whitaker’s going to be doing everything I say until the end of time.”
“Frank,” she admonished, though she was really pleased that he didn’t seem all that bothered by the whole thing.
“Kidding,” he insisted. “Obviously.”
Mel didn’t think he was entirely kidding, but she would let it slide for now. Because Whitaker and Santos had ruined her night, Mel felt a little less obligated to defend them than she usually would.
Frank’s eyebrows suddenly furrowed. “I know they said there would be no interaction between the two of them but…Santos is a lesbian, right?”
Mel let out a long sigh because Santos’ sexuality was actually quite complicated, to the point that Mel frankly wished she knew less about it. “It would probably be easier to let Trinity explain it to you.”
“Yeah, I’ll try to remember that next time I’m having an in-depth conversation with Santos about her sex life,” Frank deadpanned.
Mel rolled her eyes but did her best to explain it as simply as she could. “She’s technically bisexual, but in a very abstract, convoluted sort of manner.”
Frank gave her a blank look. “I’m not sure I really understand that in any meaningful way, but I’m happy to move on to another subject.”
Mel laughed, and trying to stick with the established theme of the conversation, asked, “In a practical sense, does it even really count as a threesome if two of the people involved are ignoring one another?”
Frank choked. There was an extended pause and Mel started to feel increasingly embarrassed the longer Frank looked at her without speaking. Had she said something wrong? Finally, Frank rubbed his eyes and answered. “I don’t know if I’m qualified to answer that one, Mel.”
“I—I could Google it…maybe?” she said, faltering a bit.
“Maybe once I drop you off,” Frank replied, now avoiding eye contact completely and opening the car door for her. Mel paused, suddenly realizing that he was comfortable talking about Santos’ sexuality—of all people—but seemed to find talking about her sexuality intolerable.
“I’m not a nun, Frank,” she said, a little snippy.
“Considering I haven’t seen you trotting around in a habit recently, I am well aware of that,” Frank said flippantly, gesturing toward the passenger seat of his car like he could order her to climb inside. Like she was a child.
“I’m going back upstairs,” Mel informed him, voice cool. “Goodnight, Frank.”
Mel started walking back the way they came. After a moment, Frank called out to her, “Mel, please come back.”
But Mel was now very annoyed with him and honestly just wanted to go to sleep and forget this night ever happened. So Mel kept walking. He called her name a second and third time, which she disregarded as well.
When Mel didn’t hear him call after her again, she thought he had finally given up. But then his hand wrapped gently around her elbow. “C’mon, Mel, let me take you home.”
Mel whipped around to glare at him, yanking her arm away in the process. “No.”
“You’re being unbearably cute right now,” Frank told her, quite seriously. “But please go get in the car.”
“I am not cute,” Mel seethed. “And I will be sleeping on the couch upstairs.”
“But it’s got that weird, threaded pattern on it,” he reminded her. “Sensory nightmare. You’ll never get any sleep.”
“Well, at least the stupid couch doesn’t think I’m a child,” Mel thoughtlessly snapped.
Mel cringed. That didn’t even make any sense and now she was more embarrassed than ever. Thankfully, Frank did not feel the need to comment on that part. Instead, he seemed genuinely confused. “I don’t think you’re a child.”
“You obviously do,” she argued. “You keep calling me cute and you were weird about me even referencing sex—.”
Frank choked again.
“See!” Mel exclaimed, gesturing meaningfully at him.
“That’s not because I think you’re a child, Mel,” Frank said between gritted teeth. “I am very aware that you are an adult woman.”
And there was something about the way he said that that had Mel’s heart racing. She bit her lip and watched, a little dumbfounded, as his eyes darted down to track the movement. Mel was suddenly very sure that she wouldn’t be sleeping on the couch upstairs, or maybe even sleeping at all. But just as soon as that thought crossed her mind, car tires screeched loudly a street or two over and the spell was broken.
Frank sighed, running a hand roughly through his hair. “Can I please drive you home?”
Mel nodded silently and, this time, she walked back with him and climbed into his passenger seat without protest. They were quiet during the drive back to Mel’s place and exchanged very polite goodbyes when he finally dropped her off. After completing her nighttime routine, Mel tucked herself into her own bed. She had been right earlier, about not sleeping on the couch. And she’d also been right about not sleeping at all—just not in the way she’d hoped.