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Somewhere around the time Frankie turned fourteen, Kade started calling her ‘pretty girl’.
“You know that’s creepy, right?” Cody pointed out on one such occasion, following his brother into another room.
“You know teenage girls call each other ugly, right?” Kade countered.
“Frankie’s not ugly.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Kade shook his head like Cody couldn’t understand. “Teenage girls are mean.” Cody opened his mouth, probably to defend Frankie’s honor, but Kade had a different mark in mind. “And you go to school with Priscilla Pinch.”
“Priscilla is ugly.” Cody pulled an expressive face.
Heatwave would never understand human concepts of beauty.
“I noticed,” Kade replied blandly. “Doesn’t matter.” He shook his head. “I don’t see what’s wrong with dropping a little confidence booster every once in a while. I’m shallow.” He shrugged. “And Frankie knows I’m not going anywhere with it. It should feel good.”
“Does she?” Cody challenged.
The two stared each other down, both sure they were right. Then, to Heatwave’s surprise, Kade folded with an exaggerated roll of his eyes. The redhead strode off, back the way they came, quickly locating his baby brother’s best friend.
“Hey, Frankie.”
“Yeah?” she looked up at the man, completely at ease.
“You know that when I call you pretty girl, it’s because I want you to know that you are pretty and not because I want to jump you, right?” She blinked at him. Kade gave a soft chuff through his nose, pulling the young woman into a hug. He kissed her on the temple. “I love you. You’re my other little sister. I would die for you,” he promised against her scalp. “But I will never have a romantic or sexual interest in you. Ever.”
Frankie sagged against him. “Thanks, Kade.” She wrapped her arms tightly around the man’s waist. “I love you, too.”
Her breath shuddered and Kade pressed another kiss into her hair. “I will always protect you,” he swore. “And you can tell me anything. I might be an idiot, but I’m good at keeping secrets.”
She was quiet for a long time, but Kade didn’t attempt to let go, patiently holding her tight. Protected. Even from Cody, who subsequently got bored and left the kitchen.
“What if it’s something bad?”
“If someone did something to you, I might just keep my mouth shut and listen.” He leaned back, turning her face up to him. “Or I might go get my Dad and a couple of pitchforks.” Frankie laughed shakily and Kade smiled down at her. “If you did something bad, odds are I’ll help you hide the body.”
Frankie chewed on her lip for a moment. She screwed her eyes shut for courage, a couple of tears squeezing out. “I hate CeCe,” she whispered. Frankie held her breath for a moment, but it was like once the words were out she couldn’t stop herself. The corner of Kade’s mouth, which had kicked up knowingly soon dropped back down into a moue of concerned concentration as he listened. “She cries all the time. Her things are everywhere. She destroys my homework, hogs my parents, gets me yelled at, keeps me awake. She kicks me when I hold her, spits up on me even when she hasn’t been eating, chews on my clothes and my hair. And all I want is a hug from my Dad and someone to ask me how my day was. But when Cece’s around? I can’t even be alone. And she's always around.”
Kade made some sort of soothing, guttural noise, shifting his grip on the teen. He swept up Frankie’s legs, dropping into one of the dining chairs as she began to cry. Kade settled his other little sister in his lap.
“I hate her,” Frankie choked out, burying her face in Kade’s neck. “I hate her so much.”
Kade held her silently until the crying jag had passed. “My parents were pretty good at the multiple-kids thing, and I had been babysitting Dani and Graham for a couple of years already, so when Cody was born it was pretty much smooth sailing. And then Mom died. Dad couldn’t do it alone and Dani and Graham just weren’t old enough…” He didn’t seem to register that his siblings were hardly younger than him. “Dad needed to sleep. He’s a cop, you can’t cop drowsy, you’ll die. So, I slept on the floor in Cody’s room. It was something like two years before he slept reliably through the night.” Kade rested his cheek against Frankie’s hair. “There were days I thought I’d have to kill myself just to get a little sleep.”
They were companionably quiet for several minutes.
“What did you do?”
Kade smiled, bittersweet. “I almost failed back two years in a row.” He squeezed Frankie with the arm looped around her waist. “Don’t tell Cody. I wouldn’t trade a minute.”
Frankie picked at a loose thread in the knee of her jeans. “I don’t want to kill myself, but I just feel so guilty.” Frankie turned the fray into a hole. “I’m supposed to love her, not hate her.”
“You do,” Kade reassured matter-of-factly. “If you didn’t, you’d be out pulling the wings off moths with Priscilla Pinch, not sitting here worrying about it.”
Frankie got caught somewhere between a grimace and a giggle at that. She hooked her chin over Kade’s shoulder and they both stared off into the middle distance.
“Alright,” the redhead declared brightly several minutes later. The man stood up, setting Frankie on her feet. “Time to get back to work or Cody’s going to wonder what I’m doing to you.”
“Eew,” Frankie giggled, leading the way.
Kade threw his hands up. “I know, right?”