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Lily knew that Frank had a life long before he ever met her. She was exceptionally aware of that fact, thank you. It wasn’t like she was expecting for him to be this pristine, white sheet. He’d been trapped by the jungle curse after all, and it was kind of the reason why he was even here with her in the UK right now.
But for him to call out another woman’s name when he was doing that thing with his tongue that she liked… that crossed so many different lines.
“Shit, Lily, I’m so sorry,” Frank said as he sat up.
Uncertain, Lily reached for the sheet and pulled it up around her bare breasts.
They stared at each other for an awkward moment.
“I was just…” He trailed off, clearly at a loss for what to say. “She was my wife.”
Lily swallowed hard. She repeated over and over in her mind that she’d known that he’d had a life before he met her. But hearing him calling out another woman’s name didn’t exactly make it any easier to accept. “You had a wife?”
“Yeah. Adelita.” His fingers crumpled the blanket and then smoothed it out again. “Gone about twenty years now, I guess. The anniversary of her death is coming up, and… I guess that I was just thinking about her.”
Now Lily felt like an ass. Frank was a devoted lover and husband; there’s no way that he would cheat on her. It made sense that if he’d call out another’s name, it would have been his wife.
She swallowed again. His dead wife. Their life had started before Lily had even been born. Of course he probably still thought about her… probably still loved her. “I’m sorry,” she said thickly.
“No, I’m sorry. I loved Adelita, but she was my life before. You’re my life now.”
“Yes, but that doesn’t change the fact that you had a life before me,” Lily said quietly. She ran a hand through the tangled mess of her hair, and hated how her hand shook as she did so.
“I did, but-”
“But nothing! You clearly loved Adelita enough to the point where you wanted to spend the rest of her life by her side.”
Frank didn’t answer for a moment. He only just hung his head. “People always say that they just know when they meet ‘the one’. Adelita was the love of my life. But so were a lot of other people along the way. You included, Lily. Maybe it’s selfish of me to love so many, when I had little to offer them.”
“You have a lot to offer, Frank.”
“Maybe. But the curse prevented me from having children. Sometimes I doubted how much they could truly love me if I couldn’t give them children.”
“There’s more to life than popping out an army of brats,” Lily said with a dismissive snort.
“You say that, Pants,” Frank said with a teasing smirk. “But I saw the look in the eyes of my wives throughout the years. They insisted that loving me was enough. But as the years wore on, I wondered if they didn’t resent me anyway. It was bad with Imelda, towards the end. She came from a large family, and always told me that she never really wanted kids anyway. But as we were surrounded by her nieces and nephews, and then great-nieces and great-nephews, I think that she looked at her siblings and wondered why she’d picked me over anybody else.”
“Because you’re an amazing man, Frank. Any girl would be lucky to have you.”
“Yes, and I somehow ended up with the likes of you. Oof.” He winced as she punched him on the arm as hard as she could. He grabbed her around her waist and kissed her soundly.
“I wrote a song about them,” Frank said as she stared into Lily’s eyes. “I would add another verse whenever I got married. Although, I only ever sang it whenever my current wife was out of earshot.”
“Did you… Did you write one about me?”
“Because of everything that we went through together, I thought that it would be best if I wrote you an entire song, and not just tacked on a verse. Although I did that, too.”
He got out of bed, pausing briefly to pull his pants back on, before he went to fetch his guitar. Despite Lily’s initial grumblings about his playing, she actually kind of enjoyed hearing him singing; his low voice was so hypnotic when he was recounting his misadventures along the river.
Frank began to play, telling the story of loves found, of kisses, of dancing under the moonlight, running away together. But each and every single one of the verses ended with his wife dying, of him burying her, of him promising that he will never love another as much as he loved her… That is, until the next verse started.
But then he stopped right after Adelita died, and he swore that he’d never love another again.
“What? No! You can’t tell me that you have one last verse about me, and then not sing it.”
“Yes, but it’s not done yet. Our story isn’t finished yet.”
Lily mulled this over for a moment before she pulled him down to her. “If that’s the case, then I’m never going to hear it. And I don’t suppose that I’ll ever hear your song about me, either?”
“Nope. That’s the plan.”
Lily punched him on the arm.
“Ow, what was that for?”
“That’s for not singing the song you wrote about me. Or the verse.” She punched him again.
“And that?”
“That’s for calling out another woman’s name while you did that thing with your tongue.” She pulled him down to her and kissed him soundly.
“And what was that for?” he asked a bit breathlessly.
“Because I love you too much to stay angry at you for long.”