Work Text:
By the time people started telling Mel she should date, she had gotten very good at pretending not to understand what they meant.
It had started innocently enough, with questions about her weekends and suggestions for restaurants and the occasional, You should really get out more, all delivered with the particular concern people reserved for someone they had quietly decided was spending too much time at work. Mel had laughed at first, because it was easy to laugh when it happened once, and then twice, and then a few more times after that. She was busy. She was tired. She liked her life. There was nothing particularly tragic about being single, and she certainly wasn't sitting around waiting for somebody to rescue her from it.
Then Becca started dating Adam, and that was where things became difficult.
Not because Mel begrudged her sister anything—she didn't, not really. If anything, seeing Becca have a life that was entirely her own had been one of the strangest and, ultimately, nicest surprises of the past year. Mel had spent so much of her adult life being the person who remembered things, anticipated problems, showed up, made sure everyone was okay, that sometimes she forgot there was supposed to be a version of her life in which she wasn't constantly taking care of somebody else.
Becca had reminded her of that, quite enthusiastically, and, unfortunately, with considerably more information about her sex life than Mel had ever wanted to possess.
Mel was happy for her. She genuinely was. She just could have lived quite comfortably without knowing that her sister was apparently having the best sex of her life.
The problem was that once Becca had demonstrated, rather dramatically, that she was perfectly capable of having a life of her own, everybody else seemed to take it as evidence that Mel ought to start having one too.
Samira was the worst about it.
"You should go out on a date," she'd said one afternoon, in the same tone she'd use to suggest Mel drink more water.
Mel had looked up from her chart. "Why?"
"Because you're single."
"I'm aware."
"And?"
"And what?"
Samira had given her a look.
Mel had smiled sweetly and gone back to work.
That had been the end of the conversation, at least for the moment.
Except that it wasn't really the end, because Samira knew her too well for that, and because there was one small complication Mel had never told her outright.
She already knew who she wanted.
That was the problem.
Frank Langdon had been separated long enough that nobody bothered pretending otherwise anymore, and three weeks ago, the divorce had finally become official. Mel had spent months telling herself that it didn't matter, and for the most part she had managed to believe it. Frank's marriage had been complicated long before she ever became part of his life, and whatever had happened between them in the meantime had never crossed the line into anything either of them could actually point to and call an affair.
Still, their friendship had become strange enough that Mel occasionally wondered what it looked like from the outside.
They knew too much about each other. They spent too much time together. They had developed the sort of shorthand that usually took people years to build, and somehow they had managed to make it look completely normal that Frank knew when Mel was hungry before she did, or that Mel could tell from the way he set his keys down whether he'd had a bad day.
There had been nights when they fell asleep beside each other because his back was bothering him and the couch was terrible, and mornings when Mel woke up with his arm around her and neither of them acknowledged that they'd somehow migrated closer during the night.
There were boundaries even if they just weren't always particularly good ones.
Mel had always been able to live with that because, in her mind, there had never been anything she could actually do about it.
Frank was married.
Frank was complicated.
Frank had enough on his plate without Mel adding herself to it.
And, perhaps most importantly, Frank Langdon could not possibly want her in that way.
That last part had become so deeply embedded in her thinking that she had stopped questioning it.
It didn't matter that he was the first person she looked for when she walked into a room. It didn't matter that he called her when something happened and that she called him when something happened and that, somewhere along the way, the distinction between my best friend and the person I want around for everything had become increasingly difficult to locate.
She knew what she felt.
She had known for a long time.
She just didn't believe there was anything to be done about it.
Unfortunately, being divorced made that argument considerably less convincing.
"You're staring."
Mel blinked and looked up.
Frank was standing on the other side of the workstation, watching her with an expression that suggested he'd been trying not to smile for at least a few seconds.
"I am not."
"You are."
"I'm working."
"You're looking at me."
"I can multitask."
His mouth twitched into a half smile.
"Apparently."
Mel narrowed her eyes at him, which only made him smile properly.
That was another problem.
Frank had one of those smiles that seemed to arrive before he realized he was doing it, something small and crooked that softened his whole face without making him look any less like himself. Mel had become embarrassingly good at recognizing it, which meant she had also become embarrassingly good at noticing exactly what made it happen.
Usually, it was her.
She tried not to think about that connection.
"You have coffee?" he asked.
Mel looked down at the cup beside her keyboard. "I do."
"That's mine."
"No, it isn't."
"I watched you take it."
"Then you watched me take mine."
"Mel."
"Frank."
They stared at each other for a moment before he sighed, walked around the workstation, and took the cup directly out of her hand.
"Hey."
He took a drink.
Mel watched him over the top of her computer.
"You are stealing my coffee."
"You said it was yours."
"It is."
"Then why'd you let me drink it?"
"I didn't let you."
He took another sip, completely unbothered.
Mel reached for the cup. He held it just out of reach.
"Give it back."
"Say please."
"You are an actual child."
"Please isn't difficult."
She stared at him for another second before giving in.
"Please."
He handed it over with a satisfied little nod.
"There."
"You are being insufferable."
"And yet you keep me around."
He said it lightly, the way he said most things with her, but something in Mel's chest gave an inconvenient little twist anyway.
Because yes.
She did keep him around.
She kept him around for everything.
She kept him around so thoroughly that sometimes she wasn't sure where his life stopped, and hers began.
Before she could think too much about that, he reached into the paper bag he'd been carrying and set a breakfast sandwich beside her computer.
Mel looked at it.
Then at him.
"I ate."
"No, you didn't."
"I did."
"When?"
"This morning."
"What did you eat?"
She hesitated.
He gave her a look.
"Coffee doesn't count."
"I had a granola bar."
"That's worse."
"Why?"
"Because you think that counts as breakfast."
Mel smiled despite herself.
He gave her shoulder a quick squeeze as he walked past, casual and familiar, and disappeared back into the department.
She watched him go.
This was precisely why dating other people felt like such a ridiculous proposition.
It wasn't that Mel didn't want to be loved. She did. She wanted all of the things everybody seemed so determined to tell her she was missing, the dinners and the kisses and somebody asking how her day had been and meaning it. She wanted the quiet parts too, though she suspected those were the things she'd never admit to wanting out loud: somebody who knew how she took her coffee, somebody who could tell when she was tired without asking, somebody whose presence could make a room feel different.
She wanted all of that.
She just wanted it from Frank.
Which was inconvenient.
Her phone buzzed against the desk.
Samira: Dinner tonight?
Mel smiled before she could stop herself.
Mel: Can't. Working late, dinner plans after.
The typing bubble appeared almost immediately.
Samira: With Langdon?
Mel glanced toward the trauma bay.
Frank was talking to one of the residents, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed as he listened. He looked tired. He always looked a little tired lately, but Mel had become so accustomed to him that she could usually tell the difference between ordinary exhaustion and the kind that meant she needed to intervene.
She looked back at her phone.
Mel: Why do you always say his name like that?
Samira: Like what?
Mel: Like you know something.
Samira: Maybe I do.
Mel rolled her eyes.
Mel: You're annoying.
Samira: You should go out on a date.
Mel stared at the message.
There it was again.
Mel: Oh my God.
Samira: I'm serious.
Mel: I'm at work.
Samira: That's not an answer.
Mel: I like being single.
The response took a little longer this time.
Samira: Do you?
Mel's fingers stopped over the keyboard.
She could have lied, and she almost did.
But Samira had known her long enough to know when she was doing it, and lately there was something about the transition everyone was going through—the end of residency, Samira getting ready to start her fellowship, Frank starting his attending job at PTMC, Mel moving into her fourth year—that made everything feel like it was shifting beneath her feet.
Everybody was moving on to something.
Maybe that was why the question landed differently now.
Maybe it was Becca.
Maybe it was Frank.
Maybe it was simply the realization that she had spent so much time being careful that she couldn't remember the last time she'd let herself want something without immediately deciding she couldn't have it.
She looked across the department again.
Frank glanced up at almost exactly the same moment.
Their eyes met.
He smiled.
Mel's heart did something deeply unhelpful.
She looked down.
Mel: I know who I'd pick.
Samira's response was immediate.
Samira: Oh yeah, who?
Mel stared at the question.
She knew exactly what she should do.
She should make a joke. She should say nobody, or someone with a functioning printer, or literally anything that would allow her to keep the carefully constructed wall she'd had around this particular subject.
Instead, perhaps because Samira was the one person she trusted enough to be completely ridiculous with, Mel typed the truth.
Mel: Obviously it's Frank.
She sent it.
Then she stared at the screen, feeling as though she'd just stepped off the edge of something.
Samira: OMG, Mel, I know.
Mel frowned.
Mel: What does that mean?
Samira: It means I've known for a while.
Mel: You have not.
Samira: Mel.
Mel: What?
Samira: I've known you for two years. I've known Frank for four. I have eyes.
Mel covered her face with one hand.
Of course she did.
Mel: This is humiliating.
Samira: Why?
Mel: Because he's Frank.
Samira: Exactly.
Mel frowned.
That was not the response she'd expected.
Mel: That doesn't make sense.
Samira: It makes perfect sense. I've watched you two all year. I've known him long enough to know what he's like, and I've known you long enough to know what you're like, and I have never seen either of you be as happy as you are when you're together.
Mel swallowed.
She looked across the room again.
Frank had his back turned now.
Mel: He's my best friend.
Samira: Yes.
Mel: He's been through a lot, still is going through a lot.
Samira: Yes.
Mel: And I'm not exactly—
She stopped.
Samira: Exactly what?
Mel stared at the screen.
She knew what she meant.
She was too much responsibility. Too much history. Too much complication. Too much work. She was somebody Frank could love as a friend without having to explain why he had chosen her, but she couldn't make herself type any of that.
Instead, she wrote:
Mel: It doesn't matter.
Samira: Why?
Mel's thumbs hovered.
Then she finally admitted the part she'd never said out loud.
Mel: Because I don't think he'd ever want me.
The response didn't come right away.
When it did, it was only:
Samira: Oh, Mel, you can't say that.
Something about those two words made Mel's throat tighten.
She hated being pitied.
She hated even more that Samira understood.
So, because she was uncomfortable and because humor had always been easier than vulnerability, Mel did what she did best.
She made it worse.
Mel: It's fine.
Mel: I just want him.
She paused.
Then:
Mel: Like, really want him.
Her cheeks were already warm.
She should stop.
Instead, she kept typing, the words becoming progressively less dignified as the tiny part of her brain responsible for self-preservation apparently decided to take the afternoon off.
Mel: I want him to kiss me.
Mel: I want him in my bed.
Mel: I want him to hold me afterward.
Mel: I want to wake up next to him.
She stared at the screen.
There was something almost absurd about seeing the words written out like that, because they sounded so much more honest than they had in her head.
She kept going, like word vomit she'd been holding in far too long.
Mel: I want to be part of his life.
Mel: I want his kids to know me.
Mel: I want him to come home to me.
Her heart was pounding now, but she couldn't seem to stop.
Mel: I want him to want to marry me.
She swallowed.
Then, because apparently she had decided to abandon every remaining shred of dignity:
Mel: And I want him to take me in the supply closet or an on-call room.
Her eyes widened.
"Oh my God."
She stared at the message.
She could still delete it.
Instead, she typed:
Mel: Or all over my apartment.
Mel: Or his apartment.
Mel: Or the car.
Mel: I'm not picky.
She pressed her lips together, trying not to laugh at herself.
Then she sent one final message.
Mel: He could probably have me every which way and I'd still be stupidly in love with him afterward.
There.
That was enough.
More than enough.
She set the phone down.
And then, because apparently the universe had decided she had not suffered sufficiently, Mel picked it back up to see whether Samira had answered.
Her stomach dropped.
The name at the top of the conversation wasn't Samira.
It was Frank.
Mel stopped breathing.
For a moment she stared at the screen, unable to understand how the universe could have engineered something so spectacularly humiliating.
Then she scrolled upward.
Every message was there.
Every single one.
Her confession.
Her fantasies.
The supply closet.
The car.
The dream marriage.
Everything.
She shut her eyes tightly, hoping the words in front of her might disappear.
There was no fixing this.
There was no version of reality in which she could pretend she had meant to send it to someone else, because unfortunately she had meant to send it to someone else, and the someone else in question was currently standing approximately twenty feet away.
Her phone buzzed.
Mel opened her eyes.
Frank: Mel.
She stared at the message.
Another one appeared.
Frank: We need to talk.
Her entire body went cold.
Slowly, almost against her will, she looked up.
Frank was standing across the department, his phone still in his hand.
He was looking at her.
Not angry, or amused, exactly, but completely, utterly stunned.
And there was something else there too, something Mel couldn't quite identify from this distance, except that it made her stomach turn over in a way that had nothing to do with embarrassment.
For one impossible second, Frank's expression softened.
Then he looked down at his phone again.
Mel's heart began pounding.
Because she had spent all year believing the worst thing that could happen was Frank finding out that she loved him.
She was beginning to suspect she'd been wrong. The worst thing that could happen was finding out what he thought about it.
Mel did not go downstairs.
Not immediately, anyway, because for the first few minutes after realizing what she'd done, she remained exactly where she was, phone still clutched in her hand, staring at Frank across the department with the vague and increasingly desperate hope that if neither of them moved, perhaps the last thirty seconds would somehow reverse themselves and she would wake up to discover that she had, in fact, sent the messages to Samira like a normal person instead of accidentally confessing her entire romantic and sexual fantasies to the one man on earth to whom she had absolutely never intended to confess any of it.
It was not a particularly sophisticated coping mechanism, but Mel had never claimed to be at her best under pressure.
Unfortunately, Frank was still looking at her.
And, somehow, that was worse than the messages themselves.
He had his phone in one hand, his expression unusually still, and there was something about the way he was looking at her that told Mel he had already read everything, not merely the first message or two that might have been passed off as an unfortunate joke between friends, but all of it.
Every humiliating, impossible word.
I want him.
I want him in my bed.
I want him to marry me.
I want him to take me in the supply closet.
Mel looked down at her phone again, as if the messages might have become less horrifying in the last thirty seconds.
They had not.
She scrolled upward, then immediately wished she hadn't, because there they were again in all their terrible, undeniable glory, sitting beneath Frank's name at the top of the conversation as though she had deliberately chosen him as the recipient and spent the afternoon thoughtfully composing a confession.
There were several possible ways to handle this situation.
She could resign.
She could move.
She could possibly leave medicine altogether, although that seemed dramatic even by her current standards.
She could simply disappear from Pittsburgh and start over somewhere nobody knew her, preferably somewhere so geographically remote that nobody from the Pitt would ever have occasion to ask why Dr. Melissa King had suddenly abandoned her career after years of residency.
It seemed excessive.
It also seemed preferable to what she was currently facing.
"Mel?"
She looked up.
One of the residents she'd been working with was standing beside the workstation, watching her with the cautious concern of someone who had just noticed that their attending appeared to be having a quiet psychological crisis in the middle of the emergency department.
Mel smiled.
It was probably not her best smile.
"Yeah?"
"Are you okay?"
"Fine."
The resident looked at her for another second.
Mel could practically see the calculation happening.
"You sure?"
"Absolutely."
The resident nodded slowly, clearly unconvinced but apparently unwilling to get involved.
"Okay."
"Great."
Mel turned back toward her computer with what she hoped looked like the calm efficiency of a fourth-year resident who was entirely in control of her life.
Her phone buzzed.
She froze.
She didn't need to look.
She looked anyway.
Frank: Mel.
Her stomach dropped.
A second message appeared beneath it.
Frank: Come downstairs.
Mel stared at the screen for several long seconds, wondering if there was any possible interpretation of those words that did not end with her dying of embarrassment.
There wasn't.
She glanced across the department again.
Frank had slipped his phone into his pocket and was now talking to someone near the desk, looking completely normal, which Mel found almost offensive considering the fact that he had just received a message from her explaining, in considerable detail, that she wanted him in her bed, his bed, her car, his car, and apparently whatever supply closet happened to be available.
He looked up.
Their eyes met.
Frank gave her the smallest nod toward the elevators.
Mel closed her eyes.
There was no escaping this.
With the grim resignation of someone walking willingly toward her own execution, she pushed away from the workstation and made her way toward the elevators, trying very hard not to look like she was fleeing the scene of a crime.
She made it inside just before the doors closed.
For one glorious second, she thought she was safe.
Then a hand appeared between the doors.
Mel's heart nearly stopped.
Frank stepped into the elevator.
The doors closed behind him, leaving the two of them standing side by side in the small, painfully familiar space, and Mel became acutely aware of every possible detail about him—the faint smell of coffee, the crease in the sleeve of his shirt, the way he shifted his weight slightly because his back was bothering him, the fact that his phone was still in his pocket and therefore contained enough evidence to destroy her life several times over.
Normally, being this close to him would have made her feel better.
At the moment, it was unbearable.
She stared straight ahead.
Frank glanced at her.
"So."
Mel closed her eyes.
"Please don't."
"I haven't said anything."
"You said so."
"I thought it was a reasonable place to start."
"It isn't."
He considered that for a moment.
"Okay."
The elevator continued downward.
Mel folded her arms, unfolded them, and eventually shoved both hands into the pockets of her scrub jacket because she had suddenly become painfully conscious of the fact that she had no idea what to do with them.
Frank glanced at her again.
"You look like you're going to pass out."
"I might."
"That's fair."
She turned her head and looked at him.
He was trying not to smile.
Mel's eyes narrowed.
"Are you laughing?"
"No."
"You are."
"I'm really not."
"You absolutely are."
His mouth twitched.
"Maybe a little."
Mel made a strangled sound of disbelief and looked back toward the elevator doors.
"Frank."
"I'm sorry."
"No, you're not."
"Not particularly."
Despite herself, she laughed, although the sound came out more like a nervous exhale than anything else, and Frank smiled properly for the first time since they'd stepped into the elevator.
For a few seconds, the unbearable tension loosened.
It was still humiliating.
It was still possibly the worst thing that had ever happened to her.
But it was familiar, too, because this was how they had always been with each other, even when everything else in their lives had been complicated: Frank making some dry, irritating comment when Mel was trying not to fall apart, Mel getting annoyed with him for making her laugh, both of them finding some tiny pocket of normal in the middle of whatever disaster they were dealing with.
The elevator dinged.
The doors opened.
Neither of them spoke as they stepped into the hallway.
Frank led her away from the main department, toward one of the quieter corridors where the noise of the Pitt became distant enough that Mel could no longer hear every overhead page and rolling cart and conversation happening around them.
She followed without asking where they were going.
She wasn't entirely sure she trusted herself to speak.
Frank finally stopped near the end of the hallway and turned toward her.
For a moment, he didn't say anything.
The humor had faded from his expression, leaving something quieter in its place, and Mel realized with a strange little jolt that he looked nervous.
Frank Langdon did not look nervous very often.
Certainly not with her.
"What?" she asked.
"Nothing."
"You dragged me downstairs."
"I know."
"So say something."
He exhaled, looking down at the floor for a moment before meeting her eyes again.
"I don't really know what I'm supposed to say."
Mel's stomach tightened.
"Then don't say anything."
"Okay."
"Actually, that's probably better."
"Probably."
She nodded as though they had just reached a perfectly reasonable solution.
"We can forget this happened."
Frank's expression changed.
Mel immediately rushed on, because if she stopped to think about what she was saying, she might actually start crying.
"Seriously, you can delete the messages, I can delete the messages, and we can go back upstairs and pretend I didn't accidentally send you a deeply humiliating text message that was meant for someone else, and tomorrow we'll both wake up and behave like adults who have never spoken to each other about any of this."
"Mel."
She stopped.
He was looking at her with an expression she couldn't quite read.
"You don't have to pretend it didn't happen."
Mel swallowed.
"I would really like to."
"I know."
"I mean it."
"I know."
"Frank, I am never going to recover from this."
Something almost amused passed through his face.
"I don't think you have to."
She stared at him.
"That's easy for you to say."
"Probably."
"You weren't the one who sent it."
"No."
"You weren't the one who told your best friend that you wanted him to—"
"I know what you said."
Mel covered her face she could feel the heat rushing to her cheeks as she remembered.
"Oh my God."
Frank laughed quietly.
She dropped her hands and glared at him.
"You're enjoying this."
"No."
"You are."
"I'm really not."
"You've got that face."
"What face?"
"The one you get when you're trying not to enjoy something."
His expression softened.
"I've got a face?"
"You know you do."
He smiled, huffing out a small laugh.
"Okay."
Mel shook her head, but despite everything, the corner of her mouth lifted.
And for one brief moment, the embarrassment became manageable.
Then Frank's expression changed again.
He leaned back against the wall, his hands settling into his pockets, and when he looked at her this time, there was no teasing left in his face at all.
"Can I ask you something?"
Mel immediately felt her stomach tighten again.
"Do I have a choice?"
"No."
She gave him a look.
Then he asked, quietly, "How long?"
Mel knew exactly what he meant.
She looked away.
"Frank."
"How long have you felt like that?"
There were a dozen answers she could have given him that would have been easier.
She could have said recently. She could have said she didn't know. She could have said that it had been a stupid moment and she hadn't meant any of it, even though both of them would have known that was a lie.
Instead, she stared down the empty hallway and tried to decide how much of herself she was willing to hand over now that she'd already accidentally given him so much.
"A while."
Frank waited.
Mel could feel him looking at her.
"How long is a while?"
She let out a slow breath.
"You really want to know?"
"Yeah."
She finally looked at him.
He wasn't smiling anymore.
"Long enough that I stopped expecting it to go away."
Something in his face shifted.
Mel immediately wished she'd said less, because there was a vulnerability in his expression now that made her feel as though she had somehow reached inside his chest and touched something she wasn't supposed to.
She folded her arms around her body, trying to make herself feel less exposed.
"It doesn't matter," she said. "It never did. You were married, and I wasn't going to interfere, and I wasn't going to ask you to choose me, and I certainly wasn't going to make your life more complicated than it already was."
"I know."
"And I wasn't waiting for you to get divorced."
"I know."
"I wasn't."
He nodded.
"I know."
She looked at him.
"Then why are we having this conversation?"
Frank was quiet for a moment.
Then he said, "Because I didn't know."
Mel frowned.
"Know what?"
His mouth pulled into a small, almost embarrassed smile.
"That you wanted me."
Her heart sank.
She looked away.
"Well."
She swallowed.
"Now you know."
"Yeah."
"Great."
"It doesn't sound like it feels great."
"It is."
"Mel."
"It's fine."
She tried to smile.
It didn't quite work.
"I've had a lot of practice being fine, you dont have too feel bad i can handle disappointment well."
Frank looked at her for a long moment.
Then, very quietly, he said, "I didn't think you'd ever want me."
Mel looked back at him.
The words took a moment to settle.
"What?"
He shrugged, but there was nothing casual about the gesture.
"I didn't think you'd want me."
"Why?"
He gave her a look that was almost incredulous.
"Seriously?"
"Yes."
"Because you're you."
Mel stared at him.
Frank looked down, rubbing a hand over his jaw as though he wasn't entirely sure how to explain something that had probably been obvious to him for years.
"You're so smart, and you're so good. You're..." He stopped, searching for the right word and apparently finding none of them adequate. "You're Mel."
She almost laughed.
"That isn't an explanation."
"It is to me."
"Frank."
He looked at her.
"I've got a pretty good idea of what you deserve in life."
"And?"
"And I'm not stupid enough to think I'm it."
The words landed harder than she expected.
For a year, Mel had quietly assumed that Frank didn't want her because she wasn't enough for him. That there was something about her that he couldn't possibly see in the way she wanted him to see it.
She had never considered that he might have been looking at himself and reaching the exact same conclusion from the opposite direction.
He hadn't thought she was too little or too weird.
He had thought he was too much of a mess.
Too complicated.
Too damaged.
Too much trouble for someone like her.
Mel stared at him for a long moment before shaking her head.
"You are such an idiot."
He smiled faintly.
"Probably."
"No. Definitely."
"Okay."
She took a breath, feeling her courage begin to slip now that the conversation had somehow become far more serious than she had anticipated.
"Frank, I didn't send that text because I was confused."
His expression changed.
"I sent it because it's true."
He didn't say anything.
Mel could hear her heartbeat in her ears.
"I love you."
The words came out quietly, almost matter-of-factly, because after everything else she'd already said, there was no point pretending anymore.
"I've loved you for a long time," she continued, her voice wavering just slightly. "I just never thought it mattered because I never thought you could possibly feel the same way."
Frank stared at her.
For a second, he looked almost stunned enough that Mel wondered if she had made another terrible mistake.
Then he laughed softly and shook his head.
"Jesus Christ."
Mel's mouth twitched.
"That is not the response I was hoping for."
"No." He looked at her again, and there was something almost disbelieving in his expression. "No, I just..."
He rubbed a hand over his face.
"Jesus."
Mel waited pulling at her fingers.
He looked at her again.
"I love you too."
Everything inside her went still.
Frank swallowed.
"I've been in love with you for a long time."
Mel stared at him, and for several seconds she couldn't make herself speak because there was something almost surreal about finally hearing the words she'd spent all year convincing herself she would never hear.
"You..."
Her voice caught.
She tried again.
"You love me?"
Frank smiled, and this time there was something almost helpless about it.
"Yeah."
"How long?"
He shook his head, laughing softly under his breath.
"I don't know."
"That's not an answer."
"I know."
"Frank."
He looked at her for a long moment.
"Probably since the beginning."
Mel's breath caught.
"The beginning?"
"Yeah."
"Like..."
She couldn't even finish the question.
Frank understood anyway.
"Yeah, Mel."
He stepped a little closer.
"I think I knew pretty early."
Something inside her gave way, and she laughed, although her eyes had started to sting and she immediately looked down because crying now would be almost unbearably embarrassing.
"You could have told me."
Frank laughed softly.
"So could you."
"That's different."
"How?"
"Because you're you."
He shook his head.
"That's not an answer."
"It's the same answer you gave me."
He smiled.
"Fair."
They stood there for a moment, looking at each other, and the absurdity of it began to settle over Mel in waves.
All those years.
All those conversations.
Every night he'd stayed because he didn't want to go home, every time she'd made room for him without asking why, every morning she'd woken up with his arm around her and quietly convinced herself that it meant nothing, every moment they'd chosen each other while insisting that what they were doing was simply friendship.
They had both been standing in the same place all along.
They had just been too afraid to say what it was.
Mel reached for his hand.
His fingers closed around hers immediately.
"I love you," she said again, softer this time.
His thumb moved over her knuckles.
"I'm aware."
She narrowed her eyes.
"Don't say it like that."
He laughed.
"I'm sorry."
"No, you're not."
"No."
The laughter faded.
Neither of them moved.
The space between them had suddenly become very small, and Mel became aware of the fact that Frank was looking at her mouth.
She looked at his.
He noticed.
There was no pretending anymore.
"Can I kiss you?" he asked.
The question itself almost made her laugh, because after everything they'd just admitted, after years of sleeping beside each other and holding hands and leaning into one another and pretending that none of it meant what it obviously meant, this somehow felt like the most careful thing either of them had ever done.
Mel smiled.
"You've been waiting all year to ask me that?"
"Apparently."
"That's pathetic."
"Yeah."
She stepped closer.
"Then you probably shouldn't waste any more time."
Frank kissed her.
At first, it was almost impossibly gentle, his mouth barely brushing hers as though even now, after all the years they'd spent circling this exact moment, some part of him was still afraid that if he moved too quickly she might disappear or laugh or tell him that she'd changed her mind.
Mel didn't.
Instead, she reached up, slid her fingers into his hair, and pulled him closer.
That was when whatever restraint remained between them finally gave out.
The kiss deepened almost immediately, and Mel felt his hand settle against her waist as he drew her against him, the movement so instinctive and familiar that it sent a rush through her that had nothing to do with the novelty of being touched and everything to do with the fact that it was him, finally, after years of wanting him and never allowing herself to believe that she could have this.
She laughed softly against his mouth, partly because she was overwhelmed and partly because the whole thing was almost absurd.
They had spent too long doing everything except this.
Frank smiled against her lips, and when she kissed him again, she felt his arms tighten around her.
There was nothing hesitant about it anymore.
He kissed her like he'd been waiting just as long as she had, like every careful boundary they'd built had finally become irrelevant, and Mel couldn't help thinking that perhaps this was what had always been underneath all those quiet mornings and late nights and lingering touches they had pretended were ordinary.
No sudden attraction.
Not a mistake.
Not something that had appeared because Frank was finally divorced.
It was simply the thing they'd been too frightened to name.
When they finally pulled apart, neither of them went very far. Their foreheads rested together, Mel's fingers still tangled in his hair, and one of Frank's hands settled at her waist, and for a moment neither seemed particularly interested in figuring out what came next.
Mel was smiling so hard that her cheeks hurt.
It was ridiculous, really, how happy she was.
After all those years of wanting him quietly, of convincing herself that the wanting didn't matter because there was nothing she could ever do about it, she had finally kissed him, and somehow the world had not ended. If anything, it felt as though something had finally clicked into place, as though all those little pieces of their friendship that had never quite made sense were suddenly obvious now that she knew what had been underneath them all along.
She looked at him for another long moment, then glanced down the hallway.
Her expression changed.
Frank noticed immediately.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"That's not your nothing face."
She looked back at him.
"I was just thinking."
"That's usually dangerous."
She smiled.
"About the text."
Frank's eyebrows rose.
"Which part?"
Mel's face warmed.
"All of it."
"That's a broad category."
She laughed, then shook her head, suddenly remembering just how much she'd actually said before her brain had apparently decided that dignity was optional.
There had been the bed.
His apartment.
Her apartment.
The car.
And, most catastrophically, the supply closet.
She looked at him.
He was already smiling.
"No," she said.
"I didn't say anything."
"You were about to."
"I was thinking."
"Don't."
His smile widened.
"You're the one who brought it up."
"I regret bringing it up."
"You specifically said—"
"Frank."
He laughed, and she covered her face with both hands.
"I cannot believe you read all of that."
"I can't believe you wrote all of that."
"I was talking to Samira."
"I gathered that."
"She was asking me why I wasn't dating."
"Apparently you gave her a very thorough answer."
Mel peeked at him through her fingers.
"I hate you."
He gently pulled her hands away from her face.
"No, you don't."
She looked at him.
Then, because apparently she had learned absolutely nothing from the last hour, she smiled.
"So..."
Frank's expression immediately became suspicious.
Mel glanced toward the empty corridor behind him before looking back at him.
"About the supply closet."
He stared at her.
Then he laughed, low and helpless, the sound making her grin despite herself.
"Jesus Christ, Mel."
"What?"
"We haven't even been dating for five minutes, you’re gonna kill me."
"Technically, we haven't established that we're dating."
"Right."
"So."
He shook his head, still smiling as he slipped an arm around her waist.
"You're going to be trouble."
She leaned into him.
"Probably."
And when he kissed her again, Mel decided that, after waiting all these years, she could probably afford to let the supply closet wait until tomorrow.