If Only You (Bergman Brothers, #6)(5)

Now her eyebrows lift, twin cinnamon curves arched over those wide green eyes the color of wet glossy leaves like the ones surrounding us. “How do you know my hair’s never down?”

“I don’t pretend to know or care what it looks like,” I tell her sharply, hoping it’ll scare her off. “I mean, when I’ve seen you, it’s never down.”

She tips her head, arms across her chest. “I wasn’t aware you even saw me when we did cross paths. You seemed to overlook the fact that I even existed.”

“Yes, well, it’s easy to overlook someone who obviously wants to be overlooked. If you’ve been hoping for a different response, I’d suggest revising that attitude.”

Suddenly, her expression blanks. When she blinks, a sheen of wetness turns her eyes glassy.

That’s when I realize I’ve done something even more unforgiveable than mentally debauching my best friend’s little sister: I’ve made her cry.





The past three weeks since I watched Ziggy run off on the verge of tears began as a typical self-loathing bender, but have culminated in a new, bleak low. With my reinjured foot propped up, I lounge on Ren’s sofa, the recipient of a formidable scowl.

Frankie’s.

My highly displeased agent sits in an armchair across from me in her usual head-to-toe black, long, dark hair curtaining intense hazel eyes. That paired with her severe expression, her hand flexing menacingly around her gray acrylic cane, she looks like a pissed-off witch, ready to curse me. I think, one more wrong move on my part, and she just might.

“You,” she says flatly, “are an ass of unfathomable proportions.”

“This is not news.” Shutting my eyes, I drop my head back on the arm of their sofa.

Frankie jabs my thigh with the tip of her cane. Hard.

“Ow!” I whine. “Ren, Frankie hit me.”

“Don’t talk to him,” she snaps. “He has no part in this conversation.”

“So we’re having this meeting at your house while Ren makes us lunch, why again?”

“So I won’t murder you,” she tells me darkly.

I swallow. Frankie’s wrath is just about the only thing I’m scared of. That and losing my hockey career.

I might also be a teensy bit scared of finally having done something that could cost me Ren’s friendship, too. Not that I’d ever admit that to anyone, especially Ren.

I glance toward the man in question, who still exhibits no signs of having written me off, considering he drove me to and from my most recent doctor appointment in his minivan and is now making me a meal. Still, he’s got me nervous, standing with his back to me, focused on whatever’s cooking on the range while he wears his theater-nerd apron covered in doodled William Shakespeares.

“Ren,” I whisper-plead.

He gives me an apologetic glance over his shoulder. “Better listen to her. You know I’d step between you and anything, Seb, except my wife.”

As he says that, Frankie’s expression transforms from a scowl to a smile, which she beams his way. He beams a smile back.

Their mutual gaze is disgustingly affectionate.

“Stop doing that in front of me. It’s making me nauseous.”

Frankie cuts me another scathing glare and pokes me in the hip this time, making me yelp. “Sure that nausea isn’t a response to your self-sabotaging bullshit finally coming back to bite you in the ass?”

“I know I fucked up. I told you, I understand, okay? Now it’s your job to help me fix it. That’s why I pay you the big bucks.”

Frankie snorts, leaning back in her chair, and—thank God—dropping her cane beside her. “Seb, I am brilliant at my job. I am a damn good sports agent. But this is pushing the limits of even my abilities. If it were simply managing your image, that would be one thing—”

“Managing my image is exactly what I need you to do.”

“No,” she says flatly. “It’s not. Your image does not need ‘managing.’ It needs a goddamn resurrection.”

I frown. “It’s not that bad, is it?”

Frankie blinks at me slowly, as bleak silence thickens the air. Ren bites his lip and keeps his eyes on the stovetop, stirring steadily.

“Yes, Gauthier,” she finally snaps. “It is ‘that bad.’”

Oh fuck. I’ve been Gauthier-ed. I’m in trouble.

“So I crashed my car,” I concede diplomatically. “But it wasn’t into anyone else.”

“No,” Frankie mutters between clenched teeth. “Just an after-school outreach program facility.”

Ren winces.

“At least it was two in the morning? No one was hurt?”

“Oh, people were hurt,” she says. “These kids don’t have a place for their program until it’s fixed; that hurts them. I have to figure out how to spin some tale justifying your reckless endangerment on the road and tens of thousands of dollars of property damage caused by wrecking a luxury sports car while driving with a busted foot, that doesn’t finish off your career and make you look like a selfish, irresponsible prick.”

“How about emphasizing that I wasn’t drunk driving? I never drink and drive. I feel like I should get brownie points for that.”

“There are no brownie points!” she yells, eyes wide. “There is nothing redeeming about your behavior, Gauthier. You’re sure as shit paying for all damages, but the facility is unusable until the repairs are made. Even throwing money at them, this will take time to fix, and the story will linger. If this were your first misguided offense, that would be one thing, but it’s not. You already broke your foot in the world’s most pointless of bar fights—”