“
I Can't Make You Love Me.' Bonnie Raitt."
"Oh,Fiorella."
I glared at him a little as I climbed down. "Was that delightful list for your benefit or mine?"
Frankie grabbed my hand and, when I didn't pull away fast enough, tugged me onto his lap,where he wrapped his arms so tightly around me that I couldn't escape. Sometimes his strength still surprises me.He tickled my cheek with his nose. "Don't hate me just because I'm hateful."
"I never do."
Here's the thing. Frankie's taken a lot of hits in his life. He never stays down for long.
"Excuse me!" The mannequin's evil twin was glaring down at us fro her sky-high bootie-heeled heights. Her NM badge told us her name was Victoria. "You cannot do that here!" she snapped.
"Do what?" Frankie returned, matching lockjaw snooty for lockjaw snooty.
She opened and closed her mouth, then hissed, "Canoodle!"
I felt Frankie's hiccup of amusement. "Were we canoodling, snookums?" he asked me. "I rather thought we were about to copulate like bunnies."
I couldn't help it; I laughed out loud. Victoria's mouth thinned into a pale line. The whole thing might have ended with our being escorted out the store's hallowed doors by security. Sadie, as she so often did, momentarily saved us from ourselves.
She stomped out of the dressing room and planted herself in front of us. Ignoring the angry salesgirl completely, she muttered, "I look like a carved pumpkin!"
Frankie took in the skirt, layered shirts, and jacket. "You do not, but I might have been having an overly Michael Kors moment. This will not do for a date.Take it off." He nudged me, then added, "Right here.Every last stitch of it."
As soon as Sadie was back in her own clothing and coat-which got an unwilling frown of respect from Victoria; apparently even Neiman Maruc doesn't carry that line-we moved on. Sadie did better in Frankie's second choice-a lip-printed sweater dress from Betsey Johnson,but wouldn't buy it.
"We're just going to a movie!" she protested. "Besides,Jared's not...not..." She gestured down at her lippy hips. "He's practical and sensible and quiet."
"Oh,my God!" Frankie slapped both palms to the side of his face,and turned to me. "Sadie has a date with a Prius!"
He had to invoke the sanctity of Truth or Dare before he could even get her into Urban Outfitters. "Sometimes I love you less than other times," she grumbled as he filled her arms with his last choices.
"No,you don't," he said cheerfully, and sent her off to change.
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