Frankie slammed the car door and started walking to the bakery.

“Are you serious right now?” Foster said as he scrambled to leave the driver's seat. He grabbed a hold of Frankie's wrists.

“Let go,” Frankie said trying to break free.

Foster turned him around and put Frankie’s knuckles up to his face, “You’re telling me you go into a fight, doesn’t look like you fought back,”

“So what if I didn’t?” Frankie replied, kissing his teeth as he did. Foster hadn’t bothered him about the bruise on the side of his jaw all of yesterday, so Frankie thought that he either didn’t notice it or didn’t care. But then he started bombarding Frankie with questions as soon as he parked.

Frankie had already gone the entire day being stared at and interrogated by everyone on the face of the Earth— by people he didn’t even know. Mrs Tellor pulled him out of class, Delilah poked and prodded, Emery looked at him sideways. The attention was nice for a moment but frustration quickly settled in. His brother was just another annoyance on top of the other random people coming out of the woodwork.

Fosters furrowed his brows, “Then tell me who it was, and I’ll deal with them.”

“Deal with them? Let go of me,” Frankie said, sternly. “I don’t need this right now.”

“No, tell me the truth,” Foster shouted. “If someone’s beating up my brother-”

“It was a fight, Foster.”

“If someone’s ‘fighting’ my brother, I wanna know who it is,” Foster said, rolling his eyes.

“I know you’re gonna go fight them. I don’t want that, It’s pathetic,” Frankie said, breaking from his grasp.

“Fuck, Frankie,” Foster said, gripping onto his hair so hard it looked like strands were about to fall out. “I know damn well someone beat you up, it’s not embarrassing or ‘pathetic’ okay? I’ll get them off your back.”

“No, Foster, I don’t need you to do this,” Frankie said, “This happened ages ago,”

“It was yesterday.”

“Well, you didn’t ask me then, did you?”

“The only reason I didn’t ask you about it right then is because you already looked pissed off the moment you saw me- I didn’t know what I’d done, and I didn’t want to make it worse. Maybe It wasn’t me you were angry at, maybe it was them. But I didn’t ask 'cause you already seemed kind of off,” Foster said. “You’re normally in a good mood when you go to Stella’s, so I'm asking you now,”

It was true, the moment he’d gotten home after Ezra dropped him off, his mood dropped when he saw Foster there waiting for him. The first thing he’d done was start shouting at him, ruining the good mood Frankie was in.

He shouted at Frankie asking him why he hadn’t answered any of his messages, and in turn, Frankie asked him why he hadn’t answered any of his messages. Foster told him that he did see Frankie’s messages but when he replied back telling Frankie to come meet him at the car park, Frankie wouldn’t answer- but Frankie knew there were no text messages, he didn’t get anything on his phone. Their little match had ended with Frankie running upstairs, and locking his door to keep Foster out.

“I…”

“Did they beat you up for a reason? Do you think you deserved it or something? Mouthing off to someone?” Foster asked, his tone going lower. “Deserved or not. I wanna know who it was.”

Frankie scoffed and started walking away from him but Foster grabbed him by the hand again.

“What is your problem?” Frankie said as he turned around to face him.

“Me? Really? Can I not be worried about my own brother? I’m just asking, I’m not trying to push,” He said as he put his hands to his chest in disbelief.

“You’re not trying to push?” He asked, incredulously. Pushing is all he’s been doing since he parked the car.

“No, I asked you about the first time when I parked in here and you brushed me off. I want a straight answer, Frankie, what’s going on?”

“You're getting on my nerves.”

“It was one question,” Foster said, his voice waned a bit at the end of his words, “Why do I have to walk around eggshells? I never know what will piss you off. I don’t know if it’s the way I said it, maybe? But everything about me get’s on your nerves Fran….it doesn’t matter what I do or say…we weren’t like this before, you weren’t like this before,”

You weren’t like this before.

“Go away,” Frankie snapped. “If you follow me into the Bakery I will never speak to you again,”

He walked off and Foster didn’t hold him back at all.

Frankie barely managed to keep himself from slamming the glass front door of the cafe.

Lora was standing at the register, and her eyes looked everywhere but him. She’d definitely seen their very public argument, and so had everyone else in the cafe part of the bakery. Frankie smiled and waved at her before rushing to the staffroom.

He stuffed his things in the locker and slammed the thing shut— wincing at the vibration that ran through his arm.

He took his apron from the stand and tied it around himself.

Frankie pulled at his hair in frustration. He’d soon be driven mad by the two of them, Cedric and Foster. He was sure he hadn’t imagined being ignored for months so who did Foster think he was? Acting like an older brother after he avoided Frankie for months— told him that he hated him.

***

Frankie watched the door impatiently.

The new hire was supposed to start working today. It was getting busier during Frankie’s 4-8 shift, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle— there was no need to hire a whole new worker. They’d have all the same shifts, ‘short shifts’ as Stella liked to call them since she didn’t want her workers at the cafe from 9 till 9, and she just happened to chose someone from his school. Stella knew Frankie was a loner, and she acted the part of a concerned mother trying to get fledgling to fly.

Frankie knew very well she was trying to get him to make more friends. He tried his best to think of her good intentions, tried his best to think that ‘It’s the thought that counts’ but Stella just didn’t understand.

The doorbell sounded with a jingle.

A customer.

“Are you open?”

It was Finley.

He looked at Frankie, faint confusion on his face, “You…work here?”

His voice was rough, like he’d just woken up, and his words were broken by sniffles.

“Yeah…” Frankie replied.

Finley grunted before walking into the cafe.

Frankie was spooked when he got a good look at Finley. His hoodie fell behind his face and streaks of black tears ran from his eyes.

Oh, Frankie thought, Mascara.

Finley looked bad. His eyes were red and mascara spilt from them in black-grey streaks, his lips were curled and he looked like he was about to cry. Judging by the mascara, he’d already cried at least once.

It was strange seeing Finley like this while they weren't very good friends they still interacted on a day-to-day basis, yet, this was the first time Frankie had ever seen him be more than normal or angry.

“Welcome to Stella’s…how can I help?”

Finley kept quiet as he looked across the menu and then at all the pastries and sandwiches they had in the display case. His eyes lingered to Frankie’s left.

“I’ll have a 10 donuts,” Finley said while digging into his pockets.

“...Which ones would those be?” Frankie asked while fiddling with the cash register.

“Any,” he said.

Finley pushed a 20-dollar bill onto the counter while Frankie took a kitchen tong from the hook on the side and a box to place all of the donuts inside off. He grabbed one of each donut and picked two extra glazed donuts- the least offensive type of donut. Then he added a triple chocolate donut and a powdered jelly donut, the most popular picks.

Frankie slowed down in the middle of putting the donuts in, and looked up to Finley.

“Are you…okay?”

Finley looked up from his phone, entirely unimpressed, “Fuck off.”

Frankie nodded as all the courage he amassed quickly left his body. He put all the donuts in and placed the packaged box on the counter before sliding the 20 over and entering the register to get the change.

“That’ll be 19 dollars?” Frankie said while holding up the 20.

Finley nodded.

Soon Finley left with his donuts.