The Heir Who Quit Luxury novel · Chapter 6 of 32

Chapter 6: The Suit

"You're going?" Frankie said.

"I'm going."

"To apologize?"

"No."

She looked at my khakis, my polo with the Doyle's logo I'd ironed on myself, and my loafers with grease on the toes.

"Not in that, you're not."

Thirteen days later, on the night of the dinner, she dragged a garment bag out of Pop's closet.

It was a charcoal suit, double-breasted, with shoulders like a linebacker.

"Pop wore it to my mother's funeral and my communion," she said. "Not in that order."

"It's huge."

"I can fix huge. Get on the crate."

I stood on a milk crate in the middle of the office in Pop's suit pants and my undershirt.

Frankie knelt in front of me with a mouthful of pins.

Her ponytail was coming loose.

She pinned the hem around my left ankle, then my right.

Her hands moved up the inside seam to check the fit.

I stopped breathing.

She noticed.

She looked up at me with a pin between her teeth and her eyebrows raised.

"Problem, college boy?"

"No problem."

"You're sweating."

"It's a wool suit."

"You're not wearing the jacket."

She stood up slowly.

She took the jacket off the hanger and held it open behind me, and I slid my arms in.

She came around the front and buttoned it.

Then she flattened her palms on my chest to smooth the lapels.

She didn't take them away.

Her face was right there.

Close enough that I could see a smear of grease on her jaw, and the gold in her brown eyes.

She smelled like motor oil and the orange hand soap from the bays.

Her eyes dropped to my mouth.

Mine dropped to hers.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Heir Who Quit Luxury from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.