The blonde stood with a clipboard in hand, gnawing on the lid of the pen, deep in thought. Thankfully, work had preoccupied her enough to keep her mind from wandering to the disaster of her love life, but the lull in the day was beginning to bring the heartache back. She bit down harder on the pen lid, trying to stop the flow of tears.
She had cried enough over the past few days, but apparently, that doesn’t mean anything.
But just as the tears began to form again, she felt a presence behind her, distracting her from the sadness that was her life. Though before Fran had time to register who had arrived, she felt two arms wrap around her midriff and her feet lift off the ground.
“BEEEEZZZZZZIIIIIEEEEEEEEEE!” The bellowing shout echoed through the partially empty gym, as the person tightened their grip around her and had now begun to swing her in their arms.
“Kostas!” Fran let out a shriek, followed by a small giggle, caught off guard by his actions. Though not entirely, he had a track record of either scaring her or picking her up every chance he got. Which was always. “Put me down!” The blonde instructed halfheartedly, trying to act seriously, though given the giggle she let after she spoke, maybe she wasn’t being that serious.
Kostas tutted disappointedly but did as the blonde said, placing her back down on the ground but not before landing a sloppy kiss on the side of her face, making a loud kissing sound. “Mwah!” He smirked, seeing Fran roll her eyes at his theatrics. “How are we?”
“Are we scouse now?” Fran raised an eyebrow at the Greek's attempt to speak in a scouse accent. It was pretty good actually.
“Greek scouse!” Kostas announced and shrugged his shoulders cockily.
Fran couldn't help but let a little giggle out at the way he puffed out his cheek proudly at his claim. “You’ve been spending too much time with Curtis… and Trent.” She gave a disapproving glance to the Greek international as she placed her clipboard down on the bench beside them.
Kostas had his overconfident smirk plastered across his face in agreement before his expression turned more serious. “Okay but I’m serious, how you are, I have not uh… saw you in days.”
Oh, he wanted a serious answer, Fran worriedly thought, not wanting to give him one. But he was her “bezzie” and she felt that she owed him that much, but the more she thought about how she really was, she began feeling the almost too familiar pang of hurt filling her up again. The blonde bit down on her bottom lip to control another outburst from occurring but it all got too much.
Before Kostas even had a chance to react to the worrisome expression Fran was harbouring, he felt the full force of her body against his, her arms wrapping around him and head buried into his chest. “Whoa… Frannie…” He said breathlessly, and confused, taken back by her reaction to his simple question.
He knew that this was not a normal hug like the many they had shared before, it wasn’t a friendly hug, a hug to say hello or goodbye, it was a hug full of hurt and pain. It was a hug that was looking, wanting, needing comfort and Kostas wasn’t going to deny his best friend that. He wrapped his own arms around Fran’s small frame, bringing her in closer, feeling her bury her head deeper into his chest as if she was trying to disappear into it, and that’s when he heard the small, almost inaudible cry of pain from the blonde in his arms.
He felt his chest tighten, not knowing what was wrong but knowing that she was hurting, and that hurt him too. No one makes my best friend upset, he thought, closing his eyes and resting his head on top of hers, giving it a gentle kiss. It broke his heart to see her this way, she rarely ever shed a tear, so to have her crying uncontrollably into him, worried the Greek greatly.
Feeling his own sorrow begin to well in empathy with the crying blonde in his arms, Kostas reluctantly pulled away ever so slightly to capture a sight of her face, to finally see what had reduced his best friend to such tears. “Frannie, what is wrong? What happened?” He gently whispered.
Composing herself just enough, Fran pulled away from the comfort of Kostas’ chest and glanced up at those anxious brown eyes, that stared down at her with so much concern.
“Lorenzo… he-he…” She stopped herself short, feeling the lump in her throat grow and her composure waver. She didn’t want to say that dreaded word, she didn’t even want to think it, too pained to mention the C-word by name, she opted for a different phrase, one that hurt her to say just as much. “He broke up with me… or I broke up with him… we’ve broken up, anyway.”
“What?” Kostas frowned with confusion. He didn’t understand, the last time he had seen Fran and Lorenzo, they seemed happy, they seemed in love. The Greek pulled away to arm's length, his brow furrowing further in bewilderment. “But the time before? When we were together all, you two looked happy-”
Fran’s little chuckle cut Kostas’ confused rambling off. He watched her as she looked away, the tears beginning to well in her eyes once again as she uttered: “Not when he's in bed with… someone else.” Fran stopped short of saying who it was, not wanting to speak the name of the person who had ruined her life or her affiliation with that person.
The revelation that Fran delivered took a few seconds to sink for the Greek but as soon as it did, he felt the anger rise in him seeing the pain it had caused his best friend. His fists balled at his side, nostrils flaring as he began to yell. “That Malaka… I will kill him-”
“Kossy.” Fran stopped him short from outbursting any further, with a pleading grab to his shoulder and use of his nickname from her. She didn’t want to cause a scene or grab the attention of any other people that were holding sessions in the gym. Kostas was the only that knew about what had happened and at the moment, Fran wanted to keep it that way.
Her pleading eyes staring up at him made Kostas realise this was not the time or the place to start getting angry or upset, and no matter how much he wanted to get in his car and go to Lorenzo’s to give him a good seeing too, he knew that he couldn’t because he didn’t want to hurt her more than she was probably already hurting.
Closing his eyes, Kostas took a deep breath and slightly nodded his head. His hand came to cover the one on his shoulder comfortingly, expressing to Fran that he’d calmed down - enough. Upon opening his eyes, however, the Greek still had words to say, although this time he expressed them quietly. “I always say he was a Malaka though, you know this.”
Fran could only laugh at inadvertent “I told you so” and, no matter how much it pained her to admit; he was right. “You did.” She pulled her hand away from the Greek, finding herself staring out at the pitches outside. “I just thought he loved me the way I love him…” The blonde felt those tears coming back but she was determined not to let this all ruin her day and before she could receive another sympathetic hug from her best friend, she cleared her throat. “Can we just get on with the session now please?”
Kostas’ frown soon turned into a smile. “For sure, Frannie.” He winked, planting a kiss on the side of her head.
