Royai among other things

He’d only gone to a handful of these events PR. Pre Rehab. Claims of needing to be home. More like needing to get away to hide what he was doing, going through. But it was nice watching people laugh and interact. So he leaned back against the tree. People watching.

Cassie with her big booming laugh, head thrown back; just as bold as her. Dana with her raspy chuckle. Abbot dark and rumbling. You could feel his laugh clear across the Pitt. Through the floor. Javadi’s betrayed her youth. How Santos made a laugh cutting was impressive and Whitakers really just blended in.

Frank frowned a little. Eyes scanning over the crowd. One laugh noticeable in it’s absence.

Mel.

Though had he ever heard her laugh?

Like a full bodied, from the chest laugh? She was standing a little outside of a group. Javadi, Santos and Whitaker. Smiling brightly and nodding along. But there was no sign of her laughter. She must have a honest laugh.

Mel caught his curious stare. Waving a little. He just saluted her quietly. He had no wish to subject himself to that level of side eye.

What he hadn’t expected was her to excuse herself. And walk very assuredly towards him. Even with Santos hissing something at her back.

‘Really ditching the cool kids for little old me?’ Mel paused for a second. The burst into the brightest laughter he’d ever heard in his life.

Mel King doesn't believe in superstitions, but Trauma Room West 13 does seem to be a cursed room in the Pitt. There's always some sort of commotion in there. It seems to attract the craziest or, sometimes, the most aggressive patients. Many times, she's heard someone tell a story of a crazy patient only for them for them to realise at the end of the tale–"oh yeah, that was in room 13 too!"

It wasn't like it was intentional. Dana had started putting the simpler, calmer cases in there to help dispel the curse rumours, but it kept happening. It was like the minute someone stepped into that room, the energy of madness took over.

Today was no different, as Mel watched Frank take a swig from his Red Bull at the West Bay nurses' station just outside of room 13. There was a crash of something which sounded like it hit the floor, a scream, and a code 'hula hoop!' shouted out the door by Perlah. Mel stood up from her chair to assist, but Frank pushed his foot in front of her before she could step forward. "Let me." He told her quickly as he shouted over to ask Ahmed for backup.

Mel watched as Frank and Ahmed dragged a redheaded woman, who kicked, screamed and thrashed her arms, and repeatedly screamed "cheater!" into the room.

A blonde woman quickly came out of the room, dressed in a red sparkly dress. Her makeup ran down her face as she sped walk in the opposite direction. Mel struggled to place where the woman looked devastated or embarrassed—maybe a blend of both.

Mel followed Perlah as she exited the room, determined to help in some way and check if her colleague was okay. "Were you hurt?" Mel asked as Perlah sat down at the central hub. The nurse was, for some reason, laughing a little and shaking her head.

"We're going to need a two-people-at-all-times rule in that room, for God sake." Dana sighed as she grabbed her phone, likely using it to complain about the incident to Robby or someone upstairs.

"As far as Room 13 incidents go, that one was pretty funny." Perlah laughed again.

Mel felt Frank step next to her, who also laughed as he made eye contact with Perlah.

"Did she leave willingly?" Perlah asked with a laugh.

"Once Ahmed mentioned calling the cops she was in the first cab she could flag down." Frank chuckled as he moved his hair out of his face.

"OK, I'll bite." Cassie said as she slid up to the group. "What was so funny about that?" She asked, as she squinted her eyes.

"OK. The guy in there–a magician by the way–had a hypoglycemic attack. The blonde lady in the red dress is his assistant. They seemed pretty friendly to me, but not romantic necessarily, like they weren't touchy with each other or anything. She just seemed a normal level of worried about him, like you would be for your boss, right?" Perlah explained.

Mel found herself enwrapped in the story now, too, and nodded along with the group that gathered to hear it.

"Then, the red-head lady—the wife!—walks in and I don't think anything of it at first. But she's immediately angry, barking things like "Why weren't you checking your blood sugar?" and "Why do you have so many high heart rate notifications on your phone?" She just keeps asking all these questions that they're both awkwardly avoiding. Then she just straight up asks if they're having an affair." Perlah continued, stretching out the word "affair" for dramatic effect. Mel watched as Frank's throat bobbed as he gulped while listening.

"Without a beat, the husband goes "no! no!", and then he tells the wife that they were just you-knowing next to each other but didn't "actually touch each other" like that makes it any better! The wife goes insane, of course. Then the mistress or whatever runs out crying—it wasn't funny, funny—but I can't believe the husband actually thought that would work." Perlah said, shaking her head with a chuckle.

"That's disgusting." Victoria weighed in; she soured her face as she said it.

Jesse joined the conversation and shrugged. "I mean—I guess they weren't strictly cheating." He laughed, but everyone in the group silently stared until he made eye contact with Frank.

"I know Langdon agrees with me!" Jesse added.

Mel hates when they get into these sorts of debates. She finds it difficult to participate—or even understand why they want to debate these things. On all her school reports growing up, her teachers would always write, "Mel has a sensitive side, and she can become quite upset if she feels things are wrong." Over and over again, year after year, teacher after teacher—it'd be the same thing. Mel always knew she had a strong sense of justice. She also knew she was sometimes guilty of black-and-white thinking with no room for nuance, but she was getting better at it. She was beginning to think that seeing all these patients with complicated lives could shake up that kind of all-or-nothing thinking in anyone.

Frank, shook his head, which distracted Mel from her thoughts. She heard him laugh and shrug, too. "It's not strictly cheating, yeah." He smiled, which made Dana, Cassie and Victoria make a disgusted "ugh" sound towards Jesse and Frank.

"So if Abby came home and said she got off next to another guy, you'd just be like "cool, honey, you didn't cheat!"?" Donnie, who had also joined the conversation, asked.

Mel couldn't help but watch Frank's reaction. He rarely brings up Abby around her, and quickly changes the topic of conversation anytime anyone else does.

"I didn't say that!" Frank grinned as he threw his hands up in the air. "I'm just saying it's more of a…grey area. Like strictly in a court of law—the jury would find that he didn't touch her; therefore, did they really have an affair?" He added with a smirk. But Mel felt that he avoided eye contact with her as she stared at him, as if he didn't want to disappoint her with his opinion.

"I agree, the wife asked if he was having an affair, so he was technically right when he said no." Jesse laughed. Mel couldn't tell if he was trying to purposely get a rise out of everyone; Dana accused him of that more than once.

"You guys are so vulgar." Cassie rolled her eyes.

"It's a grey area," Frank repeated again with a shrug, opening another Red Bull. Then, he finally looked at Mel and smiled as he offered her a sip. Mel smiled back at him and shook her head. He always offers, but Mel only drinks energy drinks on the roughest of shifts.

Victoria watched the interaction and smiled back at the rest of the group. "What do you think, Mel?" She asked.

"About what?" Mel said, looking down at the ground. She wasn't purposely playing coy, but she didn't involve herself in the conversation before, and she doesn't really want to now.

"Do you think it's a 'grey area'?" Victoria asked, she quoted 'grey area' in a voice like Frank's, like she was poking fun at him.

"She doesn't have to answer that." Frank frowned and raised his a brow at Victoria.

Mel shook her head. "I don't know—I've never really been in a relationship so I don't have much authority on the matter." She shrugged. "But strictly speaking, like if I was on a jury on the matter, I guess the patient wasn't completely wrong. He ultimately didn't touch her...I think there's a bit of a grey area there." She added.

She watched as Frank gulped and frowned as she finished her spiel—did he not want her to agree with him?

"Don't side with the boys, Mel." Victoria complained, but Cassie and Dana eventually laughed and shrugged her off as the crowd of debaters dispersed.

"Sorry—I didn't mean to get you roped into that." Frank whispered with a frown.

Mel met his eyes and smiled softly. "Don't be sorry! No one forced me to speak on it." She offered.

"Do you really think that? Or were you just backing me up?" Frank smirked. He leaned his back against the nurses' station. Mel winced when she heard it crack. It always stresses her out when he does this; she's convinced he's going to pull something or tweak his back in a bad way doing that.

"No—I just happened to agree. I'm not saying the magician was completely in the right, but I don't know if he was completely wrong either." Mel explained.

"Jesus, I forgot that guy was a magician. Makes the whole thing even better." Frank laughed as he took another big swig of his drink and looked up at the board.

Mel felt herself staring at him. It's a bad habit, she knows it is. She thought it would've worn off by now—the crush she has on him. Even though 'crush' doesn't really feel like the right word. It sounds too juvenile. Too simple, really. It's not like she thinks she's in love with him either. She's just pretty sure he's the closest friend she's ever had, and that he's the most beautiful person she's ever seen in her life—so whatever the word for that is, that's what he is to her.

She watched as his head moved away from the board and his blue eyes darted back to her. A loose strand of hair followed. Her mouth twitched upwards in sync with his, and he showed his teeth to her. He's got one of those winning smiles; it could be annoying if it weren't so genuine.

She thinks it's almost as if he moves in slow motion when she watches him sometimes, like he could be one of those male models that would be in a perfume ad with someone like Keira Knightley, where they run through a beach or a museum and pretty music plays.

Sometimes she thinks it's impossible not to just marvel at him—she's seen plenty of patients do it before. She's heard them whisper everything from "he's so handsome" to "I would ride him until I literally died". She's seen med students on rotation blush and giggle around him, regardless of their gender; it's like everyone wants him. He has a flirty personality, maybe, as far as Mel can tell. He flirts with almost everyone, she's pretty sure.

Trinity once told her he doesn't pay "special attention" to everyone, and wouldn't elaborate with more than an eye-roll and a comforting pat on her back when Mel asked what she meant by that.

"Can I ask you something?" Mel enquired; she wanted her tone to sound confident, but she's pretty sure it doesn't come out that way.

"Anything." Frank smiled down at her.

"Did you mean it when you said you wouldn't care if Abby did–she gestures her eyes back to room 13–that with someone else?" Mel whispered. She's not really sure why she asked; the conversation really should've been over and done with. But there's something in her, the endlessly curious version of herself, that has to push, has to know.

Frank's eyebrows raised as she asked the question. His eyes bulged a little, and he shook his head. "Um." He gulped. "Well, I wouldn't love it, if she did that with someone. But hey, I guess I'd be happy one of us was getting off. We haven't had sex in well over a year." He sighed and pursed his lips in a downward frown.

Mel accidentally opened her mouth in a silent gasp. They don't discuss his marriage very often, other than the odd time that Frank will confess they had a fight or that he did something with the kids that Abby didn't approve of. It's not like she's spent significant time thinking about Frank's sex life within his marriage, but she wouldn't have guessed at what he just confessed to.

Mel's lack of response and the probable shocked expression on her face—which she really does try not to make obvious—led Frank to close his eyes and wince. "Sorry. Probably shouldn't have said that." Frank added quietly. She could've sworn there was even a slight blush on his cheeks.

"Why?" Mel gulped. She doesn't really know she felt the need to continue this conversation, but there's a part of her that can't help it. She made a mental note to check if she's ovulating on her cycle tracker app.

"Well, HR would probably frown on it." Frank chuckled. He smiled at her with the soft, gentle grin that he always saves for her.

"I thought we were more than just co-workers." Mel shrugged and added a grin herself, but Frank took in a deep breath when she spoke and furrowed his brows at her.

"We're friends." She added with a small smile to try and resolve the worried expression on his face.

Frank smiled again and nodded. "I guess friends can talk about these things." He said, cautiously.

"And friends do things for each other, right?" Mel replied. She regretted it the moment she said it as she watched his face fall. His eyeballs bulged too, like he was somehow in immediate pain.

"Mel—" He started, in his quiet, sweet way, before she cut him off.

"Remember I mentioned my smoke detector was beeping? Do you think you could change the batteries for me? My landlord is still being useless about it, and I can't reach up to it." Mel chirped up, smiling and bouncing on her tiptoes.

"Sure." Frank smiled softly. Mel thought she could see a look of relief flood his face, which she tried not to overthink.

"I can follow you home after our shift finishes tonight?" He said, then winced. "That sounded creepier than I was intending." He added. That got a giggle out of Mel.

"That works for me." Mel grinned. The smoke alarm thing was genuine. The beeping had been driving her crazy and keeping her up all night for a week. But a part of her just wanted to spend a little more time with him. 12 hours (plus plenty of overtime) is never enough to get her fill of him. She knows it's wrong to take this man away from his wife and kids to go to her home, but she wants him there.

It's all innocent, at least. It's just changing batteries. So she tries her best to ignore the swirling guilty feeling that builds in her stomach when she pictures the image of Frank standing in her apartment.

"I have a little step stool, if you need it." Mel says, watching as Frank inspects the beeping, high-pitched noise the smoke detector at the top of her stairs makes.

"It's alright." Frank huffs. "I can reach."

Mel tries to keep her jaw shut as she watches him. He's a little sweaty and breathing through his mouth as he reaches up on tiptoes and uses a screwdriver to open the smoke detector cover. His position is making his white t-shirt slide up his stomach, and Mel can see the hair that trails down to the waistband of his Calvin Klein's. She's determined to commit this look to memory. She literally stares, then closes her eyes like she's taking a literal mental picture with her brain. She wants to remember how he huffs his breath and sticks out his tongue in concentration as he works.

"Can you hand me that?" He asks, breaking Mel out of her trance. Her eyes fall on the new battery, and she hands it over, letting her skin meet his warm hand. He's always so warm–so physically hot.

"Your hand is freezing." He notes, smiling before he returns his focus to the smoke detector.

"I know. I don't even have an iron deficiency or anything, I get that checked when I donate blood. I'm just naturally cold-blooded, I guess." Mel shrugs.

Frank laughs, softly. "You're the furthest thing from cold-blooded, Mel." He adds, leaning back to examine his handiwork on the alarm.

"I'm going to press the tester button now to make sure it works. It's gonna be really loud if you wanna put your AirPods in or something?" Frank says. It almost makes her want to cry. She's never had someone in her life so considerate of her feelings…and her oddities. Never. And he does it so casually, like he doesn't realise it means more to her than she could ever even explain.

"Yeah, actually I'd like that if you don't mind. Find me in the living room after?" Mel smiles.

"Deal." Frank grins as he watches her pop her AirPods in and walk to the living room.

Mel puts them into noise cancellation mode and selects a rainforest playlist to listen to. She settles on the couch and closes her eyes, just barely hearing the faint buzz of Frank testing the smoke detector upstairs.

She doesn't exactly mean to, but the vision comes to her. Frank's arms reaching up and changing the batteries. His biceps. Jesus. She doesn't know how he finds the time to work on them.

His hands are beautiful, too. Mel has caught herself staring at them more times than she'd like to admit. She's studied the blue veins that trail across them. She's found the calloused marks on his fingers that have come from using his hands every day.

His stomach–particularly the hair across his stomach. It's, quite literally, made for him. Mel couldn't imagine a world where Frank was hairless on his chest. It wouldn't be right. She's thankful for whatever higher power intervened in the creation of him and added all the hair.

It feels wrong to be thinking of him, like this, while he does a favour in her home for her. It feels even more wrong when Mel starts to feel her heartbeat settle between her thighs and a familiar urge to part them. It's what she's trying to suppress when she feels Frank's hand waving very close to her face, not quite touching, but making a cool breeze of air against her skin.

"Oh." She says, removing her AirPods and looking at his smiling face. He has his hands on his hips, too, which Mel finds weirdly attractive, then she tries to ignore that thought.

"You okay?" He asks. "Sorry if the noise bothered you. I tried to be quick." He says, gritting his teeth.

"I'm great. I barely heard it." Mel replies, trying to avoid his eye contact. It's so intense to have him above her as she sits below him. He looks like an ancient statue of some kind.

"You want a soda? Becca makes me keep Dr Pepper cans here. Tastes like metal to me." Mel offers, standing up so she makes level eye contact with him. That's slightly easier to manage.

"Sure." Frank smiles, collapsing on her couch. His legs go all the way under her coffee table, like he's a comically large giant in her comparably tiny home. Mel skips over to the kitchen before she can linger on the image too much.

She smiles politely as she hands him the can, then questions whether she should sit next to him on the couch or find another spot to sit. She decides not to make it weird and settles next to him.

Mel folds herself against the edge of the couch but because Frank is so spread out–he never seems to grasp the concept of personal space–their outer thighs are making contact. The closeness makes energy rush between Mel's legs again. It spreads dangerous happy hormones to her brain that make her speak without thinking, makes her say things like "So you and Abby really haven't had sex in over a year?" out loud.

Fuck, she really said that out loud.

Frank immediately chokes a little on his Dr Pepper and looks at her with his mouth agape. "Mel… I don't know if we should talk about that." He finally says.

Mel hangs her head a little. "Why not?" She asks quietly. "Don't you want to…get off?" She adds, before she can stop herself.

Frank gulps and Mel thinks for a second that he looks like he could devour her. "I do." He whispers, like he's unsure of this whole conversation topic.

"Don't you…touch yourself? Just touch yourself. It's okay." Mel shrugs. She doesn't know what has come over her.

"Mel—" He protests, but Mel sits up on her knees in front of him.

"Please, Dr Langdon. You said it yourself—it's not really wrong. We're just friends. It's just two friends getting off, right?" She asks with a desperate frown.

Frank takes a deep breath as he takes her words in. "I said it's a grey area… it's all a technicality." He sighs.

Mel flops him away from his view and gets back into a sitting position. "Sorry. It's okay if you don't want to." She whispers, desperate not to cry in front of him. Our friendship is over. She thinks. I always push it too far. I always push people away like this.

Before she can spiral anymore, Frank is right next to her face with his hands on her knees. "Of course I want to. Jesus, Mel, this is like the theme of every wet dream I've had about you for months." He says, as Mel finally looks into his eyes.

"I just… I don't want to make you do anything you don't want to do. I don't want to corrupt you, I guess." He shrugs, taking in a big, deep breath through his nose.

Mel shakes her head in confusion. "You're not corrupting me. I asked you, Langdon." She says. They both stay silent for a beat. "You're not making me do anything, it's kind of the opposite, actually. My whole life, I've done what my parents asked me to do in order to care for Becca. Then care for my parents themselves when they were sick. Then care for Becca full time when they were both dead. I just… I want to do something for myself for once. I want to be selfish for once." She adds, feeling her skin start to melt under the weight of his hands on her knee.

Frank nods, maybe even smiles a little, then leans back, removing his hand from her knee. "You're right. You're just touching yourself and I'm just touching myself. And we just happen to be next to each other. There's nothing wrong with that, right?" He says quietly.

"Right." Mel says, and she can't help but smile a little.

"So touch yourself." He whispers, his eyes roaming down her body. "Touch yourself." He repeats.

Mel nods and slowly slips a hand down her leggings and in front of her underwear, running her palm against her already soaking centre.

She makes eye contact with Frank as he watches her with undivided attention then nods, mostly to himself, like he's giving himself permission to give in. His fingers find the button on his jeans which releases with an audible 'pop' and the sound of his zipper quickly follows. His legs wiggle out of his jeans and he throws his socks off too before he strokes himself over his boxers.

"Is that how you touch yourself when you're alone?" He says, very quietly. Mel has continued to tease herself over her underwear this whole time but breaks concentration to shake her head.

"I'll usually get naked." She answers.

"Then get naked." He shrugs, like it's the most simple thing in the world.

So she slides her leggings down, follows his lead and throws off her fluffy socks, shakes her t-shirt over her head–her sports bra goes with it too. She stares at him, only in her panties, as he throws off his shirt too so he's only in his boxers.

"That's not naked." He says, flippantly.

"You're not naked either." She says, in a tone that kind of shocks herself. She sounds like a brat. She doesn't know what's come over her, but it only makes Frank tilt his head up at the ceiling and crack a big smile.

"I guess not." He smiles, and rolls his boxers down his hips. Mel physically gasps when she sees his hard length spring free from the tight constraints of his boxers. Then she feels embarrassed, but he grins smugly.

He's huge. Bigger than anything she's seen on any cadaver or patient she's ever worked on. On par with actual porn stars she's seen on videos late at night. And he knows it, obviously, and he grins while tugging at the pink, needy tip, already leaking pre-cum.

She's almost glad they're just sitting next to each other and touching themselves tonight, because she's genuinely not sure if she could handle all that inside her.

She doesn't get another second to contemplate before Frank makes eye contact with her. "You've seen mine, now show me yours." He winks, which makes her want to melt in the best way.

Mel closes her eyes and she slides her practical purple underwear down her legs. She parts her legs, just a little, and strokes her clit once again. "Perfect. Perfect." Frank remarks, like he's saying it to himself.

Frank stops for a second and wrestles with his wedding ring, for once stuck firmly in place on his finger, like he's going to slide it off. "No. No. Please, Dr Langdon, don't take the ring off. If you take the ring off…it means we're doing something wrong. And we're not doing anything wrong, right?" She says, as if she isn't in front of him, getting wetter and wetter as she teases her own clit.

Frank hesitates, frowns and then nods. "You're right." He huffs, and goes back to stroking himself.

"But no more of this Dr Langdon stuff, please, Mel. Call me Frank, at least for tonight, call me Frank." He whines, going between staring at her face and what her fingers are doing.

"It feels too intimate." Mel protests with a frown.

"Please." He wobbles. He really does sound desperate. And it's totally normal for friends to call each other by their first names, everyone in work calls her Mel, after all.

"OK. Frank. I'll give you that." Mel says, her breathing becoming a little more erratic as her other hand has found itself teasing her nipples.

"Fuck. I love hearing you say that." He hums, quickening how strokes himself. She watches as he sticks out his tongue a little, something she's seen him do many times while deep in focus in work. It makes her lean up against the edge of the sofa and spread her legs a little more. She's sure he can see just how wet she is. A slick glistening is probably settling between her thighs.

"Frank." She repeats, in a low, breathy tone, which seems to excitedly spur him on.

She finally lets herself give in, and places two fingers inside herself, stretching her own thumb to continue to pat against her clit. He turns to face her, and his skin goes pale then back to pink as he watches her.

He audibly moans then, which makes her do the same. For a while they sit like that, in perfect tandem. Every stroke she makes with her fingers, he makes with his hand. For every moan she releases from her throat, he lets out a similar groan or whimper. Every bead of sweat, every lift of their hips, every breath, in sync. Eyes on each other. It's like they're doing some kind of fucked up pre-choreographed dance. But they're not, it's all second nature to them, like it always has been.

It oddly reminds Mel of doing a procedure in work. It comes so naturally to them, like the first STEMI they did together. Their like a mirror to one each other. You move, I move.

She knows where his hands are going before he moves them, he knows what tool she's about to reach for…the paper she's about to reference when discussing a patient's care. She's never had that sort of relationship with anyone before him. And she's pretty sure he hasn't either, not even with wife.

By the time Mel is so desperately wet that she can hear the sounds of her pussy every time she moves her fingers and she's moaning so loudly she's almost shocked it's her making these noises, Frank's mouth opens wide as he stares at her.

"I wish I could cum on you." He announces, in a tone that almost sounds like he's in pain.

"But that'd be cheating." They both say in sync, which makes them both release a bout of nervous laughter. We're perfect for each other. Mel thinks, then tries to drown it out.

"But I wish you could too." She admits with a desperate whine, closing her eyes tightly as she feels the familiar closeness of her orgasm reach the nerve endings of her clit.

"I wish I could finish inside you." He counters, tugging on his cock so roughly that Mel almost wonders if he's hurting himself.

"You can't talk like that." She whines.

"Why not?" He huffs, exasperated, staring into her eyes.

"Because we're just friends." She hums then swallows down a gulp.

Frank tugs himself more frantically, and Mel swipes at her clit more quickly, biting her lip as Frank turns his head to her again.

"We're more than friends and you know it." He hums. Mel lets out a desperate moan that she's not sure was meant in protest or agreement and it's not a second later that they both finally cum.

Mel's orgasm comes in quick, spirited gushes and for a second she thinks it might never end as she feels the beating aftershocks in her core.

She's sure it might never end as she leaks around her fingers and Frank whispers a string of pretty phrases–"that's it, baby", "let go for me", "you look so fucking good right now."

Frank cums hard and fast against his own hand and across his stomach. There's so much cum, it even covers his wedding ring.

Mel wishes more than anything that could've been inside her, but she's not a cheater. She's not the other woman. They're just friends, still just great friends, according to any court of law or character witnesses. Mel and Frank? Just really close friends.

That's what she repeats in her head over and over again as he reaches over for tissues to clean himself up, gets his clothes back on and kisses the top of her head with a quiet and simple "goodbye sweetheart."

"I can't believe you've let this debate carry on to day two." Cassie huffs, after Jesse brings up the magician and the whole debate again. Mel thinks the same as Cassie as she feels Frank skin burn and his face turn red next to her.

"You know I might be changing my position on the whole thing, actually." He remarks.

"What?" Frank says, his head tilting in confusion.

"I spoke to Chris about it last night and he brought up a good point. Was it only the getting off next to each other or was there an emotional aspect to it? Because it's kinda more intimate than sex, in a way." Jesse says with a shrug.

Mel takes a small step away from Frank in a motion that she tries to not make obvious.

"If I found out Chris was having an emotional affair it'd probably hurt more than if he just got off next to someone. Hell, even if he had sex with them. Like if he had inside jokes with someone else, laughed with someone else, had deep conversations with someone else. Relying on someone else to get through his days at work…yeah that'd kill me. So I guess I'm only standing with the magician if it was just a purely sexual release." Jesse laughs, throwing his hands in the air.

Everyone else goes on to debate about something else but Mel and Frank just stare at each other. Their skin is mutually flushed and they have a guilty look on both their faces.