Page 106 of Christmas in Coconut Creek

I gasped, clapping my palm over my mouth as realization dawned. Frankie’s smirk lengthened beside me.

“I have never loved someone so fully in my entire life. You are my world,” Mateo recited. “I want to make you laugh and give you the cutest little meatball babies anyone has ever seen, and shrivel into raisins in our old age together.”

Natalia’s eyes glistened and she squeezed Mateo’s fingers to stop her own from shaking.

“I want you to be my wife, Tally. Will you do me that honor and marry me?”

She nodded feverishly as tears streaked down her face, a little bounce starting to lift her off the carpet. Mateo pulled the ring from the box and it shined like a Swarovski crystal ornament, light glinting off it so brightly it was like catching the sun in a magnifying glass. “A little verbal confirmation would be great, sweetheart,” Mateo teased.

“Yes!” she wailed. “Yes! Oh mygod. YES.”

Her happiness was so loud it pierced our eardrums and I realized I wasalsocrying. Frankie’s thumb swept across my cheek to wipe the emotion away as we both watched Mateo slide the massive diamond onto his new fiancé’s finger.

My best friend was gettingmarried.

“You knew this whole time.” I turned to Frankie, shoving his chest. “You didn’t tell me!”

“I was under very strict direction not to ruin the surprise. My balls were on the line.”

“I can keep a secret,” I pouted.

Frankie tugged my bottom lip with a pinch of his fingers. “I’ve only known you to have loose lips.”

Butterflies fluttered in my stomach and I leaned into his touch, biting the tip of his thumb. “It was more fun to be in the dark anyway.”

A hand sprung into the small space between me and Frankie, attached to it the most eye-catching diamond I’d ever seen. Natalia wiggled her fingers, flaunting her impressive engagement ring in front of us.

“It’s so perfect,” I squealed, stretching her hand out in front of me to take in the whole thing. “It’s like he pulled it right off your Pinterest board.”

“How strange,” Mateo commented, pulling Frankie into his chest for a brotherly embrace.

“I called it, Nat.” I laughed. “Frankie and I are now doomed to the most awkward bachelor party planning to ever exist.”

Her eyes rolled. “Something tells me you won’t mind spending the time together.”

“Congratulations you two.” Frankie sniffled, his emotions getting the best of him then, too. My heart pulsed like thunder inside my chest, warming like the crackling fire.

“We need to toast,” I said, leaning down to the coffee table for what was left of my wine, my friends following suit with their drinks. “To love,” I proclaimed. Frankie watched me intently, the corner of his lip lifting into a devilishly handsome smile. “Best friends, happiness, Coconut Creek…” I continued. “And to planning the most kick-ass fucking wedding anyone has ever seen.”

30

Thegirlslaughingfromthe living room the minute I stepped through the front door turned my mood from sour to sweet. I spent the morning stretched out on a table playing puppet with a physiotherapist—which was my least favorite fucking thing to come out of my accident.

At first, it was a couple times a week. Cardio, strength training, learning how to sit down on a fucking toilet again without reinjuring myself—that wasn’t dehumanizingat all. Slow and steady exercises leading to me standing on two feet again, and then moping about the therapy unit with a cane I’d thought about beating myself to death with a hundred times over.

The stronger the fusions got in my back, the less I had to report to the doctors. Until it was only every few months to keep me healthy and progressing. Because I was thinking about going back out in the field I unfortunately needed to swallow my pride and take all medical advice sternly and seriously. Even if it meant crawling out of a warm bed away from a beautiful girl under the false pretenses of “going to work.”

Ophelia hadn’t asked me about my scars. She touched the long, precise lines on my lower back though, tracing them when she thought I was asleep. The conversation I longed to have about it burned at the tip of my tongue as I lay there, but I couldn’t force myself to turn over and address it. I hated the way a person’s face warped into pity when they knew the details, and I didn’t think I could stomach that look from her. Nor did she need a fucking trauma dump every time we were alone together.

I was supposed to be hergood time. Her fun, breezy, guiltless pleasure.

If she asked, I would tell her.

“There he is,” Mateo called out, sitting in front of a game of cards with O and Tally. “Back from…work.” The idiot winked, knowing full well we didn’t have any security installs until after the new year. “Sorry I couldn’t make it into the office today, Pike. I was just telling the ladies that I have no idea how I’ll manage shop when you ship up to Colorado. You’re the only partner I trust.”

“Make sure you lick my balls, too, while you’re down there sucking my cock, Cap.” I popped open the fridge and took out a tray of leftovers.

“I’m serious!” he rattled on. “I have the business mindset, we know this. But I don’t deal well with fucking morons, so you’re the negotiator. You look like a puppy, and people love puppies.”

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