Page 116 of Christmas in Coconut Creek

Ophelia. All the time, every second of the day. I wanted her like a tattoo. I wanted her in my veins, ink scabbed over, healed inside of me, part of me, on display, branded.

I lifted her thick brown hair off my arm, rubbing it between my fingers idly. She was so quiet as we lay there, tired from the day. It was the first time since I met her that we actually sat in silence. The only other moments she was sedentary or voiceless were asleep or underneath me, when we needed nothing but tongues and touch to voice our thoughts. Even dog-tired, breathless, hungover, intoxicated, we found something to say to one another, a joke to be told, a memory to cajole, a small, unimposing fact that could use an audience.

In fact, I didn’t like the reserve one bit, or that this might be one of the last times I had her all to myself for quite some time. The house would be loud with the Swan boys come tomorrow, and the party would remain on through New Year’s, celebrating engagements and job interviews, drinking, laughing, avoiding the obvious, which was her leaving in less than three days.

When we’d had sex earlier it was different. Not without the normal, syrupy passion that didn’t take any effort from either of us, not different in that it didn’t feelright. Different like we were both entirely on the same page and somehow also dusting over the epilogue. Our bodies were there,fuckthey were there. But both of our thoughts were not.

She kissed my side again and I trailed my fingers down her scalp like a slide, drawing circles with the pads of my fingers on her shoulder, dropping them down her naked spine, squeezing her closer to me.Closerto me.

When I finally spoke my voice was rough from the unuse. “What time does your flight leave on Sunday?”

She stiffened beneath my touch. Soft, slow puffs of breath coming more rapidly against my skin, her fingernails halted at the center of my chest. I put my fingers overtop them, flattening her palm to my hot skin. The steady beat of my pulse thrummed through her hand and knocked on mine.

“I don’t know,” she replied faintly.

I didn’t believe that. Ophelia was a planner—she knew dates and times, she remembered birthdays and star signs, and the name of the nail polish color on her toes so she could get it again the next time. She carried a notepad around with her in case of emergency, and that afternoon was the first time I’d actually seen her unprepared for the spontaneous use of the fucking thing.

I didn’t know it for sure, but I would have put money down on a girly little calendar with the flight numbers and departure schedules highlighted somewhere in red and green marker. It was a lie or a tell that she was actively unaware, but the latter made more sense the deeper I let it sink in.

Because just like me, the haze of sex and fun and carelessness was dissipating like condensation on a mirror for her too. Now we were reflecting, and considering, and watching reality materialize in the glass in front of us, and that reality looked the same in her mirror as it did in mine.

“We fucked up, didn’t we?” I put words to it for the first time.

A subtle nod of her head came in return. My eyelids pinched together, emotion swirling deep inside me that had been lying dormant, seemingly waiting for it to be voiced like a whistle into action. A knot tightened beneath her palm and mine, making it hard to speak without a jolt of pain.

“It hurts,” I murmured against her forehead, putting more pressure at the center of my chest with her hand to show her. “It hurts right here.”

She sighed, both anguished and relieved. “I know exactly what you mean.”

34

Ahousefulloflarge, loud, animated, and spectacularly attractive men was quite similar to standing outside the glass at an exhibit at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.

Nat and I were basically furniture in the presence of the four former operators, observing them silently from across the room with our glasses of wine and the scraps of a charcuterie board. They were like boys again together. Burly laughs hitting the low ceilings like an echo chamber; teasing, taunting conversation; slaphappy palms on jean-clad asses. They wrestled as a way of affection, headlocks and hair tugs, brute force establishing some benign form of a pecking order when it was aggressively obvious they were all different suits of the same deck.

Frankie and Mateo put on a show alone, but introducing another pair added kerosene to the chaos.

The Swan brothers were tall as trees, fair-skinned, square-jawed. They looked every bit alike and at the same time nothing at all. Sam was softer, more athletically built, his hazel eyes an almond shape and his nose a dash more rounded at the point. His hair was short and ashen brown, faded from a full mop at his crown down to the skin at the nape of his neck. Clean shaven with full lips and a perfect line of teeth. Like his brother, Tyler, their brows were thick and slightly hooded, eyelashes so long it would make any woman jealous. They had the same smile, and the same laugh, the same hand-on-hip way of standing casually and brushing their fingers down their chin when listening thoughtfully.

Tyler’s chin, however, was thick with a coarse beard, the hair on his head clipped down to a dirty blond buzzcut. He had eyes so sterling blue they could halt traffic, and if his height wasn’t disarming enough, the mass of very well-earned muscle tightening the sleeves of a cotton tee to his tattooed biceps did the job. He was like Thor, with less fanfare but equally natural charm and seduction. His voice started and remained at a husk so artlessly baritone it was like listening to ASMR. Your eyes just naturally softened in his presence.

“He is so hot in person.” Nat leaned over and murmured from behind the shade of her wine glass. “I’m married. I can say that.”

“You arenotmarried,” I corrected her. My gaze shot back and forth between the four men, Tyler’s arm slung over Frankie’s shoulder, Mateo clinking the head of his beer against Sam’s. “Which one are you talking about?”

“Exactly,” she gloated. “Pictures are one thing, but it’s crazy to see them together. I’m glad they made the effort to get everyone under the same roof again.”

“They’re going to be seeing a lot of each other for the wedding festivities, I’m sure.” I sized up the bigger brother again as he curled Frankie into his side and whispered something that earned a playful punch in the ribs. “Tyler is the one who got Frankie the interview in Colorado?”

Nat laughed. “He’s apparentlyveryclose with one of the staff sergeants. I think anything Tyler wants he gets one way or another, but Frankie didn’t need the help at all. Sure, having a contact is always good, but his job history does all the work for him.”

“He told me…” I started casually. “About everything that happened.”

Natalia’s attention drew away from the men across the room for the first time. “Seriously?”

“Yep.” I slipped a cube of cheddar cheese between my lips. “I felt like he was holding back a little bit, but it was probably more for my sake than his.”

“That’shuge, Phee. Frankie doesn’t talk about that to anyone. Mateo tries all the time, but he just ices him out. The fact that you got through is amazing.” She paused. “You two are so good with each other, it’s kind of heartbreaking.”

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