Page 117 of Christmas in Coconut Creek

“Heartbreaking?” I forced out a laugh, twirling the stem of my wine glass between my fingers. “I think we both just knew we could confide in one another because we’re practically strangers. Free therapy.” What a blatant lie. A stranger was the person sitting next to you at a crowded bar, not the man that stayed awake all night playing Connect the Dots with the beauty marks on your back. Not the one you could pick out by the sound of his voice in utter darkness, or the one you knew to choose flowers that attract butterflies for a Christmas gift for their mom.

“Don’t fucking lie to me. I’m your best friend.” Nat reached over and tugged the chain of my butterfly necklace intentionally. “Strangers? You’re trying so hard right now to pretend that leaving in a few days isn’t killing both of you. We’re past the point of no return. I see it, Mateo sees it.”

I rolled my eyes, letting them land directly on Frankie on the recoil and catching his already-there stare. My short smile was returned with a comforting wink that sent a warm flutter to my belly. “So feelings got involved,” I admitted.

“You think?” she said.

“It doesn’t matter. This is typical of two people with a long history of loneliness. One ounce of healthy affection doesnotmean we’re completely compatible. Lust and love are easy to mix up, especially when it’s been so long for both of us. This was spontaneous, and irresponsible. The entire trip feels like I’m having an affair with my own life.”

“Shut up,” Nat teased. “You’re allowed to be bummed out. And there doesn’t have to be a textbook answer to everything, Ms. Teacher. Sometimes shit just stinks and you light a”—she sat forward and twisted the candle on the table toward us—“vanilla bean latte candle and pretend it doesn’t.”

“I hate everything about that sentence.”

“Well you just hate everything about the truth, then.”

“Can we put the angst on the back burner for now?” I asked. “I’m leaving on Sunday and I’d rather not spend the duration of it being tiptoed around like my dog just died and making sad champagne toasts.”

Nat conceded with a dramatic sigh. “Feed me more cheese, that’ll shut me up.”

I swiped a cube of cheddar off the platter on the table and stuffed it into my best friend's mouth.

The ruckus of voices across the kitchen dispersed as the boys crossed the room to join us on the couches. There was a creak of leather and bow of the cushion behind me before I felt a secret, cheeky pinch on the side of my ass. As quickly as it was there it was gone as I turned toward the culprit with a playful look of warning.

After our conversation the night before I’d been trying not to give Frankie so much of my attention.

Less of a conversation, more of a realization.

It was one thing to be pseudo-dumped by a guy I wasn't even truly in a relationship with—I’d done it before and I could do it again—but there was another layer to it this time, because we’d both found something that felt wrong to let go of. I'd wanted the rollercoaster ride, the adrenaline, the free fall, something to wake up the dormant, excitable woman inside of me. Something to distract from spending the holidays away from my family for the first time ever, despite feeling like I hadn’t truly spent Christmas with them since I was a kid.

I wanted touseFrankie, and that was okay, because he wanted to use me, too. We swore on it. Wekissedon it.

But what I’d found was the type of man that melted ice, thawed me to my core where I never imagined a flame being brought to life again, and then somehow lit it.

I needed to pull back, start to let reality leak its way back in again. I would see Frankie a few times over the next six months preparing for a wedding, and then the slate was blank with possibilities. He would either come to Colorado or he wouldn’t, but the worst thing I could do was put hope into a decision that wasn’t mine to make. I knew how he valued family, the ways relationships had burned him in the past. I couldn’t imagine the fear of getting back into a helicopter again after three years and the traumatic last ride he took.

Backing away slowly, preserving what was left of my emotions so that I might still have something to give to someone else—thatwas the right thing to do.

“So, Ophelia.” A velvet voice called out to me, and in my peripheral I could sense the deep, brown gaze of Frankie’s worry searing into my cheek. “You’re a teacher?” Sam asked.

“Yes.” I cleared my throat. “Fourth graders are some of the brightest and most animalistic humans I’ve ever had the pleasure of teaching American geography to.”

“I still can’t point out Utah on the map, and I turned out just fine,” Tyler commented beside his brother, his broad wingspan taking up nearly the entire back end of the couch.

“That probably has something to do with how many times you got your head knocked in,” Mateo added. “I swear to God they designed our helmets with Echo’s track record in mind.”

“You know, a door can be breached in with a boot, or a shoulder…” Frankie pointed out.

“I’ve never gotten a critique until now, so I think you two should stop licking each other’s asses so often and be thankful that I was the one doing all the heavy lifting.”

“All right, all right.” Sam shook his head. “The girls are here. Let’s be gentlemen, right?”

Mateo snorted. “You should hear the two of them talk. Seductresses. Feeding off us like leeches for the last two weeks.”

The Swans both raised an eyebrow, the left corner of their mouths turning up in interest, looking every bit the pair of brothers with mirrored expressions.

The tips of my ears reddened as I realized the attention was on me and Frankie entirely. Of course Nat and her future husband would be boning—but the girl from Colorado and their old friend who was in a forest fire of a relationship last they knew of was unexpected.

Frankie clasped his palm over the back of my neck, squeezing the tense points of pressure affectionately. I immediately dropped my shoulders from where they’d ended up at by my ears.

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