Page 120 of Christmas in Coconut Creek

“Goodnight, Frankie,” I simpered, passing Mateo on the walkway toward a waiting Nat in the car.

35

Onethingaboutbeingin the trenches with a group of men for as long as I had been is that they learn to see right through you. You don’t spend a decade of your life beside people you consider your brothers without also forming a bond that makes it hard to hide exactly what the fuck you’re thinking and feeling at all times.

We sat on the dimly lit patio, crickets chirping, the low hum of the hot tub sending a wave of vibration under our feet. I had been nursing the same piss warm beer for an hour and picking at the label with the raw side of my thumb, willing my phone to ping with a message.

My focus waxed and waned alongside every conversation. I was too in my own head about Ophelia and the way she left, and I knew that feeling was only going to get worse and more permanent until I forgot what it was ever like tonotmiss her.

Which wasn’t an option, because I refused to be the down-on-my-ass friend again. The one that everyone worried about from afar and talked about privately. When I sat with it though, life was moving forward for everyone but me. Sam had his nonprofit, Tyler owned a business, my best friend in the whole fucking world was getting married, undoubtedly starting a family close behind. But I was at a crossroads.

What I wanted and what I was ready to commit to were two opposing forces, and I wished like hell that someone or something could justshow methe right path to choose. It didn’t have to be the easy one, or the obvious one. No matter what I did at this point, I was giving up something that I cared about anyway. In Colorado I didn’t have my family, in Florida I didn’t have my job. I was losing my grip on Ophelia whether I liked it or not. Not spending one of the last nights we had together was forcing me to face the reality I’d been avoiding.

“Who shit in your Cheerios, Pike?” Echo kicked the leg of my chair. “We boring you?”

“He’s sad it’s just him and his hand tonight,” Cap said.

I flicked my bottle cap off the armrest in his direction. “Fuck off.”

Sam sat up. “You’re getting soft on us.”

“This one's gonna buy his fiancé a puppy tomorrow because she gave him a look, and I’m soft?”

“The difference is that I own my shit.” Mateo pointed at himself. “I know that I’m whipped and I’m happy to be here.”

“What happens when she flies home?” Tyler asked me. “Are you going to get over it?”

“There’s nothing to get over,” I lied. The warm beer marinating between my sweaty palms tasted like spit as I tossed it back to avoid the third degree. “It was sex.”

“You bought her a necklace,” Cap reminded me.

“It was Christmas.” Fuck, the beer tasted like shit.

“Oh, shit.” Sam sighed dramatically.

Cap and Tyler shared a wordless glance that made me oddly defensive. As if gifts during the holidays were some foreign concept, and having no-strings sex with someone was so out of the ordinary for any of them either. Maybe what really fucking bothered me was that they were hitting the nail on the head, and I wore every sorry emotion on my sleeve despite my attempts against it.

Ophelia and I knew we were more involved than we ever intended to be, and things had been tense all day because of it. She kept me at an obvious arm’s length after breakfast, and I respected the unspoken distance she put between us because I knew how I felt, so I knew how she must have too. I, on the other hand, was on the opposite edge, wanting nothing but to savor it all while we still had it, and rip the stitches out when the time came.

The corresponding emotions were an elixir of self-doubt, anticipatory grief, and tragically an unwavering boost in libido even after she’d closed the door and drove away.

“There’s so much shit going through my head right now, I don’t have the patience for pity. So you three say what you want to say and be fucking real about it or get off my ass.”

A low whistle pitched from between Tyler’s lips. “Are you going to Colorado?”

“I don’t fucking know,” I answered honestly. “I’ll go for the second interview, but the only thing I’ve ever known outside of the service is home. Home is here. It’s not that easy to uproot and start over. And my mom’s getting older, too.”

“Nobody’s pressuring you, brother,” Tyler said. “We just know you. We don’t want you down here feeling stuck when there’s a world of opportunities somewhere else.” He smiled that broad, toothy smile that got him just about anything from tips to tail. “And you have no idea the kinky shit I had to do to get you that interview.”

“Ignore my brother,” Sam cut in. “You’re a fucking ace of a pilot. You earned every last one of your medals—we were all there. There’s not a base in the country that wouldn’t want you teaching in the ranks.”

“That’s a whole other thing.” I exhaled, swiping my hat off my head. “I haven’t flown since Costa Rica. I’m rusty as fuck, performance anxiety or whatever.”

“It’s like riding a bike.” Cap shrugged. “You don’t forget how to fly.”

“You also don’t forget what it feels like to crash.”

Silence breezed over us, Wink’s eyes, more copper in the light, downcast into his lap, while Echo stared at me straight. They didn’t expect me to bring the crash up so bluntly, because I hadn’t before. I’d never wanted to talk about it. Mateo would still try every now and then but I brushed him off. What was there to say? The past was the past and there was no use flipping the fucking dirt over and tilling old ground.

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