Page 23 of Christmas in Coconut Creek

I shoved him with my shoulder. “We were having an adult conversation for once and you had to go ruin it.”

Frankie took another sip of his coffee and scanned my body. “There’s a lot of things I want to do with you, O. Having adult conversations isn’t exactly on the top of the list.”

He was unabashedly checking me out, from the unruly frizz of hair to my bare legs poking out of his borrowed boxer shorts. Suddenly, I felt self-conscious despite knowing he clearly found me attractive.

“What?” I asked.

“You look really good all disheveled in my clothes.”

“God, what happened to, ‘I felt myself getting too selfish’from last night?”

“I took a shower and changed my mind.”

I tilted my head, challenging him and taking a few steps closer. “Well, I didn’t.”

He smelled so infuriatingly good up close, clean like his soap, and I could count the freckles on his perfectly smooth chest. His skin practically begged for my fingers.

I liked Frankie.

It was hard to admit to myself, but I knew if the circumstances were different, and he’d done a little more groveling, I wouldn’t be fighting it at all. It was extremely entertaining to take him down a few pegs, though.

Over Frankie’s shoulder there was movement in the backyard next door. An older man was watering a crop of tomato plants and stealing glances at the two of us out of the corner of his eye. I waved tentatively, causing Frankie to turn and look as well.

“Shit.” He sighed under his breath. “Come here.”

“Huh?”

“Come here,” Frankie whispered more aggressively at me, pulling me closer and wrapping a forearm around my lower waist. He dialed on a smile and waved over the fence at the graying man. “How are you this morning, Mr. Barry?”

“Oh, just fine Francesco,” the man shouted back in an accent I couldn’t place.

Frankie squeezed me harder, until I was tripping over my feet and steadying myself with a palm on his stomach. “What are youdoing?” I complained.

“All right, you have a great day! Tomatoes look fantastic!” he yelled over me, and then steered the both of us back in the direction of the sliding glass door.

“What was that about?”

“Let’s just say our neighbor thinks Cap and I are more than buddies. You’re a good decoy. Gino’s probably already on the phone with the rest of the geezers from clubhouse bingo telling them about the ten in my backyard.”

“So, you owe me one.”

“What’s that saying? You touch my dick, I’ll touch—”

“What is it with you and dicks?” I laughed. “Gino might be onto something.”

NatandMateoweresitting at the kitchen table nursing their own coffees when we got back inside.

“Good morning, good morning,” Mateo said cheerily, glancing at me and then tilting his head at his roommate as Frankie took the seat next to him.

Nat pulled me down to her eye-level by my baggy sweatshirt sleeve. “Did you…” she whispered.

“No!” I swatted her hand away. “I did not, thank God.”

Natalia smirked at her boyfriend, who was watching our exchange closely, and then put her hand out toward him, palm up.

“Fuck me.” Mateo sighed, pulling a leather wallet out of the back pocket of his shorts and sifting through it to slap a crisp fifty-dollar bill in his girlfriend’s hand.

“HA!” Nat snapped the bill tauntingly.

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