Page 41 of Christmas in Coconut Creek

“What Mateo and I are doing isfarfrom friendly.”

“We’re just baking cookies.”

“Is that what the kids are calling it nowadays?”

I took the two mugs from my friend and poured the steaming coffee, attempting to hide a smirk. There was no telling exactly what would come of spending time alone with Frankie, but I also wasn’t naive enough to believe some salacious activity was completely off the table.

“So, you’re cool with it?” I asked, handing the mug back to Nat.

“Of course, Phee. I’m glad actually. I felt like shit leaving you for the night as it was. Now at least I know you’re in capable, strong,veinyhands.”

I swatted Natalia’s ass as she turned away, laughing and heading back toward her bedroom.

Ophelia:Sending you a list of ingredients, don’t forget anything

Frankie <3:Atta girl

12

ThedigitalmarketingagencyI was working in for the next couple days was right next to a grocery store, so it’d be easy to hop over on my lunch break and find the list of things Ophelia texted me.

I was in over my head already, but for some reason I couldn’t bring myself to stop.

It might have been the season. Didn’t everyone get all sentimental and clingy during the holidays? No one wanted to spend Christmas alone, surrounded by people in happy relationships while they got blasted on eggnog alone at a family gathering.

It was entirely likely I was just sick of feeling excluded in my own home, and jealous of the attention that Mateo was giving Tally all the time.

I was bored. So unbelievably fucking bored with the mundane in and out of everyday life. Shit used to be so exciting for me. Five years prior I was hiking in Colombia with my ops team, gunslinging, kicking down doors. I hadn’t felt an adrenaline rush like that since…

Well, since the night before, actually.

Since I had Ophelia Brody riding my fingers in the pitch-black waves on Hollywood Beach.

Fuck, that was so dumb. We could have been swept up in a tide and gone without a trace, not to mention whatever could have been lurking beneath the water.

She was making me stupid. That was the best way to describe it. I was forgetting how easy it was to make the wrong decisions when it came to women. It’d not even been a full twenty-four hours and I couldn’t stop thinking about the next time I would be able to get Ophelia alone. So when she mentioned Tally and Mateo’s date night, I jumped, despite never baking a cookie in my goddamn life.

Behind me on the desk the computer made a sad beeping noise for the fourth time already that morning as the screen went black. “Fucker,” I growled.

I tapped aggressively at the keys until the desktop lit back up and the coding window opened for me to work in. Then starting from scratch, entering several lines of letters and symbols, I worked until my phone vibrated with Ophelia’s name and I abandoned everything to pick it up again.

About ten seconds later Mateo pushed through the front door of the storefront with a tray of coffees and caught me leaning against the table staring at my phone.

I was supposed to be downloading software onto the main server in the lobby, but every few minutes I would get distracted by my cell going off and get timed out by the airtight system Mateo insisted we install for our clients.

He was meticulous about his business, and I hated that I didn’t care more. I did my job well, that wasn’t the problem. But tending to computer viruses and monitoring firewalls was the single most fucking tedious day job I could have ever agreed to. Up until recently though, I didn’t have much of a choice.

When shit changed for me and I couldn’t fly anymore, I was lucky to make it out of bed in the old apartment before three p.m., let alone make it to a job. I was living in a den of self-pity, cashing disability checks and spending it all on booze, shutting everyone important to me out of my life—then watching all those relationships crumble. The last straw for Mateo was when he found me surrounded by a case of empty cans of Bud Heavy, passed out on the living room couch on my fucking birthday after I’d missed my own surprise party.

The next day, he was in my bedroom with a dustpan and a spray bottle of Windex, rattling off something about starting a company and getting my shit together before he called my mother and made her drive out to kick my ass herself.

The last thing I needed was my mom finding out the pathetic state her only son was in. My entire life I’d been the rock for our family, always showing up when they needed me, paying the bills, fixing the problems. I vetted every Tom, Dick, and Harry that Adriana befriended in high school, haggled with car salesmen when the Corolla shit the bed and Mom needed a new ride. The whole reason I joined the military in the first place was to secure benefits and start getting paidgoodmoney. Not that grocery store minimum wage I was making before I turned eighteen. The Army was going to pay me while I served, pay for me to go to college, pay me to fucking live somewhere—and every extra cent got wired to my mom’s account back home.

That was taking care of them. That’s what my father would have done.

So Mateo mentioning my mother got me out of bed.

Within a week, the two of us had put an offer in on the house, filed for a business permit, and started looking for clients for TechOps.

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