Page 59 of Christmas in Coconut Creek

It wasn’t her, thankfully, but it wasn’t any less stress-inducing.

I picked up the phone. “Hi, Ma.”

“What’s the matter, Francesco, you don’t call your mother anymore?” Her lighthearted voice caressed me through the receiver.

It’d been too damn long since I saw my mom. Somehow the fall season came and went while I was on my ass with new clients for Cap and buried in job applications for the air base. The trip to Colorado itself took a week out of me, and now I was sitting on the phone with my mother as I waited to take a woman I couldn’t mention on a date.

Explaining whatever the fuck Justin and Mila shit Ophelia and I were up to was not on my to-do list.

“Take it easy on me, I’m getting old,” I deflected.

“Don’t talk about old to me. I’m more than halfway to my grave with no grandkids.”

“You might have grandkids somewhere.”

Her disapproval burned me from forty miles away. “You’re lucky I’m not there to smack you.”

My sister and I were used to being berated about our love lives, or lack thereof. Adriana hadn’t ever seriously dated anyone, and I was sure at that point my mother wasn’t above posting her photo on telephone poles like a missing animal looking for a mate.

She liked when I was with Vanessa—because the girl gave her something to look forward to. Engagements, weddings, babies. When she and I broke up my mother was more hurt to losethosethings than she was to lose the future daughter-in-law, which should have said all it needed to. And I never even told her the whole story.

I changed the subject. “That reminds me, why is Mateo telling me about you seeing someone?”

“Mateo calls me, so he gets to know things.”

“I’m your only son,” I pressed. “So I should knowallthings. Always.”

A curtain in the upstairs apartment window rustled and I squinted at it.

“Well that’s why I’m calling you, to make sure you’re still coming to dinner this week. Your sister has to work Christmas Eve, so I’ll cook on the twenty-third. We want to know all about the job and the trip. Adriana forgot she has a brother.”

“No she didn’t. She just sent me one of those chain messages from two thousand seven with a picture of Rudolph boinking Clarice the other day.”

“I don’t know where I went wrong with you two.” She sighed. “Thursday, Francesco, you’re coming?”

The way her voice hitched at the question made my chest tighten. I needed to fucking show up more. As if over a decade in the military wasn’t enough time away, now I was flirting with taking off to Colorado permanently. Not once since the idea was first planted had I been as hesitant as I was hearing my mom pleading for me to simplyhave dinner with her,over the phone.

“Of course I’ll be there, Ma. I wouldn’t miss it.” My phone vibrated and I pulled it away from my ear to a text from Ophelia that she was on her way down. “You need anything?” I quickly asked. “Cash? Everything at the house is working?”

“The only thing I need is my handsome son at the kitchen table.”

“Can do,” I promised. “I gotta go, I have some stuff today, but I’ll see you in a couple days, all right? I love you, Ma.”

“Love you. Tell Mateo Mama Casado said hi.”

The call disconnected and I watched out the passenger side window as the door to Tally’s apartment opened. Ophelia stepped outside and I couldn’t help but notice how well the Florida sun suited her.

Gone was that creamy shade of skin from the flight down. A few days on the boardwalks had replaced it with a perfect golden bronze. Her long hair was up in a messy mop of a bun, curly tendrils of it curtaining her face and tickling her neck, and the yellow dress she wore made her glow like a daylily. My pulse quickened as she turned to lock up and I realized the hem barely covered her ass.

I didn’t know what it was about women in flowy little dresses, but my hands started to sweat knowing it was all right there to take.

I met Ophelia on the sidewalk, smirking at her adorable half walk, half skip toward me. I instinctively pulled her in by the waist for a hug but she put her hand to my chest and kept me at arm's length.

“Ah, ah,” she tsked, stepping back and giving me her tiny palm to shake. “It’s nice to meet you, Frankie.”

I furrowed my eyebrows. “Oh, so we’re really doing this?”

She reached down and pulled a pocket-sized notepad and a gel pen out of her purse, scribbling something on the first sheet aggressively. I didn’t have to look to know that every “I” on that page was dotted with a heart.

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