Page 69 of Christmas in Coconut Creek

“Is it?” I stood and turned toward the mirror, avoiding her eyes but finding them anyway in the reflection.

“One might ask that if they were interested in someone beyond a physical relationship. Which is definitely not the case with you.” She raised a dark eyebrow. “Right?”

“No, right, exactly,” I rushed out. “Just curious, in general. He seemed on the fence about it.”

She closed the curtain and I let out a trapped breath.

“It’d be a miracle to get that man to move that far away from his family.”

“But he was gone for years,” I argued.

“Temporarily,” she countered. “Florida was still his home.”

Add family man to Frankie’s disarming list of generous qualities.

“Think about it though, he’s barely had a chance to sit down since he was a teenager. Now he’s deciding whether or not he wants to settle in a place he’s the most comfortable, with the people he loves, versus a completely new state on the other side of the country with nothing familiar.”

“It’s a big decision,” I agreed. “I would never leave the Springs. As much as I love this sunshine, my family is there, my job, my mailman.”

“How would you ever survive without your mailman?” she asked sarcastically.

“Doug knows not to leave the packages on my front porch because they areconstantlystolen. He walks them around the back. We have a system.”

“Of course you do.”

“The point is that I couldn’t abandon my routine either. And if I ever find a man on this sordid fucking plane of existence, I’d want him to get to know my family, and take my brothers out to go fishing, and feel comfortable spending time with my mom if I wasn’t around. So relocating my life away from them would never be an option.”

The water stopped and Nat’s hand jutted out to pull a towel off the wall. A minute later she stepped out of the shower with her hair spun up in it.

“You really do have the perfect tits for porn,” I commented.

She looked down at her chest with a smirk. “Have you talked to your parents by the way?”

I sighed. “I sent a group text with that picture of me that Frankie took at the butterfly museum.”

“And?”

“My mom asked if the dress I was wearing was hers, because she could have sworn she had the same one. My dad sent a Bitmoji of himself wearing a butterfly costume, and Stella was my only sibling to answer and she asked if I could sneak one of them home in my luggage as a Christmas present.”

“God, I’m sorry, Phee.” She rubbed a dab of lotion into her cheeks. “Forget that I asked.”

“Everyone’s busy,” I justified. “It’s not like that.”

It was definitely like that. But deep down it felt selfish and immature to demand attention from adults when I was an adult, and my siblings didn’t know any better.

“Push it to the back of your mind anyway. We’re gonna have fun tonight. Without cooking, baking, or indecent exposure.”

“Unsolicitedindecent exposure.”

She pulled the towel off her head and whipped me in the ass with it on her way toward the door. “Shower, trim your bikini line, spray some perfume on your panties.”

“Can’t I just wear my pjs?”

She snapped her fingers and pointed at me, wide-eyed. “You beautiful genius. Christmas pajama party.”

Irummagedthroughthespare closet in the hallway searching for the board games Mateo swore were on the second shelf from the top. As far as I could see there were some dumbbells, a box of old DVDs, and a stack of paper that looked like a terms and conditions agreement.

At my feet, I was stepping on two camouflage duffle bags full of God knows what, trying to see as far back as my height would allow. I tested the durability of one with my toes.Sturdy enough. If I lost my balance and fell, at least it was only a foot to the ground and the worst thing that could happen was a small set of free weights crashing down on top of me.

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