I hummed, leaning on Nat’s shoulder while the hazy rhythm of booze and bass vibrated my body to a steady level of intoxication.
Who cared about Frankie from Hook(Up)? This was going to be the most incredible three weeks with my best friend. Sipping and sunning on the beach, cooking our own Christmas ham with the little cherries and toothpick-stabbed pineapples. We would listen to Michael Bublé, and make thumbprint cookies, light a different holiday-scented Yankee Candle in every room of Natalia’s apartment.
Coconut Creek could be a new Christmas tradition for me. Something that was entirely mine, untouched by familial expectation or faint reminders of the cheery childhood holiday that I lost somewhere along the way.
Nat shuffled my jelly-limbed body with hers as a familiar song started mixing into the previous. “Where’s your drink?”
“Lucas is buying me drinks, right, Lucas?”
The blond to my right chuckled and handed over a refilled hollow coconut of alcohol. “Does sexy Santa get to disrobe Mrs. Claus later?”
“Let’s see if you can keep up first.”
I took a clumsy sip of my drink and spun around with Lucas’s hands on my hips as Nat squealed excitedly beside me. She was staring at her phone screen, blue hues dancing across her glittery eyeshadow, and jumping up and down like she’d just won the lottery. “Ah! Come on, come on!”
“Where are we going!” I shouted as she pulled me by the elbow to the complete opposite side of the bar. “Natalia!”
“He’s here!”
“Who?” We pressed through the crowd of partiers with Lucas trailing slowly behind.
Nat looked down at her phone again and then pushed up onto her tiptoes to case the rows of people standing against the bar. “Just…someone I want you to meet.” She wiggled her eyebrows at me and then grinned as she finally found who she was looking for leaning against the counter.
She tapped on his shoulder twice before the handsome, sun-kissed man turned around to face the both of us with a disarming smile. His dark eyes roamed Nat’s velvet-covered body hungrily, then he grabbed her face with two big hands and crushed their lips together.
What the fuck?
She melted as his tongue swiped against hers, seemingly in their own little world while I stood there stunned. Natalia had to clear her throat and shoot a glance in my direction before he even noticed they had company.
Biting her lip, Nat gestured to the mystery man she’d just Frenched as I looked back and forth between the two of them. “Phee, this is my boyfriend. Mateo Duran.”
“Hi,” I managed, pushing a hand out towards him. Mateo took it and placed a friendly kiss on my knuckles in lieu of the handshake as he slid his arm around Nat’s waist.
I felt like I’d entered a different dimension. Nowhere in the last year had Natalia even mentioned a boyfriend. Sure, we both lived busy lives—I was often working or grading, planning new lessons for the classroom. But even then, I’d made time to fill my best friend in on the woes of my serial dating over several months.
Unless, somehow I’d spent so much time talking about myself and the never-ending cycle of failed dates that I was completely oblivious to the changes going on in her life.
“Nat, where on earth have you been hiding this one from me?” I asked teasingly, brushing off any tension.
Mateo was wearing neon orange swim trunks that only came down to his mid-thigh, and the buttons of his Tommy Bahama shirt were completely undone. Black-rimmed sunglasses pushed up into his coiffed, golden brown hair, and Nat twirled the lei he had around his neck between her fingers.
“I know, I know.” Nat winced. “I’m sorry, but I know you Phee. If you thought you would be a third wheel, you never would have agreed to come down here for the holidays and I want you here. I’m so happy you’re here.”
Ugh. She was right.
I was reluctant enough when I thought it’d only be the two of us celebrating together. On top of using all my saved-up time off in one hit for an extra week away, leaving the familiar comfort of the mountains for almost an entire month, and then having to break the news to both my parents that I wouldn’t be house-hopping for the holiday, knowing my attention would be shared with Nat’s boyfriend would have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. Especially now seeing how Mateo kissed her in public. I couldn’t compete.
“Tally’s been talking you up for weeks,” Mateo vouched. “She was so excited when you bought your plane tickets.”
“Tally?” I raised an eyebrow at my friend’s new-to-me nickname. A pang of familiarity made itself known in my chest.
Before the conversation could go any further, the guy standing next to Mateo with his back to our little crew turned from the bar with two beers, nudging Nat’s boyfriend with his elbow.
“Here, Cap.”
No.
“Oh fuck off,” I blurted. My filter had apparently dissipated along with all the liquor in my cup.
As if Nat introducing me to her secret boyfriend wasn’t enough adjustment for one night, the secret boyfriend’s roommate happened to be the exact reason I was six Oriental Trading coconuts of vodka deep in my pity-feels.
Frankie looked up at Nat and me at the sound of my voice and his mouth dropped open. “Fuck me.”
Mateo and Natalia exchanged a confused glance, just as Lucas caught up and shimmied his body next to mine.
“Easy there big guy, turn the creep down like a hundred.” Mateo patted Frankie on the chest through his open button-down. The two of them were wearing similar outfits. “I’m sorry about that, sweetheart, this is my friend, Francesco. Despite whatever the fuck that was, he doesn’t usually speak his thoughts out loud.”
Frankie squeezed his eyes closed and shook his head.
“So nice to meet you, Francesco,” I offered sarcastically, also noticing the handwritten sign hanging around his neck that read, Trying to get lei’d completely unironically in black Sharpie. Which only further reminded me that the man was a player, and I’d narrowly avoided becoming another unsuspecting notch on his bedpost. I made a point of hanging onto Lucas’s bicep as I pointed at the sign and said, “You should try an airport.”
Frankie stuck his tongue in his cheek and then let it sweep out across his teeth and top lip, eyes darting between me and the man on my arm. Despite the theme of the night, he still wore that same weathered black ball cap that he lifted as he ran a hand through his hair. A nervous tick I’d caught onto.
“Nat, bathroom?” I prompted my friend.
“Yup.” Sensing the shift of energy, she grabbed me by the hand and whirled me away.
5
I watched Tally drag my Hook(Up) date through the crowded club and disappear. The tiny pair of shorts Ophelia was wearing had apparently cut off circulation to my brain, because it wasn’t until Cap shoved me and sent a cascade of cold beer onto my hand that I realized my jaw was still hanging open.