“The outfit you’re wearing alone owns real estate in every cognitive area of his brain.”
“Rent free.” I laughed, shooting a wink toward the man in question who stiffened at my attention, even as Mateo carried on their conversation.
Part of me wished the afternoon played out differently—so I could give in to the obvious temptation hanging like an ornament between Frankie and me. The other part was happy to play the game. If we were bound to cross paths at some point or another over the coming few weeks, I’d make sure the next time he saw me he was exhausted from sleepless wet dreams of my tits in this fucking corset.
“At least one of us is getting laid,” I said.
“You don’t even know the half of it,” Nat swooned. “Why don’t we have the boys take us home for a nightcap? Frankie ordered a ride already.”
“Bad idea.” My words slurred. “I’m perfectly capable of getting myself back to your apartment.”
“You’re not going home alone. The sun will be up in a few hours anyway.”
“We both know you and Mateo aren’t making it until the sun comes up.”
“Can you blame me?”
“No,” I admitted. “But I’m trying my literal hardest not to blow his hot roommate and you’re putting me through a clinical trial with this.”
“Just…don’t look at his dick.”
“Who’s dick?” Mateo asked, pressing up behind Natalia with Frankie at his side.
“She’s not great at that,” Frankie said.
I turned to face him. “That’s bold coming from the guy who hasn’t stopped staring at my ass for two hours.”
“Funny you would notice.”
“All right, play nice, kids.” Matty smirked. “Santa’s watching.”
Frankie peeled his eyes away from mine to look down at the moving map on his phone. “Uber’s here.”
“Andiamo.” Mateo patted his girlfriend on her ass to coax her toward the door.
“No fucking funny business,” I warned Frankie with a pointed finger as Nat and I strutted ahead out of the venue.
It only took the world’s most uncomfortable cab ride through Coconut Creek with the four of us smushed into the back seat of a Ford Focus to realize I couldn’t have cared less where I ended up asleep, as long as I was out of my clothes and lying in a horizontal position.
The quaint residential neighborhood Frankie and Mateo lived in was a smattering of similar-style stucco houses with colorful terra roofs. The grass was cut short and little solar-powered night lights lit up the driveway outside the two-car garage. Inside of the house was just as clean as outside in the dim ambiance of table lamps. I only noticed a stray coffee cup in the sink while I lingered around in the kitchen waiting for a change of clothes.
As guessed, Matty and Natalia never made it to the nightcap that was promised. She did, however, make sure to throw a package of half-empty makeup wipes down the hall at me from Mateo’s bathroom before disappearing behind closed doors.
So I begrudgingly found myself on the living room couch with a lethal case of the spins and wearing a pair of Frankie’s boxer briefs and an oversized Go Army! crewneck.
“Socks, as requested,” Frankie offered as he appeared from down the hallway carrying a comforter in his elbow. He tossed the rolled-up bundle to me and crashed onto the opposite end of the sofa. “You could take my bed, it’s much more comfortable.”
“Thanks,” I muttered, rolling them onto my feet. “And, no, thanks.”
He smiled amusedly. “Only psychopaths sleep with socks on, just so you know. What, do you have ugly toes or something?”
I squealed, tucking my feet under my thighs when he leaned over to look. “Get out of here, you creep!”
“What is so scandalizing?” His laugh lit up the room as he tried to pull my ankle toward him. “Is it bunions? Oh, don’t be embarrassed, it's very common.”
“I don’t have fucking bunions, dickhead.” I swatted his fingers away. “If you must know, I always wear socks when I stay at strange men’s houses so I don’t wake up in the middle of the night with a dude taking pictures of my feet for his spank bank.”
Frankie’s lips parted as he stared at me, blinking slowly. “You’re a lunatic, and you’re drunk. And if I was a guy that had a thing for feet, you just wearing my socks would be doing it for me and I’d never wash them again.”
I grimaced. “You’re not doing a great job convincing me you aren’t that guy.”
“But you still didn’t take the socks off,” he replied with a wink.
“I would sooner rip my own cuticles than put my feet on a dick.”
“It feels necessary that I point out no one is asking you to do either of those things.”
I chuckled lazily, sinking further into the couch and pulling the comforter Frankie had brought out for me over my body. “Fuck, my head hurts already.”
Without another joke he stood and disappeared behind the dividing wall to the kitchen. I could still vaguely see him milling about and opening cabinets behind the pass through window, so I snuggled in further while he was gone, stretching out and dipping my nose beneath the blankets. Which was the worst thing I could have done.
My eyes were heavy, and the soft fabric smelled like laundry detergent and him. A warm, deep musk, like well-worn flannel and bergamot sand. Frankie must have pulled it directly off his bed and brought it out to me.
I hummed indulgently and wrapped the comforter tighter around my shoulders as he came back, carrying a glass of water and something to take the edge off my migraine. I was exhausted from the longest day of my life and struggling to even stay cognizant, but that last uninhibited part of my body pressed to stay awake. Just to spend more time in the company of the man I was meant to be mad at.
The one who still hadn’t given me a good enough reason not to be.
“Drink that whole glass, please,” Frankie said, sitting down at the end of the couch again and fluffing the blanket out to cover my legs evenly. His tentativeness wasn’t lost on me, which made the resentment I felt harder to stick. His heated gaze followed me as I gulped down the pills, making sure I finished the water. Even as I put the glass down on the coffee table he didn’t look away.
I tilted my head against the cushion, watching him back with my bottom lip clamped between my teeth. If we were going to be forced together for the next few weeks, left alone in a room in the darkest hours of the night, I needed to know.
“Why did you unmatch me?” I asked quietly.
His hand explored, finding my ankle over the blanket. The gesture wasn’t loaded or expectant, but it still lit up my nerves. I loved that touch, so I let him run his fingers back and forth over the bone silently, until he finally murmured, “I almost messaged you two minutes after you walked out of the airport, Trouble.”
I smiled faintly, his gentle touch and my exhaustion taking over so quickly I almost didn’t register what was said beyond the ridiculous nickname and the gravelly way he said it.