My eyebrows knitted together. “Cybersecurity? Seriously?”
“It’s actually Cap’s gig; he runs it right from home most days. Installing secure access software for larger companies in the area, monitoring the activity across all their channels looking for threats. I’m just his donkey.”
“Fitting.”
“I set myself up for that one.”
“You did.” I smirked.
Frankie snorted and took a sip of his coffee. “Uncle Sam paid for college so we did everything online when we got out. Honestly, it’s nothing spectacular, but most people are technologically illiterate and think Cap’s some kind of computer hacking, dark web surfer.”
“So then why were you looking for jobs in Colorado?”
“I make out well doing this, but it’s not mine. You know? It’s Mateo’s. Sitting behind a computer all day isn’t what I envisioned myself doing. I’m good at flying, and I miss it.”
“I get it.” I gave him a soft smile. “I couldn’t imagine doing anything but teaching. Seeing the passion in those kids and knowing I’m making a positive impact is worth every late night grading the same multiplication table over and over again.”
“I wish I had teachers that looked like you in school.”
I shoved him with my shoulder. “We were having an adult conversation for once and you had to go ruin it.”
Frankie took another sip of his coffee and scanned my body. “There’s a lot of things I want to do with you, O. Having adult conversations isn’t exactly on the top of the list.”
He was unabashedly checking me out, from the unruly frizz of hair to my bare legs poking out of his borrowed boxer shorts. Suddenly, I felt self-conscious despite knowing he clearly found me attractive.
“What?” I asked.
“You look really good all disheveled in my clothes.”
“God, what happened to, ‘I felt myself getting too selfish’ from last night?”
“I took a shower and changed my mind.”
I tilted my head, challenging him and taking a few steps closer. “Well, I didn’t.”
He smelled so infuriatingly good up close, clean like his soap, and I could count the freckles on his perfectly smooth chest. His skin practically begged for my fingers.
I liked Frankie.
It was hard to admit to myself, but I knew if the circumstances were different, and he’d done a little more groveling, I wouldn’t be fighting it at all. It was extremely entertaining to take him down a few pegs, though.
Over Frankie’s shoulder there was movement in the backyard next door. An older man was watering a crop of tomato plants and stealing glances at the two of us out of the corner of his eye. I waved tentatively, causing Frankie to turn and look as well.
“Shit.” He sighed under his breath. “Come here.”
“Huh?”
“Come here,” Frankie whispered more aggressively at me, pulling me closer and wrapping a forearm around my lower waist. He dialed on a smile and waved over the fence at the graying man. “How are you this morning, Mr. Barry?”
“Oh, just fine Francesco,” the man shouted back in an accent I couldn’t place.
Frankie squeezed me harder, until I was tripping over my feet and steadying myself with a palm on his stomach. “What are you doing?” I complained.
“All right, you have a great day! Tomatoes look fantastic!” he yelled over me, and then steered the both of us back in the direction of the sliding glass door.
“What was that about?”
“Let’s just say our neighbor thinks Cap and I are more than buddies. You’re a good decoy. Gino’s probably already on the phone with the rest of the geezers from clubhouse bingo telling them about the ten in my backyard.”
“So, you owe me one.”
“What’s that saying? You touch my dick, I’ll touch—”
“What is it with you and dicks?” I laughed. “Gino might be onto something.”
Nat and Mateo were sitting at the kitchen table nursing their own coffees when we got back inside.
“Good morning, good morning,” Mateo said cheerily, glancing at me and then tilting his head at his roommate as Frankie took the seat next to him.
Nat pulled me down to her eye-level by my baggy sweatshirt sleeve. “Did you…” she whispered.
“No!” I swatted her hand away. “I did not, thank God.”
Natalia smirked at her boyfriend, who was watching our exchange closely, and then put her hand out toward him, palm up.
“Fuck me.” Mateo sighed, pulling a leather wallet out of the back pocket of his shorts and sifting through it to slap a crisp fifty-dollar bill in his girlfriend’s hand.
“HA!” Nat snapped the bill tauntingly.
“Woah, hey now,” Frankie interjected. “What the fuck, guys?”
I gaped at my friend. “Did you make bets on us sleeping together?”
“I knew you wouldn’t,” Nat boasted. “I know my best friend.”
“I know my best friend,” Mateo added. “Pike, I was rooting for you.”
“Not exactly up to me.” Frankie scratched the back of his neck.
“Where’d you two run off to just now?”
“I was giving myself a tour of the house,” I said to Mateo. “The place is gorgeous, but it’s seriously lacking in Christmas decor. It’s the middle of December! Where’s the tree?”
“We haven’t taken it out yet.” Mateo motioned toward the hallway.
“Taken it out?” I gasped. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, no.” Nat sighed at her boyfriend. “You got her started now.”
“I mean—it’s in a box. In the closet.”
Frankie hopped off the stool he was sitting on and padded the few feet down the hallway to a storage closet, reaching inside and pulling out a rectangular box that couldn’t have been three feet tall—then a smaller plastic container filled with ornaments.
“Where’s the rest of it?”
“What do you mean?” Frankie flipped the larger box upside down and shook it. A lame little tree fell anticlimactically to the floor in a heap of plastic pine needles.
“You’re kidding? That is not a Christmas tree. That’s a decoration at most.”
“We put it in the window.”
My jaw hit the floor. Florida would freeze over before I spent Christmas without a real, bark and needle tree. There were some things I was willing to compromise on, and this was sure as hell not one of them.
“Okay, I’ve heard enough.” I stood. “I’m declaring Operation Christmas on this residence. First order of business is the tree farm.”
Mateo and Frankie both snorted, sharing a glance at each other and then back at me. Even Natalia hid a beguiled smile behind pressed lips.
“Why is this so funny to you three?”
“Phee.” Nat put her hand on my shoulder. “You’re in Southern Florida. There’s no such thing as a tree farm.”
“But hey,” Frankie intervened. “We can go to a tree lot, okay? There’s plenty of already cut ones to choose from.”
“We have a tree already,” Mateo argued.