“As good as they come back home?”
I patted him on the shoulder. “Now you’re pushing it.”
We stood back a few feet as Frankie bent at the knees and hoisted the tree and all its bristles to rest over his shoulder. The movement pulled his T-shirt up his torso and gave me a damning view of the lower half of his stomach and that teasing V of muscle below his belly button again.
He and Mateo started toward the sketchy tree park owner down the lane who was watching Frankie’s show of strength with a little too much excitement.
“Put your tongue back in your mouth,” Nat whispered.
I clamped my mouth closed.
“I need another drink, I think. The sun is getting to me.”
“Sure, Phee. And Frankie hasn’t been following you around like a puppy since you woke up this morning.”
“He’s pestering.”
“You’re loving it.”
I rolled my eyes. “He told me he unmatched me because he was too into me. That’s a cop-out, isn’t it? It’s a line to save his ass. I can’t just give in; he’s gotta earn it.”
“Maybe. He might be serious. I’ve known Frankie for a while now, and he’s not really the type to hit it and quit it.”
“He obviously is if he was trying to get lucky in Colorado Springs on a stayover.”
The two of us steered toward the front doors of the store and waited outside while the boys loaded the Christmas tree into the bed of Mateo’s truck.
“He’s in his mid-thirties. He’s basically the other woman at his own house.”
I giggled. “That’s funny, he thinks the same about you.”
“What?”
“Nothing—and besides the point. He could have been honest and just said I wasn’t what he was looking for, and I would have told him it’s fine.”
“And then you both would have been lying.” Natalia eyed me knowingly. “What’s the worst thing that could happen? You spend your holiday vacation getting eaten out by an attractive older guy who lends you his socks and makes you coffee in the morning?”
“So—what?” I threw my hands out. “The four of us just shack up with our Christmas tree and our festive decorations and hot cocoa until New Year’s and fuck like rabbits? Pretend I don’t have a career and a life in Colorado that my round-trip ticket is waiting to bring me back to like we’re in some big orgy snow globe?”
“I heard orgy snow globe?” Mateo chimed, tucking the car keys Frankie had just tossed to him into his pocket.
“They sell those in Walmart?” Frankie added.
“You’re all on the naughty list,” I scoffed, leaving them to catch up as I stalked inside.
9
Allowing Ophelia to roam freely in the holiday section of a store was sort of like letting a kid have free reign in a candy shop. Anything that sparkled or sang caught her attention and ended up in the cart that I pushed along beside her, and I instantly regretted that I’d said to “go crazy” after she added a pair of novelty Christmas dish towels that read Making Spirits Bright with whiskey glasses embroidered beneath it.
“Dish towels?” I protested. “Who needs decorative dish towels? I can’t even wipe my hands on them.”
“It’s about the ambiance,” Ophelia explained, eyeing the next shelf over full of coffee mugs. “Where did the other two go?”
“Not sure.” I played with the bells on a stocking as she chucked it, and three others, over my shoulder into the basket. “Something about needing rope and batteries, I think?”
“Oh yes, we’re definitely going to need batteries.”
I cruised along quietly, watching her and that tempting little tongue she flicked out when she was focused. Following her around a store felt entirely too domestic and comfortable for the reality of the situation. Anyone walking by would think Ophelia and I were together, holiday shopping for our home, running errands on a lazy Saturday. I secretly reveled in that idea, might have even played into it—reaching over her to grab something on a higher shelf, steering the edge of the cart with her, staring down any wandering eyes in her direction.
If she was thinking the same thing she didn’t show it. Zoning in on the task at hand, which was apparently turning our house into Santa’s fucking workshop while I made commentary hoping she might laugh. I enjoyed that girlish little sound so much I thought it should be bottled and sold. While O might still have been mad at me over the night before, I was creeping under her skin. Warming her slowly.
And despite Mateo’s initial disapproval, he’d made bets on us falling into bed together, and I wasn’t a man who didn’t follow through.
Ophelia added a set of seasonal buffalo plaid throw pillows to the haul with a matching blanket, a multi-use garland, red and gold ribbon in various patterns and sizes, and two boxes of candy canes. When I finally thought she was done, the woman arrived at the wall of string lights and compared a few before sweeping an entire shelf full into the cart with her forearm.
“Woah! What’s with all the lights? I’m no expert, but a box or two of those should do the trick for one tree.”
“You need lights for the tree, and then you need lights for the house,” she explained as another outdoor decoration nearby grabbed her attention and got added to the growing pile.
“The house?” I complained. “I have a bad back.”
“Aw, old man has no mobility?” She teased me with a pouty lip and a rub between my shoulders. “That’s okay. Mateo seems very nimble.”
I scoffed and threw an extra box of lights in the cart. If my physical therapist knew I was offering to climb ladders he’d put me on the bad kind of stretcher, but I was always more competitive than cautious. “Oh I’m plenty nimble, sweetheart. You’re trying to instigate me into climbing a ladder so you can check out my ass all day.”
“What ass?”
Something inside me twitched. This fucking girl.
Right when I felt ten steps ahead of her in whatever game we were playing, she always knew how to give it right back. I let out a menacing laugh. “You’re asking for it, Trouble.”
She tried to hide her smirk. “I would love to continue talking about this, but I need to go sniff every candle in aisle eight.”
“We don’t need any candles,” I argued. “I can tell that you like the smell of me just fine by the way I caught you sniffing my blanket like blow last night.”
Ophelia left me behind with the cart as she pranced away. “Now I know you’re hearing and seeing things!”