“Try teaching them the program when they can’t even open a spreadsheet, Cap.”
“That’s why I pay you to do it.” Mateo took a bite out of a ball of cookie dough Natalia had just put on the tray. She quickly smacked it out of his hand with a glare.
“Have you heard anything from the base in Colorado, Frankie?” Tally asked.
I glanced toward Ophelia as she turned toward the refrigerator and opened it, rummaging inside for a carton of milk.
“Not yet. It’s still pretty soon. They probably had a bunch of candidates to sort through and interview.”
“Yeah but Echo has a buddy on the interview panel,” Mateo said. “That’s a shoe-in, brother. There’s not much Tyler Swan likes to do more than talk about the glory days in Delta. They probably knew more about you before the interview than you even told them.”
Ophelia joined us back at the island and started whisking milk into a new bowl of loose ingredients.
“Who even says I’m ready to get back out there? You know?” I wasn’t in the mood to rehash the details of my discharge from the military, nor was I looking for any more pity. But sometimes those intrusive thoughts spilled in and I forgot that it was okay to be vulnerable.
“Pike, you’re the best pilot I’ve ever flown with. They’d be shitting in their soup not to hire a salty fucking Ops guy with impeccable character references.”
“Are Sam and Tyler still coming down for New Year’s?” Natalia chimed in.
Mateo nodded. “Confirmed.”
My attention slid to Ophelia again, checking for a flicker of interest at the mention that two of our unit buddies would be paying us a visit. Sam and Tyler were good looking guys, the type that didn’t ever have to try to get laid, and when they came in a brotherly package and turned on the charm—it was open season. I’d seen it firsthand.
She just continued on listening and stirring melted peanut butter.
“I’ll talk to him when they get down here,” I relented. “But I don’t want to seem like a kiss-ass either. You know that’s not my style.”
I was still coming to terms with making that kind of life-altering relocation anyway. The part of me that wanted that job more than anything was completely overshadowed by the part of me that wanted everything to remain safe and the same. If I stayed in Florida I would tolerate my job for the rest of my life, but at least I’d have my best friend, my sister, my mother. Comfort and stability.
God forbid they ever needed me—I would be entirely too far away in Colorado to do anything about it, and that was something I couldn’t think about without getting anxious.
“You’re not being a kiss-ass, you’re being persistent,” Mateo said. “Another one of your long list of qualities.”
“You could say that again,” Ophelia agreed.
“See?” Mateo shrugged, licking the flat end of a scraper clean.
The entire kitchen looked like a bomb had gone off in a bakery, and I was certain we’d used pots and pans I’d never seen before in my life.
When we first moved in, Mateo’s mother bombarded us with appliances. Air fryer, coffee pot, dehydrator that I wouldn’t even know what to do with if someone gave me a step-by-step instruction. If it wasn’t odd enough that two men in their thirties were moving into a house together, add in gifting us things you’d only find on a fucking wedding registry and it all started to feel like we should just take it to the courthouse.
That ridiculous line I’d fed to Ophelia about being common law married might have made that flirty little dimple on her cheek shine, but I was hardly joking.
The oven door closed and Tally turned around, wiping her hands on her shorts. “All right, first batch in, second batch chilling.” She set a timer on her cell phone and slid it in her pocket.
Silence swelled between us. This entire night was built on the understanding that Mateo and his girlfriend would be occupied with one another, therefore leaving Ophelia and me to our own devices. I stood there with my hands in my pockets, waiting for one of the two of them to hold up their end of the agreement so that I could get back to negotiating mine.
Mateo made a clicking noise with his tongue to get my attention and vaguely nodded his head in the direction of the hallway.
Yes, dumbass, I insisted with my eyes.
“We’ll be back.” He grabbed Tally by the hand and pulled her toward the bedroom, mumbling something that made her laugh.
Ophelia had started busying herself at the sink, touching and cleaning things, running the dirty mixing spoon under the tap and soaping up a sponge.
“Leave it,” I instructed her. I didn’t want her thinking she had to make a fuss over the mess, and I absolutely didn’t want to give off the impression I expected a woman to clean up anything in my kitchen.
“It’s the least I could do,” she said with a soft smile. “Thank you for setting this up. I can’t remember the last time I made Christmas cookies for fun. I used to do it with my parents all the time before the divorce.” Her little smile evened out.
I could never identify with the toll it must take on a kid to feel like an outsider in their own home. When my dad passed away, my mother made sure we never went a day without saying “I love you.” Things like that were so vital to the unit we built in the absence of a father figure. It was strange to understand a family dynamic with a lack of communication, or lack of undoubted love.
While my mind raced with the prospect of continuing that hot and heavy segment with Ophelia, I cared more about making her laugh again at that moment than anything. I cared more about making sure she knew I cared, rather than getting under her.
And this way, we could talk without the raw temptation of sleeping together being the focal point. Friends with benefits didn’t mean anything without the friends part first.
“What’s in the bags, Trouble?” I motioned to the tote the size of Santa’s sack on the couch. “Hiding a body?”
She lightened up again and my chest unclenched.
“My weight in presents to wrap.” She giggled. Then she said, “I thought you wanted to talk…?”
I walked over and dropped onto the couch cushion next to the bag of gifts, waving her over. “I can talk and tie bows at the same time.”
16
I already thought Frankie was attractive. Now he was somehow even more so while I watched him try with fumbling fingers to crease and fold a sheet of Mylar. His eyebrows knitted together in the center of his forehead, and his tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth in concentration. Those deep brown eyes focused like he was trying to thread a needle. He’d measured and cut an entire piece of sparkling red and silver paper, centered the box of saltwater taffy on top of it, and then growled— growled—when he realized the sides were two inches too short.