“No, but I don’t know if I can guiltlessly accept a job from a man I know is getting cucked on his days off.”
“To each their own.” Mateo shrugged. “But it went well though, you’re excited?”
“You know I’m still on the fence, man. I told you before I went, I’m just putting out the feelers on it. I haven’t flown in…” I trailed off, picking at the damp label on the sweating beer bottle. “Then there’s Addy and my mom. That’ll be a lot for them, not having me around. It’s a lot to think about.”
“Your sister and mom are fine,” Mateo assured me. “They’ll survive, you’ve done everything for them since you were fucking twelve years old, Pike. I don’t know if you know this, but Florida is like Heaven for the sixty-five-plus crowd. They can walk around the clubhouse pool with their tits down to their ankles in a bikini top and no one is batting an eye.”
I shuddered. “Don’t put that picture in my head.”
“Maria’s still got it. She’s gone on a couple dates.”
“My mother? Has gone on a couple dates?”
“I call your mom. I’m her favorite son.”
Mateo was the definition of momma’s boy. Those Italian sons grow up too spoiled for their own good. My mother was fawning over him from the moment she met him. Instead of a friendly wave, my best friend had pulled her into a bear hug like you’ve never seen before, letting her hold his face and kiss his cheeks, giving her that dazzling Mateo smile with his sharp canines sparkling like a fucking Crest commercial.
Every time I talked to my mother, she asked about him. How is my Mateo? He looks so handsome in his new pictures on The Facebook. You should really cut your hair more like his, Francesco, no one can see your eyes when you’re in that hat all the time. Has he found a girlfriend yet? Adriana is still single, you know, and your sister needs to have babies soon.
I wouldn’t let my sister near any of the men I was in with, not with fucking riot gear on. Especially not Mateo. Besides that point, he’d been shacked up with Tally for almost a year now, and apart from the paranormal sex dungeon they seemed to be sleeping in, she was a good girl. I was happy for them.
My mother dating, on the other hand, made my skin itch. I knew the possibility was always there; my dad had been gone for over twenty years. There was no reason she shouldn’t, but the idea of someone slipping into my well-earned shoes and assuming caretaker over my mother without even meeting me first didn’t sit right.
“She said she’s dating someone?”
“Don’t get your panties in a bunch.” Mateo chuckled, standing from the bubbling water and sloshing it over the edge. He dried off, grabbing another beer from the fridge before sitting down next to me. “Forget your mom, man. You can call her yourself, don’t kill the messenger. I want to know about you.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re going to be disappointed.”
“Don’t tell me that,” Mateo complained. “Not one fuck? The whole week?”
“You say that like I can just go around collecting women to have sex with like fruit in the produce section.”
“I set up the apps on your phone specifically designed for finding people to fuck. It’s like fishing in a man-made pond. You’re gonna fucking catch something. Close your eyes and cast a line, Pike. Jesus Christ.”
I did cast a line. I spent basically all of my free time in Colorado, actually, scrolling through the thousands of pictures of women on those apps. My problem had never been finding a person, it’d been finding the right one, at the right time. I did the dance when I was in my twenties. Fuck, the first half a decade I was in the Army it was a revolving door. You get orders, you deploy, you make your fucking bed with the sheets so tight to the mattress you can bounce a quarter off of it, and then you get a girl naked in them. Rinse, repeat.
Then my buddies started getting married to the women they were sleeping with, and it felt like I was all of a sudden playing the game wrong. I wanted what they were having. Those sappy fucking military homecomings where wives came whipping down the airport terminal and jumping into their husband’s arms. Showing up unexpectedly at a Little League game in my camo. A newborn baby meeting Dad for the first time.
I jumped into the first relationship to present itself, and seven years was a lot of time to spend with someone for it not to work out.
“Don’t make me say it, Pike,” Mateo mumbled.
“It’s not about her.”
“It’s been three years, and Vanessa is a fucking bitch for what she did. I’m sorry, but that’s the only way to say it. You gotta shove it to the side, get back on the field. It’s time.”
At first it was about Vanessa, but then it became a total disconnect with dating. The pool for women my age was thin. They were either married with kids, or divorced…with kids. All the rest were twenty-somethings, and all social interaction started and ended online. I’d had the same conversation so many times the answers all started to blur.
Until Ophelia.
“I did meet one girl,” I said, nonchalantly.
“See, you’re holding out on me!” Mateo shoved my shoulder. “What was that like? It’s been a while. Did you at least give her more than a two-minute ride?”
“I didn’t have sex with her, Cap.”
But man did I think about it.
“What do you mean? You took her out?”
“I met her on the flight here, actually. We sat next to each other on the plane.”
“So she lives here?”
“No, Colorado.” I finished my beer, and the second I discarded it, I pulled my hat off and ran my fingers through my hair. “She’s an elementary school teacher. Her parents are divorced, and she feels detached from the family. Absolute knockout. Smart, funny, confident, she’s got a little feist in there if you push the right buttons. A ten. More than a ten.”
“All right, I’m gonna stop you right there.”
I glanced over at Mateo who was watching me with a crease in his brow.
“I love you, man, I really do. But you’re supposed to be on a rebound tour, not learning the family dog’s name. You have to stick your feet in first, Pike. Don’t get attached. Especially not to a girl who lives in fucking Colorado.”
“I’m not getting attached.” My chest panged. Ophelia was a hundred percent the kind of woman I would want to pursue—not just have a one-night stand with. It wasn’t my fault she was also the first woman since Vanessa that I actually liked enough to explore something physical.