Christmas in Coconut Creek (Dirty Delta, #1)(105)
“He told me…” I started casually. “About everything that happened.”
Natalia’s attention drew away from the men across the room for the first time. “Seriously?”
“Yep.” I slipped a cube of cheddar cheese between my lips. “I felt like he was holding back a little bit, but it was probably more for my sake than his.”
“That’s huge, Phee. Frankie doesn’t talk about that to anyone. Mateo tries all the time, but he just ices him out. The fact that you got through is amazing.” She paused. “You two are so good with each other, it’s kind of heartbreaking.”
“Heartbreaking?” I forced out a laugh, twirling the stem of my wine glass between my fingers. “I think we both just knew we could confide in one another because we’re practically strangers. Free therapy.” What a blatant lie. A stranger was the person sitting next to you at a crowded bar, not the man that stayed awake all night playing Connect the Dots with the beauty marks on your back. Not the one you could pick out by the sound of his voice in utter darkness, or the one you knew to choose flowers that attract butterflies for a Christmas gift for their mom.
“Don’t fucking lie to me. I’m your best friend.” Nat reached over and tugged the chain of my butterfly necklace intentionally. “Strangers? You’re trying so hard right now to pretend that leaving in a few days isn’t killing both of you. We’re past the point of no return. I see it, Mateo sees it.”
I rolled my eyes, letting them land directly on Frankie on the recoil and catching his already-there stare. My short smile was returned with a comforting wink that sent a warm flutter to my belly. “So feelings got involved,” I admitted.
“You think?” she said.
“It doesn’t matter. This is typical of two people with a long history of loneliness. One ounce of healthy affection does not mean we’re completely compatible. Lust and love are easy to mix up, especially when it’s been so long for both of us. This was spontaneous, and irresponsible. The entire trip feels like I’m having an affair with my own life.”
“Shut up,” Nat teased. “You’re allowed to be bummed out. And there doesn’t have to be a textbook answer to everything, Ms. Teacher. Sometimes shit just stinks and you light a”—she sat forward and twisted the candle on the table toward us—“vanilla bean latte candle and pretend it doesn’t.”
“I hate everything about that sentence.”
“Well you just hate everything about the truth, then.”
“Can we put the angst on the back burner for now?” I asked. “I’m leaving on Sunday and I’d rather not spend the duration of it being tiptoed around like my dog just died and making sad champagne toasts.”
Nat conceded with a dramatic sigh. “Feed me more cheese, that’ll shut me up.”
I swiped a cube of cheddar off the platter on the table and stuffed it into my best friend's mouth.
The ruckus of voices across the kitchen dispersed as the boys crossed the room to join us on the couches. There was a creak of leather and bow of the cushion behind me before I felt a secret, cheeky pinch on the side of my ass. As quickly as it was there it was gone as I turned toward the culprit with a playful look of warning.
After our conversation the night before I’d been trying not to give Frankie so much of my attention.
Less of a conversation, more of a realization.
It was one thing to be pseudo-dumped by a guy I wasn't even truly in a relationship with—I’d done it before and I could do it again—but there was another layer to it this time, because we’d both found something that felt wrong to let go of. I'd wanted the rollercoaster ride, the adrenaline, the free fall, something to wake up the dormant, excitable woman inside of me. Something to distract from spending the holidays away from my family for the first time ever, despite feeling like I hadn’t truly spent Christmas with them since I was a kid.
I wanted to use Frankie, and that was okay, because he wanted to use me, too. We swore on it. We kissed on it.
But what I’d found was the type of man that melted ice, thawed me to my core where I never imagined a flame being brought to life again, and then somehow lit it.
I needed to pull back, start to let reality leak its way back in again. I would see Frankie a few times over the next six months preparing for a wedding, and then the slate was blank with possibilities. He would either come to Colorado or he wouldn’t, but the worst thing I could do was put hope into a decision that wasn’t mine to make. I knew how he valued family, the ways relationships had burned him in the past. I couldn’t imagine the fear of getting back into a helicopter again after three years and the traumatic last ride he took.
Backing away slowly, preserving what was left of my emotions so that I might still have something to give to someone else—that was the right thing to do.
“So, Ophelia.” A velvet voice called out to me, and in my peripheral I could sense the deep, brown gaze of Frankie’s worry searing into my cheek. “You’re a teacher?” Sam asked.
“Yes.” I cleared my throat. “Fourth graders are some of the brightest and most animalistic humans I’ve ever had the pleasure of teaching American geography to.”
“I still can’t point out Utah on the map, and I turned out just fine,” Tyler commented beside his brother, his broad wingspan taking up nearly the entire back end of the couch.