Christmas in Coconut Creek (Dirty Delta, #1)(121)

Nat squeezed my knee.

“I think it’s about time we head out of here,” Mateo said gently. He stood at the edge of the living room, rubbing his hands together. Tyler and Sam groaned as they peeled themselves off the couch and my heartbeat picked up inside my chest.

“Girls,” Tyler said, shuffling over to Natalia and I and pulling us each into a bear hug. “It’s been a pleasure-filled few days. We’ll see what kind of trouble we can get into next time.”

Sam nudged his brother out of the way, giving us each a friendly kiss on the cheek. “We’ll see you in a few months. Safe flight, O. And if you ever need something, Salt Lake is a quick trip away.” He winked at a hardly amused Frankie as he let himself out.

“Mateo.” I grinned, outstretching my arms toward him. “Thank you for all the kind hospitality.” He hugged me hard, squeezing my shoulders, rocking us off-balance back and forth. “You’re welcome for all the beautiful Christmas decorations.”

“They’re so beautiful I’ll probably just keep them up until next year.”

“I’m sorry I almost burned down your house making cookies. And for stapling a pineapple to your siding.” I winced. “And for walking in on you having Santa sex with Natalia.”

“Let’s forget about that,” Frankie chimed in.

“No one forgets these tits,” Nat acknowledged.

Frankie rubbed a palm down his face. “Then let’s make a conscious effort to keep this little secret between the four of us, yeah?”

“I’m good with that.” I raised a hand.

Nat shrugged. “That’s fair.”

“And thank you,” I added, “for letting me be here for one of the most important moments of my best friend’s life. She picked a good one.”

Mateo pulled me in for another more emotional embrace. “You’re family,” he said. “Wouldn’t have had it any other way.”

Frankie and I found each other across the room and the air fell silent. That little muscle in his jaw was jumping on an otherwise indifferent face. I couldn’t school myself like he could. My lip quivered despite worrying into it with my teeth, and emotion scrunched my nose.

“We’ll give you guys a minute,” Nat said, backing toward the front door.

No words felt significant enough to eclipse what the past three weeks had meant to me. The more I tried to string it together the harder it was to articulate, until I was just shaking my head with fragile little tears clouding my eyes.

“Baby.” Frankie enveloped me, closing me into the cave of his arms with my head pressed into the center of his chest. “Please, don’t.”

“I think I’m about to get my period or something.” I shrugged, hiding my red nose in his cotton T-shirt.

He let me have the excuse, instead running his fingers through the tangled waves of my hair, caressing my spine, swaying us gently on an invisible gust of wind.

“We don’t really have to say bye, you know,” he murmured. “I’ll be there before you know it, the end of the month. I’ll call you, and you can let me take you somewhere fancy for dinner.”

His heartbeat rang in my ears. “And then what?” I asked vulnerably. “A couple weeks? A few more months?” Frankie’s hold on me tightened, his fingers halting in place. “Am I waiting for something to be real between us, or am I just prolonging the end?”

“This is real, Ophelia.” He lifted my chin and I couldn’t hide the emotion streaking across my face. “Don’t ever fucking minimize what this is. Your name is right here.” As he lifted his hand to point at the center of his chest, his fingers were shaking. “It’s under my skin.”

I leaned forward and pressed my lips to the place his fingers were.

“I’m trying,” Frankie confessed, sentiment scratching his throat.

I knew how nuanced that was. He was trying to be more emotionally available, trying not to fall into old habits, trying to separate his old life from a new one, forgive himself for things he couldn’t have controlled, believe he could be the person I knew he was.

“So, no,” he tacked on. “I’m going to save my goodbye. I know that goes against all these rules we had, but we fucked all those to hell anyway.”

“Okay,” I stammered out in a breath of amusement. “I’ll save mine, too.”

“Good.”

Frankie dragged me closer. His lips met my forehead, then slid down the curve of my nose and connected there, finally falling right on top of my own and opening me gently to the familiar caress of his tongue. We kissed for a long time, training our memories with it, filling our cups. I would dream about his mouth on me forever.

“This was the best Christmas I’ve had in longer than I can remember,” Frankie vowed once we’d broken apart.

“By far,” I agreed.

We could have stood there all night “not saying goodbye”, finding more things to blissfully agree on, stealing one more deeper kiss. I was the one to rip the bandage off and start the slow, silent trek to the front door.

“I’ll see you in a few weeks, Trouble.” Frankie tucked a strand of loose hair behind my ear. “Don’t be getting in too much of it.”

“As long as you promise not to lose my number the second you walk outside again.”