Christmas in Coconut Creek (Dirty Delta, #1)(2)

Ophelia: Technically I’m catching up because it’s two hours from now in Florida and time is precious

Nat babyyyy: Truer words have never been spoken

Ophelia: I still have like half an hour before my flight. Are you sure you don’t mind picking me up from the airport? I could grab an Uber no problem when I land

Nat babyyyy: Fuck that, I’ll be there at 3:30, we’re getting dinner and then going OUT. There’s a huge party tonight at Jugg, wait until you see the outfits I bought us

Ophelia: I hate you and love you at the same time

Nat babyyyy: You’re really gonna hate to love me later

Ophelia: Do I need to remind you that the holidays are a time for religious reflection and doing good deeds?

Nat babyyyy: Bacardi is my religion and I WILL be reflecting on it later

Ophelia: I haven’t even left Pine Ridge and I’m already worried my soul will be lost somewhere on Pompano Beach

Nat babyyyy: Hopefully your panties too

Ophelia: K!! Love you!! See you in four hours!!





I bit my cheek, unable to keep a smirk from curling my lips at my ridiculous best friend and how excited I truly was for the next few weeks.

The gate was much busier since first sitting down, and I nursed another sip of my mimosa as I scrolled aimlessly through socials. All my friends from high school and college had started posting photos of their newborns and toddlers dressed in red and green. Smiling families visiting Great Value Santa Claus at the Pine Ridge Fire & Rescue, cutting down the perfect Douglas fir, hiding that fucking Elf on the Shelf and contorting his body to look like it was shitting Hershey’s Kisses on the kitchen counter.

Festive.

As much as I could make fun of it by myself and with my other single coworkers, part of me couldn’t help but long for that type of fulfillment too. To be the one to make my son or daughter light up with joy on December twenty-fifth when they came crashing down the stairs in candy-cane print pajamas. The excitement on their faces to find a brand-new bike or a Barbie Dreamhouse.

But for that I would need to have a kid, which means I would need to be pregnant, which means I would need to have sex, and to have sex there would need to be a man in my life. One that was not only willing to have sex with me—which wasn’t the issue—but he would also have to be willing to have a child. That’s a hell of a lot of steps and commitment for the twenty-four hours of joy a year that was pretending to be a fat guy in a red coat.

I opened the dating app on my phone anyway.

I had thought there would be slim pickings in an airport terminal, but it turned out quite a few men within a one-mile radius were looking to get their rocks off while they were in town for business meetings or heading to a ski resort.

Swipe left, swipe left. Porn stache, not the good kind, swipe left. Broody looking, Carhartt beanie, hmm… Swipe right. Which one is he in this group picture? Swipe left. Handsome suit man, swipe right. Fish photo, swipe left. Fish photo, swipe left. Jesus fucking Christ, fish photo, swipe left. Was there really nothing more to the thirty to forty-year-old men in Colorado? This one is kinda cute in a “wears a baseball hat inside” kind of way, swipe right. I could forgive this one for being blond because he’s holding a husky, swipe right.

I followed a one-photo rule with dating apps. If the man in question didn’t leave an impression in the first photo on his profile, then he was a dud. I was on the declining side of my twenties, agonizingly single, and ready to settle down. I wasn’t interested in teaching a man how to present himself to the world, and that included on Hook(Up).

As I finished the dregs of my mimosa the gate steward came over the speaker to announce my flight to Fort Lauderdale was beginning to board first class passengers and active military personnel, of which I was neither. Instead of hurrying across the passageway to stand in line with my suitcase, I threw my usual punctual caution to the wind and ordered one more drink with my check. Then it was officially wheels up to Coconut Creek for three whole weeks.



The window seat wasn’t the most ideal place to be on an already crowded coach flight, but at least I wasn’t shoved into the middle. I’d celebrate life’s little wins so long as the person inevitably sitting next to me didn’t request to keep the shade down the entire three-and-a-half-hour trip. I could manage a few hours of headphone silence trapped inside two other people if I had a view, not so much if the view was a sticky beige wall and the ear of the person in front of me.

Luckily, the row was empty when I boarded, and I didn’t have to press my entire pelvis against the head of a person in the aisle seat while loading my bag into the overhead bin. I could shed an overbearing layer of sweater off as well and, fuck it, take advantage of the extra space to trade my snow boots for the flip-flops in my backpack.

Sweating by the time the last shoe was shoved into storage, I plopped down aimlessly in a seat just as the ping of a notification sounded from the pocket of my zip-up. I expected a ridiculous photo from Nat of the outfits she mentioned we would be wearing later that night, or a “safe flight” text from my mom signed off, “Love, Mom & Josh” like she always did. What I was shocked to see was a banner across my home screen claiming, “It’s A Match!”

Hmm.

I unlocked my phone and watched my own blue-eyed, brown-haired profile photo do a dance right alongside baseball-hat-inside man and a prompt to send a message. My timing was obviously impeccable; I was currently in a metal tube, about to be two thousand miles away for the next month, and this guy probably just caught a rideshare out of the airport.