“HA!” Nat snapped the bill tauntingly.
“Woah, hey now,” Frankie interjected. “What the fuck, guys?”
I gaped at my friend. “Did you make bets on us sleeping together?”
“I knew you wouldn’t,” Nat boasted. “I know my best friend.”
“I know my best friend,” Mateo added. “Pike, I was rooting for you.”
“Not exactly up to me.” Frankie scratched the back of his neck.
“Where’d you two run off to just now?”
“I was giving myself a tour of the house,” I said to Mateo. “The place is gorgeous, but it’s seriously lacking in Christmas decor. It’s the middle of December! Where’s the tree?”
“We haven’t taken it out yet.” Mateo motioned toward the hallway.
“Taken it out?” I gasped. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, no.” Nat sighed at her boyfriend. “You got her started now.”
“I mean—it’s in a box. In the closet.”
Frankie hopped off the stool he was sitting on and padded the few feet down the hallway to a storage closet, reaching inside and pulling out a rectangular box that couldn’t have been three feet tall—then a smaller plastic container filled with ornaments.
“Where’s the rest of it?”
“What do you mean?” Frankie flipped the larger box upside down and shook it. A lame little tree fell anticlimactically to the floor in a heap of plastic pine needles.
“You’re kidding? That is not a Christmas tree. That’s a decoration at most.”
“We put it in the window.”
My jaw hit the floor. Florida would freeze over before I spent Christmas without a real, bark and needle tree. There were some things I was willing to compromise on, and this was sure as hell not one of them.
“Okay, I’ve heard enough.” I stood. “I’m declaring Operation Christmas on this residence. First order of business is the tree farm.”
Mateo and Frankie both snorted, sharing a glance at each other and then back at me. Even Natalia hid a beguiled smile behind pressed lips.
“Why is this so funny to you three?”
“Phee.” Nat put her hand on my shoulder. “You’re in Southern Florida. There’s no such thing as a tree farm.”
“But hey,” Frankie intervened. “We can go to a tree lot, okay? There’s plenty of already cut ones to choose from.”
“We have a tree already,” Mateo argued.
“Cap.” Frankie’s eye twitched at his friend. “Don’t be a scrooge. Maybe O is right. We could use a little holiday sprucing.” He nudged me with a shoulder and winked at the pun.
Natalia and Mateo groaned as I high-fived Frankie. I could afford him one geeky tree pun if he was the only one on my side. I wasn't sure he was on my side, so much as he was trying to get in my pants—but he was on a mission for the latter anyway, and I could use his sway with this.
“So, yes?” I steepled my fingers together and stuck out my bottom lip.
The three of them shared a few hesitant looks before Frankie tilted his head and shrugged at his best friend.
“Fuck, fine.” Mateo sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers. “Get in the car.”
8
There was a ten-minute ride across Coconut Creek with Nat and I tucked into the backseat of Mateo’s truck while the boys argued over the height of their living room ceiling from the front.
If it were up to Frankie, I would have gone gallivanting in his clothes all day, completely unshowered, but even Mateo had the mind to make a pitstop for us back at the apartment.
I hadn’t exactly had a chance to settle in the night before—going from the airport, to dinner, and then chaotically unpacking every item of clothing from my luggage while playing mix ‘n match with Natalia’s closet. The guest room had turned from pleasantly primped and welcoming to “department store on Black Friday” in a matter of minutes, and my pre-game brain never slowed down long enough to fix it. It was a sight for already sore eyes as I dashed in and out of the room with no time to clean despite the way I itched to organize.
My shower was much quicker than I preferred given the company lurking around, and I couldn’t exactly leave the bathroom nude like I would have if it were just Nat and me. So, I skipped across the hallway into my bedroom wearing Frankie’s clothes again with my hair wrapped in a towel.
“It looks like a bomb went off in here.”
“Jesus Christ,” I gasped with a hand over my chest. I turned to find Frankie lying on the bed with his hands under his head, surrounded by the disarray of my belongings and half-opened suitcase.
“I appreciate the sentiment, beautiful. But you can just call me Frankie.”
“Get out.” I pointed a finger toward the door.
“You know, there are perfectly good drawers for all of this?” He began rooting around in the pile next to him until something caught his eye.
“Yeah, well I didn’t exactly expect to have a man in my bed this morning.”
“Surprise,” he replied, half to me and half to the lacy red pair of panties he lifted off the bed and dangled from his fingers. “Wear these for me?”
“Get fucked.”
“I’m trying.”
I grunted and flipped the towel off my head, ignoring him and the twinge in my lower stomach. I sorted around the floor and the mattress for shorts, a tee, and the light zip-up sweater I’d worn on the plane—actively ignoring my pair of panties and how tiny and…shreddable they looked in Frankie’s hands.
“Fine, I’ll just imagine it for myself.” He stretched the cherry red elastic from ear to ear over his face, the crotch lying perfectly over his sharp nose.
“Give me those,” I scolded him, hopping onto the bed to snatch them away. Frankie chuckled when I finally wrestled them out of his grasp. “Don’t you have anywhere else to be besides up my ass?”
He quirked an eyebrow.
“Don’t fucking say anything,” I rebuked, kicking myself.
“We’ll call it even, then.” He smirked. “And no, Cap and Tally are summoning spirits so I figured I’d take a page out of your book and give myself a tour.”
“Go and tour the kitchen.”
“Sure. Right after I get my clothes back.”
I looked down at the outfit I was wearing over my freshly showered body. I might have tried to steal the sweater all together in true one-night-stand fashion if I thought I’d never see him again. It fit like an oversized glove.
“Right now?”
“Take ‘em off.”
“I’m not wearing anything under it.”
“I’ll close my eyes.”
“Oh, okay, in that case…” I shoved an arm up the inside of the sweater, letting my hand disappear. Frankie sat up off the pillows in anticipation as I brought the same hand back out a few seconds later sporting a middle finger.
“You’re a cold woman.” He frowned, standing from the bed and walking toward the door. “I think you’re enjoying this as much as me, though.”
“Out.” I crossed my arms over my chest when he got close enough that we were sharing air.