I was enjoying the flirtation a bit too much, if I was being honest. It felt good to feel wanted. Transparently. Too many times I’d entertained a guy that spoke to me in riddles. Unanswered messages, two a.m. texts, fire-emoji replies to my stories. Was that modern day chivalry? Frankie showed his hand the very second it was dealt—it was always my move.
“Any suitors answer the Bat-Signal?” I asked, referring to the neon pineapple stapled to the garage.
Frankie dipped his head and chuckled, the sweet sound of it twisting my lips into a grin. “Gino was out back grilling naked last night, now that you mention it.”
“That old dog.” I swiped my palms across his lower back, tripping the tips of my fingers across a faint scar above his waistband as I evened the sunscreen out. “There, all done.”
Out past the surf break, Nat and Mateo were attached to each other and wading in the water. Just the sight made it clear that I would rather scrub sand out of my vulva than awkwardly tread next to them. I brushed my hands off on my thighs and then returned to lying stomach down on the towel next to Frankie’s.
As if he’d had the same revelation, Frankie cleared his throat and turned to me. “Need a reapply?”
Handing him the sunscreen without even bothering to look up, I snorted. “You don’t want to swim with the honeymooners either?”
“Fuck no.”
When the sun finally fell below the blue line of the ocean Frankie and I had shared enough sips from his flask to be booked on public intoxication. We all showered off under the outdoor faucets, myself rubbing grains of beach from my cleavage and backside that Frankie so helpfully pointed out, before finding a spot for dinner on the boardwalk.
“So why are you called Pike?” I addressed the table but looked at Frankie as I dabbed melted butter off my lip with a napkin. He had one arm resting against the wooden deck railing and the other slung over the back of my seat.
He sucked his teeth and groaned, peering over at Mateo who sat up in his chair, a shit-eating grin on his face.
“Which version do you want?” Matty laughed.
“The truth.”
“Because a pike is a long spear and he had the biggest dick in Delta.”
“Mateo!” Nat swatted his chest, rattling something off under her breath that made Frankie wheeze into his elbow.
“Do you all just swap genital trading cards in the military?”
“It’s the Army’s Pokémon,” Frankie cajoled.
After Nat had given him his earful, Mateo kissed her hairline and turned back to us. “The PG reason is that when Pike first joined our unit out in the Pacific, he was coming into an already tight-knit group of guys and needed the proper welcome.”
“Assholes,” Frankie mumbled, playing with his food. I could make out the touch of blush under the brim of his ball cap.
“So we took him out on an inaugural fishing trip,” Mateo continued. “A rite of passage into Delta with the whole crew. Not even an hour in, this guy catches the biggest fucking Northern pike fish any of us had ever seen.”
I looked over at Frankie, impressed, only to find him with his arms crossed and staring at his friend with his tongue in his cheek.
“I mean, we measured this thing and all, broke out the tape, had him hold it up for a few pictures, he was so excited.” Mateo was all hand gestures and facial expressions when he talked. “I told him, this is a rare species. No one ever gets the catch on these out here because they’re, like, basically a myth, right? I had a couple buddies on the Coast Guard and even radioed in for them to take a trip out and see it for themselves.”
Frankie sighed beside me.
“How have I never heard this story before?” Nat chimed in.
“Frankie was holding that fucker up for them to see before the anchor even went down. We were all chanting, ‘Pike! Pike! Pike!’ behind him, making out like he was gonna be a local legend back at base.”
“So?” I asked.
“It was all bullshit.” Mateo’s shoulders rattled as he unleashed a choked laugh into his fist. “We were busting his balls. Anyone who’d been out there longer than a week would have known the fish he caught was the most common spawning salmon in the South Pacific. A Northern pike wouldn’t be found dead in Guam.”
Natalia and I shared a gasp at Frankie’s expense that quickly trickled into muffled giggling.
“Thank you for that.” Frankie tipped his cap to his friend. “I felt very welcomed.”
“Just some good-natured hazing.” He winked. “But, we’ve called him Pike ever since.”
Frankie lifted his hat and pushed his hair back with his fingers, laughing along at his own expense. As humiliating as the whole thing must have been, the relationship between Frankie and Mateo obviously weathered the highs and lows of what came with the military. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen two men so close without being siblings.
“Now tell them why everyone calls you Captain,” Frankie suggested, sending a knowing smirk in his best friend’s direction.
“Nah, now’s not the time.”
“I’d like to know!” I piped up, leaning back into my chair, right into the warmth of Frankie’s forearm against the back of my neck. It felt nice. This whole dinner, the whole day—it felt right.
“Story time!” Nat clapped her hands together.
“It’s because I call the shots, sweet girl.”
“Get calling then, brother,” Frankie agreed. “I’ll do tequila, next round’s on you.”
After dinner, it was still warm enough for just the cover-up dress I wore over my bathing suit, and the beach had long been cleared in exchange for the dinner and shopping crowd on the boardwalk. Store windows were decorated in faux snow and sparkling ornaments, and a soft hum of classic Christmas music filtered out of open doorways as people walked about the pavement dressed in festive reds and greens.
Nat tugged Mateo by his hand toward another boutique after browsing several stores with nothing to show for it, but Frankie’s callused palm on my elbow pulled me back before I could follow them.
“Walk with me?”
I looked back at my friend and her boyfriend who hadn’t all but stalled in the store’s open doorway. Natalia was conniving, but it was because she loved me and wanted me to take a fucking breath and enjoy myself. I hadn’t stopped pushing go since we graduated, and I didn’t plan on it. Obviously to her, the best way for me to relax was spending some time alone with the man offering.
I raised my eyebrow at Frankie. “Why?”
“Because you want to.”
With a petulant sigh that didn’t at all mirror my actions I started walking. It was becoming harder and harder to play the mind game when Frankie was so obviously controlling the board between us. After that kiss, pretending I wasn’t interested in him would only directly fuel his ego, because he could obviously call the bluff.
“There are a lot of Christmas gifts I’m expected to bring home and you’re keeping me from getting them,” I stressed. “Angry pre-teens will be looking for answers.”
“They’ll survive,” he assured me. “They know you’re busy.”
Frankie led me off the well-lit boardwalk and back into the sand toward the water, the light breeze dancing through the hair sticking out from under his hat.