My sister and I were used to being berated about our love lives, or lack thereof. Adriana hadn’t ever seriously dated anyone, and I was sure at that point my mother wasn’t above posting her photo on telephone poles like a missing animal looking for a mate.
She liked when I was with Vanessa—because the girl gave her something to look forward to. Engagements, weddings, babies. When she and I broke up my mother was more hurt to lose those things than she was to lose the future daughter-in-law, which should have said all it needed to. And I never even told her the whole story.
I changed the subject. “That reminds me, why is Mateo telling me about you seeing someone?”
“Mateo calls me, so he gets to know things.”
“I’m your only son,” I pressed. “So I should know all things. Always.”
A curtain in the upstairs apartment window rustled and I squinted at it.
“Well that’s why I’m calling you, to make sure you’re still coming to dinner this week. Your sister has to work Christmas Eve, so I’ll cook on the twenty-third. We want to know all about the job and the trip. Adriana forgot she has a brother.”
“No she didn’t. She just sent me one of those chain messages from two thousand seven with a picture of Rudolph boinking Clarice the other day.”
“I don’t know where I went wrong with you two.” She sighed. “Thursday, Francesco, you’re coming?”
The way her voice hitched at the question made my chest tighten. I needed to fucking show up more. As if over a decade in the military wasn’t enough time away, now I was flirting with taking off to Colorado permanently. Not once since the idea was first planted had I been as hesitant as I was hearing my mom pleading for me to simply have dinner with her, over the phone.
“Of course I’ll be there, Ma. I wouldn’t miss it.” My phone vibrated and I pulled it away from my ear to a text from Ophelia that she was on her way down. “You need anything?” I quickly asked. “Cash? Everything at the house is working?”
“The only thing I need is my handsome son at the kitchen table.”
“Can do,” I promised. “I gotta go, I have some stuff today, but I’ll see you in a couple days, all right? I love you, Ma.”
“Love you. Tell Mateo Mama Casado said hi.”
The call disconnected and I watched out the passenger side window as the door to Tally’s apartment opened. Ophelia stepped outside and I couldn’t help but notice how well the Florida sun suited her.
Gone was that creamy shade of skin from the flight down. A few days on the boardwalks had replaced it with a perfect golden bronze. Her long hair was up in a messy mop of a bun, curly tendrils of it curtaining her face and tickling her neck, and the yellow dress she wore made her glow like a daylily. My pulse quickened as she turned to lock up and I realized the hem barely covered her ass.
I didn’t know what it was about women in flowy little dresses, but my hands started to sweat knowing it was all right there to take.
I met Ophelia on the sidewalk, smirking at her adorable half walk, half skip toward me. I instinctively pulled her in by the waist for a hug but she put her hand to my chest and kept me at arm's length.
“Ah, ah,” she tsked, stepping back and giving me her tiny palm to shake. “It’s nice to meet you, Frankie.”
I furrowed my eyebrows. “Oh, so we’re really doing this?”
She reached down and pulled a pocket-sized notepad and a gel pen out of her purse, scribbling something on the first sheet aggressively. I didn’t have to look to know that every “I” on that page was dotted with a heart.
“She’s taking notes, too.”
“So that we can go back and assess your strengths and weaknesses.”
The woman was an enigma. Every interaction was like a new room at a fun house. I thought I had her figured out, and then all of a sudden, I was surrounded by mirrors and walking directly into double-sided glass. You open one door and you get a smart and organized Type C teacher; the door directly next to it swings like the entry to a wild west saloon and the woman inside has a mouth like a sailor and is throwing back beers to match.
“You’re the boss,” I conceded, dragging her in a second time until her cheek was flush to my chest. “But even if I were meeting you for the first time I’d lead like this.”
“That’s a bit forward,” she mumbled into my T-shirt.
“You seem to have forgotten what meeting me for the first time was actually like.”
“Trust me, I didn’t.”
“So I’m being tested and graded”—we walked toward the truck and I opened the passenger door—“and you just get to enjoy the best fucking date of your life?”
“Let’s not get too cocky, Maverick.”
“Again with the Top Gun,” I complained, helping her hop into the seat. I gave her a playful smack on her ass on the way up and she yelped. “Just get in, Trouble.”
“You’re getting points deducted for that.” Her silly notepad got a fresh lashing.
I was as competitive as the sun was hot, and knowing Ophelia was probably putting my name in a column on a spreadsheet next to a hundred other guys made impressing my fake date like a special operation. I was going to be this woman’s new standard whether she liked it or not.
I closed the car door and leaned in through the window. “Somehow, I think I’ll survive.”
19
Butterflies are cold-blooded creatures. Most of them can’t even fly in temperatures below sixty degrees—their little bodies can’t handle it. The hotter the better, so there was no better place to have an entire museum and gardens dedicated to watching butterflies than Florida.
We lucked out, because while Decembers are fairly stable as far as temperature, the little buggers won’t come out on a cloudy or rainy day either. They like to rest and their wings are too delicate for raindrops.
There wasn’t a cloud in the sky or a breeze to be felt when I turned at the sign for Butterflyland and watched Ophelia’s lips twitch into a smile out of the corner of my eye.
“Your big bad walls are coming down, Frankie,” she quipped. “I didn’t know men who elected to spend their day at botanical gardens existed.”
“That line is going on my dating profile like an editorial.” I laughed. “In quotes and everything, next to ‘Ophelia, 26, stunned and satisfied’。”
“Mile High Club was such a winner though.” She scrunched her nose playfully, and for the first time I noticed that she had a perfect constellation of freckles right over the bridge.
Comparatively, Ophelia was the easiest woman to look at that I’d ever met. She was soft in all the right places, perfect lips, pools for eyes, hair so silken I wanted to run my fingers through it constantly. Whatever shampoo or lotion or perfume she wore smelled like it was literally designed for me to enjoy. Her pheromones triggered a primal response in several key places in my body.
The sexual chemistry was overwhelming—and I hadn’t even been inside the girl yet. She had me wrapped around a dainty little finger, strung up so tight it was cutting off circulation and I was just begging to be let loose.
You know how those commercials tell you to call your doctor if you have a hard-on for more than four hours? Well, I was going on seven days and I hadn’t fucking taken anything.