Full, exhausted, comfortable—the perfect storm of festive ambiance catering our unforgettably peaceful afternoon.
He adjusted himself beneath me and unbuttoned his fly, alleviation sighing out of him. “Sweatpants would have been a better choice.”
I snapped the band of my leggings. “Fashionable and functional.”
“And your ass looks great in them, don’t forget that part.”
Natalia twirled into the room and plopped down on the opposite end of the sofa.
“Where’s Mateo?” Frankie looked over his shoulder toward the hallway.
“On the phone with Sam Swan,” Natalia trilled. “Ironing out the details for next week. They’re flying out of Salt Lake on Thursday.”
“It’s been fucking forever since we’ve seen them.” Frankie reached down and twisted the chain of my necklace between his fingers impassively. “Since we all got out.”
“You’ve never met them before?” I asked Nat.
“Nope.” She shook her head. “But I feel like I’ve known them forever between you and Matty.” She gestured to Frankie. “Sam is a sweetheart, and Tyler is a brutish, womanizing whore.”
“That about covers it.” Frankie smiled impishly. “Hope you two are ready to drink your tits off next weekend. We’re gonna be celebrating.”
“Celebrating what?” I raised my eyebrow just as Mateo marched into the living room and stole our attention away.
“Swan boys’ flight lands on the thirtieth at three.” He clapped his hands together and rubbed them down his thighs. The neck of his sweater looked to be choking him as he stood in front of us awkwardly instead of sitting on the couch.
The nervous energy from early in the day returned like a smog over the room. Nat and I were perplexed while Frankie remained placid. He nodded subtly to his friend and Mateo took a deep, exaggerated breath.
“Are you okay, babe?” Nat stood and touched his forehead with the back of her hand. “Sick or something? You feel warm.”
Frankie sat me upright gently, tugging me into his side. His honey brown eyes glimmered with excitement.
“What is it?” she pressed.
“I think it’s about time I did this.” Mateo wrapped both his girlfriend’s wrists delicately in one hand, reaching around to his back pocket with the other. “Natalia Russo…”
Nat staggered back as Mateo dropped ceremoniously onto one knee in front of her, holding a black velvet box between them and popping it open.
I gasped, clapping my palm over my mouth as realization dawned. Frankie’s smirk lengthened beside me.
“I have never loved someone so fully in my entire life. You are my world,” Mateo recited. “I want to make you laugh and give you the cutest little meatball babies anyone has ever seen, and shrivel into raisins in our old age together.”
Natalia’s eyes glistened and she squeezed Mateo’s fingers to stop her own from shaking.
“I want you to be my wife, Tally. Will you do me that honor and marry me?”
She nodded feverishly as tears streaked down her face, a little bounce starting to lift her off the carpet. Mateo pulled the ring from the box and it shined like a Swarovski crystal ornament, light glinting off it so brightly it was like catching the sun in a magnifying glass. “A little verbal confirmation would be great, sweetheart,” Mateo teased.
“Yes!” she wailed. “Yes! Oh my god. YES.”
Her happiness was so loud it pierced our eardrums and I realized I was also crying. Frankie’s thumb swept across my cheek to wipe the emotion away as we both watched Mateo slide the massive diamond onto his new fiancé’s finger.
My best friend was getting married.
“You knew this whole time.” I turned to Frankie, shoving his chest. “You didn’t tell me!”
“I was under very strict direction not to ruin the surprise. My balls were on the line.”
“I can keep a secret,” I pouted.
Frankie tugged my bottom lip with a pinch of his fingers. “I’ve only known you to have loose lips.”
Butterflies fluttered in my stomach and I leaned into his touch, biting the tip of his thumb. “It was more fun to be in the dark anyway.”
A hand sprung into the small space between me and Frankie, attached to it the most eye-catching diamond I’d ever seen. Natalia wiggled her fingers, flaunting her impressive engagement ring in front of us.
“It’s so perfect,” I squealed, stretching her hand out in front of me to take in the whole thing. “It’s like he pulled it right off your Pinterest board.”
“How strange,” Mateo commented, pulling Frankie into his chest for a brotherly embrace.
“I called it, Nat.” I laughed. “Frankie and I are now doomed to the most awkward bachelor party planning to ever exist.”
Her eyes rolled. “Something tells me you won’t mind spending the time together.”
“Congratulations you two.” Frankie sniffled, his emotions getting the best of him then, too. My heart pulsed like thunder inside my chest, warming like the crackling fire.
“We need to toast,” I said, leaning down to the coffee table for what was left of my wine, my friends following suit with their drinks. “To love,” I proclaimed. Frankie watched me intently, the corner of his lip lifting into a devilishly handsome smile. “Best friends, happiness, Coconut Creek…” I continued. “And to planning the most kick-ass fucking wedding anyone has ever seen.”
30
The girls laughing from the living room the minute I stepped through the front door turned my mood from sour to sweet. I spent the morning stretched out on a table playing puppet with a physiotherapist—which was my least favorite fucking thing to come out of my accident.
At first, it was a couple times a week. Cardio, strength training, learning how to sit down on a fucking toilet again without reinjuring myself—that wasn’t dehumanizing at all. Slow and steady exercises leading to me standing on two feet again, and then moping about the therapy unit with a cane I’d thought about beating myself to death with a hundred times over.
The stronger the fusions got in my back, the less I had to report to the doctors. Until it was only every few months to keep me healthy and progressing. Because I was thinking about going back out in the field I unfortunately needed to swallow my pride and take all medical advice sternly and seriously. Even if it meant crawling out of a warm bed away from a beautiful girl under the false pretenses of “going to work.”
Ophelia hadn’t asked me about my scars. She touched the long, precise lines on my lower back though, tracing them when she thought I was asleep. The conversation I longed to have about it burned at the tip of my tongue as I lay there, but I couldn’t force myself to turn over and address it. I hated the way a person’s face warped into pity when they knew the details, and I didn’t think I could stomach that look from her. Nor did she need a fucking trauma dump every time we were alone together.
I was supposed to be her good time. Her fun, breezy, guiltless pleasure.
If she asked, I would tell her.
“There he is,” Mateo called out, sitting in front of a game of cards with O and Tally. “Back from…work.” The idiot winked, knowing full well we didn’t have any security installs until after the new year. “Sorry I couldn’t make it into the office today, Pike. I was just telling the ladies that I have no idea how I’ll manage shop when you ship up to Colorado. You’re the only partner I trust.”