“Early summer. The Keys. Black tie, long dining tables, white roses, absolute class,” Nat rattled off. “I already have an appointment at the bridal boutique because the dress is custom and six months is already pushing it on time, but we should be in the clear.”
“June is such a great month for a wedding,” I said wistfully, rooting around in my bag next to me for something to scribble down bullet points. “Fuck, I wish I brought a pen.”
“That’s unlike you,” Frankie commented. “You’re slacking, Ms. Brody.”
“Six months?” Mateo spouted from his hole in the sand, his neck doing all the gesticulating. “What ever happened to enjoying an engagement? There’s no rush, sweetheart. Give me some time to pay off that rock first before I’m abusing my wallet again.”
If I knew one thing about Natalia, it was that she got what she wanted one way or another and there wasn’t a man, woman, authority figure, or governmental body that would be able to sway it. June would be the wedding, it would be in the Florida Keys, there would be white roses, and long dining tables, and everyone would be dressed like they were crossing the red carpet at the Academy Awards. End of.
“My internal clock is ticking, Mateo Duran, and you’re not going to be the dad at school orientation that gets mistaken for a grandfather.” Nat’s slender finger scrolled through an array of aesthetic photos as she tilted her phone toward me. Palm trees, white marble, hanging lights, string quartet. This shit was going to be extravagant and expensive.
“That’ll be Pike,” he joked.
“Watch it.” Frankie dumped a shovel full of sand close enough to Mateo’s ear for discomfort. “I’m at a lethal advantage here.”
I leaned forward and swiped a broken seashell away from a helpless Mateo’s ear canal earning a hardly admonishing look of disapproval from Frankie.
“Why wait?” Nat threw her hands up. “I’ve been preparing for this for years. I knew the first time Mateo brought me coffee at work we’d be walking down the aisle together.”
“Weren’t you seeing that guy Andy from the mortgage loan department?” I chimed in.
“Andy was the only one who thought I was seeing Andy.” Nat batted me away with a flick of her delicate wrist. “We’ll have the bridal shower of course.” She started counting on fingers. “Bachelorette party, rehearsal dinner, the wedding itself, morning-after brunch.”
I was mentally counting how many days the school would approve of me taking off, and how many free airline miles I could mooch off my dad. Bachelorette wouldn’t take too much finagling; I could spare a Friday here or a Monday there. Cindy was metaphorically thrown into the fire for me for weeks, so a stray day in the classroom would be a cake walk. Bridal shower was another circus I’d tackle when it came to it, and then of course the wedding. But by June the school year was over, and what better way to celebrate another semester of massaging young minds than absolutely losing mine in the tropics?
“Vegas,” Mateo added. “A weekend of our worst behavior.”
“I can do that!” I raised my hand. Colorado to Vegas was short and sweet.
“Good luck getting all three of my sisters to Vegas at the same time.” Nat snorted contemptuously. “Doctor, lawyer, top-selling real estate agent in all of Collier County. That’s why my parents take a vacation every year for the holidays. None of us are ever together at the same time.”
“And that is why it’s not my problem, but that of my best man.” Sand cracked and dislodged around Mateo’s fingers as he spoke with his hands, even with them buried underground. “That reminds me. Pike, are you gonna stand up there next to me, buddy?”
Frankie sat up, his head tilting thoughtfully. “What about Angelo?”
“My brother wouldn’t know responsibility if it uppercut him in the jaw.” Mateo did something akin to a shrug, crumbling more sand around his chest. “God loves him, but you’re the only one who’s never let me down.”
“I—” Frankie flashed a look up at me and Nat grinning. He would learn to take a compliment if I had to threaten it. A world of intriguing, silent thought passed over his complexion followed by a tender, bashful smile. “I’d be honored, Captain. You know that.”
Mateo wiggled, breaking his two arms free and Frankie flattened himself awkwardly to the sand, wrapping Mateo’s head instead in an awkward hug.
“It’s going to be amazing,” I assured Natalia. Regardless of if it were me or one of her sisters taking on the maid of honor title, nothing would be getting in the way of a perfect wedding.
I would make sure that every last inch of fabric—dress or tablecloth, curtain or gossamer drapery, was ironed and pleated to the very nines. The flowers would smell like someone plucked them fresh that morning, there would be a mimosa in every hand at the twitch of Natalia’s perfectly manicured fingers, and there wouldn’t be a goddamn cell phone poking out of the crowd during the ceremony or I would remove the wrist that held it myself.
I was born for this responsibility. Lists and schedules were my thing. Checking boxes next to my swirly, decorative, honestly obnoxious ballpoint penmanship was like a shot of serotonin straight to my veins. I craved structure, loved deadlines, and there was a very specific and probably certifiable definition for the pinball machine in my brain that only all of the above did anything to sooth.
I’d only ever found one thing interesting enough to slow down time, and he was ephemeral.
Storm clouds rolled toward us, rumbling down the beach. Pink lightning struck through the newly gray sky. It amazed me how minutes prior there wasn’t a hint of rain in the forecast, and if you looked a few miles up the beach, it still glowed with the blue promise of a sunny day. The lifeguards stood on their white cedar stands, waving their arms at the people caught out in the thickening surf and whistled everyone to pack up and head off the beach.
“It’ll pass in a minute,” Nat complained. “I don’t understand why we can’t just wait it out. It’s not even four p.m.” Another crackle of lightning cascaded down to argue.
“Not all of us are blessed with a natural bronze,” I said, packing my high-powered SPF away as the wind picked up and tendrils of hair escaped from my ponytail. “My sunburned ass is more than ready for a shower.”
“Agreed,” Mateo grunted, busting his way through several layers of sand and coming out of it looking like a freshly dusted sugar cookie. He shook his entire body like a dog and covered all three of us in the runoff.
“You’re hosing off before you get in my car,” Nat said pointedly.
Frankie reached over as the first cold drop of rain fell onto my shoulder, handing me my bundled bathing suit cover-up, and pulling me to my feet. Our fingers tightened reflexively around one another.
“I’m ready to get you home,” Frankie said, mumbling between only us. His heavy gaze drifted down my body, cataloging it. We were very clearly about to have another one of those long, sleepless nights like the previous three. My body had already adapted something of a Pavlovian response to his attention. Tender nipples, blushing cunt, heat rising in all the secret, intimate places it knew he’d soon be taking care of like his own.