I didn’t know it for sure, but I would have put money down on a girly little calendar with the flight numbers and departure schedules highlighted somewhere in red and green marker. It was a lie or a tell that she was actively unaware, but the latter made more sense the deeper I let it sink in.
Because just like me, the haze of sex and fun and carelessness was dissipating like condensation on a mirror for her too. Now we were reflecting, and considering, and watching reality materialize in the glass in front of us, and that reality looked the same in her mirror as it did in mine.
“We fucked up, didn’t we?” I put words to it for the first time.
A subtle nod of her head came in return. My eyelids pinched together, emotion swirling deep inside me that had been lying dormant, seemingly waiting for it to be voiced like a whistle into action. A knot tightened beneath her palm and mine, making it hard to speak without a jolt of pain.
“It hurts,” I murmured against her forehead, putting more pressure at the center of my chest with her hand to show her. “It hurts right here.”
She sighed, both anguished and relieved. “I know exactly what you mean.”
34
A house full of large, loud, animated, and spectacularly attractive men was quite similar to standing outside the glass at an exhibit at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.
Nat and I were basically furniture in the presence of the four former operators, observing them silently from across the room with our glasses of wine and the scraps of a charcuterie board. They were like boys again together. Burly laughs hitting the low ceilings like an echo chamber; teasing, taunting conversation; slaphappy palms on jean-clad asses. They wrestled as a way of affection, headlocks and hair tugs, brute force establishing some benign form of a pecking order when it was aggressively obvious they were all different suits of the same deck.
Frankie and Mateo put on a show alone, but introducing another pair added kerosene to the chaos.
The Swan brothers were tall as trees, fair-skinned, square-jawed. They looked every bit alike and at the same time nothing at all. Sam was softer, more athletically built, his hazel eyes an almond shape and his nose a dash more rounded at the point. His hair was short and ashen brown, faded from a full mop at his crown down to the skin at the nape of his neck. Clean shaven with full lips and a perfect line of teeth. Like his brother, Tyler, their brows were thick and slightly hooded, eyelashes so long it would make any woman jealous. They had the same smile, and the same laugh, the same hand-on-hip way of standing casually and brushing their fingers down their chin when listening thoughtfully.
Tyler’s chin, however, was thick with a coarse beard, the hair on his head clipped down to a dirty blond buzzcut. He had eyes so sterling blue they could halt traffic, and if his height wasn’t disarming enough, the mass of very well-earned muscle tightening the sleeves of a cotton tee to his tattooed biceps did the job. He was like Thor, with less fanfare but equally natural charm and seduction. His voice started and remained at a husk so artlessly baritone it was like listening to ASMR. Your eyes just naturally softened in his presence.
“He is so hot in person.” Nat leaned over and murmured from behind the shade of her wine glass. “I’m married. I can say that.”
“You are not married,” I corrected her. My gaze shot back and forth between the four men, Tyler’s arm slung over Frankie’s shoulder, Mateo clinking the head of his beer against Sam’s. “Which one are you talking about?”
“Exactly,” she gloated. “Pictures are one thing, but it’s crazy to see them together. I’m glad they made the effort to get everyone under the same roof again.”
“They’re going to be seeing a lot of each other for the wedding festivities, I’m sure.” I sized up the bigger brother again as he curled Frankie into his side and whispered something that earned a playful punch in the ribs. “Tyler is the one who got Frankie the interview in Colorado?”
Nat laughed. “He’s apparently very close with one of the staff sergeants. I think anything Tyler wants he gets one way or another, but Frankie didn’t need the help at all. Sure, having a contact is always good, but his job history does all the work for him.”
“He told me…” I started casually. “About everything that happened.”
Natalia’s attention drew away from the men across the room for the first time. “Seriously?”
“Yep.” I slipped a cube of cheddar cheese between my lips. “I felt like he was holding back a little bit, but it was probably more for my sake than his.”
“That’s huge, Phee. Frankie doesn’t talk about that to anyone. Mateo tries all the time, but he just ices him out. The fact that you got through is amazing.” She paused. “You two are so good with each other, it’s kind of heartbreaking.”
“Heartbreaking?” I forced out a laugh, twirling the stem of my wine glass between my fingers. “I think we both just knew we could confide in one another because we’re practically strangers. Free therapy.” What a blatant lie. A stranger was the person sitting next to you at a crowded bar, not the man that stayed awake all night playing Connect the Dots with the beauty marks on your back. Not the one you could pick out by the sound of his voice in utter darkness, or the one you knew to choose flowers that attract butterflies for a Christmas gift for their mom.
“Don’t fucking lie to me. I’m your best friend.” Nat reached over and tugged the chain of my butterfly necklace intentionally. “Strangers? You’re trying so hard right now to pretend that leaving in a few days isn’t killing both of you. We’re past the point of no return. I see it, Mateo sees it.”
I rolled my eyes, letting them land directly on Frankie on the recoil and catching his already-there stare. My short smile was returned with a comforting wink that sent a warm flutter to my belly. “So feelings got involved,” I admitted.
“You think?” she said.
“It doesn’t matter. This is typical of two people with a long history of loneliness. One ounce of healthy affection does not mean we’re completely compatible. Lust and love are easy to mix up, especially when it’s been so long for both of us. This was spontaneous, and irresponsible. The entire trip feels like I’m having an affair with my own life.”
“Shut up,” Nat teased. “You’re allowed to be bummed out. And there doesn’t have to be a textbook answer to everything, Ms. Teacher. Sometimes shit just stinks and you light a”—she sat forward and twisted the candle on the table toward us—“vanilla bean latte candle and pretend it doesn’t.”
“I hate everything about that sentence.”
“Well you just hate everything about the truth, then.”
“Can we put the angst on the back burner for now?” I asked. “I’m leaving on Sunday and I’d rather not spend the duration of it being tiptoed around like my dog just died and making sad champagne toasts.”
Nat conceded with a dramatic sigh. “Feed me more cheese, that’ll shut me up.”
I swiped a cube of cheddar off the platter on the table and stuffed it into my best friend's mouth.
The ruckus of voices across the kitchen dispersed as the boys crossed the room to join us on the couches. There was a creak of leather and bow of the cushion behind me before I felt a secret, cheeky pinch on the side of my ass. As quickly as it was there it was gone as I turned toward the culprit with a playful look of warning.