4
The obvious first step to a night out drinking was carb loading, which is why after driving through the stormy sunset, Nat and I ended up sitting on a splintered bench at the outdoor patio of Sand Saloon.
“I can’t believe he caught you looking at his dick.”
“A picture,” I corrected my friend. “A picture of the crotch of his pants. It was, like, the absolute most humiliating thing you could ever think of.”
“That would probably be if he caught you stalking his mom's sister’s neighbor’s Facebook profile where he was tagged in a picture from six years ago.”
I squinted with a bite of juicy burger halfway to my mouth. “Yeah…that oddly specific scenario would have probably been worse.”
“Anyway, he was a good sport about it. That shows maturity in a man. He’s self-aware.”
“Maybe it just means he was the one looking at my grandma’s best friend's son-in-law’s Facebook profile and figured that he shouldn’t judge.”
Natalia rolled her eyes and I peered over the side of the patio where it hung into the water. Two kids a few booths down were throwing French fries over the barrier to a famished shoal of largemouth bass while their parents argued quietly across the table.
Oddly, the kids reminded me of my own siblings back home. Or maybe they reminded me more of myself. At that age as an only child, I didn’t realize what kind of problems lay right beneath my nose because I had no worry over “grown-up” things. My parents had many hushed arguments hidden behind the background noise of the television while I played in the living room. But ugly words always sounded sharp.
That’s not to say they didn’t have their better moments, too. I knew what love was, what it looked like—but it was never in my sphere, never really in my home, not in the years I could remember, anyway. But then as a teenager I began to notice it again. My mom with Josh, and my father with Amy. I saw it in my best friend’s parents, and in my Aunt Shelly and Uncle Ray.
“But, you said he made you laugh. That’s hard to find,” Natalia pondered. “Most guys nowadays are so into themselves it’s disgusting. It’s like they expect you to be enamored by their existence alone. The bar is in Satan’s asshole.”
“If that’s what you think in West Palm Beach, then the bar in Pine Ridge is in that little space between his asshole and his sack.”
“The gooch.”
I nearly spit the Bay Breeze I was drinking all over the table. Pineapple juice stung the inside of my nose and Nat giggled as she passed me a clean napkin across the bench.
“Exactly,” I said, recouping. “I’m swimming in Satan’s gooch pool, and you’re out here telling me your bar is low.”
“The tides are changing, Phee. Here I was, thinking I’d be spending my Christmas season helping you get laid, when it looks like you don’t even need me. I’ll be picking your ho-ho-ho ass up at a Publix tomorrow morning with your reindeer ears on backwards and Hook（Up） guy’s dick print on your cheek.”
“This is a family establishment, Natalia Russo.”
She rolled her eyes. “Show me a picture. Is he hot hot? Or hot because he’s got a fun personality? Because you’re not hooking up with fun personality guys anymore. I’m putting my foot down.”
“You are like a meninist’s worst nightmare,” I said, swiping my phone off the table to pull up Frankie’s profile. “Do you ever just, like, look at a man's thighs and wonder what kind of horsepower they have?”
Nat pointed the soggy, limp end of her French fry at me. “See, this is why you’re my people.”
I opened the app and there was another match there. The blond holding a husky who I found myself much less physically attracted to than I did at the airport that morning.
“He’s a little older, is that bad?” I asked. Frankie wasn’t old by any means, but nine years would be a bit of an adjustment. “Should I be worried he’s hiding a wife and kids or something?”
“I like older. They know what they want. Maybe he’s divorced?”
“Well thank you, ex-wife, he’s aged like fine wine.”
I scrolled top to bottom and side to side on my phone, hitting the back button and refreshing the page once, twice. My stomach tensed uncomfortably when the face I was searching for had entirely vanished. “No way. That fucking goochhole.”
“What? What happened?”
“He unmatched me.”
“Shut up.”
Nat plucked the phone out of my hand and inspected the screen, scrolling just as frantically as I had been a minute ago, looking for the lost remnant of my flight-date’s profile.
He had really lost my contact the minute we walked out of baggage claim.
I tried to act unbothered, but it was harder than expected. Fuck yes, I was embarrassed, and a lot insulted, but more so than I wanted to admit, I was sad. Sad, when I should have been relieved that the trash took itself out before my trip really started.
I actually thought Frankie was genuine. A rare man that was easy to talk to because we both felt the same platonic chemistry on that plane. I laughed while he told me dumb fucking pilot jokes for forty-five minutes and that geriatric unmatched me because I didn’t give him head in the bathroom?
“Oh, hell no.” Nat handed my phone back to me. “Fuck that guy, he probably was married and looking for a quick fuck in the airport. When you didn’t put out he cut his losses and went home to Karen and the crotch-rockets.”
Natalia was right. It made so much sense.
I shoved the leftover basket of fries to the edge of the table and chugged the last of my drink. “Where are we going tonight?” I asked, suddenly ready to get wasted in a dingy McDonald’s parking lot if that was the only option.
“That’s my girl.” Nat flashed me a mischievous smile. “First things first, we’re doing shots.” She looked around my head and caught the eye of the waitress walking toward our table. “Then, Christmas in the motherfuckin’ Caribbean, baby. We’re getting you heavy-petted tonight.”
“Cheers to that.”
Christmas in the Caribbean was exactly what it sounded like: a themed party at a club tucked into a local casino. Nat wasn’t joking either when she said I was going to hate to love her once I got a gander at the outfits.
I walked into Jugg with my tits up to my chin in a red velvet corset, white snowball pom-poms dangling from my cinched waist. The same fluffy white material hemmed the neckline and the peplum style bottom, and Natalia and I both wore barely-there fishnet stockings that cut off mid-thigh. Santa’s wet dream.
Nat pulled me by the hand across the crowded venue, floors already sticky with alcohol that I could feel on the heels of my knee-high boots. The place was decorated to the nines, neon palm trees dotted with Christmas ornaments and string lights, sparkling green and red garland wrapped around every column and molding that shone in the dim light.
Even the wait staff was all in; cocktail waitresses wore tiny bikini tops and hula skirts, reindeer ears with little bells on top of their heads. The bartenders working the busy wooden counter dressed as elves in candy-cane leggings and pointed top hats. Standing behind a booth made to look like a grand old sled, the DJ was head to toe in a red velvet suit and white beard.