Her guest room was empty and hollow, all the drawers clear of clothes, the closet back to Natalia’s own wardrobe overflow. Ironically we’d spent more nights across town at the house than we had the quaint little apartment.
“Remind me why you still live here again?”
“Independence.” She shrugged. “But really because I told Mateo I’d never live with a man without a ring on my finger and now look at me. Full commitment in less than a year.”
“Evil genius.” I cackled. “Is that the secret? Be obtusely unavailable? Play them at their own game?”
Nat collapsed on the bed on her stomach and kicked her feet up behind her. “Men are so simple. You make everything an ultimatum with you on one end and whatever bullshit misogynistic thing they learned from their mother on the other. At the end of the day Mommy isn’t the one on her knees.”
My nose wrinkled. “I hate when you make good points the bad way and send me farther and farther away from grace.”
“Grace doesn’t come back from Miami covered in bite marks, babe.”
My hand shot to the side of my neck. “He made me a whore.”
“You always were, deep down. You just needed the right key to unlock it.”
I put my hands on my hips and did a cursory glance around the room. “What if…there’s only one key? And all the other keys are too jagged or small or just try to shove themselves in and break off inside the keyhole?”
“Well…” Nat tilted her head. “If there’s only one key, and then you lose it, you can always…go get a replacement that does the job just the same. It might just take some time.”
“I’m very attached to my key.”
“It’s a good key.”
“Very sturdy,” I added.
“That’s an important quality,” she agreed.
“Versatile.”
“Mine’s been known to open an Amazon package or two.”
“Well endowed.”
Nat grimaced. “I can’t keep playing this game.”
“Fuck.” I blew out an overwhelmed breath. Which turned into a staring contest with the ceiling where my eyes welled with tears and I tried and failed to will them away with my tongue in my cheek.
“Oh God, Phee. I’m sorry.” Natalia hopped up from the bed and embraced me, tucking her shorter frame under my arms and laying a cheek on my chest.
“It’s my fault.” I sniffled. “You warned me.”
“I also totally condoned it, and up until a few days ago had no regrets because you guys needed each other. I guess I just didn’t realize how much.”
Natalia thought we needed each other like someone might need a vitamin. For enhancement, a push, strength, better overall well-being. No, Frankie and I needed each other like an IV.
“I’m as shocked as you are,” I admitted. “I feel like I met someone who really sees me. He dug up all these habits I thought were rooted and made me reflect on them instead of water them.”
“He also made you a fucking poet apparently.”
I laughed, the motion releasing a solo tear down my face that I wiped away. “What the fuck? This vacation was supposed to be relaxing and quiet and now I’m crying in your guest bedroom over a man I didn’t even know a month ago.”
“This isn’t the end,” she said. “He’s in Mateo’s life like you’re in mine. You’ll see him at a million more functions. And who knows? Maybe in a few months he’ll be out in Colorado too.”
In a few months we could also both be completely different people if this entire experience had taught me anything.
The bell chimed at the front door and we pulled away from one another gently.
“Dinner’s here,” Nat chirped. “Come out when you’re ready.”
She disappeared through the open door and a few seconds later the chatter of voices sifted down the hallway, reaching me in whispers. Instead of joining them, I curled in on myself, checked the bathroom for the hundredth time, opened and closed every last drawer, pretended any of my dresses might have gotten mixed in with Natalia’s. Then I organized my outfit for the plane, folded it like I would at a department store, made a physical note in my phone not to forget the charger plugged into the wall behind the nightstand, and got down on my hands and knees to stick my head under the bed and check I hadn’t lost a stray sock.
It was only then that a shadow eclipsed me from the doorway, followed by the gruff clearing of said shadow’s throat.
“You could knock,” I quipped, retreating from under the frame. Too quickly though, and I smacked the back of my head on the low-hanging metal. “Son of a bitch.”
“I didn’t want to scare you.” Frankie’s voice came closer. “And I was enjoying the view.” Two big palms hooked under my arms and lifted me off the floor and onto the bed. “You okay?”
“I’ll survive,” I muttered, rubbing the crown of my head.
“Did you find what you were looking for?”
A trap door, a safe room, a little hole to crawl into if it meant avoiding that final dinner with my friends before I had to go back to Colorado.
The longer I prolonged it the farther away it got, right?
“Not exactly.” I sighed.
Frankie sat next to me with his hands clasped between his knees. His blue jeans were tight around his thighs, the flannel shirt he wore rolled perfectly up his forearms. I started mapping the veins as they overlapped one another.
“You forgot a few things at the house,” he said. “I didn’t know if they were important.” He emptied the contents of his pocket into his palm.
“Bobby pins?” I snorted.
“I’m assuming not important, then.”
I shook my head, letting him dump the straight clips into my hand.
“Then there’s this.” Again, diving into the pocket at the seat of his pants, Frankie pulled my red thong out and dangled it in front of me. “Not really my color. Or size. Not for lack of trying.”
“I’d have to make that judgment for myself.”
“You don’t want to ruin your perfect image of me right before you leave.” He nudged the panties in my direction again but I pushed them back at him.
“They’re all yours,” I said. “A souvenir for all your hard work.”
“I already kept your body wash,” Frankie admitted. “My skin feels like a fucking baby seal.”
“It’s amazing what graduating from bar soap can do for you.”
“You were into me before you knew what was in my shower.” He winked, folding my underwear back into his pocket without another question.
“Well I’m keeping this.” I gestured to the oversized Army sweater I was wearing. Then curled my fingers into the sleeves and wrapped my arms around my body.
“You look better in it than I ever did.” Frankie reached over and tugged on the neckline, uncovering the necklace beneath it and rubbed the little blue butterfly between his fingers.
I dropped back onto the mattress, staring up at the ceiling while Frankie leaned over me. His warm palm skated across my belly and snuck under my shirt, tracing little circles into the hollow of my rib cage.