5. FALLON

I couldn't believe our luck. There were so many teddies available, and we managed to get two that look like twins, but in opposite colors. Well, most of the Gersch teddies were the exact same, so they were all twins, or triplets, or whatever number came to mean infinity.

Once Sterling was paid, only taking a third of my budget, he left. I was squealing around the villa excited about having my very own teddy that I could show off.

Henry jumped around with me. "We have one hour until we can go get them," he said. "I don't even have a name picked out yet. I really thought they were going to be more expensive."

"Maybe he gave us a discount because he liked us." It's what I liked to think. "And I know what we should do once we've got them."

Out of breath from running around and the heat, we both came to a stop and slumped into the seat looking out onto the patio.

"What do you want to do with them?" he asked. "I think I'm going to be too scared to play with mine."

I shook my head, still catching my breath. "They should be played with," he said. "They're teddies. They're supposed to. be played with, and have tea parties."

"A tea party!"

"That's what I was thinking!"

On occasion, we were completely on the same page, and today was one of those days. We were in vacation mode, and that should've meant a steady slope to little space at all times, but little space was only half the fun. The other fun was in playing, both with friends, like Henry, but also with Daddies, if they were lucky enough.

From the reputation of this place, there should've been a steady supply of Daddies slipping into our DMs, but neither of us were on the hook-up apps. At twenty-seven, I always thought I'd have my life figured out and that meant having men figured out, and being engaged, or at least having a boyfriend.

Before getting our new teddies, we brought out the collective toys from our luggage and set them down in the middle of the living room. There was a lot of plastic animals because Henry loved animals, and I'd brought the tea set, it was old and if you squinted real hard, you could just about make the faded princesses that had once been printed around the rims and edges.

I sat Sibby, my penguin plush in front of them to oversee and Henry had his lion plush named Arnold. They were friends.

It took all our effort not to get into our onesies first, but we still had to walk through the resort and it was boiling hot outside. We were in Mexico in the heat of summer after all.

The teddies were poking out under the reception counter from the desk. It all felt too good to be true, but the moment we mention our names and villa number, the woman handed them over. She gave us an odd look, like two grown men getting excited about teddies, it might've even put a dampener on the entire situation, but I'd just checked off a bucket list item. The teddies came with a little plastic sandwich bag with papers, like a real teddy adoption.

Henry was careful with his, barely touching it when we got back. He placed it on a clean t-shirt, almost like it was in a quarantine area. I was almost stress testing mine, considering there were supposed things wrongs with it, I was seeing if it was something obvious. I moved the arms, legs, and gave it squeezes. But it was perfect in my eyes.

"Ok, I don't want you to fill the cup with real water just in case he gets wet," Henry said, nearly ready to put his into a bubble. "I heard the fabric they use is really unforgiving to the elements, so I'm not even taking mine outside again until we're leaving for our flight on the way home."

"Obviously, I don't want to ruin mine either," I said. "I'm going to give mine a photoshoot once I'm in my onesie."

"Yes, yes, yes!" Henry was giddy once more. "Wait. Let me put my onesie on so I can really play."

Since we had matching onesies, it made sense we had matching teddies too. Although we didn't get mixed up with the onesies, I was a little taller than him, so I had a bigger size. They were both blue onesies with green, red, and white spaceships printed over them. We had others, but when we played together, we liked to match.

Our tea party was a lot of fun, even Henry's teddy got involved after a little while spent alone on the t-shirt. The tea cups and pot didn't have any water in them, because it was play pretend.

"Mhmm, this is nice tea," Henry said, offering some to Arnold, and then carefully to the new teddy.

"It's honey tea, because that's what bears like the most," I said.

Tea parties were only a small portion of the fun we had together. Since we lived together, most nights were filled with play. We had a full shelf of coloring pens at the apartment and coloring books. Unfortunately, we didn't have those here, only the pens and paper we brought with us for the flight.

It was also usually accompanied with an animated movie on the TV, but the only movies they had here were only available in Spanish, so we kept it on, but just for the bright colors.

Neither of us wanted to stop playing, but our bellies told us we had to. We hadn't eaten since breakfast this morning.

It was closer to the dinner than it was lunch, so we waited a little while longer before going to the restaurant. We knew the dress code was smart casual, which in my mind meant one thing smart and one thing casual, so either shirt and sweats, or t-shirt and slacks, but I knew it didn't mean that really, I just wished it did.

Out of little space was like re-entering a foreign world, except we were actually in a foreign country, and there was still a fuzzy feeling around being in a new country that tickled up the sides of my cheeks with excitement.

In nice shirts, freshly gone over with the clothes steamer, and stylish chino pants, we headed to the restaurant.

Up the lit pathway of stones with the sand, there was a nice cool breeze in the air.

"There not gonna do tendies," I mumbled to myself.

"But they might," he said.

"I already checked the website."

"Yeah, and you said it was all in Spanish."

I stopped us on the path. There wasn't anyone around us. "I think I'd know if I saw tenders on the menu, it'll be something like el tender, or el chicken."

"Pollo," he said before spelling it out and reminding me of the y sound for double L's. "And there was definitely chicken on the menu."

"But tendies are my safe food."

"They're mine too." He hooked an arm around my shoulder. "Now come on, before people come. And they had that English menu at breakfast, I bet they'll have an English one for dinner too."

That was true, my adult and little anxieties and insecurities seemed magnified in the moment. I was a sudden issue that I knew would iron itself out once I was seated at a table with the English menu in front of me, and I could pick it apart to see what I would eat.

The restaurant was large with tables and booths. It almost looked like its own thing rather than an extension of the resort. I was almost scared to look at the menu, but we had food as part of our stay, I just hoped that meant this food here as well.

We were early eaters it seemed since there weren't many other people seated, and that somewhat relaxed me. And as much as I was eyerolling about Henry's interaction this morning, it was nice to see the two women in there as well at a booth. They waved us over and asked if we wanted to have dinner with them. Henry looked at me, assuming I was about to say no, but if we were going to spend the evening together tomorrow, I should at least get to know them tonight.

"I'd love to," I said. "I'm Fallon, I'm not sure if you remembered."

"I'm Nina."

"And I'm Charlotte."

Germany and Sweden, I reminded myself. "I see you've both already got started on wine." And suddenly my mouth was dry.

"Yes, yes," Nina said. "That's all we've got so far, they brought us menus, but my Spanish is bad."

"And mine is worse," Charlotte said. "Mexico wasn't even on our list, but we found this deal, and we had to take it."

They were talking about the same deal we took I assumed. "Oh, where were you supposed to be going?"

"New York," they said in sync.

And just like that, we had more things to talk about.

I didn't go for the wine though, instead, I opted for a strawberry daiquiri. Sweet, fruity, and so cold it gave me brain freeze every single I sucked the delicious drink through the straw.

They were lovely, and they shared some of the same thoughts as me about the food. I knew it was a hot take, that when you went somewhere new, you should eat the local food, but not everyone was adventurous, and some people liked to see their comfort foods on the menu. Thankfully, this place catered to enough Americans to have enough on the menu that I wasn't going to go hungry.

Fries, steak, chicken, bread, all made in their unique way, but with a little adjusting, I managed to get fries and a chicken burger. And that came with ketchup, except it wasn't ketchup at all, it was spicy, enough for me to finish my second daiquiri and order a third.

On the other side of the table, Henry was wine drunk with Nina. They were becoming louder and drawing more attention to themselves. But nobody seemed to mind, people were smiling, or through the drunk goggles of my eyes, they were smiling.

This was definitely how the first night of a vacation should feel. I just wished I had a Daddy to spend it with, but friends were a second best thing, new friends and old. And in the corner of my eye, I spotted Sterling, the man with the mustache and dimple, I let out a giant sigh, loud enough for Charlotte to notice.

"Do it," she said.

I nearly tripped over myself trying to get out of the booth.

"No, not right now." She tugged my arm, holding me back. "Whenever you see him next, sober. You don't want this to be the impression he sees of you."

She made sense, and so did getting brain freeze from my third daiquiri.

"So, you and him, never a thing?" she asked, gesturing to Henry sat crying with laughter and something Nina said.

"No, no, no. We've known each other a long time, we're more like brothers," I said.

Charlotte shrugged. "You don't look alike."

"No, we're not brothers, but he is like a brother to me."

"Oh. I get you."

Sometimes, I wondered if being together as friends was cock blocking each other. Maybe that's why we were both still single. Our closeness had the guys we brought over thinking we were a package deal.

"What's your type?" she continued. "Older?"

"Older is a bonus," I said, not wanting to give too much away to a relative stranger. "I like guys who get me. Usually, they are older though. And I also like men who are—" words were not coming to me easy. "Dominant."

She cackled. "I love it!"

"Yeah. I like a man who takes control."

"Tomorrow night, we're going to find you a man," she said. "I promise you." And with it, she grabbed my hand and wrapped her pinky finger around mine. "It will be my pleasure to find you someone."

It was a relief she had that much faith in the club we were going to. I was still unsure if it would cater to me, but right now, my mind was flitting between taking another sip of daiquiri and the dimpled face of Sterling. There was something feral about to come out of me if I didn't get to press my bits to his bits sometimes soon—and I used bits loosely, because there wasn't a single part of me I didn't want to touch him with.

The alcohol brought out a monster of lust in me, and if Charlotte hadn't held me back, I could've been in his office, on my knees, or him on his, either way, dick would've been getting sucked right about now.

"Fuck," I let out as another brain freeze hit.

"We should get to the outside bar and drink more," Charlotte said, addressing the table of our empty plates. "Unless we want desserts."

It was a resounded no on the desserts, but yes on the drinks at the outdoor bar. I just wanted to bump into Sterling again—but we didn't.