Duke glanced up from his poor attempt to clean the stain off his white button-down shirt. The autumn-colored napkin he used had begun to shred, leaving orange, yellow, and red paper streaks. “I’m going to hold you to it, Pablo.”
Chuckling, Pablo nodded his head. With each bob, Duke caught a glimpse of the beginning signs of the horseshoe-patterned baldness of his thinning hair but decided not to tease him right now. Pablo kept his hair curly and low. Duke usually kept his hair as short as Caesar himself. A lot of people often thought he and Pablo were brothers. They were close to the same height, but Pablo had him by maybe a half an inch. Had Pablo not spent the summer back in the Dominican Republic, they both would have been the same hazelnut shade of brown. While Duke liked to dress in finer clothes, Pablo had always been comfortable in a pair of jeans and a polo shirt. Today he wore a red pullover. Duke guessed it was to announce the upcoming Christmas holiday.
“Whatever,” Pablo said. “This is the least I can do for inviting you into the lion’s den. I never would have guessed—” Pablo handed Duke another napkin, a white one “—considering what a rock star you were two weeks ago, that you’d go down in flames.”
“Thanks,” Duke grumbled, taking the napkin from his overdramatic friend. As one of the highest-rated news anchors for Multi-Ethnic Television, someone who never took time away from work, Duke knew his career in journalism was far from endangered. Duke enjoyed working for the Orlando, Florida–based company. Multi-Ethnic Television, with affiliate stations all over the nation, prided themselves on diversity, not only in the news anchors but in their shows, as well. Every sitcom, cooking show, or drama or reality series showcased different nationalities from the Caribbean, Africa, India and everywhere else that made up America’s cultural melting pot.
With his contract renewal set to be signed at the beginning of the year, MET checked in with him every other week to verify his happiness. He also figured they wanted to know if their DC Nightly News anchor planned on returning to the news desk after he finished covering the morning anchorwoman’s period of maternity leave.
But they might be getting their journalist back sooner rather than later. His time in Tallahassee might be limited, thanks to the hordes of soccer moms threatening to change morning shows and local business owners flooding Pablo’s email inbox, warning they might remove their holiday ads as long as Duke was on the air. Duke’s arrival in Tallahassee earlier this month seemed so long ago.
Just because his best friend was his current station manager didn’t mean Duke had gotten off any easier. After shouting at him all morning long, Pablo suggested Duke do some serious investing in PR work if he wanted to help save the ratings. Despite his limited time in town, Duke prided himself on maintaining a positive image.
The anchorwoman he was subbing in for was Pablo’s wife and the mother of Duke’s three—now four—godchildren, so he was really here more so as a favor. He’d leaped from being a baseball star to being in front of the camera in DC, filling people’s homes with current events for the past fifteen years, without missing a beat. Being down here with Pablo and his family, however, made him wonder what things he had missed out on in life. After the New Year, Duke had some serious decisions to make.
Somewhat, a little voice nagged him.
“Oh, and her name is Macy Cuomo,” Pablo leaned in and whispered, “in case you were wondering. She’s single and a very good friend to Monique and me.”
He was wondering. He’d been staring at the petite beauty since she walked in the front doors of the Baez family’s home two hours ago. There were no obvious signs of her flirting with anyone else, either. Once she’d laid her manicured hand on a man’s chest as she tossed her head back and laughed at something that was said, but that was it. At that moment, Duke would have given anything to be that man.
“What?” Duke tried to shake off his gaze, realizing Pablo was speaking to him.
“Yeah, you look like you need to cool off,” Pablo said, pushing something into Duke’s hand. “You’re sweating from staring at her. Take this.”
He looked down to his left and spied the green bottle of beer in Pablo’s hands. Frost billowed off the beverage.
“You guys have the heat on as if it were freezing.”
“It’s sixty-eight degrees outside,” Pablo countered with a shake of his head. “You forget our moms bundled us up at seventy degrees in the DR.”
“And yet you’re wearing chancletas with jeans?” Duke chuckled. “I heard Thanksgiving is going to be in the seventies.”
“Leave my flip-flops alone.” Pablo laughed, lifting his foot. “Anyway, you know that’s not what I meant. I’m just glad to see you’re back on your feet and looking at a quality woman.”
“So I’ve been staring?” Duke looked back at the angel in cream. Pablo was right; he had been away from the Dominican Republic for a while now. He forgot how much he missed a shapely woman with all the right curves in all the right places. This woman named Macy now stood with Monique, cooing over two-week-old baby Lucia. There was a maternal vibe coming from her that worried him. Most of the women he dated never lasted long if they started cooing over children. Duke could offer a woman jewels, trips, cars and other luxury gifts, but not a baby. A childhood illness had scarred him, prohibiting him from being able to give her a biological child. So why bother leading her on any further?
“Let’s just say that you’ve been staring so much you’ve got Monique wanting to play matchmaker. If I didn’t come over here to get you, I am sure she would have been printing out your wedding invitations.”
Matchmaking time, Duke thought with a wicked grin. “That doesn’t sound too bad. I think my best-friend-in-law has great taste.”
Pablo choked on his beer and looked at him as though he’d grown a second head. “What?”
“I’m serious.”
“You didn’t say that when she tried setting you up with her college roommate.”
The college roommate in question had had a unibrow and a questionable Adam’s apple. She was one of the five girls Monique shared a room with. Duke had agreed to go on that date sight unseen. Pablo spent the entire double date apologizing for the misfortune.
The two friends looked at each other, both realizing they had the same image in their minds. “At least this time I can see what I’m getting up front.”
“And at least this time I can tell you that she’s not like the women you’ve gone out with, Duke. This one is a nice family girl.”
Feigning hurt, Duke clutched his chest. “You wound me.”
“Mo will wound you if you hurt her.” Pablo slapped his best friend on the back playfully and led him across the room to where the woman in question was.
A few people glared at Duke. And then it dawned on him that the reason why this Macy wouldn’t look at him must be because she’d already heard the story of his outing Santa. Through a frozen smile, Duke leaned over to his friend. “So you don’t think that this lady heard about my Santa mistake on the morning news, do you?”
“Hell, who do you think was the first person to call me?”
“Ugh,” Duke groaned and stopped walking.
Pablo pressed the bottle of beer against Duke’s shoulder to push him forward. “Face the music. At least when Macy sees Lucia with her padrino, she won’t think you’re a complete ass.”
As godfather to Pablo’s first three children, Wellinson, Angel and Maylen, Duke knew that women held a soft spot for men who liked kids. Women blatantly hit on him whenever he took the children out to the park or to a game, slipping him their business cards or hotel key cards.
Growing up in Mao, a city in the Dominican Republic, Duke never realized he was poor. His father, Ramon, would say they were blessed. Christmas traditions were more like