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  Sean gritted his teeth. “No. I sold it to him.”

  “Why the hell did you do that?”

  Sean turned around, walking back to the bike he’d been working on when she’d come in. “He was in a hurry.”

  Nicki thought of Carlos holding her in front of her door last night bringing her to sweet orgasm and forced back a grin. “He wasn’t in that big a hurry. Trust me—I would know.”

  “That’s what you think.” He picked up a wrench from off the bench beside the bike. “This is his bike here, and it’s got a fucked up tranny. I had too many other things to do, so I couldn’t get his bike fixed as fast as he wanted.” He paused. “But he paid me my asking price for my bike, so I guess I shouldn’t complain.”

  Sean knelt over again and began loosening a bolt on the bike, his back to her again. Nicki’s eyes started to drift to the new tattoo just above his waistband when it hit her. Sean wanted Carlos gone. That was the only explanation she could find. She stormed over to stand on the other side of the bike. “No, Sean, that’s what you want me to think. But you wanted him out of here.”

  He stopped working the wrench but he didn’t look up. “What the hell makes you think that?”

  “You just decided—as a supposed ‘convenience’—to let Carlos buy the bike you’ve been working on for three years?”

  Sean stood, dropping the wrench back on the bench. He looked angry. He was wiping his hands on a rag and then his eyes locked on hers. “What the fuck are you doing hanging with that guy, Nicki?”

  She felt her blood grow warm. “What’s wrong with him?”

  Sean walked around the bike and got closer. “Jesus. Seriously? He’s in a gang, Nicki, a big one out of New Mexico. Do you really want to be involved in that kind of thing?”

  She huffed. “He didn’t act like a gang member.”

  Sean smiled and shook his head as he continued closing the gap between them. “What exactly does a gang member act like?”

  She took a deep breath. He was getting too close, too close for her to concentrate. She could smell him…Sean always smelled like sandalwood and—well, Sean—and he was more potent today than usual. Maybe it was the thin sheen of sweat on his chest that also made his pecs look so fucking gorgeous? She gulped. Shit. She had no idea what to say. “Not like Carlos.” Sean chuckled, stopping about a foot away from her. Enough at least so that Nicki could get her bearings. “Why do you care anyway?”

  His eyes stayed on hers. “Because you’re my friend, Nicki, and I know what these guys do.” Then his eyes dropped to her lips.

  She intended to call his bluff.

  “Bullshit. You wouldn’t just give your bike away for that. You know I can take care of myself.”

  His voice was low. “You’re right.” His eyes locked on hers again as he placed his hands on both sides of her face, drawing her into a kiss. Nicki thought her heart had stopped beating until she felt it thudding against her chest, as though she were a rabbit being chased by a fox. Her hands cupped his pecs, and she felt the damp warm sweat, felt the hard muscle respond to her hands. Tasting Sean and smelling him up close made the effects of the venti caramel macchiato this morning seem like drinking mother’s milk. God, he tasted good.

  The kiss ended and Sean pulled back. Nicki’s eyes stayed closed, her hands now touching only air. She couldn’t catch her breath, and she didn’t want the moment to end. She heard Sean say, “Shit. That didn’t happen.”

  Nicki’s eyes popped open. She was speechless. “Uh, yeah, I think it did.” She had a pair of dripping wet panties to prove it.

  Sean’s face was stone. “No, it didn’t.”

  Nicki’s tongue played with a molar on the left side of her mouth. She was getting ready to speak, trying to think up a good retort, when she heard a click click at the other end of the garage. Sean looked in Nicki’s eyes again, sending her some coded message, something she couldn’t quite register, and then his eyes darted back to his visitor. That’s when Nicki figured it out.

  She turned around for confirmation and saw Kayla, wearing tight jeans and a yellow halter top, her tiny B-cup failing to fill its form. Kayla’s long red hair bounced as she clicked toward Sean, extending a brown paper bag. “Lunch.”

  Sean smiled at her. “Thanks, babe.”

  Nicki tried not to puke. Sean’s arms wrapped around Kayla’s waist as Kayla’s arms wound around his neck. Nicki saw Kayla’s white thong string above her jeans, accenting her tramp stamp. God, Kayla was such a stereotype. Nicki couldn’t figure out what Sean saw in the girl. But she was nice enough, more than she could say about some of the women Sean had dated in the past. Kayla turned around, long enough that Nicki had wiped the disgusted look off her face. “Hi, Nicki.”

  “Hey, Kayla. How’ve you been?” Did you taste my lips on your boyfriend? Oh, that was cruel, even for Nicki. Thank goodness she didn’t say it out loud. Nicki made sure to leave just as Sean was biting into the sandwich. There was no way they could resume their conversation now. It would just have to wait.

  Chapter Eleven

  NICKI WAS SCRATCHING her head, trying to wake up to the phone ringing. It was Friday, one of two days she tried to sleep late on purpose, because she had to work until midnight or later on Friday nights. But leave it to mom to not pay attention to the time of day or day of the week when calling her daughter or even remember that Nicki worked nights. When she saw her mom’s number on her cell phone, she thought some of ignoring it. But then she’d get the two-minute message followed by “Call me.” It was better to just deal with it now.

  Nicki’s voice sounded like Selma and Patty, Marge Simpson’s sisters, until she cleared her throat. “Hi, mom.”

  “Hi, honey.” There was a pause. “Are you not feeling well?”

  Nicki shook her head, a gesture her mother couldn’t appreciate. “No, mom, I just woke up.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Nicki.”

  “Mother, I didn’t get home from work until after eleven. And then I was up till after midnight because I was so wound up from closing the restaurant.” She pinched the bridge of her nose between her eyes. “What time is it anyway?”

  “Nine.”

  Christ. She couldn’t exactly chew her mom’s ass, no matter how tempting. “So, anyway, mom, what’s up?” Might as well get her to the point. Maybe Nicki could grab another hour (or five) of sleep if mom could wind it down quickly.

  “Well, Will is coming home tomorrow, and we’re having dinner Sunday afternoon. Can you make it?”

  Will was Nicki’s younger brother. He was more intelligent, more driven, and more on the ball than Nicki had ever dreamed of being. And she loved him dearly. “Of course. What time?”

  “Two sound okay? I’ll probably make pot roast, mashed potatoes, green beans, and maybe lemon bars for dessert.”

  “No problem, mom. You had me at Will.” She missed him more than she’d ever thought she would have, but that’s because Will had been going to school forever. He went off to college right before he turned nineteen. Since then, he’d graduated from two schools, one with a bachelor’s degree, the other with a master’s. He was still at the school he’d earned his master’s degree from, now working on his doctorate. He was majoring in economics. He had just started working on the PhD last fall, but Nicki thought—even once he could graduate—Will would never live close by Winchester again. With all those smarts (and student loans to pay back), he’d certainly find a killer job teaching at some Ivy League university. So anytime he was back home, she wanted to spend some quality time with him.

  Nicki felt herself dangerously close to waking up entirely. “Do I need to bring anything?”

  “Just yourself, dear.”

  “Okay, mom. Thanks.”

  “By the way, dad and I are proud of you.”

  Here we go. The comparisons of the disappointing child with the dream kid. What the hell did mom plan to say? Nicki tried to stifle her irritation. “For what?”

  “For your newspaper article, of
course. Great job, honey.”

  God, what a shit she was, ready to pounce on her mother. Nicki needed to remember that sometimes parents were actually cool and sincere. “Thanks, mom. There’s more where that came from.” That was it, though. She was awake now. “Where was it?”

  Her mom laughed. “In the paper, of course. You know I don’t read the online edition.”

  Nicki smiled. “No, mom. Where in the paper?”

  There was a pause. “Oh. It was on the front page.”

  Nicki squealed. “On the fucking front page? Yahoo!” Her elation died down to dread in less than two seconds.

  “Nicole Lee Sosebee! Watch your language.”

  Shit. It sucked being a fucking sailor mouth when your parents were hardcore Lutherans, convinced that one of the steps to heaven included a mouth so clean, Saint Peter could eat out of it. Thinking of Will and her mom and dad, Nicki was convinced she was adopted. That was the only logical explanation.

  So much for getting more sleep. As soon as her mother hung up the phone, she darted out the door for her copy of the paper. She didn’t think about the fact that she was just wearing a clingy t-shirt and panties when she walked out the door. She doubted anyone saw her, and if they did, they probably also saw her little tryst with Carlos earlier in the week and had begun scoping out Nicki’s doorway for the next free show. Better than Cinemax.

  She kicked the door closed with her foot, pulling off the red rubber band tied around the paper. She saw it, though, before she even finished unrolling it: “Suspect charged in arson case.” Neal usually wrote the headlines, although he was open to suggestions. He’d never taken one of Nicki’s, so she hadn’t offered in a while.

  Nicki’s eyes continued devouring the paper. Just underneath the title was her first real byline: Nicki Sosebee. Yes! Finally. All her hard work and attention to Neal’s guidance was beginning to pay off.

  Well, maybe not so much, she thought as she scanned the article. Wow. He’d really butchered her words, especially the third paragraph. By the time she was done reading it, her balloon had deflated. She didn’t recognize parts of it at all. But, then, she reread the first paragraph again. And again. And again. Then she smiled. Neal hadn’t changed a single word in her first paragraph…the six reporter questions paragraph. Maybe she was learning.

  The smile was back on her face, and she picked her cell phone back up off the kitchen table. She’d almost finished speed dialing Sean when she pressed End. No fucking way was she going to call. No way. There was no way in hell she was just going to pretend like that kiss yesterday hadn’t happened. And if she called him right now to celebrate her first front page article (goal accomplished!), that’s what she’d be doing—giving him permission to make believe things were still the same.

  And maybe they were, but they were going to talk about it first and agree on it.

  Where the hell had that kiss come from? He’d never so much as laid a hand on her in anything but a platonic fashion since Nicki’s royal fuck up on The Night That Must Never Be Mentioned Again. In fact, he’d treated her more brotherly than Will ever had. He’d made it clear that if they were to have a relationship, friends were all they ever would be.

  It was a game of pretend.

  And apparently that’s what Sean wanted. But they weren’t just going to fall back into friendship, not this time, not without talking about it. Nicki might have made the worst mistake in bed ever (worthy of being number one on a David Letterman Top Ten list), but Sean crossed the line he’d drawn in the sand eight years ago, and now he was going to have to be a man and talk about it.

  Chapter Twelve

  NICKI WASN’T READY to talk about the kiss, no matter how she felt. It was too fresh, and she knew that if she confronted Sean today, she’d blather on and on like a pathetic school girl. If it was just some freak of nature thing that had happened and she wound up confessing her undying—whatever—to Sean, he’d cut off their friendship entirely, like he almost did after The Night That Must Never Be Mentioned Again. Nicki just knew it. So she needed a day or so to steel herself, and then she’d be ready to talk. Calmly. Rationally. Like a man.

  She didn’t get anything done for the paper that day. It’s not that she didn’t have plenty of time. Between her mother’s phone call and agonizing over Sean, though, she was worthless. In that sense, she was glad she didn’t have a nine-to-five with the Tribune.

  But she couldn’t stand it anymore. Who to call? Brandy or Jillian? The newly wedded lovebird who would likely see everything through rose-colored lenses with Gucci frames or the frazzled mother of three who would only hear half of what she said thanks to screaming kids in the background trying to light the house aflame but who would offer some great advice?

  She started pulling up Brandy’s number on her cell phone and began imagining the start of their conversation: “Oh, hi, Nicki. So glad you called. Yes, Kevin and I have had sex every single night since we got married, some nights as many as three times. Yes, I orgasm every time, sometimes experiencing multiple orgasms. He holds me close until I go to sleep. He brushes my hair. He gives me killer backrubs. So…Sean who? Oh, Nicki. Time to move on, don’t you think?”

  Uh, yeah. Well, maybe not. Jillian’s kids might block out a good three-fourths of what Nicki had to say, but Jillian would be able to read her facial expressions. She would be able to empathize, even if she couldn’t give Nicki any advice. And, really, that was all she needed.

  So she instead dialed Jillian’s number. It rang one, two, three times. C’mon, Jillian, pick up. Nicki was ready to hang up when, at last, she heard a frantic Jillian on the other end.

  “Thank God you answered the phone. I need some serious girl time.”

  “That sounds fantastic. I have one little boy I could take shopping with me, and—for your girl time—you can babysit these two little girls before I pull my hair out.”

  Maybe today was a bad day. “Ooh, sorry to hear that.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me to say no to Nate when he proposed?”

  Nicki smiled. “Because, Jill, that’s not what friends do. You’d be living with me now, laying on my couch, eating Ben and Jerry’s, and only bathing when I forced you to.”

  Jillian snickered. “That’s pretty much what I do now. Nathan, stop playing in the water!”

  Nicki winced as Jillian yelled in her ear. “Ouch.”

  “Oh. Sorry about that. So when do you wanna come over?”

  “Well, I have to be to work at four, so how about now?”

  “Sounds great. I’ll save some macaroni and cheese and apple juice for you.” Oh, would you please? “By the way, nice front page, girl. You’re movin’ up.”

  Nicki felt better already. “Thanks, girlfriend. See you in a bit.”

  * * *

  She was glad she’d worn shorts and a t-shirt, because just inside the yard she got sprayed with the hose. “Thanks, Nathan.” The little bugger giggled and ran around the back. Good thing. Nicki was stronger than the little shit and would have no qualms about holding the hose down his shirt until it puffed up, full of water. Then again, spraying the hose in his face might get his attention better.

  Good thing she wasn’t a mom.

  She got to the screen door and shouted inside. Apparently, Jillian wasn’t running her cooler and was instead letting the breeze through the windows. Newsflash. Ninety-five degree breezes will not cool the house down, no matter what the wind speed. Well, she supposed Jillian had to be able to hear the kids when they were outside. “Hey, Jillian, it’s me.” She started to open the door when shfffft! Nathan blasted her on the side of the head, then ran to the side of the house again, the hose following him around the corner, giving away his position. If she’d had more energy, she would have considered running around the other side of the house and really getting him.

  Shit. Good thing she would have to pull her hair back for work. The entire side of her head was dripping. She opened the door and darted inside, no longer caring if she dripped on
Jillian’s carpet. She had to escape the little monster named Nathan. “Jillian, I’m here!”

  She heard a baby crying near the back of the house. “I’m back here changing the baby’s diaper. I’ll be out in a minute.”

  The three-year-old Anni toddled out, holding a sippy cup in one hand and animal crackers in another. Nicki leaned over. “Hey, sweetie. How have you been?”

  Anni grinned at her, placing her cup in her mouth and tipping it. Then she held out her other hand to Nicki. “For you.” Nicki managed a nervous smile and held out her hand. The child placed a sticky, soggy cookie in her palm, smiled again, and then waddled off in the direction she came from. Nicki shuddered and spied a box of facial tissue next to the couch. It was empty. She sighed, trying to be as stoic as possible, heading to the kitchen and trying not to freak out as the cookie attempted to dissolve its way into her hand. God, she was never going to have kids. Jillian’s children convinced her that it was the shittiest fucking idea ever. Thank the stars for birth control.

  “Hey, where’d ya go?”

  “I’m in here, in the kitchen washing my hands. Anni nailed me with some god-awful apple juice-animal cracker-cooties concoction.”

  Jillian rounded the bend to the kitchen, laughing. Her short black hair wasn’t styled but looked natural and pretty, and her green eyes sparkled as she approached her friend. “Think of it as an immunization.”

  Nicki forced a half smile. She looked down at baby Grace. “What have you got in store for me, you little booger?”

  “She had quite a stink bomb for you, but I cleaned her up before you got here. Next time I can save it.”

  Be good, Nicki. “Gosh, thanks.” Wow—she managed to control that potty mouth. She’d have to do something nice for herself later.

  In spite of remembering why she was no longer a frequent visitor at her friend’s house, once the kids calmed down, Nicki remembered why Jillian had always been such a good friend. She was a great listener and she helped Nicki think things through. And so she decided to tell Jillian about the entire week. She started just jumping straight for the kiss from Sean and then thought maybe her friend needed to hear about how they got there, so she backtracked to first meeting Carlos and the adventures that ensued (sans the exhibitionist orgasm on the ground floor of her apartment building).