Cocktails & Dreams

by Autumn Markus

  Leisa kicked off her pumps and curled her feet underneath her on her chair, running a slender hand through her curly blond hair. “No comment, huh?” She smiled, settling back in her chair without a hint of concern. “You’ll see. One thing I know is that Travis wants me, deep down. But I’ll stop making you wear that uncomfortable face and just ask: what have you been up to?”

  “School. Work. That’s about it.” Jena leaned back in her chair. Wild sex fantasies and dreams about Nicholas Cooper, she mentally added. Probably not the time to bring that up.

  Leisa chuckled, draining her cup. “I still have a hard time picturing you working as a physical therapist, girl. Having your success influenced by how well the patients follow orders? Doesn’t sound right for Ms. Control.” She shook her head.

  Remembering her loss of control on New Year’s, Jena suppressed a shudder. She answered earnestly. “Physical therapy lets me really be in control, Leis. Remember how we had to spend tons of time in the gym in college, for crew?”

  Leisa groaned, slumping to the table. “My ass still hurts from those squats.”

  Jena grinned. “I spent enough time with therapists during training that I discovered that I really like helping people recover from injury. Or prevent injury. I plan the therapy. I teach the patients what to do and how to do it. I ride their ass until I get the results I want.” Jena tapped Leisa’s still lazing head with the bottom rim of her cup. “Getting paid to work out doesn’t suck, either.”

  Leisa raised her head and cast a calculated glance down Jena’s body. “You do look pretty hot. Or you would in the right jeans, anyway.”

  A voice from behind Jena made her jump. “That’s exactly what I was just telling her.” Travis dropped into the seat between Leisa and Jena, holding a bag that presumably held the fabled jeans. “Why didn’t you tell me the lovely Leisa was back in town, Jena?” He picked up Leisa’s hand and gently kissed the back.

  Oh. Now the Smooth-Talkin’ Man was in town. Leisa had better grab a fire extinguisher, ’cause this act had made panties all over town explode.

  “She just scared the shit out of me, Trav. I had no idea that she was back. Leisa Parker, you remember my roommate, Travis.” Jena played out the script of polite conversation.

  Leisa’s eyes hadn’t left Travis’s since he sat down. “How could I forget? How have you been, Travis? Your roommate situation still without benefits?”

  Jena felt her jaw drop. A definite shift in Leisa’s pursuit of Travis had been made; she’d never had the balls to ask that upfront before.

  Travis and Jena looked at each other and burst into laughter. “Definitely,” Travis said.

  “We thought about it for about half a minute after a bottle of tequila a few months after we moved in together.” Jena pulled a face. “It was like kissing my uncle. Too horrifying to contemplate ever doing again.”

  Travis noogied Jena’s head. “Yeah, but we each got an excellent wingman out of the deal, a convenient excuse to turn down the unthinkable dates, and someone to watch Jay and Silent Bob with when it becomes necessary.”

  Leisa relaxed, stretching her arms out in a display of unconcern and very consciously displaying her breasts in their ivory silk covering. A little cat-smile appeared as she noted Travis’s piqued interest. He appeared dazed, but intrigued, by the change in her approach.

  “So, Jena, what are you and this charming gentleman up to today?”

  “Work, eventually. Why?” Jena could imagine the fantasies Leisa was brewing about sweaty, ripped Travis whispering dirty suggestions in her ear while he helped her pump iron. Both kinds. By looking at him, Jena guessed Travis was thinking along the same lines.

  Hot damn. It appeared that Leisa was right about his being interested.

  Travis finally pulled his eyes back to his roommate long enough to throw her under the Leisa Express Bus.

  “Wow. This must be some sort of record—seeing two rowing friends from UO in the same year. Of course, you might remember everything about renewing your acquaintance with this one.” A teasing, crooked half-smile spread on his face. Jena wanted to smack it right off.

  Leisa’s sharp gaze turned to Jena. “Who did you see, Jena? Who-who-who? And why don’t you remember them? I have to know! Is it someone I know? Of course it is—we spent all of our time at UO together. Tell me you didn’t get drunk with a nerd and sleep with him! Rich? He went after you there for a while. Or…”

  Jena felt her face getting redder and redder and prayed Leisa would stop before she gave Travis any more ammunition for teasing. After thinking a minute, a slow smile spread across Leisa’s face. “I’ve got it. I only remember you getting this exact shade of red when I tormented you about one person. Nicholas Cooper.”

  Travis burst into loud guffaws. “God, I love you, Leisa. She’s good, Jena. Why haven’t we gotten together before, angel?” He kissed Leisa’s hand again.

  “Why, a lady doesn’t pursue, darlin’,” Leisa drawled in the accents of her Deep South home. Travis caught his breath and stared.

  “Trav, wipe the drool off your chin. This kitten is deadly,” Jena ordered, and then she turned to Leisa. “And, yes, I saw Nicholas on New Year’s Eve in San Francisco. End of story.” Jena shot her deadliest laser eyes at Travis, and he had the sense to keep his mouth shut.

  Leisa trailed her hand flirtatiously down Travis’s arm. Didn’t miss a trick, that one. “You should have been there, Travis. They both had the hots for each other, but neither had the ’nads to say anything. It was ridiculous. I even gave Jena the perfect opportunity to get him up to her room one night by noticing out loud that her roommate wasn’t around—”

  “Who blew that one, Missy Never Knock?” Jena snorted when Leisa’s expression remained serene.

  “Yeah, but you didn’t have to run out like your ass was on fire and your hair was catching.”

  “Nice image, Leisa. Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?”

  “No, but I do lots of other things with it,” Leisa drawled.

  How can she get away with talking like that and not sound like a total skank? Jena wondered, noticing the way Travis was hanging on Leisa’s every word like they amounted to poetry instead of the dirty limericks they most resembled. Oh, yeah. He was caught by his own proclivity toward aggressive women. Jena gave Leisa mental snaps for finally having figured that out.

  Leisa dove back into her story. “Then, right before he disappeared, she blew the most golden chance ever. Remember that party, Jena?”

  Jena nodded glumly. Yep. There it was. The stick Leisa had used to beat Jena with daily.

  “Okay, so we get invited to a party at our team captain’s apartment, right?” Leisa said, a spark of mischief in her eye. “Nicholas spends the entire night with Jena, bringing her drinks, dancing with only her—the works. Then…”

  Jena let Leisa’s voice fade into the background as she remembered the way she’d felt that night: nervous and excited, not sure whether to hope or to dread that Nicholas would be at the party. Even knowing that her damned mouth was bound to get her into trouble hadn’t been enough to put a stopper in her verbal diarrhea when he’d appeared beside her and handed her a cup of punch that surprised her with its liberal amount of alcohol. After nearly spitting the mouthful on him, she’d stumbled through an explanation about how she usually had no problem swallowing whatever was in her mouth…

  The memory of how his eyes has twinkled with laughter that night, and how it felt to be held close to him could still make her smile. By the same token, Jena never forgave herself for turning down Nick’s offer to walk her back to her dorm in favor of babysitting a hellaciously drunk Leisa, who wouldn’t dream of leaving the party at the crack of midnight. He’d stroked the side of Jena’s face with one finger and walked off into the swirling snow with a smile and a wave.

  Leisa’s voice brought Jena back to the present. “…and the dumb shit just let him walk away. Never saw him again. Wasted opportunity, sugar, especially since he specifically asked D
iane to invite you to the party.”

  Jena’s head whipped around. “He did what? No, he didn’t. Leisa, you’re just making that up!”

  Leisa shook her head. “Jena, think about it. How many freshmen were at that party? I’ll tell you how many. Two. You and me. Nicholas asked Diane to ask you.”

  “What? How? Where did you hear that?”

  “From Diane, of course. She was in my pottery class, and we got talking one day.”

  Huh. Jena’s mind went blank. Huh.

  Leisa looked concerned. “Are you okay, sweetie? I thought it was obvious. He watched you all the time, even though you refused to look at him. I went to practices just to enjoy the drama of him watching you, all of the other girls watching him watching you and giving you death glares, and you watching no one. Highlight of my day back then, actually.”

  Travis chimed in, apparently tired of Leisa’s attention being focused on Jena. “I can’t believe you rowed, too, Leisa. I can’t see a sweet thang like you carrying those big boats.”

  Leisa batted her eyes. “Oh, I didn’t row. I was the coxswain.” She emphasized the first syllable of the word to make it sound dirty. “I measured the stroke.” She ran her hand lightly up Travis’s thigh. To Jena’s amazement, he blushed.

  “Oh, good God, Travis! You can’t work at UC Davis and not have heard those terms before. Get a grip.” Jena was still reeling from Leisa’s information, but not so far gone that she couldn’t give her roomie a rash of shit.

  “I just never heard them quite that way, Jen. Say, do you have a place to stay, Leisa?”

  Chapter Four

  “YOU DO REALIZE THERE ARE GYMS in California, don’t you, Conor?”

  After chucking his fourth load of free weights into the U-Haul, Nicholas’s arms and back were a mess. Moving cross-country with Conor was proving to be an experience. Between the ridiculous weights that seemed to make no difference to Conor’s lean frame, his flat screen, and all the other miscellaneous shit he claimed he couldn’t do without, Nick was limited to about one quarter of the truck for his things. Con claimed that some of the stuff was for both of them, and some of it certainly was, but Nick thought most of it was extraneous crap. The only thing saving Conor from a beat down was the nervous look in his blue eyes whenever he talked about moving. Nicholas felt like he had to cut the guy some slack. It took a lot of guts for Con to decide to go to college at all, and to go so far from his comfort zone was a big thing.

  “Ooh! Is his widdle bitty awms sore? Does him want to cawy the couch piwows?” Conor asked, heaving yet another massive load of crap into the truck.

  “Hey, asshat! Where the hell am I supposed to put my stuff? You took the whole damn truck!” Nick bellowed. Maybe he didn’t feel so sorry for Conor after all. At the rate Con was going, there’d be nothing left in Boston to miss but his mom, and Nick wasn’t so sure she wasn’t crouched in one of the boxes. Mrs. Grady was not taking her son’s move well.

  “Piss and moan, piss and moan,” Conor muttered, climbing into the back of the truck and shifting things until Nick miraculously had some room for his things. Some.

  Two hours later, Nicholas was butt-tired, and he and Conor were as ready as they would ever be to start out the next morning. A quick goodbye meal with the parental units, and Nick collapsed in his sleeping bag on the floor of his empty apartment. Although moving around the country was not unfamiliar to him, his last move had been made under such stress that he hardly remembered how long it was going to take to drive to the West Coast. Leaving Oregon the way he had in college, terrified that his dad would die before he got home, wasn’t exactly conducive to remembering the length of the trip. It was all a horrific blur.

  Recollecting that time shook Nick up so badly that he had a hard time sleeping, even though his ass was dragging. He found his mind drifting once again to the woman he privately called “the Angel.” It annoyed the shit out of him that he still remembered so little about her. Still no face. Still no name. Nick’s body recall, however, was sterling.

  Turning over restlessly, he dropped into restless dreams of his Angel acting not at all angelic.

  A loud crash startled Nicholas awake.

  “Wake the fuck up, Dickolas! Holy Mother of God! I swear, if I have to comb the entire states of Oregon and California, I will find that fucking girl so I can get some goddamned sleep.” Conor loomed in the doorway of Nick’s room, glaring. “You make as much noise as a chick. What the hell were you dreaming about?”

  Blinking in the sudden brightness from the overhead light, Nicholas cursed. “Sex, Conor. I was dreaming of the hot, wet screw I enjoyed on the couch at the hotel. The first of four enjoyed in various locations around the suite. Need any more details?”

  Conor stared at Nick for a minute, scratching at his bare chest. Then he shuddered, shaking his head. “That’s just nasty. I ate breakfast on that couch a couple of hours later.” He wandered back toward his room, pulling his boxers out of his crack and muttering about public and private areas. As he reached the door, he called back, “And thank you so much for bringing that night up. Now I’ve got fucking on my mind. I’ll never get back to sleep now.” He slammed the door of the bathroom, and Nick heard the shower go on as Conor shouted, “Shit, that’s cold! Screw you, Nicholas.”

  “No thanks, Con,” Nick muttered. “It just wouldn’t be the same.” He closed his eyes again, savoring the fantasy of pulling a silken handful of the Angel’s hair over her shoulder and gently releasing it so he could watch it spill around her round white breast…

  “Conor! Hurry the hell up!”

  As they slowed to a stop in front of a nice apartment building in Davis, Nicholas climbed out of the truck with relief. Three solid days of Conor’s beloved eighties hair metal bands and Nicholas was almost out of his mind. Conor was still singing Bon Jovi as he stepped out of the U-Haul’s cab and stretched with his hands behind his neck.

  “If you have to torture me with songs from childhood, Con, you could have at least gone for the grunge era. That shit you’re singing sucks. Sincerely.”

  “Whatever, dork. Like I care what you think,” Conor retorted lackadaisically. He looked around. “So, whose place is this? Pretty fancy.”

  “Guy I knew at UO—Rich Scheller.” Nicholas slanted a smile. “Sort of a tool, but he volunteered his guest room until we can get into our apartment tomorrow. He and I rowed together.”

  Conor grinned. “Oh. Right. Instead of playing a real sport.”

  Nicholas ignored Conor’s asshattery and rang the doorbell. The door swung open before the bell stopped sounding.

  “Nicky Cooper!”

  Nick winced as a bald blob descended on him with the one armed “bro-hug” combined with a sweaty-palmed back slap. He heard Conor snicker behind him as his most hated nickname was paired with his most hated action. Nick would be hearing about this later, he was sure. Dick.

  Stepping back as soon as he politely could, Nicholas smiled tightly. “Hey, Rich. Thanks for letting us crash here until morning.” He turned to indicate the idiot. “This is my friend, Conor Grady.”

  Rich shot Conor a measuring glance, then stuck out his hand. “Conor. Any friend of Nicky’s, and all that shit.”

  Conor took the extended hand and shook it briefly. Nick saw him surreptitiously wipe his palm on his leg a second later and fought the urge to do the same. The rest of the evening was similarly painful, and Rich’s long-winded bragging became increasingly more annoying until Nick sent a silent Conor a look of apology, wishing he’d ponied up the cash for a hotel.

  Settling his bulk more firmly in the center of his couch after ignoring Nick’s eighth polite glance at his watch, Rich took a pull on his Beck’s and asked, “So, did you ever hear anything from that freshman girl we tussled over? What the hell was her name?”

  Nick smiled, thinking of the girl who had caught his eye by ignoring him. At least the conversation was finally getting a little more interesting. “Jena Baker. No, the last time I saw her was the
night I had to go back to Boston. You?”

  “Nah. Not after the end of that year. We had a little ‘misunderstanding.’” Rich grinned, his piggy eyes almost disappearing in folds of flesh. “Did you ever hit that, bud? Tasty, tasty stuff.”

  Nick felt a brighter flash of annoyance at Rich’s obvious lie. “You slept with her? Bullshit. She couldn’t stand you. No offense, bud.”

  Rich shrugged. “Source of the misunderstanding. After you left, I figured she was fair game.” He looked offended as he said, “Do you know she wouldn’t give me the fucking time of day? Captain of the team, and she shut me down at a party with the whole team in the other room. Couldn’t be allowed to happen, bro. So I fixed it.” He grinned, tossing more peanuts in his maw.

  Rich was starting to irritate Nicholas. A lot. “What happened?”

  “Maybe I let on that things ended different than they actually did.” Rich cawed laughter. “The girls were such bitches to her, and the rest of the guys were impressed. Jena was so quiet, they never thought it would happen. Made for a fun rest of the year.”

  “That was a shitty thing to do.” Nick was pissed. He’d definitely decided too soon that the convo was getting better. “Jena was a nice girl.”

  Rich shrugged, sending ripples across his pudge. “Whatever.”

  Enough of Captain Cupcake. Nick rose to his feet, and Conor followed with a relieved smile. “Well, I think we’d better hit the hay, Rich. Big day tomorrow. Thanks again for the room.” He and Conor said polite good-nights before heading into the room they’d been offered and shutting the door.

  Conor had been quiet through the evening’s conversation, but commented as he was settling into his sleeping bag. “Nice guy, Nick.”

  Nicholas snorted. “Fuckhead is more like it, Con. Sorry.” Resting his head on his arm as he lay down, Nick frowned. “Man, I can’t believe he did that to her! What a tool.”