“Mrs. Sosebee, would you please pass the mashed potatoes?” Sean asked her mom. Normally, Nicki would have smiled at Sean’s formality with her parents; he still called them Mr. and Mrs. like he had in high school (of course, Nicki did the same with his mom), an unshakeable lovable habit.
“Certainly, Sean.” She smiled and handed him the bowl.
“Everything smells really good. I don’t get cooking like this very often.” Nicki felt herself simmering beside him. Oh, really? Even from your “come home to a hot cooked meal” girl? Maybe Kayla’s hot cooked meals came out of the microwave. Or maybe her hot cooked meals weren’t actually meals at all. Nicki poured a little of mom’s homemade raspberry vinaigrette on her salad and bit her bottom lip so hard she thought it might bleed, so she willed herself to relax.
A faint sigh escaped mom’s lips as Sean spooned out the potatoes and she spied his knuckles. “Oh, Sean, I wish you’d get that dreadful BAMF tattoo removed.” She said BAMF just like in the old comic books, causing Nicki to smile.
Sean’s lady killer smile curved his lips as he looked at Nicki’s mom. “I’ve had it for seven years now. You’re not used to it yet?”
“I’m used to it. It doesn’t mean I like it.” She handed Sean the bowl of green beans. “What does your mother think about it?”
Nicki allowed herself to look over at Sean. He was sitting in the figurative seat she usually occupied at her parents’ house. But he seemed cool under the pressure. “She knows it’s part of an image I have to maintain.”
Not wanting to disrupt the flow, Nicki picked up the bowl of mashed potatoes from between the two of them but kept her gaze on Sean. She’d never heard this before.
“Image? Why do you need an image?”
Sean smiled again. “I own a motorcycle repair shop, Mrs. Sosebee. If I looked like Mister Rogers, no one would take me seriously, and my business would go under.” Mom seemed to consider what he said. “If I look and dress the part, I’m halfway to being thought of as legitimate by the people who hire me to do the work. And then my work can speak for itself.”
Dad chimed in. “How is business these days, Sean?”
Sean looked over to dad and so Nicki took her eyes off him. Didn’t want him to have to satisfaction of knowing she was even paying attention. She handed the mashed potatoes to dad. “Keeps me busy.” She folded her hands in front of her plate, waiting to see when Sean would set down the bowl of beans he was holding, but all her peripheral vision saw was him holding them suspended above the area. Shit. He wanted her to take them from him. So she looked up, barely caught his eye, then took the beans and began slowly spooning them onto her plate. “I actually had a really good week.” Nicki saw her dad nod. “I sold my custom Harley a few days ago and made off it what I usually earn in six months, so I’ve now had my best year ever.”
Holy shit. Nicki wondered how much the damned thing cost. And that meant that Carlos must have had a lot of money too. Maybe Sean was right about the gang thing, but she didn’t want to know.
Sean continued talking. “So now I’m considering doing that on the side. I loved that bike, but the money I made on it was crazy, more than I would have thought I could.”
It was a sore spot, but Nicki had to know. It meant she actually had to talk to him which was probably okay since he was handing her the butter. “Was it worth it, though? I mean, look at all the labor you put into it.”
God, she could barely stand the way his eyes were drilling into hers. Could the rest of the family see that? “It was a labor of love, Nicki. But, really, that’s when I considered her mine. If I was just building custom bikes knowing I was going to sell them, I wouldn’t put that much time into them.”
At least he’d admitted it. He hadn’t wanted to part with that bike. He’d loved her, probably had even had a name for her that he hadn’t told anyone else. Nicki knew how much that bike had meant to him, and so she couldn’t quite let it go. “But you loved that bike, Sean. How could you just part with it like that?”
She’d hit a nerve. He picked up his glass of water and took a sip. Then he looked her way but didn’t look at her. “Sometimes you sacrifice for things that are more important.”
And what the fuck was that supposed to mean? She couldn’t very well grill him here. She could just picture that…Sean bringing up the fact that Nicki had been sleeping with Carlos, an alleged gang member. That wouldn’t fly with her family. So she nodded her head, letting it go for now, and buttered her roll. No one else questioned it either. Then again, thanks to Nicki, the tension was thick in the air.
And it was quiet. Will saved the day. “Hey, Nini. Mom showed me your front page article. Great job, sis.”
She looked up and smiled, silently thanking her brother. “First one.”
Sean exhaled so that Nicki heard it. “Shit, Nicki, I didn’t know. Sorry. Congratulations.”
Nicki smiled at him, feeling sad that things were so strained between them right now. She wanted to say sorry back. “Thanks, Sean.”
He looked over at her mother. “Can I read your copy later?”
“Of course.”
Sean turned back to Nicki. “Is this the story you were telling me about the other day?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I don’t think I told you the latest developments, and there’s sure to be more next week.”
Her dad said, “We’re all proud of you, kiddo. Nice job.”
She turned to face him and smiled. “Thanks, dad.”
Will grinned. “Hey, I’m a writer too, you know.”
Nicki tilted her head, smiling. “What do you write, baby bro?”
Will feigned a disgusted look. “Perhaps you’ve heard of a master’s thesis?”
“Well, yeah, but what is that exactly?”
“It’s huge, and if you can’t write one, you don’t get your master’s degree. I don’t expect you to read it all, but I’ll bring my copy home next time I’m here. It’s one-hundred-and-thirty-three pages of heterodox economics genius.”
“Of what?” Nicki’s smile grew. Will was moving into the area where she wouldn’t be able to keep up with him.
“Let’s just say, sis, that I impressed the hell out of my thesis committee and graduated with honors.”
* * *
The remainder of the day was much more relaxed, and Sean and Nicki had reached a silent understanding. They didn’t talk much, but it was apparent that no one else knew there was something weird going on. All of them moved from dinner to dessert and then everyone pitched in to clean the dishes and put the leftover food away. Sean read the newspaper article and saw its placement on the front page, on the right hand side, just below the fold. He muttered something about having to buy the paper now. Then they all played Monopoly and Will used the game as an excuse to talk about everything he’d learned in the last several years. Nicki loved to see his passion for it, and she knew he was going into the right field. Will admitted that his ultimate goal was to teach economics, because he found it so fascinating.
The one game lasted into the early evening and mom insisted on feeding everyone again. This time, though, they just had roast beef sandwiches and chips, because no one was famished. They started playing Trivial Pursuit and didn’t finish it either, because as the night wore on and it got really late, and Nicki said she had to head home. She planned on moving into full investigative reporter mode on Monday, and Mondays were also the day she worked her makeup business, so she wanted to get a good night’s sleep.
Sean said that he should probably go too and timed it so that they walked out together. And instead of walking toward his truck, Sean walked Nicki to her car in front of the house. She didn’t say anything, just fished her hand around in her purse, feeling for her keys. Sean asked, “You still mad at me?”
They stopped on the sidewalk, able to see each other’s faces because of the ambient glow of the street light and the porch light from her parents’ house. They were under the shade of a tree, so it wasn’t like they were u
nder a spotlight but they had enough light to see. Nicki felt a cool breeze, and she wondered if it was going to rain tonight. It didn’t matter, really, because one thing she had always loved about her area of Colorado was that evenings in Winchester almost always cooled down enough to be comfortable, no matter how hot the day had been.
Her keys in hand, she looked at Sean. It was time to talk, no matter if she was ready or not. The time was right. She shook her head. “No, I’m not mad.” Not anymore, anyway. She looked down at the keys, though, because it was hard to look at him.
“Hey, I’m sorry, okay? I don’t know what happened the other day, and it will never happen again.”
Fuck, Sean, don’t promise that. That’s why it had torn her up so much, because she’d dreamed of that for how long? And he hadn’t disappointed in his technique. But it was clear from his words that he did want everything to go back to “normal.” And Nicki knew, just like the time they shook hands and agreed to pretend they had never slept together—The Night—that she was at a crossroads…either make nice and play the game or say goodbye forever.
She couldn’t say goodbye.
So instead she had to accept that Sean would always and only just be her friend. She shook her head and looked up. “It’s cool.” And that was it.
Chapter Fifteen
SHE’D WANTED TO ask so much more, to really talk about it, but Sean’s voice indicated that he wasn’t willing to go there. She would never know exactly why Sean had kissed her at that moment or why he had sacrificed (to use his words) his bike on her account. She wouldn’t know if he really had deeper feelings for her. As she lay in bed awake that night into the early morning, she finally decided that Sean must know on some level that she still had those feelings for him, and he’d kissed her to make her forget about Carlos. If she was right, then Sean was even smarter than she’d given him credit for. That would mean he knew Nicki almost better than she knew herself, that he knew her motivations, her desires, her urges.
But that’s what friends did, right? They knew their friends well.
And yet tonight Nicki had learned something about Sean that she’d never thought about, so what did that say about her as a friend? Had her eyes been so clouded by her strong emotions that she sometimes just thought about Sean in a sexual way, not considering him in full dimension? She had known Sean was careful about his “image,” to use his own word. He’d always been attentive to his looks, but Nicki had always imagined it was just because he wanted to look good, seemingly for the girls. But she’d seen tonight that Sean had some business savvy, and that—while girls did cream themselves over how he looked—what he had done was calculated on a whole other level. She found that this knowledge gave her new respect for her friend.
And that didn’t help one bit with the way she felt.
So tomorrow, she told herself, as her thoughts finally started to wind down, she was going to focus on work and on finding another boyfriend who could rock her world so hard that Sean really could feel like just a friend.
* * *
Thanks to her mind’s refusal to let her sleep as she should have, she slept later than she’d wanted. As she ate a piece of buttered toast for breakfast, she sketched out a to do list that included calling one-fourth of her makeup customers to see if they needed anything, then calling Charles Baker—Jason Edwards’s arson victim—and Melissa Jacobs, currently starring in the role of Helen of Troy.
She showered and dressed, did her hair and makeup, then sat at the kitchen table with her little book of customer names and numbers. She didn’t work her makeup business too hard anymore, but she had close to forty loyal customers, and Nicki herself got her makeup at fifty percent off because of it, so it was hard to give it up. She called nine numbers and left five voice mail messages. The other four she was able to speak with, and only one needed anything right now. She asked for black waterproof mascara and charcoal eyeliner. Nicki kept a small inventory on the top shelf of her closet, and those were two products she knew she had plenty of. She promised to drop them off later in the day.
Then she knew she had to get on to reporting duties. She fired up her laptop computer anticipating she might need it for research. She still had the arrest affidavit on the table and skimmed through it. It had an address for Baker (the one with the burned house) but no phone number. But when she did an online search for Charles Baker at that address, she got a phone number in the time it took to press enter. Without hesitation, she picked up her cell phone and dialed.
She got his voice mail. She wasn’t too surprised, because she figured his landline hadn’t survived the fire anymore than his house had. She left a message, telling him that she was a reporter for the Winchester Tribune investigating the Jason Edwards case and would like to ask him a few questions.
Well, she hadn’t made much progress so far, and she didn’t want to lose the momentum she’d had last week. So she searched for Melissa Jacobs’s phone number and also found it online. Apparently the woman had a landline at her home in Winchester. Now Nicki was getting somewhere.
Her phone rang before she could dial, though. The number belonged to one of her makeup customers that she’d left a message with just minutes ago. “Hi, Sheri. How are you?”
“Nicki, I think I do want to order some stuff, but I want a new look for summer. I don’t suppose you could come over later and give me a facial?”
She was torn, but she was pretty free, all things considered. “What about tonight? Do you have anything going on?”
Sheri thought for a moment. “No, I think I could do it. What time are you thinking?”
“I don’t know. Sometime after five.” Her inner saleswoman kicked in. “And—as you know—if you invite some friends, I can discount whatever you buy.”
She could hear the smile in Sheri’s voice. “How about seven, and I see how many girlfriends I can get to come over?”
“Sounds good. I’ll be there around six to set up.” More potential customers were always good, considering Nicki had never quite been able to give up selling makeup.
She then called Melissa Jacobs’s number. It rang several times but was finally answered by a woman. After confirming the woman was Jacobs, Nicki introduced herself as a reporter from the Tribune who wanted to ask her some questions about the Edwards case.
“Um, I really don’t have anything to say, and I don’t want to talk about it.”
In her short time as a reporter, Nicki had rarely been given the “no comment” line, but it seemed to be happening more and more. This woman hadn’t quite said it yet, though, and Nicki sensed she had a chance. “I just want to ask you a couple of questions so readers know your perspective.”
She heard the woman sigh. “Let me think about it.” That was good enough for Nicki. Nicki was going to give the woman her phone number and ask her to call back, but then she knew it would be too easy to be blown off that way. Instead, Nicki promised to call Jacobs back tomorrow for her final answer.
Well, so much for doing a lot of reporter-type work today. At least tomorrow she could sit in court again. Tuesdays had turned out to be the best days to sit in, and at least once a month she would find something worth writing about. Maybe it was for the best since she’d committed to an evening of makeup. She got out her presentation bag and made sure her tools and supplies were in order.
Before Nicki left her apartment to deliver makeup to one customer and do a facial party for the other, she got a call from Charles Baker.
“Mr. Baker, I’d like to interview you regarding the Jason Edwards case.”
“Look, ma’am, I realize you’re just doing your job, but I’ve really had enough of the drama your town has brought me. Oh, uh, that’s off the record. If you want to quote anything from me, it can be ‘no comment.’ No offense, but I’ve had enough.”
Nicki was not surprised. “None taken. Thank you for your time.”
Man, if she couldn’t get Melissa Jacobs to agree to an interview, she was back at square one. She’
d have to wait for Edwards’s trial or until the authorities found Michael Sterne. She had no choice but to sit in court tomorrow morning and hope for another promising story.
By the end of the evening, she’d had all the girl time she could stand. She liked helping women make themselves look pretty, but so many questions and hesitations about what to buy and how much to spend wore her out. All told, though, she earned about seventy dollars net on Sheri’s five friends, and Sheri scored a thirty-percent discount herself. And, if these women were anything like the women from previous facial parties, at least two of them would also become loyal customers in the future. So it was worth the time.
The next morning, Nicki sat in court and struck out. She was getting discouraged. That afternoon, though, she called Melissa Jacobs again. When the woman answered the phone, Nicki reintroduced herself. “Is there any way you would consider an interview?”
The woman hesitated but said, “Okay. You can come over to my house tomorrow. How about eleven?”
Nicki would have cheered out loud if it wouldn’t have made her seem unprofessional and then cause her to lose the interview. “That sounds great, Ms. Jacobs.” The woman gave Nicki her address and Nicki recorded it in her steno book. Yes!
She started to dial Sean’s number and then hesitated. Damn it. It was just like the aftermath of The Night. There was an awkwardness between them again, and she felt like she couldn’t call him or go by and see him when something cool happened like she used to. Part of her wanted to just decide that was it, that there was nothing to save there, but she really couldn’t bear the thought of Sean not being in her life at all.
Maybe tomorrow she’d just go over to his garage and try to break the ice. Somehow.
Chapter Sixteen
Got the Life (A Nicki Sosebee Novel) Page 8
