The thought didn’t bring her any comfort.
“Nikki—”
She put one foot in front of the other and started walking away from the guy of her fantasies…who’d somehow become the guy of her nightmares. “Goodbye, Adam.”
19
ADAM CURSED UNTIL HE couldn’t think of any more curse words. Then he repeated them all until he ran out of breath, and growled them in different, more imaginative sequences as he drove his car straight to Devon’s fancy-ass white high-rise on Brickell in the heart of fashionable Miami.
Devon had unwisely given him an elevator code and a key about a year ago when Adam was staying with him and looking for his own apartment near the university. The same guy still worked at reception, and waved him in.
Up Adam went in the elevator, all the way to the twenty-first floor, with the crumpled photos and banner in his backpack. He got out of the elevator, removed them and headed for unit 2122. It was only 1:30 p.m., and Dev stayed at his bar until it closed around 4:00 a.m., so he’d still be asleep.
But not for long.
Adam unlocked the door and kicked it closed behind him. He stalked straight to the bedroom where he threw open the door and then pulled open the blinds.
Dev rolled over with a groggy moan. “Wha fah?”
Adam grabbed Dev by the neck and yanked him to a sitting position before plowing his fist into his jaw.
Naturally, Dev lay back down again, a little more quickly than he’d probably intended.
Adam stuffed one of the photos into his open mouth, and followed it with another one.
“Gah! Whah ra ooig?”
“What am I doing? I’m feeding you those friggin’ pictures you plastered outside the dean’s office, you asshole!”
Adam shoved another photo into Dev’s mouth, at which point Dev came awake enough to try to defend himself. He lurched forward, head-butting Adam in the gut and knocking him off the bed.
Adam rolled, found his feet again and launched himself back at Devon. He plowed into him with the full force of his body, rolled him onto his stomach and sat on him, wrenching one of his arms behind his back. “You jackass!” Adam yelled. “Did you even stop to think what the consequences of your little gag might be?”
Dev bellowed into the bedcovers and tried to buck him off. He failed.
“Did you?”
Another bellow.
“Do you realize that Nikki works in the friggin’ dean’s office? She got fired because of you. And I lost out on the Perez scholarship because of this stunt.”
Adam was afraid he’d kill Dev if he didn’t put some distance between them, so he gave him a final cuff on the back of the head and then propelled himself to the other side of the room.
Dev rolled over, gasped and coughed. Then he eloquently dropped an F-bomb.
“That’s it? That’s all you got?”
“I didn’t think—”
“How ’bout one hell of an apology, man?”
Dev struggled to a sitting position, rubbed at his jaw and actually managed to look remorseful. “Dude. I’m sor—”
“Don’t call me dude, you piece of shit.”
“Adam. I’m sorry. I had no clue.”
“Well, it’s about time you got one. Maybe even two or three.”
“I didn’t know Nikki worked there. How could I?”
Adam glared at him. “You’re going to make this up to her, and you’re going to make it up to me, too.”
Dev nodded. “Yeah, I will. How?”
Adam eyed him scathingly, from his stupid, product-laden hair to his flashy gold chain to his idiotic boxers with surfing pigs on them. “I’ll tell you exactly how. You, Dev, are a Photoshop expert.”
“Uh. I am?”
“Yes. As of this moment, you are. And you are going to accompany me to the dean’s office this afternoon, and you are going to explain to him exactly how you used Photoshop to put Nikki’s head onto a stripper’s body, and my head onto the guy’s.”
“O-kaay…” Dev said dubiously.
“And then you are going to most humbly apologize to the dean, and say that you are the biggest wanker on the planet, and you are going to beg him on your knees for Nikki’s job back. Then you are going to beg him to put me back in the running for the Perez scholarship. Do you understand?”
Dev nodded.
Adam crossed the room and yanked open his closet doors.
“What are you doing, man?”
“You are going to wear a plain, white shirt. You are going to take off that gold chain. And you are not going to put that grease-crap in your hair. You will part it on the side like the preppiest kid ever to descend from the Mayflower families. You will not wear eight ounces of Latin-lover cologne. You will not wear that flashy, in-your-face Rolex—”
“Jeez. Do you want to tell me how to wipe my ass, too?”
“No. You will not be wiping your ass. You will be kissing the dean’s. Got it?”
“Sure,” Dev said glumly.
“And when we leave there and you’ve done your job with him, then we’re going to go to Nikki’s place and you can kiss hers, not that it will do me any good now.” Adam dropped his head into his hands.
Dev said nothing for a long moment. Then, “You care about her.”
Adam lifted his head and skewered his friend with a look.
“Oh, man, oh, man. I’ve really screwed up, haven’t I?”
“You dickhead,” Adam said. And then he followed it with every other bad word he could think of.
Dev staggered to his feet and headed for the shower.
“Yes, I care about her,” Adam told him. “You degenerate pig.” He dropped his head into his hands. “And I should walk away now, because I can’t give her the time and attention that she deserves.” He groaned. “But I can’t walk away. There’s something about her, a grace or a…a…peace with herself that I don’t have. I tap into that. I relax around her. Like a cat in a pool of sunshine.”
“Dude,” Dev said, holding up a hand and looking faintly nauseated.
“And she bakes stuff that’s out of this world. My mom? She can burn water.”
“Next you’re going to tell me that Nikki feels like your heart’s true home,” Dev said, squinting at him.
“Yes.” Adam was astonished. “That’s exactly it. How did you come up with that?”
Dev closed his eyes and shook his head.
“Oh. I thought for a minute there you’d been taking a poetry class or something. I should have known you were being sarcastic, you bastard.”
“Moi?”
Adam rolled his eyes. “Fine. So I’ll mock you when it happens to you—if it ever happens to you.”
“Photoshop,” Dev muttered, changing the subject. “Wait. You know who can help us fix this?”
“Who?”
“Remember Evan Underwood? They used to call him Enzo?”
“What about him?”
“His cousin Hal owns Underwood Technologies and I’ll bet he could create some ‘original’ photos for us. You know, the ones that I supposedly doctored.”
“You think?”
“Yeah. Give me twenty-four hours, okay? And I swear I’ll fix this for you.”
Adam mulled it over.
“I’m really, really sorry, man. I meant this as a prank. I was just razzin’ you.”
Adam shielded his eyes so he didn’t have to look at Dev anymore in those Windex-blue boxers with the surfing pigs on them. “Dev, you’ve got exactly twenty-four hours. If you fail me, then you and I are going to have a hot boating date with some rope and some cinder blocks. Got it?”
Dev sprinted for Evan’s number.
THE TEARS DIDN’T COME for Nikki until she was in her car, thank God. Behind the tinted glass of the Beetle’s windshield, she could leak and sniffle for the entire drive home.
Fired.
All because she’d met Adam.
She’d used the term star-kissed lovers in Azul, but at this point she felt more as i
f they were star-crapped lovers. Except that she’d never be his lover again. She thought it with bravado, but the idea only made her cry harder.
What kind of guy had friends who would do this?
The kind of guy who would try to pay her for sex. The kind of jerk who would look at his cell phone in the middle of the act. The kind of pig who wallowed with other pigs.
They probably got together with other slimeballs on the weekends and watched porn involving sick toys and animals. Who knew—maybe they threw parties and passed around hookers like joints.
Nikki angrily banished the little voice inside her that insisted Adam was not that kind of person. How could she know what kind of person he really was? After all, nobody had dreamed that other nice-looking med student was the Craig’s List Killer.
Maybe Adam was the Bachelor Party Beast, and went around ruining amateur strippers’ lives.
The little voice inside told her not to be stupid.
Too freaking late! she snapped back.
She’d been stupid on so many levels. Taking the gig, for one. Allowing pictures to be taken. Going back to Adam’s hotel room—that actually ranked highest on the Moron List. No. Falling in love with him did.
The thought caused Nikki to stomp on her brakes at a green light, which the drivers behind her did not seem to appreciate. Honks and beeps and hand gestures ensued. Cussing in Spanish followed.
No, no, no, no, nooo. She had not fallen in love with Adam. That was a crazy idea. You didn’t fall in love with someone you’d only known for a week, after all. That was ridiculous.
The stupid little voice inside her tried to get all logical and rational. It asked where was the rule book that established how long one had to know a person before falling in love?
Nikki told the little voice to go to hell.
It responded with affronted snarkiness that it was already there.
Was it saying that being trapped in her brain was hell?
Well, that was the first sensible thing the voice had said all week.
Nikki congratulated it.
Then she stepped hard on the gas pedal and rocketed toward home, because if she stayed out on the street like this, trading barbs with a little voice in her hell-head, she would definitely get picked up and packed into a little white cell lined with padding so that she couldn’t hurt herself.
She also cried harder. Yeah…that was good. Maybe she could drown the voice in her sorrows.
Finally she turned into her apartment complex, blinking away the tears. She sat there in her car for a moment, wishing that it was a magic car that could drive to the nearest grocery store to get her a giant tub of rocky-road ice cream and a big bag of cherry Twizzlers, too. And while it was at it, the Beetle could stop and get her some of those wonderful old movies with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant and Grace Kelly and Jimmy Stewart.
Movies where the heroine’s problems were easily solved and the men in her life were wonderful, witty, dapper and handsome. They made perfect martinis and would never offer to pay her for sex or be friends with anyone who would plaster naked pictures up at her place of employment.
But though her Beetle was adorable, it was not magic—and she couldn’t even be mad at it for its lack of supernatural gifts.
Nikki rested her forehead on the steering wheel and gave in to fresh sobs. Then she forced herself out of the car, up the stairs to her apartment, and called her mom.
20
“MOM, EVEN IF I TAKE OVER here and keep things running, I’m going to have to move in with you,” Nikki said as she stood in the kitchen of Sweetheart’s and folded fresh blueberries into the batter for a huge batch of muffins.
She wore a baggy shirt, aerobics shoes and her oldest pair of jeans. They sported holes in both knees and had frayed and faded at the back where she’d stepped on them and dragged them on the floor, since they’d always been too long for flat shoes.
Despite her care, some of the blueberries broke, creating blue streaks in the mixture. Well, the blue streaks were a metaphor for how she felt, so there.
“And that still doesn’t change the fact that now neither one of us can afford health insurance. That was one of the big reasons I wanted to work for the university—they pay for that.”
“Well, honey, you know you’re always welcome at home, and we just have to pray that neither one of us gets sick.”
Tara was covered from neck to knees in a white apron over her own T-shirt and jeans. Her only jewelry was a pair of tiny chocolate-doughnut earrings with multicolored sprinkles that Nikki had given her last Christmas. They were inexpensive and made out of painted resin, but she adored them.
“Mom, praying that you stay healthy is sticking your head into the sand.”
Tara rolled her eyes. “Oh, ye of little faith. And better my head in the sand than your fanny in a G-string, honeybun.”
Ouch. Low blow. “Mom, can we please not talk about that?” Unfortunately she’d been so upset that she’d spilled everything.
Her mother giggled.
“Stop it,” ordered Nikki.
“Sorry, just picturing your gran’s face if she could have seen you. It would have made my out-of-wedlock pregnancy pale in comparison. And you don’t even know how much trouble I got in for that.”
Nikki had heard the story many times. How Gran and Poppy had kicked Tara out of the house, but Poppy had run out the screen door and stood behind his little girl’s car before she could even back out of the driveway.
They’d unloaded her car, unpacked her suitcases and held her while she cried. Then Gran had gone about getting Tara the best medical care available and told the neighbors to mind their own business. Poppy had cleaned his gun and gone to talk to “that young hound,” much good did it do anyone.
The “hound” spent most of his flea-bitten life stoned out of his gourd and could barely support himself, much less a wife and a baby. Gran and Poppy decided that rather than have their grandchild grow up with that poor excuse of a father, they’d have him sign a nice little legal document, and Tara agreed, letting her knight in dusty black leather ride his third-hand Harley off into the sunset without her.
“Yeah, well,” said Nikki. “I’m only carrying on a family tradition of scarlet women. We’re just degenerates, aren’t we?”
“Pretty much,” said Tara cheerfully. “You know, compromising the good citizens’ health with evil sugar and all that.” She bustled around, setting the trays of cookies, pastries, doughnuts, cakes and pies inside the display cases.
Once everything had been set out, she wiped her hands on her apron and turned to face Nikki. “In all seriousness, sweetie, I want you to stop worrying about me. God will take care of my health. And God will find a solution for the roof, too.”
Nikki sighed. “Okay. But I think the Big Guy would want you to be, um, very proactive in these matters. So at least go see a real doctor about the dizzy spells. Remember, God helps those who help themselves, right?”
Tara’s eyebrows snapped together at the mention of the doctor again. “Exactly. So my daughter needs to help herself and not get worked up about me. Got it? You have your own life and your own dreams, Nikki. And they don’t include moonlighting as a—an exotic dancer, for goodness’ sake!”
“Fine. Great. Sorry, I had to pay my credit card bill—and someone else already invented the computer and nobody’s offered me a job on Wall Street with a gazillion-dollar, tax-payer-funded bonus.”
“Don’t change the subject.”
Like you just did? But Nikki didn’t say it aloud.
“Honey, my issues, whether health or financial, are not your problem. Why do you always feel as if they are?”
“You’re my mom.”
“Yes?” Tara looked at her strangely. “And you’re young and should be enjoying yourself.”
Nikki hunched her shoulders.
“What? What is it?”
“Mom…you had me when you were younger than I am right now. You could have— I mean, you had anoth
er choice, all right? But you had me and you raised me, even though I’m sure I was a huge burden, and I—”
Tara’s eyes widened. “You were never a burden!”
“I guess I just want to, I don’t know…be worth it. Make you proud. Pay you back or something.”
Her mother’s jaw dropped. “Nicole Roslyn Fine, that is the sweetest, most erroneous, idiotic and frankly disturbing thing I’ve ever heard.”
She marched over and took Nikki by the shoulders. “Stop it. Stop thinking that way this instant, do you hear me? You were a gift, a beautiful gift, and never a cross to bear. Understand?” She shook Nikki. “Do you understand?”
“Mom, don’t get all upset—”
“I will get upset, young lady. You do not have to prove yourself worthy of my love. And I am proud of you, every single day. You have been the very best thing in my life, made me the happiest, and I’ve never once questioned my decision to bring you into this world. So I don’t want to hear another word about being worthy or paying me back, for Lord’s sake. You pay me back every day just by being you.”
Tears sprang to Nikki’s eyes as Tara hugged her fiercely, and she hugged her back, inhaling the scents of cinnamon, vanilla extract, butter and flour that clung to her mom’s hair—and had as long as she could remember.
“I love you,” Tara said. “And I’ll love you whether you get photographed wearing red butt-floss and pasties, or whether you get filmed blowing the president under his desk—”
“Mom!”
“Not that I’d encourage you to do that,” Tara said hastily.
“I love you, too,” Nikki said around both the shocked laughter and the lump in her throat.
“Good. Now that we have that cleared up, focus on your own problems, not mine. Okay?”
Nikki reluctantly nodded.
Tara sighed, wiped her own eyes and walked to the bakery’s front door, where she glanced at her watch, then flipped the sign from Closed to Open, and unlocked the bolt.
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