There was a small crowd inside the store, so he grabbed a coffee while he waited for the tiny shop to clear a little. Nicholas sipped gingerly, hoping that the coffee would stay down. He was relieved that the hangover seemed to be centering in his head and leaving his stomach alone. The last thing he wanted was to spend hours in an airplane toilet.
After a couple of minutes, Nick was able to enter the shop and snag the last bottle of ibuprofen. Waiting for the customer ahead of him to pay for her purchases, he noticed that the girl behind the counter was taking quick glances at him and flushing a little more each time. When he finally reached the counter, she was a vivid crimson. Whatever her problem was, he needed to pay for his medicine and get out of there, so he tried to catch her eye while looking as harmless as possible.
“Hi,” he ventured, pulling his wallet from his pocket.
Another glance. “I’m sorry,” she squeaked, dashing into the back room, where Nick heard a sharp round of giggles and a whispered conversation.
What the hell? he thought, trying to inconspicuously look at his reflection in the glass counter. He looked okay—a little hungover, maybe, but nothing to send a girl out of the room in fits. Sighing, he turned to go without the Motrin. Before he could reach the door, an older woman exited the back room and came to the counter.
“I’m sorry for my daughter’s behavior. May I help you?” she said pleasantly, but Nick noticed a tiny smile trying to turn her lips up.
“I just need to pay for this,” he muttered, getting out his wallet again.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the girl peek out the door and heard her “eep” when she saw him notice. She quickly drew back, and Nicholas once again heard giggles.
“What is going on?” he demanded.
“Britney!” the older woman reprimanded the younger. Turning to Nick, she seemed to be barely holding back a grin. “Well, we were open late last night because we thought we might get a little extra business from the party that was going on.” Nick didn’t like where this was going already. His mind went to the unexpected box on the nightstand.
“Let me guess. I was one of your customers?” He winced.
“Britney recognized you from your hair. It’s such a contrast with your skin, you know. You made quite an impression on her.”
Nicholas felt the flush creeping up his neck. “I am so sorry for whatever I said or did. I don’t usually drink, and last night…Well, I’m just sorry. Did I look terrible?”
“Look? Oh, you mean how she recognized your hair but not your face?” Now the counter lady was giggling, too. “It was a little hard to see your face with the girl’s legs wrapped around your waist. We could mostly see the back of her head.” Tears of laughter were starting to roll down her cheeks. “Oh, you should just see your face now. I didn’t think it could get any more red than it was a minute ago, but—”
“Thanks,” Nicholas muttered, shoving a ten at her, grabbing his meds, and practically running out the door.
Conor was already behind the wheel of the rental car with the engine running when Nick slumped into the passenger seat. He looked at Nick curiously, shoving a pair of sunglasses at him. “You’ll need these, sunshine. What the hell happened to you?”
“Just drive.” Nick slid on the proffered glasses and leaned his head back against the cool leather seat.
Shaking his head as he entered the apartment he shared with Conor, Nick tossed his bag aside and gratefully sank down on the leather sofa. It was ridiculous to have spent the whole flight back to Boston dwelling on almost-memories that assaulted him from the side every now and again. Best to let a random one-night stand go and move on to his real life, which included a shift at the station in approximately ten hours. Sure, it must have been great, and it would be nice to know that for certain, but he couldn’t even remember the girl’s face, much less her name. It would be nothing short of a miracle if they ever met again.
“Well, what did you think?” Conor asked as he flopped down beside Nicholas.
“Think about what?”
“About the state of global warming.” Conor shook his head. “About applying for med school in Cali, dumbass. That’s what we went out there for, right?” He brushed invisible dust off his shirt, avoiding Nick’s eyes. “Do I need to look for a new roommate?”
Nicholas spotted a landmine ahead and decided to tread lightly. His decision to pursue med school had precipitated the only real argument that the friends had ever had, especially when Nick decided to look outside of Boston. Conor’s insane self-confidence didn’t stretch to his education, and he scoffed at anyone returning to college at twenty-seven, especially himself. One thing led to another, and soon they’d been shouting in each other’s faces. Eventually they calmed down, and an uneasy truce existed on the subject. Now it seemed that Con was ready to pick at the scab.
“Not quite yet, Con,” Nick replied carefully. “I just applied; there’s no guarantee that I’ll get accepted. But, yeah, if I do get in, I’ll go. I need to do this.”
Conor looked up at the ceiling with a disbelieving expression. “Like the son of William Cooper wouldn’t get in wherever he wanted. The schools will be fighting over you.”
Nick’s tone showed his irritation. “That’s not fair, Conor. I’ve only applied to the one school, and I’ve never used my father’s name or reputation to get anything. He’s the surgeon, not me. The fact that you would say that just pisses me off royally.”
Conor seemed to deflate. “Sorry, man,” he mumbled. “You know I didn’t mean it.” He heaved himself off the couch and started to pull his case into his bedroom. Without turning around, he asked, “When will you find out?”
“Probably May. If I get in, I’ll be moving in June or July to get settled before school starts.”
Conor just nodded his head and continued into his room, shutting the door quietly.
After a couple of days of sulking, Conor’s natural good humor started to return, though Nicholas saw him with an expression of uncharacteristic seriousness more than once. Work kept both men as busy as it always had, and the months until Nicholas could reasonably expect to hear from UC Davis sped by.
The only breaks in Nicholas’s routine were occasional visits to his parents and dreams about his mystery girl. Those only got more frustrating and frequent as time went by. Tantalizing glimpses of her filled his nights: the slope of a breast, the sweep of her inner thigh, the sweet curves of her waist and neck. It was frustrating, to say the least, and it became harder and harder for him to write her off as a blip in his sexual history. It became a relief to go to work, and the more exhausting his day, the better.
Nick was crashed on the couch after a particularly brutal shift when Conor’s booming voice dragged him from a particularly hot dream of his mystery girl in the shower.
“Mail, horndog!” Conor dropped an envelope on Nick’s chest and loped into the kitchen, nearly banging his head on the lintel.
Opening one eye, Nicholas tried to focus on the writing on the front of the envelope. University of California at Davis. Oh. He slowly sat up and opened the envelope: Dear Mr. Cooper, We are pleased to inform you…
Conor’s tension filled voice came from the kitchen. “So?”
“Yeah, Con, I’m in.”
He waited for the explosion and was surprised when Conor just said, “I figured. Wanna grab some dinner?”
“Sure!” Nicholas was ready to agree with almost anything if he didn’t have to renew their argument or deal with a sulking roommate.
After a quick burger and a couple of beers at a sports bar, they walked out to look over the pond on the Common. Nick took a deep breath, realizing that he would miss this. Still, things always changed. He started ticking off the arrangements that had to be made in preparation for moving cross-country.
Conor sat down on a bench, stretched his gangly legs out in front of him, and pulled the collar of his sherpa-lined leather jacket closer to his neck. Even in May, the breeze across the water was co
ld. Nick sat beside him, sensing his friend had something to say.
“So. You’re really going to move to granola central, huh?” Conor snorted laughter. “That shocked the hell out of me. I was expecting beaches and babes, not…that.”
“You know how sexy I think Birkenstocks with socks are,” Nicholas joked. “Why else would I move to the California version of the Pacific Northwest?” He leaned against the back of the bench and stretched his legs out in front of him, as well. Shoving his hands in his jacket pockets, he waited for the next volley.
Conor snickered. “Well, maybe you’ll connect with the hottie again. Get rid of those fuckin’ blue balls.”
“Not likely.” Nicholas pushed back a lingering memory of gentle hands. “We were in San Fran, remember? Different town, and not even close to anywhere I went to school. She could be from anywhere, Con. That’s one ship that has sailed, I’m afraid.”
“Never say never, man. What was the chance you’d meet someone you knew from your past in the first place?” Conor asked, nudging Nicholas’s shoulder with his own. He looked down at his hands as he jammed them in his jacket pockets. “So you’re planning to leave a couple of months early, to get set up, right?”
“Yeah. I have to give my notice and get my crap together, but it will be fairly soon. I won’t leave you in the lurch—”
Conor cut Nicholas off, pulling an envelope out of his pocket and shoving it at Nick while still looking down. “I figure I’m never going to play for the Celtics anyway, even if I do look the part, so would you mind some company?”
A grin engulfed Nick’s face as he pulled out and read the letter inside the UC Davis envelope.
“Holy shit, Conor! You did it! About fucking time! When did you do this?”
Conor stopped fighting his own grin and let it out in all its glory. “I finally got tired of you bitching at me, so I sent out some apps. My letter came today when yours did.”
“But how—I mean, I know you’re fuckin’ smart, but—”
“Remember all those ‘extra shifts’ a while back?” Conor looked a little sheepish and shook his head. “Brush up courses and testing. I actually did really well in high school. People look at this body—” he gestured the length of his frame, and it was all Nick could do to hold back a laugh at his friend’s obvious pride in his body “—and expect dumb, but I’m not.”
“Hell, I know that, Con.”
“I know I could have gone around here,” Conor said quickly, “but I really liked what we saw this winter. Was it too chickish to apply where you’re going? I’ve never lived anywhere besides Boston, you know?”
Conor suddenly looked like a little boy, the cocky light that usually brightened his plain face momentarily dimmed with his uncertainty, nervous for Nicholas’s reaction.
Nick slugged him on the shoulder. “Hell, no! It’ll be great! You can help me with my mystery woman search—at least you might recognize her clothed.” He nudged Conor. “And I can’t imagine your taste for nasty blondes will go unfulfilled, even in Hippie Heaven. It is California, after all.”
A sly grin crossed Conor’s face. “I’m counting on that, cupcake.” He turned to Nicholas, and they laughed like a couple of loons.
“So?” Nicholas asked.
Conor grinned, leaning against the bench back and cracking his knuckles. “California, here we come.”
Chapter Three
JENA SANK DOWN GRATEFULLY on the hard bench, clutching her Starbucks cup. As morally opposed as she was to spending four dollars on one cup of coffee, she needed the caffeine buzz more and more as the day dragged on and her sleepless night caught up with her.
“Travis,” she whined, “are you positive you’re a guy? How many stores do we have to go into before you find the ‘perfect jeans’?” Making exaggerated air quotes as she uttered Travis’s ridiculous phrase amused her, at least.
Travis snorted. “What do you do? Just grab the first pair you see in your size?” He looked horrified as Jena’s face turned bright red. “You do, don’t you? Jena, Jena, Jena…”
Jena muttered something with the word “mangina” in it and pulled herself up from the mall bench with a sigh. “Let’s just get this over with.”
“Sit back down for a minute.” Jena complied, and Travis settled beside her. He started in with a lecturing tone. “Jena, ask yourself this: have you ever seen me be alone when I didn’t want to be alone?” She shook her head, waiting for his point as a slow smile began to spread across Travis’s face. “It’s the lure of the perfect jeans, I swear. Between my mom, four sisters, and you, it’s been pointed out repeatedly to me that the ass counts on a man. Perfect jeans, equals perfect ass, equals never lonely.” He seemed smugly satisfied by his logic.
Jena skeptically studied his carefully tousled mane of dark blond hair streaked with honey, his chiseled features and flawless skin with its carefully cultivated growth of stubble. “And you don’t think your perfect face and perfect hair have anything to do with it?”
He was complacent. “Sure, once the girl looks there.” He grinned. “I just want to make sure I keep her attention long enough to get that far.”
Jena slapped his head while pulling him up from the bench. “You are a sick, sick man, Travis Walker, and a danger to women everywhere.”
Travis wrapped his arm around her and kissed the top of her head as they continued down the mall. “It’s not my fault you’re up half the night, Jen. Those dreams must be something.”
“Oh, my God! Was I noisy again?” Jena felt her face flame, remembering the particularly vivid dream of the night before.
“Jena, sweet, you never shut up. You should just look the guy up, girl. I can practically assure you that he would be flattered as hell if you did. Especially when I tell him about all the noise you’ve been making.” He waggled his eyebrows at her.
“Exactly why it’s never gonna happen, doofus. Besides, I don’t even know where he lives now.”
“One word: Facebook. Or is that two words? Fuck, I don’t know! My point is that it’s not impossible, sugar. This has been going on for months now. You officially passed the fuckdrunk stage a month or two ago, hon, and now you’re into obsession. Or love.”
He looked at Jena slyly.
She shoved him toward the nearest store, and headed for a chair at the edge of the food court. “Go find your panty-dropping jeans, idiot. I’m shopped out.”
With a grin, Travis entered the store, and Jena bought yet another cup of crappy coffee from a different shop. Travis was right; this was getting ridiculous. She spent most of every night dreaming of Nicholas. Settling against the back of the chair, she closed her eyes and enjoyed a particularly vivid mental replay of the shower sex dream of the night before.
“Daydreaming again, Jena Baker?” a voice suddenly whispered behind her.
Jerked out of her happy memory, Jena blurted out, “Oh, fuck!” and jumped. Coffee flew everywhere.
She heard a giggle. “Definitely you.”
Turning, Jena was immediately assaulted by flailing arms and a huge smile, dressed in an elegant pink suit, as her friend leaned down for a quick squeeze.
“Leisa? Holy shit, you’re back?” Jena pushed a cloud of hair from her face and squeezed her assailant’s arm, the only part of her she could catch. “I thought you were in Atlanta with your company.”
Leisa shook her head. “Done with that for a while. I’ve been staying with Momma and Daddy in Little Rock for the last few days.” She grabbed Jena’s cup out of her hand and gulped down the rest of the coffee. “God, I needed that! I just got off the plane from Atlanta a couple of hours ago, and I decided that I have nothing suitable to wear to work in Hippieville. Are these people morally opposed to proper hosiery and footwear? I thought Birkenstocks were just a sick joke foisted off on Oregonians.”
Jena’s head was spinning as she tried to keep up with Leisa’s train of thought. “Atlanta? I thought you just said Little Rock. What happened to your job? Are you going to be in Sacr
amento or Davis? Because Hippieville only applies to one of those. And Birkenstocks are German. I think.”
Leisa giggled. “You should see your face right now. A perfect mix of confusion and self-righteousness. Hang on—you need caffeine.” She disappeared for a second and then reappeared with two large coffees. Handing Jena one, Leisa took a long gulp of her own and sighed.
“Are you sure that’s the best idea?” Jena asked cautiously. To her mind, Leisa Parker drinking coffee was like giving speed to a chipmunk—funny at first, but ultimately tragic.
“Don’t be an ass. I can handle it.” Leisa sat in the chair across from Jena. “Questions. My job is fine. I’m damned good at stock trading, if I do say so myself. I was just checking the job waters while I visited Momma and Daddy in Little Rock, but there’s not much trading to be done there, so I went back Atlanta. That was temp, so here I am, back in Sacramento, which is close enough to Hippieville for me. And I don’t give a fuck where Birkenstocks were invented. They’re ugly. Anything else?”
“Nope. You covered it.” Jena took a sip of her coffee, chuckling, and examined her curvaceous friend. “I still have a hard time seeing you as a trader, Leis. I always pictured you as a kept woman.”
“Ha ha,” Leisa deadpanned. “I have more brains than that. Kept women become unkept when they get old and ugly, and I like my stuff better than to risk that.” She shuddered theatrically. “I want to be so rich that other people bring the stuff to me and I just pick out what I like. Trading can get me there, baby. Until that happens, I can make anything look good.” She struck a pose with her arms behind her head, and they laughed like maniacs. “God, it’s good to see you, Jena! I’ve been missing you and my sugar pie.” She looked around, scanning for Travis. “Did he miss me, too? Never mind; I know he did, even if he doesn’t know it yet.”
Jena restrained her comments, choosing instead to swallow more coffee. Leisa had pursued Travis hot and heavy after she and Jena had renewed their college friendship, though Travis never showed any real response. When Leisa left for Atlanta, he hadn’t seemed to notice her absence at all.
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