school situation I now find myself in, I can’t stop the smile from forming on my lips at the memory of Sam waking me up this morning. A little bruising seems a small price to pay for getting woken up by a very hot, very excited Sam James.
I look at the yellow blouse in my hands and notice it’s a v-neck. I wonder if wearing a turtleneck in August in Texas would draw too much attention? I forget the turtleneck and dress quickly, doing my best to hide the hickey with my long hair. I snatch my makeup bag from the bathroom sink to take with me. I’ll need the whole kit-and-caboodle to hide this love-bite from Brook and Amber. God himself could not save me should Brook get a look at it; she’d probably self-combust.
I hurry back into the bedroom and ignore Luanne who’s spread across the bed watching me with shrewd eyes.
“Where’re your shoes?” she asks.
Damn, I was hoping she wouldn’t notice I’d come in with bare feet. “What do you mean?”
Luanne pushes herself up and off the bed and walks toward me, turning her head this way and that, considering me. She might actually be part bloodhound. Her ability to sniff out the truth puts her in the same league as Sherlock Holmes or David Caruso. “Your shoes, you didn’t come in with them. Did the toe-sucker keep ‘em?”
“I must’ve forgotten them at his house,” I half lie. I’ve got to make my escape before she puts this together. It’s only a matter of time.
“Forgot them? You forget a doggie-bag or a spare tube of lip gloss. You don’t forget your shoes when you’re out on a date.” Luanne follows me through the apartment, nose in the air, sniffing out my lies.
“I mean, I remembered that I left them but I couldn’t, I mean, I didn’t have time to go back and get them,” I say, sliding my feet into a pair of ballet flats near the sofa. I adjust the hair over my shoulder to ensure full hickey-coverage and slink toward the door.
Luanne, anticipating my escape plan, rushes ahead of me and blocks my exit. “You’re lying to me,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. “Huh. Now why would you be lying to me? Have something to hide, Eleanor?”
“What?” I screech. “Why would I lie to you?” I do my best to act confused, but she’s not buying it. “Listen, Lu, I’d love to fill you in on all the crazy details, but I’m late for work. Maybe later, okay?”
I reach around Luanne and grab hold of the doorknob. She stands her ground for a few seconds but eventually obliges me by moving aside so I can open the door. I dash out of the apartment and into the hallway, turning to wave to her as I take the first stair. She’s got that bloodhound nose raised high, sniffing me out. I force myself to take one stair at a time, releasing a shaky breath as I disappear from her line of sight. That was close. It’s not that I don’t want to tell Luanne about me and Sam, I do. I just want to figure out what Sam and I are first.
As I round the back of the building and head for my car, Luanne calls out from above me.
“Hey, Ellie!”
I turn and look up at her. Luanne’s hanging out of her bedroom window, an amused look on her face.
“Yeah?”
“Preparation H!” she calls down.
Huh? “What, Lu?”
“Preparation H! It’ll take the puffiness right out of that hickey on your neck. You have a good day now, darlin’,” Luanne says sweetly as she disappears back inside the apartment.
Well shit.
I can tell by the look on Brook’s face that I’m in for it the second I step foot in the Bath Shop. Stiletto shoe tapping anxiously on the floor, arms crossed over a full bosom, face like a pit bull ready to take out a late-night burglar. “Well, look who it is. Miss Kick Boxer back from her big blind date,” she says.
My post-sex haze dissipating, an image comes floating to the surface of my mind of a black snake, a mouth wrapped around my big toe, and my foot kicking a gangly moth-crazed pervert in his over-sized nose. I shiver at the memory. “Say what now?”
“You’ve really done it this time, Missy. Peg called me at one a.m. this morning in a sheer panic. She had to drive Ellery to the emergency room to get