Sweet as Sin

26

“So he’s up there with Bob, the toothless wonder?”

“Whoa! Bob has six teeth, remember?”

“I stand corrected. So Ry-Ry is up there with Bob, the six-toothed wonder? Those are your two main men?”

I laughed. He was teasing, but I also heard the subtext loud and clear.

“Wellll . . . ” I sighed, pretending to concede. “There may be a new contender for the title of main main man, but the jury’s still out on that one. I have another one point five dates to get through before I could give you an accurate idea.”

His low chuckle went all the way through me. “Keep me posted.”

“I will. And . . . I’m free tomorrow night. I mean, if you are.”

“For you, baby, I’m always free. It’s a date.” He paused. The playful tone he adopted made it obvious he was leading me, pretending to try to add. “Date number . . . ”

“Two point five.”

I must have said it a little too quickly, because the low chuckle came again.

“That’s right. Two point five.” His voice lowered. “After tomorrow, there’s only half a date left between me and paradise.”

And the girls around the world collectively swooned.

“And Kat?”

“Yeah?”

Nico’s voice grew soft again. “Happy Birthday, sweetheart.”

He hung up. I stared at the phone.

Maybe birthdays weren’t so bad after all.

At exactly seven that night, Grace rang the doorbell. You could set the world clock to that woman’s timing. I opened the door to find her dressed in a pair of black silk lounging pajamas, a red feather boa, and a pair of sky-high red heels. She held a shopping bag in her arms.

“You drove over here like that?” I was still in my jeans.

Grace looked affronted. “Why? Who’s going to say anything about my outfit in this neighborhood? Have you seen that hobo at the end of your block dressed like Princess Leia?”

I wasn’t sure “hobo” was the PC word for the homeless man who dressed like characters from Star Wars and begged for money to pay for an intergalactic ride home to his mother planet, but she did have a point. Venice Beach was known for its colorful characters.

I took the shopping bag from her. She set her handbag on the console and shucked off her heels.

“Let’s put this stuff in the kitchen.” I winked at her. “Where the drinks are.”

“Now you’re talking!”

I’d made margaritas by the pitcherful, and had set out a smorgasbord of unhealthy, fattening snacks on the table. The ice cream was in the freezer. All six gallons of it.

I poured her a drink, we toasted to getting old, and I went to change into my PJs while Grace got to work on the nachos.

Forty-five minutes later, Chloe showed up, breathless.

“Sorry I’m late! Happy Birthday!” She crushed me into a hug, then sailed past me into the kitchen. She set a wrapped present on the counter, and immediately began stuffing her face with the seven-layer dip Grace had brought.

“Everything OK?”

She winced at me like a puppy that’s about to get a spanking for peeing on the rug. Even her gulp looked guilty. “Uh. Yes?”

Grace and I shared a look. Chloe’s lack of poker face was as legendary as Grace’s anal need to be exactly on time. This could only mean one thing.

She was hiding something.

If that asshole Miles hurt her again, I was seriously going to take a bat to his skinny, Ivy League knees!

I crossed my arms over my chest. I’m sure I didn’t look imposing in my pink cotton Hello Kitty pajamas and matching pink boa, but my voice was firm. “Chloe.”

Usually that would be enough to get her to spill. But she shook her head and stuck her nose in the air. “Nope. You’re not getting it out of me. It’s a surprise.”

Her face was getting red. Grace and I shared another look. “A surprise?”

Nodding, Chloe shoveled more dip into her mouth. She said something I interpreted as, “For your birthday,” although it sounded closer to “Fuhr thurr burffy” because her mouth was full.

“Is Ryan Gosling coming to dinner?”

Grace asked it lightly, because of course Ryan Gosling wasn’t coming to dinner, but Chloe looked as if she was about to choke. Seven-layer dip sprayed from her mouth like confetti.

Remembering a threat she’d made on my last birthday, I gasped. “Oh my God, Chloe, please tell me you didn’t hire a male stripper!”

Grace clapped gleefully, bolting upright in her chair. “Please tell me you did!”

Chloe pressed her lips together, and shrugged. She started casually wiping dip from the tabletop.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I couldn’t believe this! A stripper? Was she crazy?

Judging by her braying donkey laugh, Grace thought the whole thing was the height of comedy. “We are so videoing this! What time is he coming? Or is there more than one?”

“More than one? What?” My voice kept getting higher and higher. More than one male stripper—oiled, sweaty, and probably gay—grinding on me in my living room was my idea of hell.