Got the Life (A Nicki Sosebee Novel) (13 page)

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
s
ave
d
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 under 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
—t
hat 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.  A
s 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—a
nd 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.