Kiss the Girl (44 page)

Wanda plunked herself into the chai
r which creaked forlornly.  “You’d think the kid was going off to war the way his mama threw down for this party
.
  Girl, they had a live band.
  A live band!  For a five year old!”  She shook her head and the beads in her braids clicked merrily.  “Still, pretty good music.  My dogs are barking.” 

A vision of
Wanda shaking her groove thing
wandered into his subconscious and Erik blinked
.  Nixie smiled at him as if she could read his mind.  He smoothed out his face and cleared his throat. 

“Well, I guess I’m off,
”
Nixie said.  “See you Wanda.”

“Later, girl.”

Erik proppe
d open the door to the waiting room
and motioned Nixie through
as
he
hung up
on Mary Jane’s voicemail again
.
 

“You heading home?” he asked.

“
Yep.  I have a hot date with
a large pizza
and some mindless TV
.”
  She grinned at him. 
“You want in?” 

He touched the ring in his pocket and eyed her speculatively.  Maybe fate wouldn’t let him propose to Mary Jane until he confessed to Nixie.
  It was worth a shot.  At the very least, he could make sure she went straight home without a pit stop at the Wash to ask after
Jass
and get herself shot.
 

“
Pizza
, huh?  I could eat.
”

Nixie eyed the couch beside Erik, then folded herself cross-legged on the floor across the coffee table. 
Not that she was chickening out
.  Sloan’s advice had some merit
--
it was time to be
bold
.
 
And she had been.  She’d invited him over for dinner, hadn’t she?  She just couldn’t figure out how
to go from
splitting a greasy pizza
to seducing the guy
.

She
picked
the mushrooms off her
own
slice of
pizza and plopped
them
onto Erik’s plate. 
What had Sloan said
?  About keeping them
fucked and keep
ing
them fed?  She’d start
out
with
the feeding,
she decided
.  Maybe later with the...rest of it. 

She waited for him to dig in, but h
e stared at his plate, still and silent.

“Oh, sorry,” she said
, reaching
hastily for her discarded fungi
.  “Do you not like
mushrooms
either?”

“
I like mushrooms fine.  It’s not that.  I
t’s
just
...I
have to tell you something.”

Her heart skipped into an anxious patter. 
“What is it?”

“
I’ve been trying to tell you for a while now, but I just couldn’t find the right time or place.”

“Oh my
God
.” 
Nixie’s mouth went dry
and her mind leaped to the worst possible scenario
.
 
“
You’
re married?
”

“What?  No
, of course not
.”

“Thank
God
.”

“I mean, not yet.”

“
You’re
engaged
?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

“You have?  When?  Before, during or after all the kissing?”

He rubbed both hands down his face.  “You’re angry.”

She jumped to her feet and started pacing the length of the room.  “Oh, no.  Of
course
not.  I’m
thrilled
for you.”  She crushed her napkin into a tight ball in her fist.  “Who is she?  This fiancée of yours?”

He paused, as if weighing his words.  “Mary Jane.”

Nixie stopped mid-stride.  She knew laughter was inappropriate, but she was so relieved she couldn’t stop the chuckle from bubbling up.  “Mary Jane?  Our Mary Jane?”

He nodded silently. 

“
I know you said...”  She shook her head.  “
You are
not
engaged to Mary Jane.”

“Not technically, no.
  But I will be.
”

She crossed back to the coffee table, dropped to the floor and gazed at him over the greasy cardboard pizza box.  “Have you even asked her?”

His eyes slid away.  “Not exactly.  I needed to talk to you first.”

A tiny trickle of joy welled up in her heart.  “Really?  Why?”

“Hell if I know,” he said, his eyes snapping back to hers.  Irritation danced in them like blue
lightning
. 
“
All I know is every time
I put the damn ring in my pocket and
go looking for Mary Jane, I find
you instead.”

“
And
here I am again.
”
  Nixie’s heart gamboled around her chest like a new puppy.  “You’re one lucky guy.”

“I am?”

“Sure.  Fate doesn’t give two shits
about most people.  There are whole countries fate forgot about
. 
Believe me, I’ve seen them. 
But you try
to marry the wrong woman
and fate intervenes. 
It must have big plans for you.”

He stared at her.  “I don’t know which part of that to scoff at first.”

“You don’t believe
in fate
?”

“Do I look like Karl to you?”

She laughed.  “Point taken.  But
doesn’t it
seem like life is pushing you in a certain direction
?
”

“
Toward magazine covers and gossip columns and a complete lack of anything resembling a private life or personal freedom?”

She waved that away.  “What, and you’re so free right now?”

“
Freer than the
girl whose political advisor
plots her every move for maximum press coverage
.”

“
Hey, a
t least I
quit,” said Nixie, stung.
 
“
You’ve
spent your
entire life doing the exact opposite of
what
your mother wants
you to
, right down to marrying the wrong girl.
  How does that make you
any
freer
than I am
?
”

“You
haven’t
quit.”  He sho
ved aside his pizza and stood.

“Excuse me?” 
She
forced an even tone
as temper
snapped and simmered.

“You haven’t quit,
”
he said again.  “You’re doing exactly what you’ve always done.
”

She shot to her feet, rounded the coffee table and poked a finger into his shoulder.  “
That is
so
not true!  Okay,
so
I’m
throwing you a fundraiser
but t
hat hardly means I haven’t--
”

“
Jesus, Nixie, take a look at yourself, will you?
”  He frowned at her and rubbed his shoulder.
 
“
You’re taking
James
Harper to the gala next week so
you can forgive him,
your mother can slap his face and his father can call him rehabilitated. 
You’re
whoring your personal life for the cause of the week while your advisor calls a press conference, just like always. 
You haven’t changed. 
You’ve had a change of venue, that’s all.
”

She sucked in a sharp breath, hurt rolling over her in jagged waves.  “That was a cheap shot.  You think I
want
to
make nice with James
Harper
?”

Erik shrugged.  “I don’t know what you want, Nixie. 
I thought
you came here to
take back your
self-respect,
but you sold that to
James
’ daddy, didn’t you?
”
 

“
It was for
a good cause
,
”
she said slowly,
an empty chill
creeping into
her chest.  Had Sloan felt this way when she’d stolen
James
?
“
Your
cause, wasn’t it?”

He
looked away
and shoved both hands through that thick, wheat-colored hair
.  “
I’m not judging you, Nixie, okay?  You have every right to
draw your own boundaries between what you owe the world
and what you owe yourself.  We don’t agree on where they should be, that’s all
.”

“
I’m redrawing those lines every day,” she said.  “That’s what this is all about, Erik. 
I’ve spent my life healing, sheltering, feeding.  I
need somebody to feed me, too. 
A like soul
to shelter me
.  Heal me.  R
ecognize me
.”  She took a deep breath then met his eyes.  “Somebody to love me like I love you.”