Free All You Need Is Love by Janet Nissenson Page B

re-read the instructions on the bottle, and then tossed back a third. “What the hell. The way I’m feeling right now, how much worse can it be to take a third tablet? Do you, um, want breakfast?”
    “Jesus, no.” He placed a hand over his stomach and the other over his eyes. “At this particular moment I can’t envision ever wanting to eat again. And why is that damned coffeemaker taking so long to brew anyway?”
    Julia took two brightly painted ceramic mugs from a cabinet. “Relax. It has a brew pause feature, remember?” She poured both of them a full cup then let the brewing process resume.
    Nathan, who took his coffee black, very nearly burned his tongue as he drank a huge gulp. Julia opened up the refrigerator to get the cream and made a distressed sound as she did so.
    He glanced up. “What’s the matter? Did you burn your tongue, too?”
    She shook her head, covering her mouth with one hand. “No. But I think it’s going to be awhile before I can stomach the sight of another lime.” She removed the carton of creamer and quickly shut the door so she wouldn’t have to look at the offending green-skinned fruit that rested on the top shelf.
    Nathan tried to laugh, but gave up when the effort caused his head to pound even harder. “Well, at least I was able to check “doing body shots in bed” off my bucket list.”
    She glared at him. “Next time don’t use the extra coarse sea salt, okay? I swear I was picking grains of the stuff out of my belly button this morning.”
    This time he did chuckle, even though he winced in pain as he did so. “I can, uh, give you a onceover if you’d like, make sure you don’t have any more clinging to, uh, various body parts.”
    “I think a shower will take care of things nicely, thanks all the same. And as soon as I have about five more cups of coffee that’s where I’m headed.”
    Julia had just poured both of them a second cup when her doorbell rang. She frowned, wondering who’d be calling at such an early hour, then gasped as she glanced at her kitchen clock and realized it was already past noon.
    “Expecting company?” he asked, even as he began walking towards the front door.
    “Nope. Angela is out of town visiting Dwayne, my sister’s in Timbuktu – literally, her latest assignment is actually in Africa – and my parents wouldn’t drive all this way without calling first. My bet’s on Jehovah’s Witnesses or a vacuum cleaner salesperson.”
    But the person on the other side of the door was actually delivering flowers – a gorgeous bouquet of pale pink roses inside a cut crystal vase that bore a card addressed to Julia. Nathan had a puzzled look on his face as he set the vase down on the kitchen counter.
    “Who in the world is sending you flowers? And on a Sunday morning at that?”
    Julia frowned as she plucked the card off its plastic holder. “These aren’t from you?”
    He shook his head, wincing anew at the effort even that simple movement took. “Baby, I’m lucky I’m standing upright this morning. As much as I’d love to take the credit for this, there’s no way in hell I’d have been able to think clearly enough to order you flowers.” He scowled. “I’ll bet they’re from that fucker Jackson West. I thought I told Travis to assign Olivia to that old bastard’s remodel job.”
    Julia took the card out of the small cream colored envelope. “Nathan, enough already with Jackson, hmm? He’s just a client. Not to mention he’s only two years younger than my dad. And the roses are definitely not from him. Oh, my God!”
    She was clutching her abdomen with one hand as she giggled uncontrollably, while the other hand was pressed gingerly to her pounding temple. At Nathan’s quizzical expression, she handed him the card, as her laughter grew progressively louder in volume. As he read the brief but succinct message, a grin spread across his features until he, too, was laughing right along with her.
    Dear Julia ,
    My most sincere