Free It's A Wonderfully Sexy Life by Hope Tarr

your sitting here gorging on chocolate will accomplish is wrecking your skin and blowing your diet.”
    “I’m not on a diet and even if I were, I don’t have anything to wear—anything that fits, that is—unless you count my current ensemble.” She pulled on the elastic waistband of her sweatpants and let go, snapping it back. Was it her imagination or did the fit feel tighter than it had that morning?
    Looking like the cat eyeing the dish of cream only in Suz’s case, that would be the fat-free soy milk, Suz smiled. “Remember that black velvet cocktail dress of mine you always said made me look twenty pounds thinner and volumes hotter?”
    “Uh, huh.” Mandy made a swipe for the candy bag, but Suz shoved it behind her back. “The one you’re too skinny to fit in now. Yeah, I remember.”
    “Well, consider it yours. I have it out in my car hanging in the plastic dry cleaning bag. I’ll go out and get it, and you can try it on.” When Mandy stayed put, Suz tugged at her arm. “Come on, Mands, if you stay home you’ll just get even more depressed, eat every Reese’s Piece in that bag, and then start on the can of fudge frosting hidden in the back of the fridge.”
    Damn, but Suz was the one who should be trying for detective. “How’d you know about the frosting?”
    Grinning, Suz shrugged. “I’m your best friend, remember? I know you always hit the frosting when you’re really down.”
    Mandy shook her head. “It doesn’t matter because from this moment on, I am permanently swearing off men. Consider it my New Year’s resolution.”
    Suz untucked her legs and popped up. “I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions, I believe in goals. Come on, let’s go check out that dress.”

    F OUR HOURS LATER , Mandy was pulling off her snow boots and slipping on her high-heeled sling-backs on the stoop of Suz’s East Baltimore row house. The shoes were a painful proposition, but they went perfectly with her borrowed Little Black Dress. The slinky black fabric fell well above the knee, much shorter than she’d ever worn before, but she had to admit if only to herself the dress did look pretty good on her. She’d even gone to the trouble to do her makeup and use heated rollers on her hair, which fell past her shoulders in loose, finger-combed waves. Entering, she caught Suz’s eye from the opposite side of the room, and her friend’s face lit up like a Christmas tree.
    Dressed in a glittery gold stretch top and slinky Chinese silk cocktail pants, Suz pushed a path toward her and greeted her with a hug. Drawing back, she said, “You look hot, girlfriend. Make that smokin’.” She touched an index finger to Mandy’s shoulder and made a sizzling sound.
    “Okay, okay, I get the point. Thanks. You look pretty amazing yourself.” Self-conscious, Mandy darted a look around to the twenty-and thirtysomethings congregating in the living room and camped out around the dining room food table before slipping off her three-quarter length belted black wool dress coat, a loan from her sister, Sharon.
    Without the outerwear, she felt if not exactly naked, certainly closer to that state than she usually came, in public anyway. The dress’s low neckline left little to the imagination, especially with the lacy black push-up bra underneath. She couldn’t help wishing Josh had gotten to see her like this, looking her best—okay hot—rather than in her sexless police uniform, not that he’d seemed to mind.
    Suz took her coat and hung it inside the jammed closet. Turning back, she said, “Beer and wine are in the kitchen along with someone I want you to meet.”
    Another fix-up, oh shit . Some detective she’d turn out to be, she hadn’t even seen that one coming.
    Mandy shook her head so hard she nearly knocked off one of her mother’s vintage faux pearl-and-diamond clip-ons. Reaching up to secure the earring, she said, “I told you, I’m swearing off men.”
    “Not in that dress you’re not.” Grinning,