Free Built by Jami Alden, Bonnie Edwards, Amie Stuart

contrite with her lower lip caught between her teeth. “I’d planned on leaving, really. I even told the girls I was leaving. They weren’t happy either,” she added with a chuckle. “I’m not very good at this.”
    “Practice makes perfect.”
    She nodded in agreement, then smiled. “I was all set to go. I met the girls Saturday morning, we packed up all my stuff, and then they took me to breakfast. They padlocked the truck and refused to give me the key to the lock until I agreed to sublet Carlotta’s condo.”
    The thought of how furious she must have been made me laugh but didn’t make me any less unhappy with her.
    “I’ve never had friends like them before. I stayed as much because of them as you. D’Angelo, you can’t change me; you do realize that?” she asked, suddenly serious.
    “As often as you’ve said it, how could I not?” As often as she’d said I couldn’t change her, it’d taken me a long time to figure out she was scared of someone changing her. Of someone forcing her to be something she couldn’t or didn’t want to be. I leaned forward and propped my elbows on the table. “You are the only person who can change you, Cherise. I don’t want to change you, but I also don’t want to go through this shit again. All you have to do is fuckin’ talk to me.”
    “So where does that leave us? Do you not want to see me anymore?”
    “You gonna stick around a while?” I countered, unwilling to give in just yet.
    “Did I mention I was leasing with an option to buy?”

Down and Dirty
    Jami Alden

1
    T aylor pulled her pillow over her head, but the harsh mechanical whine pierced the thick down. She pulled the comforter up, willing to risk overheating if it meant she could get an extra hour of sleep. But it was useless. Why did her neighbor have to decide that this, of all Saturday mornings, was a great day to get up at the crack of dawn to do yard work?
    Flinging back the comforter, she staggered to the window and inched aside the shade, recoiling as bright sunshine stabbed at her retinas. Okay, so perhaps it wasn’t precisely the crack of dawn, but close enough. She squinted in the direction of her neighbor’s house, and sure enough, a shirtless man expertly wielded a weed whacker along the other side of the fence that divided their lots. His head was bent, covered by a ball cap, and her annoyance waned momentarily as she admired the sleek muscles moving under acres of smooth, tan skin. The gardener from Desperate Housewives had nothing on this guy.
    Still, after working until four A.M. this morning to put the finishing touches on a huge venture financing deal, she was in no mood to tolerate a noisy gardener, even if he did provide grade-A eye candy. Pulling a robe over her camisole and panties, Taylor slipped on a pair of rubber flip-flops and strode purposefully over to her neighbor’s front door. Though the house had sold several months ago, Taylor had been so busy with work she hadn’t met her new neighbors. Unlike most of the houses on her cul-de-sac, no toys littered the beautifully landscaped front yard, so she doubted a family had moved in. She took a moment to admire the pristinely trimmed hedges and planters full of bright flowers that bordered the front steps. Her own yard, she thought guiltily, needed only a car up on blocks to complete its Ma-and-Pa-Kettle, white-trash motif. But she’d barely seen her own house in the daylight for the past six months, so calling a gardener or landscaper was beyond her capability. Hmm. Maybe she’d hire the shirtless wonder working on her neighbor’s yard, since he seemed to know what he was about. But only on weekdays, when Taylor wasn’t desperately trying to put a dent in her perpetual sleep debt.
    She rang the doorbell, aware of the warm morning sun penetrating the thin cotton of her robe. She probably should have gotten dressed, but if she had her way, after she spoke to her neighbor, she was crawling right back into bed in blessed