Free Unforeseen Danger by Michelle Perry

edge of her bed and stared at her with luminous gray eyes.   “Prince Charming here tells me that you have somehow managed to forget all that crazy crap that you’ve gotten me into since we were twelve.   Just how have you managed that?”
    “I don’t know,” Nikki replied, surprised to find herself close to tears.   Darcy squeezed her hand and said lightly, “C’mon, even a couple blows to the head couldn’t erase the memory of when you and I dressed up like punk rockers, with big pink hair and everything, and sang for the entire student body in eighth grade.”
    It was Nikki’s turn to wince.   “I think I probably would’ve tried to repress that one on my own.”  
    She caught Jake off-guard.   He nearly spit french fries on Darcy as he choked on his laughter.
    “Well, we won !” Darcy pouted, crossing her arms over her chest.   “Okay, Okay!   How about the time your mom scored us backstage passes on your fifteenth birthday and we met Him?”
    “Who?” Nikki asked in confusion.
    “Him!   Jon Bon Jovi !   The rock star?”   Darcy gasped, rolling her eyes in pretend ecstasy at the thought.   She frowned.   “C’mon, girl!   This was the biggest moment in your life until you met Old Blue Eyes here.”   She jerked her head at Jake, who was taking savage enjoyment in a double cheeseburger.
    “I see you’ve forced me to sing,” Darcy said sorrowfully, then began to belt out a tune in a voice that was more than a little loud and off-key.
    Nikki’s eyes widened, and she sang the next line of the song.
    Jake looked at Nikki in amazement and said, “Woman, I cannot believe you remember some big-haired rock star and you can’t remember the man who carried you nearly a mile out of the woods that time when you fell and broke your ankle—”
    “Not to mention what you were doing back there with him in the first place,” Darcy interrupted with a grin.
    “Too much information!” Catherine exclaimed and stood.   They laughed and Catherine said, “Seriously, darling, I need to go.”  
    She bent to place a kiss on Nikki’s forehead, and Nikki caught the ‘wow’ that Darcy mouthed to Jake.   He shrugged back at her.   Catherine then went around to Jake and kissed him.
    “Do you need me to stay again tonight?   If you do, it’s no trouble.   I need to run home and do a couple of things, but I could be back in an hour.”
    Jake glanced at Nikki and then shook his head.   Nikki felt her hopes surge again.   Catherine told Darcy goodbye and left.
    “I just remembered the song,” Nikki said to Jake, “not meeting him.”
    “ Him ,” Darcy corrected, with added emphasis.   She shot Jake a patient look.
    “Jake, just about every girl our age spent her nights feverishly dreaming about Jon,” she paused, holding her hand to the side of her mouth with a whispered aside to Nikki, “Some of us still do!”   Nikki laughed and she continued gleefully, “in rooms with posters of his face covering the walls.   How could some of that not stick?”
    Jake sighed.   “One of these days, it’ll be the stalking charges that stick.”
    “Ha, ha!” Darcy retorted, and then pushed Nikki’s food over to her as Jake dug his second burger out of the sack.   “You eat, hon.   I can do all the talking,” she assured her, and Jake snorted his agreement.
    “Actually, I have to admit, this is kind of a relief,” Darcy said with twinkling eyes.   “You have been witness to roughly eighty percent of my most embarrassing moments, so now I won’t have to kill ya to keep my secrets safe!”
    “Hmm.”   Jake stared at her blankly.   “You mean like the one where you got plastered at Susan’s St. Paddy’s Day party and made out with Tommy Miller in the coat closet?”
    Darcy gasped.   She threw a pack of ketchup at Jake’s head, and then turned accusing eyes to Nikki.   “I cannot believe you told him that.   I can’t let Jake have that kind of power over me!”  
    Nikki laughed