Free A Bookie's Odds by Ursula Renee Page B

with callaloo and saltfish. He had remembered she preferred fried dumplings and plantains with her meal.
    “I also got you a root beer.” Using the back edge of the file cabinet, he popped the cap off the bottle before passing her the beverage.
    He held up his bottle of cola, and they tapped them together. Georgia took a swig. The sugary beverage was just the jolt her system needed. She polished off half the soda before placing the bottle on the cabinet.
    “So, is this everything you thought it’d be?”
    “Yes, except for…” She reached up and rubbed her neck.
    “Let me get that.”
    Nicholas moved behind her chair. Using his thumbs, he massaged the muscles in her neck. He slowly worked on the knots until she could move her head from side to side without pain.
    It was hard to believe the hands capable of leaving a person a bloody mess could also ease her aches. If he was that attentive to the women he was intimate with, it was no wonder there never seemed to be a shortage of those willing to go out with him.
    Georgia silently admonished herself for the inappropriate thoughts. Nicholas was a flirt, and she could not fall for his charms. Though she wanted to work, she would eventually marry. She could never see him settling down. All he could offer her was a few moments of pleasure, followed by days of loneliness while she waited for him to tire of his other women.
    Nicholas was a friend and only a friend.
    ****
    Georgia was a friend and only a friend.
    Nicholas silently repeated the mantra until it played like a skipping record in his brain. It did not matter how soft her skin felt beneath his fingertips or how excited he got from her soft sighs, nothing could happen between them.
    Georgia needed a nice, educated man, one who had a promising future ahead of him. A man who could offer her a peaceful and comfortable life. A man like the one she’d gone out with the previous day.
    Memories of the other man extinguished Nicholas’s excitement. He suddenly felt a tension in his shoulders and neck. He suspected nothing short of introducing his fist to the other man’s face would help.
    “Nicholas, your food’s getting cold.” Georgia reached up and touched his hand. “Sit down and eat.”
    “How do you feel?”
    “Better.” She patted his hand. “Now sit.”
    Her concern over his well-being warmed him. The women he went out with never showed any compassion. It was all about them and what they got out of the time they spent together.
    Nicholas sat cattycorner to Georgia and dug into his red beans and rice.
    “Why’d you stop by the bar yesterday?”
    He swallowed. “I figured your pops and I could hang for a bit.”
    She stared as him as if he’d lost his mind.
    “You don’t believe me?”
    “I’d sooner believe you joined a monastery.”
    Nicholas’s head fell back as he howled with laughter.
    “Seriously, why’d you stop by?”
    “To talk,” he replied once he caught his breath.
    “I told you I was going on a date.”
    “No, you said you were going out with an acquaintance of your father.” He slumped back in his chair, extended his legs in front of him, and folded his hands behind his head. “An acquaintance of your father is the widow who lives across the street from you, not a man who turns the head of every woman in a room.”
    “Okay, I’m sorry I wasn’t clear. But what difference does it make anyway? I still wasn’t going to be home.”
    If he’d known she was on a date, he would not have stopped by and had the displeasure of meeting the other man. Of course, knowing she would not appreciate that answer, he replied, “I wouldn’t have interrupted your date.”
    Georgia leaned over her food and shoved a plantain in her mouth. Nicholas assumed the gesture meant she accepted his answer. If he ever decided to quit his current job, he could consider a career as a BS artist.
    “Do you plan to go out with him again?”
    She shrugged her shoulders as she continued eating.
    “Why not? He