Free Got the Life (A Nicki Sosebee Novel) by Jade C. Jamison Page A

.   Nicki needed to remember that sometimes parents were actually cool and sincere.   “Thanks, mom.  There’s more where that came from.”  That was it , though .  She was awake now.  “Where was it?”
    Her mom laughed.  “In the paper, of course.  You know I don’t read the online edition.”
    Nicki smiled.  “No, mom.  Where in the paper?”
    There was a pause.  “Oh.  It was on the front page.”
    Nicki squealed.  “On the fucking front page?  Yahoo!”  Her elation died down to dread in less than two seconds.
    “Nicole Lee Sosebee!   Watch your language.”
    Shit.   It sucked being a fucking sailor mouth when your parents were hardcore Lutherans, convinced that one of the steps to heaven included a mouth so clean, Saint Peter could eat out of it .  Thinking of Will and her mom and dad, Nicki was convinced she was adopted.  That was the only logical explanation.
    So much for getting more sleep.  As soon as her mother hung up the phone, she darted out the door for her copy of the paper.  She didn’t think about the fact that she was just wearing a clingy t-shirt and panties when she walked out the door.  She doubted anyone saw her, and if they did, they probably also saw her little tryst with Carlos earlier in the week and had begun scoping out Nicki’s doorway for the next free show .  Better than Cinemax.
    She kicked the door closed with her foot, pulling off the red rubber band tied around the paper.  She saw it, though, before she even finished unrolling it:  “Suspect charged in arson case.”  Neal usually wrote the headlines, although he was open to suggestions.  He’d never taken one of Nicki’s, so she hadn’t offered in a while.
    Nicki’s eyes continued devouring the paper.  Just underneath the title was her first real byline:  Nicki Sosebee.  Yes!  Finally.  All her hard work and attention to Neal’s guidance was beginning to pay off.
    Well, maybe not so much, she thought as she scanned the article.  Wow.  He’d really butchered her words, especially the third paragraph.  By the time she was done reading it, her balloon had deflated.   She didn’t recognize parts of it at all.   But, then, she reread the first paragraph again.  And again.  And again.  Then she smiled.  Neal hadn’t changed a single word in her first paragraph…the six reporter questions paragraph.  Maybe she was learning.
    The smile was back on her face, and she picked her cell phone back up off the kitchen table.  She’d almost finished speed dialing Sean when she pressed End .  No fucking way was she going to call.  No way.  There was no way in hell she was just going to pretend like that kiss yesterday hadn’t happened.  And if she called him right now to celebrate her first front page article (goal accomplished!), that’s what she’d be doing—giving him permission to make believe things were still the same.
    And maybe they were, but they were going to talk about it first and agree on it .
    Where the hell had that kiss come from?  He’d never so much as laid a hand on her in anything but a platonic fashion since Nicki’s royal fuck up on The Night That Must Never Be Mentioned Again.  In fact, he’d treated her more brotherly than Will ever had.  He’d made it clear that if they were to have a relationship , friends were all they ever would be.
    It was a game of pretend.
    And apparently that’s what Sean wanted.  But they weren’t just going to fall back into friendship, not this time, not without talking about it.  Nicki might have made the worst mistake in bed ever ( worthy of being number one on a David Letterman Top Ten list ), but Sean crossed the line he’d drawn in the sand eight years ago , and now he was going to have to be a man and talk about it.

 
    Chapter Twelve
     
    NICKI WASN’T READY to talk about the kiss, no matter how she felt.  It was too fresh, and she knew that if she confronted Sean today, she’d blather on and on like a pathetic