Free Chance (The One More Night Series) by Christina Ross

came up beside me.  “Really?” she said.  “Just because I noted it?  Let’s cut to the chase, cookie.  To be honest, you need that shower because he’s still all over you, isn’t he?”
    “Jesus….”
    “I can smell him.”
    “The hell you can.”
    “Want to try me?”
    “Go for it.”
    She smelled my hair.  “His cologne has a woodsy hint to it.  That’s not you—it’s all him.  And I can smell it just like I can smell the sex seeping out of your pores.”
    Is it that obvious?  Do I smell that much like sex?  No wonder the cabbie kept giving me weird looks in the rearview mirror.  He thought I was a slut.  A hooker.  Look at where he dropped me off, after all.  Our apartment complex looks like a damned drug den.
    I felt mortified. 
    “I think I’m going to be sick,” I said.
    “Don’t you dare be sick,” Elle said.  “Because then I’ll get sick.  And then Brooke will get sick because that’s what Brooke does whenever I get sick.  We all know that.  We’ve seen it time and again for years, ever since we stole that bottle of vodka from your parents’ liquor cabinet when we were thirteen.  It’s a goddamned pattern at this point.  I puke.  Then Brooke pukes.  Worse, if we all barf, our living room is going to smell more like a sewer than it already does.  All because you decided to get sick.  So, don’t do it.  Suck it up and get yourself together, Abby.  I mean it.”
    “I’m going to hurl.”
    “It’s bulimia,” Brooke said. 
    Elle shook her head.  “No, it isn’t.  I see that shit all the time at Vogue —not that I’m planning on sticking around that joint much longer.  Still a secretary, my ass.  But let’s face it—bulimia takes the boobs first, and Abby still has Abby’s infamous rack.  She’s just sick because I called her out for spending the night flat on her back.  I can smell it all over her—and it just hit her that if I can, others can too.  She’s a feverish, walking sex bomb exuding her uncontainable pheromones into the world.”
    “Stop it,” I said.
    “Not until you sit your ass down and tell us what happened.”
    “That will cost you a cup of coffee.”
    Elle moved briskly into the kitchen.  “Coming right up,” she said brightly.  “Black?”
    “You know how I like it.”
    “I know how you like your coffee, but since it’s been so damned long since you’ve gotten laid, I’ve forgotten how you like that .”
    “Oh, look at you—aren’t you clever?”  I sat down on one of the two over-stuffed chairs and leaned my head back against it.  “I’m exhausted.”
    “You look like shit,” Brooke said. 
    “Thank you, Brooke.”
    “It’s true.  You look all roughed up.  Like you’ve been spanked and slapped around, or something.  Hell, one of your eyes looks lazy—the left one.  It’s kind of hooded and droopy.  Whatever he did to you must have been intense.”
    “Neither of you has any idea.”
    Elle came to my side and handed me my coffee.  “If we have no idea, then it’s time for you to do the walk of shame and start talking.”  She took the identical over-stuffed chair to my right.  “So, you know, talk.”
    “Do I have to?”
    “You know the rules.  We all do the walk of shame, and you’re way overdue for yours, so don’t you dare hold back.”
    “Fine.  I’ll talk.”
    And I did.  Over the next hour, I told them everything that had happened between Chance and me.  When I was finished, they just looked at me, their mouths agape.
    “Who is this creature of such endowed proportions?” Brooke asked.
    “I don’t know.  Well, not really.  He said he owned some patents.  And corporations.  Things like that.”
    “That means he’s rich.”  She got off the sofa.  “Come with me, girls.  To the bedroom.  We’re Googling his ass right now.”
     

 
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER TEN
     
    When we stepped into the bedroom I shared with Brooke, she sat down at her desk, opened her