What Lovers Do

“Shit …” Howie rests his club on the ground like a kickstand. “Caroline’s getting ready to leave me, isn’t she?”

I shrug. “One plus two plus three, man. You know women like to do everything together.”

As Howie’s face settles into a deflated frown, my phone vibrates.

I grin. “It’s her.”

“Millie?” he asks.

“Sophie.” I accept the call.

“Dr. 69?” Howie says way too loudly.

I roll my eyes and walk toward the cart. “Hello?”

“Hey, whatcha up to?”

“Who is this?”

“Oh, um … it’s …”

I grin. “Kidding. So … what are you wearing?”

“High waisted cream pants, sleeveless blouse, and a lab coat.”

“Boring … try again.”

She giggles. “Just a lab coat, black heels, cat-eye tortoise shell glasses, and pale pink lip gloss.”

“Damn …” I might have to adjust things down below if she keeps this up. “Cat-eye tortoise shell glasses, huh?”

“They’re very vintage.”

“What’s the address? I’m overdue for a good eye exam.”

Sophie’s laughter is the best sound I’ve heard in so long. “What are you doing?”

“Golfing.”

“Must be nice. Some of us have to work.”

“I’ll do that later. Priorities.”

She grunts. I think it’s a jealous grunt.

Howie hops into the cart and pinches his nipples, licking his lips, and rolling his eyes back in his head. He’s making it difficult to prove all the women wrong who say men never grow up.

“It’s hard for me to feel bad for you having to work, when you’re clearly not working at all right now,” I say.

“I had a patient reschedule, so I thought I’d reciprocate the kind gesture and call you to converse.”

“Oh, you called me for phone sex.”

“No.” She coughs. “No phone sex. Just conversation. So … it’s sunny out today.”

I laugh. “Such a rare occasion in Arizona.”

“Who ya golfing with?”

“My friend.”

“A four-legged friend?”

My grin doubles. “Two-legged. A thirty-six-year-old toddler.”

Howie gives me a look.

Yes, buddy. I’m talking about you.

“Then I’ll let you go so you can talk about me. Make sure he knows we’re just friends and I’m fully clothed, getting ready to give some lucky human twenty-twenty vision.”

As entertaining as Howie can be, and as much as I love golfing, I’m bummed that I’m not someplace else so I can keep talking with said new friend “Okay, Jesus.”

Laughter bubbles out of Sophie. “Bye, Shep.”

CHAPTER NINE

SOPHIE

“Can you keep it down?” Jimmy grumbles from my sofa while pulling the blanket over his head.

I wonder if prisons cater to the nutritional needs of pregnant inmates because there’s a good chance I’ll end up killing Jimmy before he moves out. Legit, I Googled “how to kill someone without leaving a trace” before I went to sleep last night. Now that search is out there … in cyberspace, even though I erased my search history. So Jimmy gets to live because I made a misstep in my murder planning. That’s unfortunate.

“I’m meeting with an attorney today.” I bob my herbal tea bag in lukewarm water. I already had my one cup of coffee. It wasn’t enough.

“I cleaned both bathrooms yesterday, in case you missed that,” he says from under the blanket. “Don’t forget to tell your attorney that.”

“My name’s on the mortgage … in case you missed that.”

“You know …” He throws the blanket aside and sits up straight.

I jerk my head to the side when I see him—all of him. “The hell, Jimmy! You’re sleeping naked on my sofa? Gross!”

“You never had a problem with me naked on your sofa when you were naked on the sofa with me. Cancel your stupid attorney appointment, play hooky from work, and get naked with me, Sophie. My mom thinks our lack of physical intimacy has contributed to the wedge between us.”

“That’s great, Jimmy.” I remove the tea bag and drop it into the trash bin. Then I get Cersei her breakfast. “I’d love to hear how these conversations with your mom go. Does she know you haven’t made any effort to get a new job? A place of your own? Does she know you’ve let yourself go? Does she know how much you smell? Has she seen your greasy hair and pale skin? I honestly didn’t know one could live in Arizona and be so pale.”

“Sorry, Queen Sophie. I wasn’t genetically blessed with your pigmentation. Is that why you’re having second thoughts about me? I’m too white?”

“Yes. If it weren’t for your pasty white skin, I’d marry you tomorrow. It’s all about that and nothing at all to do with your lack of employment or the divot your ass is making in my sofa. The piss on my bathroom floor. The scratches on my coffee table from your shoes. The big hint I gave you just a week after you moved in here … when I suggested you sleep in the guest room.”

“I thought you wanted privacy to use your vibrator.”

What?

Why do men assume all women use a vibrator? I don’t even own one.

“What would that say about you as a lover?”