Erik (Arizona Vengeance 2)

“I doubt we’ll need that,” she says dryly as she starts to zip up her case.

My hand flies out and grabs the zipper out of her hand, opening the top back up. I turn the vibrator off, put it back in the silk pouch and lay it gently on top of the other items. “We will so need this.”

Blue cocks an eyebrow at me, crossing her arms over her chest. “Need help getting me there, huh?”

“Not the first few times,” I reply with a wink. “But after that, that vibrator will come in handy.”

I’m pleased to see her eyes dilate a little as a tiny breath wafts out of her mouth. “Oh. Well, okay.”

Laughing, I close the suitcase and carry it out of the bathroom. Blue heads into the kitchen and grabs a small watering can from under the sink. “Let me just water my plants really quick.”

She hits one in the kitchen window and then heads into the living room. I lean on her counter, my eyes catching on a massive pile of mail, some of which has been opened and some of which hasn’t.

“Um…have a little procrastination problem with your mail?” I ask her as I poke at the stack which promptly tips over.

Blue looks over her shoulder briefly while she pours water into a plant in front of the living room window. “Sort of. I have all my bills on auto draft so most of that’s junk. I get through it when I can.”

“Well come get through it now,” I tell her as she heads back into the kitchen. “You’re messing with my slight OCD nature.”

“You don’t have an OCD bone in your body,” she retorts.

“True,” I agree with a shrug and use my finger to drag out an interesting-looking invitation which is sitting atop an envelope that had been ripped open at the top. I see the postmark was from two weeks ago. She’s such a procrastinator.

My curiosity is piqued by the fancy gold lettering on the front that says “You’ve Been Formally Invited to.”

I figure a wedding so I open it up.

Blue glances at me, doesn’t seem to be irritated I’m nosing around and walks to the sink to pour the rest of the water out of the can.

The inside lists information for a gathering of her high school classmates at a local country club here. I hold it up and wave it. “High school reunion?”

“Not really,” she says dismissively. “I graduated eight years ago and we’ll have an official reunion at ten years. But one of my classmates has a yearly gathering.”

“Are you going to go?” I ask as I look at the information again. It’s next Saturday.

“No way,” she replies with a grimace, and a little bit of bitterness.

“Why not?”

“Because the woman putting that party on—Christina Hodgins—is the leader of the mean girls, and she’s just as unpleasant to be around now as she was then. She only throws this party every year to look down her nose at those of us that weren’t popular enough to run with her crowd and to brag how well she married up.”

“Wait a minute,” I ask as I lean my elbows on the counter. “You weren’t in the popular crowd in high school? I just find that really hard to believe.”

I mean…Blue is gorgeous, outgoing, kind, smart, funny. She should be the most popular girl ever.

Blue laughs and leans on the opposite side of the counter from me. She takes the invitation from my hand and looks at it a moment before lifting her eyes to me. “Remind me to find some old photos of me in high school. I didn’t quite look the same and was an easy mark for Christina and her bullies.”

“How so?”

“Well,” she drawls with shrug. “I was ugly.”

“Doubt it,” I cut in dryly.

“Gangly, bad teeth covered in braces and a distinctly nerdy love for the chess club,” she replies.

“Really?” I ask, wrinkling my nose and trying to imagine Blue looking like that. I just can’t.

She laughs again, seemingly comfortable with her awkward phase. “I sort of transformed at the end of my senior year. I sprouted big boobs, the braces came off, and my skin cleared up. But that didn’t make me popular. In fact, it made it worse because boys became interested in me and that threatened Christina and her crew. They turned even meaner. It was not a fun time in high school.”

It’s a hard concept for me to understand. I was popular in high school and a jock. I didn’t overtly bully anyone but I was a cocky son of a bitch and I’m sure I wasn’t nice to everyone. Still, I never tried to hurt someone over something as stupid as looks or social standing, and neither did my friends.

“It’s one of the reasons I went to LA,” Blue adds on. “I sort of wanted to prove that I was worthy enough to hang with the beautiful people. Shallow and vain, right?”