Dream Maker (Dream Team 1)

“The last stand before you’re back to school?”

I did two quick lifts of my shoulders. “Not really. I’m enrolled, but I don’t start until the summer semester. But I’m going full-time Computer Raiders starting next week, so tonight’s my last night at Smithie’s.”

She studied me closely. “You down with that?”

“Who would have thought I’d miss stripping,” I mumbled.

“Babe, you know it’s not the stripping you’re gonna miss, right?”

I did another couple of quick shrugs.

Sidney got closer. “Those losers at school who didn’t get you, they were losers. Everyone’s a loser in school. Even the popular kids were losers, they just were better at pretend than the rest of us. The key to survival was to find your pack of losers. You never got that, so you never formed a posse. So allow me to share, if you have sisters, no matter what kind of sisters they are,” she reached out and touched the back of my hand, “no matter where life leads you, you never lose them.”

Man, I was glad I never lost my actual sister.

“You know the worst part about the Dad, Mom, Mick deal?” I asked.

“What?”

“I have them to thank for that. For making me realize what I had. For leading me to Danny.” I reached out and didn’t touch the back of hers. I took it in mine. “And getting me back to you.”

She made a raspberry noise with her lips and returned, “You’re a genius. You would have found your way to all of that, eventually.”

“You’re right. I’m super fly,” I agreed.

“You are the definition of not super fly just calling yourself super fly, which is so dorky, it actually makes you super fly.”

I burst out laughing.

My sister did it with me.After lunch with Sidney, heading home, getting the mail, and finding what was in the mail, I made a few wardrobe adjustments, slicked on a heavy dose of some lip treatment, and was getting out of my car in the parking garage at Danny’s offices.

And my phone rang.

I checked it and didn’t know the number, so I didn’t take the call.

It stopped ringing as I walked toward the elevators.

It started ringing again after I hit the button.

I looked to it.

Same number.

Statistically (my personal calculations were), it was a 92 percent chance it was a robocall.

But we’d had three whole weeks of no drama.

My landlord was kind of a dick about letting me out of my lease, even if I offered to pay April, let him keep my last month’s rent, and I knew he had a waiting list so it wasn’t like he couldn’t turn it over immediately.

Then Danny paid him a visit, and he brought Mo along, and poof! I was released.

But that was all the hoopla we’d had.

I was moved in.

I gave official notice to Smithie I was quitting.

Charlie was ecstatic that I’d go full-time at Computer Raiders.

Gert demanded to go to the house showings Danny arranged in order to give her opinion on where we might end up next (but mostly, to get out of her house, also, because she liked to give Danny shit, and last, because he gave her shit right back and she had a hoot taking it—we’d only looked at two houses, both of which I liked, both of which Danny and Gert hated, so no offers had been made on a house).

And Rob had filed for divorce.

Oh, and none of the girls had caved to go out with the guys, which was upsetting me and ticking Lottie off.

To make matters worse, both Boone and Axl had started seeing other women.

And yes, even if it was so illogical, it was wrong, both Lottie and I (and I could tell, Ryn and Hattie) considered them other women.

But Danny told me it wasn’t my life, even if it was semi my business because they were my friends.

Regardless, he advised that I needed to chill and let nature take its course.

“It’ll happen how it happens. There are people more afraid of having it good than facing the bad,” he’d said.

“And why do you think that is?” I’d asked.

“Because if you have it good after having it bad, the good would be harder to lose.”

“I’m not gonna lose you,” I pointed out.

“Babe, you told me that you were gonna end it with me just to protect me. They need to get past stupid shit like that.”

We had then bickered about him calling it “stupid shit.”

Danny had ended the bickering by kissing me then proceeding to go down on me on the couch.

And he’d been so good at ending the bickering, we hadn’t bickered for a solid three days after that.

So, even though things seemed to be going great in the world of Evan Gardiner, I had lived my life as that life came, and a lot of it wasn’t so great, so who knew what would come next?