But, I wasn’t making the same mistake twice. I rang the doorbell and waited for her to come to the door because I didn’t need another peep show of her and Jessie in bed together.

She opened the door and looked at me like I was nuts. “Since when do you ring the doorbell?”

“Since I got an eyeful of you and Kimosabe playing doctor under the covers. Thanks a lot ‘cause I’m scarred for life now. I’ll never want to see a doctor again.”

“Shut up and get in here. I need an update on you and The Nickster.”

I followed her to her living room and fell into her dad’s recliner. “A lot of crazy stuff has gone down, Claire. Being with Nick is like riding a bipolar coaster. One minute everything is awesome and I’m happy and then the next the shit has hit the ceiling.”

She gave me an all knowing look. “Umm, tell me something I don’t know. Jessie and I built and manage the bipolar coaster.”

She was right. What was I thinking? Nick and I weren’t the only ones with problems. “Do you remember me telling you about the banquet to honor Nick’s dad?”

“Yeah, how did that go?”

I recalled how things played out and I wanted to go back in time and erase seeing my mom and David together. “Things started out great. After the awards ceremony, we were dancing and Nick surprised me with a keycard to a room in the hotel where the banquet was.”

She reached for a pillow on the couch and threw it at me. “I’m already jealous and you haven’t told me any details yet.”

“Well, don’t worry. You won’t be too jealous when I tell you the rest. Nick and I ran into my mom with David. They were in the hotel together.”

“You mean your dad’s partner? That David?”

I still wanted to cringe remembering the guilty looks on their faces. “Yeah, can you believe that? My mom is having an affair with him. Well, needless to say that put the brakes on me and Nick using the hotel room for whatever we were going to do.”

“Double shiz. So, what happened when you got home?”

Did she really even have to ask? She knew how psycho my mom could be. “Vivian went bat shit on me. She turned everything into why I was in a hotel with a boy. She told me I couldn’t see Nick anymore. So, I went to Tillie’s and that’s where things got even crazier. I still can’t believe it, but Tillie is Nick’s mom.”

When I finished explaining the whole mama drama situation, Claire was astounded. “Is this gonna cause problems between you and Nick? I mean, his mom that left him has been more of a mother to you than her own children. That can’t sit well with him.”

Nope. No apparent problems in that department. “I don’t think it’s going to cause too much of a problem for him since we just spent the last 24 hours in a hotel room together.”

She let out a big squeal. “Shut the front door! Did you practice making babies with him?”

“More than a few times.”

She found another pillow on the couch and threw it at me. “I’m so jealous.”

“You have reason to be. I’m telling you, Claire...you have to do whatever it takes to talk Kimosabe into it. Seduce him if you have to.”

She groaned. “You caught me trying. Thanks, by the way. I almost had him talked into it when you came in on us. Now, he won’t come back to my bed because he says that it’s too tempting.”

I’d worry if it wasn’t. “Sorry. I really had no idea.”

“It’s okay. Can’t blame you because he’s too honorable for his own good, but we do have a little secret. Wanna see?”

Whatever it was had her grinning. “Yeah, of course.”

Claire pulled her shorts down low on her hips and I saw a fresh black tattoo. It was an ornate, antique heart shaped lock without a key sitting just inside her hipbone, still red and inflamed. I was more attuned to these tattoos now and I could see Jessie’s name entwined within it. “Jessie’s got the matching key on his hip.”

There was a time when I would have asked her if she had lost her mind, but not since I met Nick because I understood. “I love it, Claire Bear.”

“I was nervous about showing it to you. I didn’t know what you’d say about it because I know you aren’t into tattoos.”

That was a different time in my life. “I used to not be into them, but that was before I got a boyfriend with one bigger than my head.”

“You could be next.”

Liking them and getting one was two completely different things. “I doubt that. I’m not a masochist.”

“It wasn’t bad. Jessie sat next to me the whole time and held my hand, or maybe it was me holding his. He wasn’t excited about my pants being pulled down that far in front of another guy.”

“You think you’re gonna get another one?”

“I don’t know. Jessie doesn’t want me to. He says he can’t take watching it again, but something tells me it had less to do with the tattoo process and more of seeing the guy touching me so close to what he considers his.”

“You need to tell him he has to claim it before he can consider it his.”

“I know, right?”

Who would have thought the bad girl hiding out below Claire’s perfect persona would snag a bad boy that turned out to be so good?

24 Change Your World For Me And I’ll Rock It

Nick

It had been a long time since we left the hotel and I was beginning to worry about Payton. My mind raced as I considered all the possibilities. Maybe my mother had not come through with what she promised and Payton walked into a mess when she got home.

I didn’t want to call or text her in case she was still talking to her mom, but my fear and worry were threatening to take the reins. I picked up my phone and contemplated calling, then put it down again. This was ridiculous. She wasn’t in danger and she would call when she could.

My phone rang and I answered it immediately. “God, I’ve been waiting forever. Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine. I needed to see Claire before I came home so I ran by her place for a minute. I’m sorry. I guess I stayed longer than I realized.”

“It’s fine. So, how did it go when you got home?”

It was like my mom was someone else. The calm before the storm would be the perfect description. “Weird, that’s how it went. My mom acted like everything was cool. She said she wants me to invite you over so she and my dad can meet you. It was like the whole elevator incident never happened.”

“What do you think my mom told her?”

For me, this could only be about one thing. “I think she knows about my mom’s affair with David and she’s blackmailing her into letting us be together.”

“Why would my mom do that to her friend?”

He’d never see this for what it was. “I think Tillie is doing it so she can see you happy and this is the only way she has any control over that.”

“I hope she’s not doing it because she thinks it’s gonna change the way I feel about her.”

It mattered very little to me why she was doing it. “Does it matter why if it means we get to be together?

“Nothing matters as long as I have you. You and no other.”

≈ ≈ ≈

Being with Payton in her house with her parents was strange. I was welcomed, yet I wasn’t. Her mother was outwardly courteous, yet simultaneously cold and I guessed her father was probably confused about why his wife was supporting Payton’s decision to date someone like me.

Dinner with the Archers was strained to say the least and they were less than impressed by my plans to attend community college and then apply to the police academy. Both of them had this incredible way of making me feel inferior without a word or a glance in my direction.

When dinner was over, Payton and I went into the backyard and sat by the pool to dangle our feet in the water. It was a huge relief to get away from her parents, but the inferior feeling they instilled in me remained and my lack of conversation didn’t go unnoticed by my girl. “You’ve been quiet tonight. What’s wrong?”

When you screwed girls without a relationship, you didn’t have to do the meet the parents thing so this was a first for me. Her parents made their disdain for me no secret and I guessed I worried in the back of my mind that Payton would eventually listen to them. “It’s your parents. They might not say it, but they don’t like me and they sure don’t want me dating you.”

“I’m sorry they were so rude to you. I knew that’s how they’d be and that’s why I didn’t want you to meet them. It never had anything to do with you.”

“It’s not your fault I don’t measure up to their expectations for their daughter’s boyfriend.”

“Please, don’t say that. I couldn’t be with anyone more perfect for me.”

I couldn’t help what I came from, but I could control where I was going and to see how unimpressed they were with my career choice shook me to my core. I wondered if Payton was as unimpressed as her parents. “I’ve never given my career choice any thought beyond it being what I wanted to do with my life, but being with you makes me think about more than myself. How do you feel about me being a cop?”

She reached for my hand. “I joke about how hot you’d be in a uniform, but the truth is that I don’t love the thought of you being in danger every time you go to work. It scares me.”

I moved my foot over to Payton’s and played footsie with her under the water. “Becoming an officer is a few years down the road, but I need to ask you something. If we were still together in a few years, could you see yourself being with a cop?”

Oh, hell! Where did that come from?

She snaked her foot around my ankle and stroked it up and down. “Yeah, I could see myself dating a cop.”

I didn’t mean dating and I took a deep breath as I prepared to ask the question that could make or break this relationship. “I’ll make a decent income as a cop, but I’d never be able to give you the fancy things your parents have, so I’m cutting straight to the chase here. Could you be happy being married to a cop?”