Dream & Dare by Susan Fanetti Read Free Book Online Page B

rejoicing when he kissed her back, his lips pursing lightly. “Remember how I used to call you that when I got pissed?” Opening her handbag, she pulled out a little set of photographs she’d clipped together from the box Faith had found. “Look what I got. We didn’t lose everythin’ after all. Faith had some set aside.”
     
    She handed him the picture of them with Gina. He took it, fisting it awkwardly at first and then making his fingers grip it a better way. For a long time, he stared at it, and Bibi let him, watching him. She saw something shift in his eyes, and she looked down to see him petting the picture with his other hand, his fingers moving up and down over her image.
     
    “I know you’re with me, Hooj,” she murmured. “I know you’re here. Come on and talk with me. Please, baby.”
     
    He lifted his eyes to hers. Lost, sad, lonely eyes. She put her hand on his face, cupping his cheek, and he leaned his head into the touch. “I love you. I’m here with you no matter what. But I’m lonely, too. And so scared.”
     
    She had to perk this visit up. Making him, and her, feel bad was no way to encourage him to remember anything. If he’d even forgotten. It was so hard to know, with him on the other side of that glass wall.
     
    “Blue took that picture. You remember? It was the day you proposed.”
     
    He hadn’t exactly gotten down on one knee and held out a little velvet box. More like shouted it at her and stormed out.
     
    But then he’d come right back and asked again.
     
    And she’d said yes.
     
     
    ~oOo~
     
     
    Bibi parked her stupid Dodge Colt behind the building and peeled her sticky-sweaty self off the vinyl seat. Damn, it was hot. The Colt didn’t have air conditioning, which normally wasn’t a problem in LA, but on this June day it was like she was back in Mississippi: ninety-five degrees and humid as a sauna. No breeze off the ocean, either. Just hot and muggy and disgusting.
     
    Traffic had been horrific, too. Stop and go all the way. Quite the send-off from her suddenly former job.
     
    Not really suddenly, she guessed. She’d known five weeks ago, when they’d announced the new policy, that she was supposed to register for the fall semester at least at a community college if she wanted to keep her job. But she didn’t want to go to college. She had no idea what she’d even want to study, and it pissed her off to think she needed a degree to keep selling makeup and giving makeovers to rich wives. She was friendly and charming and outgoing. She looked good in the product. She knew everything there was to know about everything she sold. She was good at selling and good at makeup. What college degree was going to make her better?
     
    And it wasn’t like the company was going to pay for it, anyway. And oh boy, yeah. That five-fifty an hour she made, that was definitely going to cover life and college both. Sure it was.
     
    She’d put her head in the sand and continued doing a good job, making her sales, exceeding her quota, hoping that they wouldn’t want to lose her.
     
    Turned out, she was expendable. As of today, she was the jobless and less-than-proud recipient of a two-weeks’ severance check.
     
    Two weeks. Fourteen days.
     
    Depressed and angry, hot and sweaty, she slammed open the door leading into the apartments and then stomped up to her floor. By the time she’d forced her way through the warped door that had swelled in the humidity so that she’d almost thought she’d need to kick the thing open, she was in about the foulest mood she could remember.
     
    Their apartment reeked of something. Chemical. She couldn’t place it. Before she could even force the door closed again and turn the locks, Gina was on her. “Oh my GOD, would you do something about your pet biker? Does he ever leave? Does he live here now? If he lives here, he should fucking pay rent. Do you know what he did? What a sap! I’ll never get my fucking deposit back. And I’m