Naughty or Nice by Eric Jerome Dickey Read Free Book Online Page B

nudge. She was so innocent when it came to affairs of the heart. She believed in love the way I used to believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.
    She asked, “Can you be in love with someone and they don’t know you exist on that level?”
    Once again, I thought about Nick. About evenings spent at bookstores reading each other’s work. About something I had initiated and got pissed off when it wasn’t fully reciprocated. Yeah, I tripped. It was all about my own expectations, not his desire. Maybe I expected him to be loyal to me, but I knew that people were loyal to their needs, to the emotions that helped them build their dreams.
    The bottom line: I owed him an apology. I really did. But they’d be drinking lemonade and ice-skating in hell before he got one.
    Tommie interrupted my thoughts, told me, “I wanna be ballin’ like you one day.”
    â€œBaby, ain’t no fun being a queen living in a kingless castle.”
    â€œLet down the drawbridge.”
    â€œI did. Nobody’s coming over but court jesters and peasants with bad credit.”
    â€œThen you’d better put a doorbell on the other side of the moat.”
    â€œWhy is it so hard to find a decent brother?”
    â€œBecause you’re looking.” She cocked her head, thinking. “One time I asked Daddy how he met Momma and he told me that when you stopped looking for your keys, you would find your keys.”
    â€œSounds like some off-the-wall philosophical shit out of Matrix .”
    â€œDaddy and Momma looked at too much Kung Fu .”
    Not long after that, Tommie kissed my lips, got out, and climbed into her dirty Jeep. I waited for her to fire up her ride and back out before I did the same. Her Pink CD was playing loud and strong as she sped east toward one of the duplexes I owned in old Ladera. I cranked up Inobe and she sang me around the corner to the Mail Connexion. I looked at the sign and laughed, wondered if there was a place called Male Connexion. Anyway, I needed to check my post office box. Then Inobe sang me west toward LAX and my crib in Westchester.
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    I made it home in ten minutes.
    I kicked off my shoes then turned off the house alarm. The universal remote was by the door. I picked it up and pushed a few buttons, selected which lights I wanted turned on, then dimmed them. Another button and soft music came though the ceiling speakers throughout the crib; another turned on the fireplace and adjusted the temperature in the house to seventy-five degrees.
    All the white walls and ethnic art made me feel like I was living in a cultural museum. Sometimes I thought about renting the big crib out to a family and downsizing into one of the smaller properties. Hell, maybe that was why I loved for someone to be here with me at night, until the sun started coming up. Made me feel feeble to admit my weakness. Sometimes I heard shit going bump in the night. Could be my imagination, could be real, but either way, it would make me feel better if I had adefense system made of about two hundred pounds of testosterone and a .357 Magnum by his side.
    Five minutes after that I had stripped down to boy shorts and a tank top.
    Out of habit, I turned on my speakerphone and checked my messages while I signed onto AOL. Always had to check my e-mail. My buddy list popped up and I saw that Livvy was still logged on. It was almost midnight here. I sent her an instant message, told her that we had been hanging out and we missed her. She sent a smiley face. I asked if she had insomnia, or needed me to call so we could talk. Actually, I was the one who needed conversation. It took her two minutes to answer and tell me that she was chatting with somebody. I sent her a smiley face and asked who.
    No response.
    I asked her to call me and let me know about her flight so somebody could pick her up.
    No response.
    I checked my cyber mail: forty-two spams and twelve e-mails from other dating hopefuls.
    A few other