One Good Friend Deserves Another by Lisa Verge Higgins Read Free Book Online Page A

up on Page Six of the New York Post . “Isn’t that place on Houston Street?”
    “I needed the air.”
    For forty, fifty blocks? She tossed the shoes toward the door. “Why didn’t you just take a cab?”
    “Tapped out.” He blindly yanked at his pants pockets, pulling out the white cotton insides. “Totally tapped out.”
    His argyle socks sagged with moisture. She pulled them off and dropped them into a soggy pile. His feet were icy to the touch. “You should have gone straight home. Your apartment is much closer to that bar. One phone call, and I would have caught the subway over. You know that.”
    “Can’t go home.” He let his head fall onto the back of the couch, his Adam’s apple jutting. “I’ve been evicted.”
    Yeah, right, Kelly thought. Evicted from the relationship with Dhara for sure, but certainly not from his apartment. This was just his puckish sense of humor. Cole swam in cash from working as a trader on Wall Street.
    “Stop with the fish tales,” she said, determined to take care of first things first. “You need to get out of these clothes.”
    Cole laughed, a phlegmy laugh that threatened to turn into a cough. “I knew I came to the right place.”
    “Shut up.” She stood up and headed to her bedroom. “I think I have a pair of pajamas that’ll fit you. I don’t want your wet butt staining my yard-sale couch.”
    She returned a few minutes later with a towel and an old pair of drawstring pajama bottoms. She flung them both in his general direction. He struggled to pull the damp button-down shirt over his head and then fumbled with his belt. To give him privacy, she went into the kitchen to clean the dishes in the sink and put on a pot of water to boil. She heard him stumbling around, drying himself, kicking off his pants, swearing as he tripped back onto the couch while pulling the pajamas up over his legs.
    When she turned around, he was shirtless, wearing a pair of white cotton pajama bottoms speckled with little red hearts, which ended just below his knees. She thrust a glass of water in his hands and held out a couple of pills. “Take both of these and drink all the water.”
    “Tell me they’re quaaludes.”
    “Vitamin B 12 and some aspirin. You’ll thank me in the morning.”
    “Okay, Mom.”
    “Don’t be a wiseass.” She tugged a Star Trek throw blanket off the back of the couch and then tossed it across his chest. He pulled it over him while he slugged back the pills. “Now, are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
    “I told you,” he said, shrugging one bony shoulder. “I was evicted.”
    “Cole—”
    “Came back last night to find the locks changed,” he continued, lifting the glass, “and a sheriff’s posting on the door.”
    Kelly fell silent. The Ramen noodles she’d eaten for dinner shifted. He couldn’t possibly be telling the truth. If he were, he wouldn’t be so frustratingly calm. Cole knew what it meant. Evictions happened to people like his mother, a feckless ex-debutante who, along with her organic garden, cultivated marijuana on the side to help pay the heating bill. Evictions happened to men like her father, fishermen in Gloucester, whose income rose and fell on seasonal stocks of flounder.
    She said, “It must be a mistake.”
    “No mistake. I was legally warned.” He looked beyond her, toward the kitchen. “You wouldn’t happen to have a beer, would you?”
    “No.”
    “Vodka? Whiskey?”
    “You’ve had enough, don’t you think?”
    “No.” Then he closed his eyes and rested his head on the back of the couch. “It’s never enough.”
    Kelly sank onto the couch next to him, giving up all expectation of a cozy night watching a Bollywood movie. A boatload of real drama had just arrived on her doorstep. “You want to tell me how you got to this point?”
    He made an ugly sound, a bitter little laugh. “Like you don’t know.”
    “No, Cole. I don’t.”
    He turned his head, opening his eyes into slits, and she