Vegas Two-Step by Liz Talley Read Free Book Online Page B

millions and still saved aluminum foil for a second use.”
    Nellie tossed Kate her own look of disgust. “Money is not the issue. Why would anyone pay over three hundred dollars for a pair of pants?”
    “Because they make your ass look great,” Kate said.
    Nellie rolled her eyes, but still spun around to check out her derriere. Sure enough, her butt did look great. Maybe a splurge? Surely a girl was justified when the pants made her look so tiny, so curvy and so splendid all at the same time?
    “Nell, you have a ton of money and insist on living like a pauper.”
    “I don’t live like a pauper. I just know the value of money.”
    “Sensible,” Kate drawled, as though it was the worst word ever invented.
    “Exactly.” Nellie smiled.
    “Is that what you were last night, Nellie ‘I’m such a good girl’ Hughes?” Kate pointed to her own neck—the same area where Nellie had her hickey.
    Damn, Nellie thought. Why did Kate have to be so perceptive? “I was a good girl.”
    “Yeah, right,” Kate snorted, separating the clothes she liked from the ones she wouldn’t be caught dead in.
    Jack Darby. Nellie sighed. She loved his magnetic blue eyes and the slight cleft in his chin. Oh, and the way he sipped black coffee and teased her about her empty plate. If only Kate knew her “good girl gone bad” had actually remained good. Well, for the most part anyway.
    “I shouldn’t have gone with him,” Nellie muttered, jerking a turtleneck over her head and tossing it on the settee. “It was totally irresponsible. A safety issue.”
    “Are you kidding me?” Kate ranted. “Seriously? Isn’t letting loose what you came here for?”
    “I came here for a girls’ weekend. Shopping, talking, coffee….” Nellie rolled her hand with each word. Kate frowned and handed her another two-hundred-dollar top.
    “That’s not what this weekend is about. It’s about losing yourself, finding your inner party girl, playing around, daring yourself to be something other than what you are.”
    “So for you that means…what? Doing what you do every weekend?”
    “For your information, Miss Smarty-pants, I don’t party every weekend.” Kate crossed her arms and sank back into the antique chair. Nellie grinned at the contrast. MTV meets Victorian charm school. “What I meant is that this weekend we get the chance to be whoever we want to be. Like a free pass.”
    “There are no free passes in life.” Nellie pulled a pair of low-slung jeans from the clips on the hanger. They were dark indigo with tan stitching. Very trendy. So unlike her. But Nellie tried them on anyway.
    “Spoken like a true Tucker.” Kate pushed bloodred nails through her spiked hair. “Give yourself a break. You’re twenty-nine-years old. Not sixty. You can buy some hot clothes and have a fling with an even hotter guy. I’d kill to be in your shoes right now.”
    Nellie glanced down at her old ballet flats. She’d had them since the late eighties and had dragged them out when she heard they were back in style. She arched a newly shaped eyebrow at Kate and drawled, “Really?”
    “Well, not those.” Kate glanced down at the old black flats in horror. “I was speaking metaphorically and I was referring to Jack Darby.”
    Nellie’s heart pinged at his name.
    “Oh, is someone blushing?” Kate teased. “Come on, Nell. Tell me what he was like. I gotta know.”
    Nellie caught sight of her face in the mirror. She matched the cranberry blouse. “I don’t kiss and tell.”
    “Bullshit!” Kate exclaimed. “Remember that fraternity party? I heard all about Skip Jordan.”
    “That was seven years ago, Kate.”
    “How big was his—”
    “Enough, Kate!” Nellie shrieked, throwing the jeans at her dearest friend. “You are bad.”
    “I know.” Kate smiled, deftly catching the expensive denim. “That’s why all the guys like me.”
    “And for your information, I enjoyed last night.”
    “I bet you did.” Kate gave her a sly smile.
    “We