Just Between Us...

“Mmm. Well, it seems he doesn’t much like firing people so he told Layla tonight that when they get back from their honeymoon he’s going to reopen his personal practice.”

Jack grimaced. “Ouch.”

“You can say that again. I don’t think Layla’s quite accepted yet that half the breasts in L.A. bear Sam’s hand marks…”

Jack hiked his brows.

Reilly waved her hands. “You know what I mean. Anyway, knowing that he’s going to be creating more of those perfect breasts, along with pert bottoms, sent her careening over the edge.”

Jack rubbed his chin with his index finger. From what he understood, Layla’s self-esteem when it came to body image had suffered greatly in the initial stages of her relationship with Sam. Throw in that she subscribed to the notion that medicine should be available to everybody, while Sam’s personal motto was “let them have breasts,” and, well, you had a tenuous situation at best.

But ultimately they had worked everything out.

Or so he’d thought.

He took in Layla and Sam bickering like a divorced couple. Had the former harmony between them existed only because Sam had given up performing plastic surgery?

Jack felt himself begin to withdraw emotionally from the situation and wishing he could do so physically. To witness this on top of what had happened with Mallory in the linen closet was a little too much excitement for one night.

Reilly quietly cleared her throat. “By the way, did I tell you that Ben and I had a falling out?”

Jack stared at her as if she’d just taken her head off then screwed it back on.

Oh, no.

That did it.

He was leaving.

Now.

Reilly was nodding. “He wants me to close down Sugar ’n’ Spice and come into business with him. You know, change Benardo’s Hideaway to Ben and Reilly’s.”

Jack suppressed the desire to say, “So?”

What was there some kind of relationship virus going around that he didn’t know about?

He began doing the physical backing away he’d longed to just moments ago.

“Where are you going?” Reilly asked as Jack met Mallory’s gaze across the room.

“Um, the bathroom.”

Reilly looked totally confused. “But I thought you just got back from there.”

He absently rubbed his churning stomach. “Yeah. Something like that.” He eyed the door. “Call me when the storm clouds blow over.”

Then he strode from the room as fast as he could without running.

3

“I’M SUPPOSED TO BE AT the church right now,” Layla wailed over the phone to Mallory the following morning. Now that the emotional fireworks were over, apparently the bride was having second thoughts about dumping her groom.

Either that or she was mourning the dress.

“I have the image all laid out in my mind,” Layla continued without any prompting from Mallory, who was hiding under the covers in her bed wishing the world and Layla would just go away. “My mother would be standing behind me fixing my veil. You’d help me put on my garter and make sure I had sexy underwear underneath, and Reilly would be calming any prewedding jitters with caffeine-free coffee and sticky buns.”

Mallory’s brain caught on the word coffee. She threw aside the sheet and pulled herself into a semi-standing position.

It was 10 a.m. and she was only half-awake at best. She moved her cell phone to her other ear and shuffled from her bedroom into the tiny living/dining area of her apartment, then into the closet that was her kitchen, kicking clothes, notebooks, and crumpled pieces of paper out of her way as she went. “So call Sam and patch things up,” she grumbled to Layla, who was obviously heartbroken.

But at least her friend could talk about it. Mallory, on the other hand, had to keep her own relationship woes to herself.

Coffee.

She needed coffee.

She took the stained carafe out of the coffeemaker, eyed the half inch of murky contents, then dumped it down the sink.

“I can’t,” Layla whispered.

“Why can’t you?” Mallory asked, filling the reservoir with water then taking the small coffee can from the pint-sized refrigerator. She popped the rubber top and peered inside at the grounds that barely covered the bottom of the can, then shook it. Enough for one cup. All she needed to see her through to getting to Reilly’s.

“I just…can’t,” Layla whispered into her ear.

Mallory searched through her empty cabinet for filters and came up with nothing but a half-empty package of stale taco shells and an empty jar of peanut butter. She dropped her right hand to her side. “What’s so difficult about it, Lay? All you have to do is pick up the phone, press the speed dial number for Sam, and say ‘hi.”’

Layla laughed without humor. “Excuse me, but if I’m not mistaken, you were at the dinner last night, weren’t you? You saw what happened. I can’t call him!”

Looked like making coffee was out.

“So don’t call him then, I don’t care,” Mallory grumbled.

Silence.

Great. She’d just pissed off her grieving friend. She squinted against the sun slanting in through the kitchen window then closed the stained shade against the glare. Grieving? Layla hadn’t just lost a relative. She’d called off a wedding. Purposely. With full knowledge of what she was doing.

“Filter,” she said absently.

“What?” Layla asked.

Mallory shook her head then trudged back out into the living room/dining room, searching for something, anything she could use as a filter. “Nothing,” she said. “Look, Lay, why don’t you go out somewhere? Go to Reilly’s. That’s where I’m planning to be in twenty minutes. Meet me there.”

A heavy sigh. “Maybe you’re right. I probably shouldn’t be sitting here by myself moping around. And I’ve already done all the canceling that I can. By now everyone knows what happened anyway. If they don’t…well, I guess they’ll find out when they get to the church, won’t they?”

There was a brief knock at Mallory’s apartment door. She stared at the closed and multiple-locked barrier, an image of Jack with an extra-large cup of coffee popping to mind. She wasn’t sure which made her mouth water more. Jack or the coffee. She hurried to the door and threw it open.

Not Jack.