“Me too.”

Jazz let out a huge yawn. “Wow, margaritas plus ice cream. I am going into a carb coma.”

I yawned too, and then we both jumped at the sudden pounding on the front door.

“Shit, who’s that?” Jazz said. “Should we get it?”

My heart lurched from the sudden fright. “It could be Mrs. Weaton, perhaps they didn’t fix her roof properly today.” Or not. Jazz grabbed a poker from the fireplace, and we both skidded on sock feet to the front door. I looked out of the peephole, but with no lights on I couldn’t really see a thing.

“I can’t see anything,” I whispered, and then jumped back as another round of banging started.

“Keri Ann?” Jack’s voice shouted over the wind and rain.

“Oh my God.” I mouthed to Jazz.

Her eyes were wide.

“Do you think he got my message?”

“Shit, I don’t know,” she whispered back, her shoulders hunching up.

“Keri Ann? Please ... please open the door. I really need to talk to you.”

What the heck was he doing out there in the rain? Obviously, I was going to have to let him in. I could feel mortification and it’s crimson tide crawling up my chest to my neck.

Jazz shrugged with an apologetic ‘this is your mess, I have no clue how to help you here’ look on her face.

“Thanks!” I hissed at her.

“Keri Ann! Open the Goddamn door ... please?” Jack’s voice broke over the last word and my shoulders slumped.

Jazz rolled her eyes.

I opened the door as a huge gust of wind blew in and wrenched it out of my hands. It swung back hard banging against the wall. And there stood the tall, looming, shadow of Jack, hands on either side of the doorframe, in jeans and a dark wet t-shirt that clung to his body. Water streamed down his beautiful face.

“For the love of shrimp n’ grits, girl,” I heard Jazz murmur next to me as we both took in the archangel standing on the threshold. “Good luck.”

I shivered.

“Jazz.” Jack acknowledged her with a nod as he took a step inside the door.

“Jack,” she returned, her chin up and arms crossed. She couldn’t have screamed, ‘Don’t mess with my best friend’ any louder than if she’d said the words.

He seemed to get it because, as I closed the door quickly against the rain that followed him in, he directed his next statement to her. “I just need to talk to her.”

“Don’t move,” she said to him and pushed me back through the arched opening into the living room.

I glanced at him to see his shadowed green eyes boring into mine.

Jazz and I stopped in front of the fireplace and she pulled me in close. We were far enough away from Jack, but she still whispered. “I am going to go upstairs and sleep in Joey’s room. Are you going to be okay?”

I nodded.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes!” I whispered back, fiercely.

“If you decide to give up your vajayjay tonight, keep it down, okay?”

“Jazz!” I squeaked and practically choked on my own tongue.

“I’m just sayin’...” She shrugged with a wink.

“Well, don’t ‘just say’. I’m mad at him, remember?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. But look at him.” We both turned to look at Jack who was standing with one hand on the back of his neck and the other on his hip, his head tilted down at the floor he was dripping all over. His dark, wet hair was flopped over his furrowed brow, his jaw grim.

“You could always dump him in the morning,” she murmured.

He looked up at us staring at him from the other room.

“What?” he asked.

We both started.

“Nothing,” we chorused and turned away again.

“I can’t believe you are encouraging me.” I dropped my voice back to a whisper and thumped her on the arm. “Some good friend you are. You’re supposed to be protecting me from my mistakes.”

“I am. Can you imagine how pissed you’ll be when we’re old dames and you blame me for talking you out of having sex with Jack Eversea.”

She made a good point.

“Are you still drunk?” I glared at her. “Anyway, I don’t know why he’s here. Probably to let me know about the restraining order after my phone call.”

“Yeah, right. Guys don’t just show up like this, especially after a phone call like that. And if he was really in love with Audrey, he would definitely not have come over here. You gave him the perfect out, and he’s still here.”

“Maybe it’s just a booty call.”

“Maybe it is ... ” Jazz winked. “Lucky you.”

“You do realize it will be you mending the pieces of my broken heart in the morning?”

“I believe we were doing that anyway.”

“Good point.”

Jazz then stood tall, laid a hand over her heart and hissed out the corner of her mouth like some retarded ventriloquist, “I, Jessica Fraser, hereby grant my good friend, Keri Ann Butler, permission to embrace her inner strumpet, and I do so with the utmost promise of confidentiality and lack of judgment.”

“Lack of good judgment you mean.” I rolled my eyes at her, but inside, thinking about going to bed with Jack, my stomach twisted and turned in nerves, and not a little heat. However, he and I had some shit to sort out, so the chances of that ever happening were remote at best. I frowned.

“If you’re done ... ” I crossed my arms and tapped my foot.

She grinned wickedly. “Just be safe about it, I am not ready to be a godmother.” And with that effective cold bucket of water dumped on my stirring libido, she made a hasty exit, brushing past Jack and up the stairs.

Ugh! I stomped my foot. I couldn’t believe she would encourage me, then scare the shit out of me in the same nanosecond. Typical.

“Uh ... do you think I could borrow a towel or something...” Jack asked, his eyebrows raised in bewilderment at the long hissing exchange he’d just witnessed.

“Oh yeah, sorry. Uh, go sit by the fire, I’ll bring you one.”

“Here ya go!” came Jazz’s voice down the stairs as a huge white bath towel flapped to the bottom.

“Uh, thanks,” Jack called out, heading for it.

“No problem,” she sang. “Y’all have fun!”

And we heard Joey’s bedroom door bang shut.

T W E N T Y - O N E

I looked at Jack in my darkened living room. He was still standing awkwardly and soaking wet, but now trying to dry himself over his wet clothes. He should really take them off before he got a chill, but I was going to bite my tongue until it bled before I suggested that.

“How did you get here?” It suddenly occurred to me I hadn’t heard his bike.

“I ran, slash, walked.”

“In the rain?”

“Well, it was a bit dangerous to be out on the bike, and it didn’t seem so far ... but I wasn’t thinking about what it feels like to try and get somewhere fast in soaking wet jeans. And damn, when it rains, it rains here.”

It sure did. “And why are you here?”

He looked around the room, maybe for somewhere to sit, before settling down onto his haunches and looking into the fire. The firelight dancing across the planes of his face was devastating.