“Okay,” Sissy said then she paused and went on. “Ava?”

“Yeah, honey?”

In a very quiet voice, she whispered, “Luke called you a knockout.”

I hadn’t let that penetrate until the moment Sissy repeated it to me.

“Holy crap,” I whispered back.

“I think you may want to rethink your vow to hate men forever,” Sissy advised.

Not gonna happen.

“Yeah, and maybe Sandra Whoever-She-Was rethought her vow to give up on men when she got hooked up with Luke and filled his fridge with healthy food thinking thoughts of a long and happy life together. Now she’s crying her eyes out and eating her way through a three pound bag of M&Ms.”

Sissy remembered what Luke looked like as a teenager. Sissy knew Sandra Whoever-She-Was was definitely crying her eyes out with a three pound bag of M&Ms.

“You have a point,” she conceded. “We’ll see how this goes.”

I didn’t say anything because I knew how this was going to go, this wasn’t going to go anywhere.

I got off the phone with Sissy and dug in my pocket to see what Luke gave me. His remote, a key and a business card with his name on it and his home and cell numbers written in black ink on the back.

I picked up the phone, called his office and shoved the card in my back pocket.

“Nightingale Investigations,” Shirleen answered.

“Hey Shirleen, this is Ava Barlow, from yesterday?”

“Girl, how’re you doin’ today? Heard you spent the night with Luke.”

I sat, stunned speechless, and stared at my computer.

Then I said, “Matt’s got a big mouth.”

“They all got big mouths, girl, learn that quick. These boys talk more than a pack of women. I lost fifty bucks on you.”

I was stunned speechless again, this time it didn’t last as long.

“What?”

“See, Lee nailed Indy the first night they were together. Not nailed her nailed her but she was in his bed. Eddie, with Jet, it took a few days. Hank and Roxie, like, a day. Vance, like three, but Jules was a virgin and he had to interrupt the festivities once to go out and shoot someone.”

I was blinking rapidly and feeling kind of faint at the amount and sensitivity of information Shirleen was imparting, not to mention what it might mean to me.

“So we had a pool. Everyone threw down money on when they thought Luke would nail you. Mace won five hundred dollars.”

Ho-ly crap.

“So,” she went on. “Did he nail you nail you or did you two just sleep?”

For some reason, I answered her unbelievably nosy question. “We just slept.”

“New pool!” she shouted.

Oh my God.

Wyoming all of a sudden looked even better.

“Shirleen,” I cut to the chase because I was beginning to feel sick. “I’m calling to set up an account. Luke and Vance are doing some work for me and I need you to invoice –”

“Oh girl, I don’t think so. Luke already told me you’d try something like this. He says you two got something worked out and we don’t want to step on that do we?”

“Yes, we do,” I told her. At least I wanted to step on it. I wanted to stomp all over it.

She laughed in my ear, loud and happy. “This is gonna be fun. First one of these I been in on, on the ground floor.” I could almost hear her rubbing her hands together.

“That means you’re mine,” she declared I thought bizarrely. “See, Ally got Indy ‘cause no one knew them then. Daisy got Jet. Everyone took care of Roxie ‘cause that was some serious shit that went down. May got Jules because they knew each other beforehand but we all kicked in, seein’ as she was a virgin and all. Though, I wasn’t in on the cherry poppin’ discussion, I’ve seen the tape.”

The tape?

“Anyhoots,” she went on. “See you at The Hornet tonight. I can’t wait.”

Then she hung up.

I put down the phone kind of in a daze and picked it up immediately and called Sissy.

* * * * *

I got about an hour of work done before I started my preparation for the next nightmare of the day.

I decided to go heavy on the makeup and the silver. I spent ages on my hair, pulling it back away from my face smooth in parts, other parts in twists and even other parts in braids and clipped it at the back of my head with a huge silver barrette leaving the back long. I also decided to wear my kickass, rock ‘n’ roll, deep-green, fitted, long-sleeved tee that had such a wide neckline, it fell off my shoulder. This meant, since I didn’t have a strapless bra (and no way I’d go braless sporting c-cup boobs), I had to wear my baby pink, satin bustier-slash-teddy-like contraption with snaps at the crotch. It fit like a glove, had beige triangles of lace at the hipbones and cups at the brassiere area and some soft boning that moved with my body. I’d bought it to wear with a strapless dress I wore to the New Year’s Eve party Dom, Sissy, Noah and I went to the year before last and it was the only time I wore it. Noah loved it, thought it was hot. For my evening at The Hornet (and the rest of forever), it had only a utilitarian purpose. I kept on my faded jeans, ran a long, silver scarf through my belt loops, buckled on a pair of matte-silver strappy sandals and called a taxi.

By the time I got there, I was ten minutes late.

I walked into The Hornet and it was packed. It was a warm Friday in late March, so Denverites were ready to roll to summer. The bar area was shoulder to shoulder, the seating area was entirely filled and neither area had a seat with Indy’s and Ally’s asses sitting on them.

I went to the back room where the pool tables were and immediately to my left I saw them. Indy, Ally and eight other people, including Tod and Stevie, Indy’s neighbors who I’d met several times before (gay, partners, totally f**king cool), Shirleen and the other black lady from the offices yesterday, not to mention the black-haired, violet-eyed Glamour Girl.

Holy cramoly.

“Ava!” Indy called and everyone’s gaze swung to me.

“Hey,” I said weakly, deciding that, yes, this was the next nightmare of my day.

I was introduced to the rest, a honey-blonde with green eyes and a fantastic smile (Jet); a dark blonde with blue eyes and a great outfit (Roxie); a platinum blonde that looked so much like Dolly Parton I thought she was Dolly for a minute (including the cle**age and a denim jacket with so many silver studs and rhinestones she lit up the dim room, her name was Daisy); the other black lady, older than the girls, with a Jacqueline Kennedy hairdo (May); and Glamour Girl (Jules).