LWLU – Latin Flavor

Sara stifled the growl of frustration. “What do you need now, Nika?”

Nika stormed out of the bathroom where she’d spent the last hour fluffing her hair and shot her a dark look. “Well, I did need you to tell me if my boobs looked okay in this shirt. Now, I sorta want to stab you with a q-tip to change your attitude and get a smile on that face.”

“Being stabbed with a q-tip wouldn’t make me smile.” Sara cocked her head to the side. “How would that even work?”

“Like I know or care.” She snapped and pointed to her chest. “Boobs.”

Why did they go through this inane activity before every one of Nika’s dates? “For the millionth time, your boobs are awesome. There’s no shirt out there you can wear to make them look bad.”

“Not true, chicklet. My sports bra gives me that uni-boob look.”

“Well…yeah. But that’s a bra, not a shirt.”

“I wear my sports bra like a shirt.”

Sara shook her head. “Then don’t wear your sports bra to the bowling alley and your boobs will be awesome.”

“Why would I wear that to go bowling? You really don’t make a lot of sense sometimes, Sare.”

Probably because the conversation was about to make her head explode. Well, that and the fact she was about to go on a date with some random guy when she wanted to be nestled in Michael Scofield’s arms.

“Why are the guys picking us up at my house?  We could have met them there.”

“I’m not stupid, Tancredi. You can tell me no and refuse to get in the car, but…”

“That’s because you drive like a Nascar driver on crack.”

Nika ignored her and continued. “But you’d never be rude to a total stranger by refusing to come to the door. I know you better than anyone.”

Not as well as she thought. Not anymore. “Look, I’ll play nice with this guy so I don’t ruin your date, but I really don’t want to be at the bowling alley for hours and hours.”

“I know. I know. You’ve got homework.” She put a fresh coat of gloss on her lips. “We’ll bowl a round or two, pretend to be impressed with their video game skills, eat a slice of pizza and head back. It’ll be fun.”

“If you say so.” It sounded more like Hell to Sara.

“They’re here. I just heard a car door.” She grinned. “I need a favor.”

“What now?”

“Answer the door so I can make an entrance coming down the stairs?”

Sara shook her head. This whole thing was crazy. Without a word, she shoved some cash into her pocket and left the room. It was going to be okay. She could handle anything for a few hours.

An alluring smile met her when she opened the door. “Hi. You must be Sara. I’m Fernando, but you can call me Sucre. Everybody does.” He extended his hand for a handshake and held it two beats longer than Sara thought was normal.

Did that mean he was her date? If so, Nika hadn’t been kidding. He was hot.

But he wasn’t Michael.

Nika flounced passed Sara and kissed Sucre on the cheek. “Hey, sexy.” She glanced over his shoulder to the car. “Where’s your friend?”

“Evan’s parents found his pot stash last night so he’s grounded until he turns 90.”

Sara tried not to let her relief show. “That’s okay. You two can go on without me.”

“No, if you don’t come, our teams will be uneven. One of the guys I work with at the video store is meeting us there.”

“Great!” Nika pulled Sara out of the way and closed the door. “Let’s get going.”

Hopefully the guy meeting them at the bowling alley wouldn’t be baked out of his mind like Nika’s first choice for her…

In a strange way, Nika’s choice in guys made sense. When you wanted to avoid having sex until marriage, dating losers made it easy to refrain. At least, it worked for Sara until Michael climbed through her window last night.

Uh-oh. Wrong line of thought. She could already feel her face growing warm just by thinking about being with Michael last night.

For a weekend, the bowling alley was quiet. They chose the lane against the wall to put plenty of distance between them and the children’s birthday party. Once shoes were on, Nika winked at Sara when Sucre wasn’t looking.

“I need to feel some balls. Think you can help me with that, Fernando?”

“Oh, I think I’m up to the task, mami.”

Sara cleared her throat. “So, uh…When’s your friend getting here.?”

“He was coming straight from work, but he should be here any minute now.” He flashed a dimpled grin. “But I can help you with all your ball feeling needs until he gets here.”

She didn’t know how to respond. “Um…I’m good. Thanks.”

“Just as well.” He shrugged. “Here he comes now.”

Great. She’d secretly hoped the guy would change his mind about the blind date and be a no-show. Rather than letting her disappointment show on her face, Sara turned her attention to the automated scoring terminal and started inputting the names she new. They’d already decided Nika and Sucre would play against Sara and the other guy.

“I hope you haven’t been waiting for too long. Bagwell took a long break and I had to cover for him until he got back.”

“What else is new? It’s not like he’s useful when he’s there. You’d think the guy only had one hand or something.” There was a pause. “You remember Nika from last night, right?”

“Yeah. It’s good to see you again.”

“You too. I’m really glad you could make it. Otherwise, Sara would be playing by herself.” Nika yanked her arm away from the terminal. “You can do that in a minute. I need to introduce you to someone.”

With reluctance, Sara turned around in her chair and realized she’d been wrong. She couldn’t handle this. Not even for a few hours.

Sara cleared her throat. “We’ve actually already met. We’re in the same criminal justice class.”

Continue Reading…

…Go back

~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Hey, y’all.

I just wanted to say a quick thank you for being so patient during the repost. I don’t check my website stats very often, but I finally thought about it today and took a look.  To say I was shocked by the amount of traffic hitting this site now would be an understatement. I know it could totally be the same peeps coming by a lot, but even still, it was a pleasant surprise to see readers visiting and hanging out for a bit.

Seriously, thank you all for sticking with me through the website change. It means a lot.

Just a few quick notes:

• Please hang in there while I get the links updated on the table of contents page and the next chapter/previous chapter links within the chapters themselves. Not a lot of time for coding right now…but it will get done.
• New posts will go live every Friday…Guaranteed.  If you haven’t already signed up for post notifications via email, I recommend you do so. Now that I’ve got the taste for fiction writing again, you never know when I’ll get a wild hair and toss in a few bonus chapters during the week to make up for all the time I wasn’t posting. (Remember, I don’t spam or sell your email address or…actually, I don’t do anything with the information. That’s totally FeedBurner’s job.)
• For anyone reading my suspense novel, new chapters of The Freelancer go live next week.

Hope you enjoyed the new chapter. More soon.