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Inside Out and check out Lauren Massey’s article in the Scene section. She was at Clementine’s, too, in the company of the beautiful and scary Michaela Correlli, local child advocate, and the divine Aurora Constable, proprietor of Lavender Field. Did I mention the blueberry-cheese croissants?

      Lorelei

      3

      AT THREE IN THE MORNING, Lauren uploaded “The Key to a Girl’s Heart” to Inside Out’s FTP site so the production team could transfer it into layout for this week’s issue. Lorelei’s blog was already posted, ready and waiting for the regulars on her bulletin boards to sign on with their morning latte and read about her experience at the key party. Having Lorelei reveal something as personal as not only going to a local party, but meeting someone there, was an unusual enough event that a couple of thousand hits and some lively traffic were guaranteed. And if even a small percentage of those people went out and bought the paper to read her article, the Q of P would leave her alone. Maybe for as long as a week.

      It was a good article. She might even be able to use it in her clip portfolio if she ever landed an interview at Left Coast.

      Left Coast.

      Josh.

      Lauren’s concentration shattered. Again.

      The locks rattled and Vivien slipped through the door, looking a little disheveled. Lauren glanced over her shoulder and smiled.

      “Hey, girl. Want a nightcap? Rory scored me some of the Chardonnay left over from the party. Not to mention two boxes of yummies from Lavender Field.”

      Viv smiled weakly. “No, thanks. I’m going to hurt enough in the morning as it is.”

      “It is morning.”

      “I rest my case.”

      “Poor baby.” Lauren shut down her laptop. “How’d it go?”

      Viv kicked off her high heels and reached around to unzip her dress. “I met someone.” She stepped out of the little turquoise-silk number and padded into her room to hang it up.

      “Did you? Your key partner? Damn, I should have waited. I could have used you for a before-and-after scenario.”

      “I did what you said.” Viv came back wrapped in her bathrobe and sank into one of their retro kitchen chairs upholstered in yellow vinyl. “I found someone who wasn’t looking for a female partner and traded my key for his lock. But it took some doing.” She sighed and cocked an eye in Lauren’s direction. “Life would be so much easier if you were a lesbian.”

      “Sweetie, you know we’d make a terrible couple. I’m hardly ever here, for starters.”

      “I know, I know. But my grandma likes you.”

      “One of these days you’re going to have to tell her.”

      Vivien laid her flushed cheek on the cool Formica-topped tabletop. “I can’t. She was born in Shandong province, as she never misses an opportunity to remind me. They don’t have gay people there, apparently. She’s still very traditional, and all her friends do nothing but talk about marrying off their kids and grandkids. The disgrace would kill her. Not to mention there’d be no hope of a great-grandson to make up for me being such a flop as a granddaughter.”

      Viv had come out in their senior year, a miserable year during which Lauren stuck by her through a heartbreaking romance, idealistic campus activism, and her growing inability to communicate frankly with the matriarch she both adored and feared. In Lauren’s view, good friends were a rare commodity. Once she gave her loyalty, it was given for good, and she and Vivien had come out on the other side of that year as women instead of girls.

      “It would end your having to go to the Saturday night suppers she sets up with eligible Chinese boys from good families,” Lauren pointed out gently.

      “Those dropped off after I started school again,” Viv said into the table. She lifted her head. “Grandma doesn’t want me to be a software geek like Dad, but it’s going to happen anyway. I think she’s giving up on that part.”

      “But you came out to him last year and he was fine with it. Maybe he could do the deed.”

      Viv sat up and leaned her chin on one hand. “It’s not Dad’s problem. I have to do it, and I can’t. But the alternative is waiting for her to die, and she’s in way too good a shape for that. She teaches Tai Chi to old people, for God’s sake.”

      “Seventy-two isn’t old?”

      “Not in her book.” Vivien sighed. “Maybe I’ll have some of that Chardonnay after all.”

      While Lauren uncorked the wine, Vivien told her about the girl she’d met and how they’d gone somewhere else for a quiet supper. Vivien took the glass and sipped gratefully. “So what about you? I saw some tall guy with a terrific butt move in on you but didn’t see the end result. No pun intended.”

      Lauren sank onto their secondhand couch with a sigh. The wine was excellent—much better than she could usually afford. Bless Rory’s heart for keeping an eye out for her.

      “The end result was orgasm. And a fine example of its kind, too.” The corners of her lips turned up in a smile at the memory.

      “What?” Viv clutched the lapels of her robe together and looked around a little wildly. “He’s not still here, is he?”

      “No, no.” Lauren waved her into her chair. “He’s never been here.” She grinned. “We never even left the restaurant.”

      Her roommate stared. “Tell all. And quick.”

      When Lauren finished the story, Vivian grabbed what was left of her glass of wine and drained it. “Do you mean to tell me—”

      “Yup.”

      “Right there in the—”

      “Yup.”

      “And then Maureen—”

      “Oh, yeah.”

      “But then what—”

      “All she saw was two people kissing in an empty room, and she took it as a personal triumph. Big success for the key party idea and all that.”

      “Do your sisters know about this?”

      After a moment Lauren admitted, “No.” Mikki would think it was a hoot, but Rory, though she embraced life with gusto in other ways, was cautious to a fault about relationships. Lauren wasn’t sure she wanted to hear what Rory thought of a man who could literally make a woman come with a kiss.

      “I tried calling her earlier, but I think I’m going to wait until things are a little further along before I say anything,” she said at last.

      “Speaking of a little further along… So that was it? He lights your rocket and then kisses you good-night? Where is he? Or maybe I should ask why you’re here?”

      Lauren had been asking herself that for the past two hours. The left side of her brain had been busy writing copy while everything else had been permeated with Josh—the scent of him, the heat, the way his hands had felt on her skin. Everything added up to one grand, orgasmic total. Lord only knew what would happen if they actually managed to make love somewhere horizontal.

      Vivien was still waiting for an answer.

      “I had to get this story in.”

      One of Viv’s eyebrows rose. “And this is a reason to not go home with someone you’ve actually had a chance to test drive first?”

      Lauren made a face at her. “Does your grandmother know you talk like this?”

      “Don’t try to distract me. Come on. ’Fess up.”

      She tried to arrange some words that would make sense and finally gave up. “I don’t know. I kind of freaked and took off afterward. I mean, he was like this tidal wave

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