LITMIR.BIZ

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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.

      Not even coffee.

      Instead, her neighbor Candy Cane stood in the doorway looking well turned out—as usual—in full makeup, teased blond hair, and pink-and-red kimono robe, likely just having returned home from a busy night walking the strip.

      “Oh, it’s you,” Mallory said.

      Candy flashed her a smile. Somewhere around forty, Candy was a prostitute who never made any apologies about who she was or what she did for a living. Mallory liked that about her.

      Unfortunately she was also an early riser; something Mallory didn’t like.

      “Sugar?” Candy asked, dangling an empty porcelain coffee cup from one perfectly manicured finger.

      “Filters?” Mallory returned.

      “Who’s there?” Layla asked over the phone.

      “Candy. Just a second,” Mallory answered then dropped the receiver to her side. “I’ll trade you sugar for a coffee filter.”

      Candy scrunched up her nose, making her look cuter if that were at all possible. “I don’t touch the stuff. Do you know what it does to your skin?”

      “I don’t care what it does to my skin. I just care that it wakes me up.”

      Candy shook her head, walked through to the kitchen, got her sugar, then was standing in the doorway again in no time. “Thanks, hon,” she said with a large smile. “And maybe you should think about some of that instant flavored stuff. I like that.”

      Mallory shook her own head then slammed the door after her. What kind of person didn’t drink coffee?

      Then again, what kind of hooker took in every kind of stray imaginable, both of the animal and human variety?

      “Mallory? Mallory? Are you still there?”

      Oops. Layla.

      She lifted the receiver back to her ear. What had she been saying? Oh, yeah, they’d been discussing meeting up at Reilly’s to help Layla make it through the day of her cancelled wedding. “I’m still here. And what you just said about everyone finding out on their own steam? Well, you sound like the Layla I know and love again already.”

      Mallory’s gaze traveled around her apartment. Newspapers, her plastic-wrapped bridesmaid dress, the panty hose to go with it.

      Panty hose…

      She picked up the square package, a nagging voice at the back of her mind telling her that maybe she shouldn’t. What? she answered. There was no wedding, so she didn’t need them anyway.

      She tore open the plastic, yanked out the silky stockings then headed back for the kitchen.

      “You always make sense,” Layla said. “I knew there was a reason I called you.”

      Mallory grimaced. Whatever that meant. She got a pair of scissors out of a drawer and cut the foot out of one of the stockings. With help from a rubber band, she fastened the makeshift filter to the holder then dumped the coffee grounds in.

      “So I’ll see you at Reilly’s in a few, then?” Mallory asked.

      “Got it,” Layla confirmed.

      Mallory clicked the disconnect button then put the cell down on the counter and stared as the coffeemaker gurgled then spat out her one precious cup of caffeine. Her gaze drifted back to the cell phone. She picked it up and pressed a speed dial number.

      ACROSS THE WAY IN Culver City, Jack sat at his narrow kitchen table in a pair of jeans and leisurely drank a cup of coffee, his ten-year-old bloodhound at his feet, the morning newspaper in his hand. As far as apartments went, his wasn’t much bigger than Mallory’s. But it was much better organized. And a great deal neater. If there was one thing he hated about Mallory, it was her housekeeping skills. Or lack thereof.

      No good. The negative reflection wasn’t enough to chase from his mind the memory of her face as she reached orgasm in the linen closet last night.

      Damn.

      He glanced over the paper at the calendar on the wall with the number 26 circled in red indicating the deadline for his January column, then rustled the paper back to block it again.

      What was Mallory doing right now?

      He frowned. Probably sleeping. Probably thinking everything was still right as rain between them. Probably choosing to forget the entire conversation they’d had the night before.

      He rustled the paper again, trying to make himself focus on the words, but he couldn’t seem to link more than two of them together, and two words didn’t make a sentence. Or a whole lot of sense for that matter.

      Boomer lifted his head to stare at him with his droopy eyes and then whined.

      “What is it, B?” Jack glanced over at the dog’s full food and water bowls, then looked at the newspaper again. Boomer sighed heavily then laid his head back down.

      At ten years of age—which was ancient for a bloodhound—the dog was becoming increasingly lazier. If that was even possible. One morning Jack had actually timed him and the dog hadn’t moved in five straight hours. Not to eat. Not to use the dog door to

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