Even though nobody is looking at her, and of course nobody can hear the question, Nicola flushes. “Pretty good.”
“That’s it?” Reina sounds doubtful. “No kids, you’re riding around an island in a Tesla, and sex that’s ‘pretty good’ is all you can manage? Honey, I thought I raised you better than that.”
“Okay,” Nicola admits. She thinks of Jack’s long, cool fingers on her ribs, his lips on her neck, and elsewhere. She thinks of kissing at North Light, and how they could barely get back to the cottage and take their clothes off fast enough. “Better than pretty good.”
Sex with Jack is so different from sex with Zachary: more urgent, more unpredictable, more frequent. More confusing? Sure. That too. “Would you go so far as to sayamazing?” asks Reina.
“I would go that far,” Nicola concedes. “I might go further.”
She hears Reina suck in her breath. “Yesssss, queen. That’s more like it.”
Then Reina asks, “Did you google Jack? You should google him.”
“Of course I googled him!”
“And?”
“Lots of pictures of him playing golf in a visor.”
“But did you deep-dive google him, to find the skeletons?” Reina has a degree in journalism. She’s really good. Before she had Mia she was working at theWall Street Journal, and she’s going to go back, she reminds Nicola often, as soon as Cooper is a little older.
“No.”
“Want me to do it for you?”
“No,” Nicola says. Then, immediately, “Sure. Okay.”
“A caper!” Reina says.
“I don’t think this qualifies as a caper.”
“A project!” she says, in the exact same manner.
“But don’t tell me if you find anything really bad.”
“I most certainlywilltell you if I find something really bad,” says Reina.
But Nicola feels suddenly uneasy. “You know what? Never mind.”
“Never mind what?”
“Don’t do the deep dive. I’m going to stick with the shallow one.”
“Yeah?” Reina sounds doubtful. “You sure?”
“I’m sure.” Is she sure? No. “I’m sure,” she says again, as much to convince herself as to convince Reina.
“Okay. In that case, don’t overthink it. You don’t want to get yourself in another Zachary situation.”
“I definitely don’t want to do that.”
“I’m trying not to be jealous. Here’s me, leaking through my bra, sixteen pounds overweight, and thereyouare, fabulous as ever in a bikini, those killer abs, sex—”
“Stop,” says Nicola. “I’m currently in a polo.” (She does have killer abs, though; it’s genetic. Her sisters have them too. No boobs.That’s their trade-off.) “You wouldn’t give up that for this, Reina. Are you forgetting that I am broke and technically single?”
She laughs. “Most days, I concede that,” she says. “But every now and then...”
Mia’s bright, clear voice slices the conversation in two. “Mommy! Mommymommymommy. There’ssticky juiceon the iPad.”
