Page 140 of Perfect Satisfaction

September

I hug the raven-haired woman closewhen she stands from the table she’s sitting at. “Likitha.”

She rolls her eyes. “You’re such a pain in the ass, Arek. One day you’ll grow up.”

I sit across from her, eyeing her beauty for just a moment. Some might be intimidated by the devastating looks of the woman, but to me? They don’t mean much, they never have.

Untucking my napkin and draping it over my lap, I challenge her, “But why would I want to do something like that?”

“So you don’t annoy me?”

“Now, Liza, when has that ever been my goal in life?” I aim a cocky grin at my best friend.

Likitha “Liza” Hina shoots me a dazzling smile, the smile that has graced magazine covers. Those same lips have pouted on runways. The gangly girl who didn’t have a prom date in our hometown in Massachusetts grew into a ridiculously beautiful woman.

Lifting the menu, I peer over the top into depthless black eyes. “How is your sister?”

Liza’s smile is luminescent. “Kendra is wonderful. She’s filming for a few weeks, so I have the kids. She sends her love.”

“Mine back to her, of course.”

“I had no doubt.”

I lean forward and pretend to give her some modeling advice. “Now, see? If you smiled like that, I bet you could double your fee. Then you wouldn’t look like such a hag on those covers.”

Liza’s balloon of bliss pops and she whacks me over the head with her menu. Then she looks around in horror. “Good god, Arek. Stop making me act like we’re fourteen. We’re in Tavern on the Green.”

I wave off her fears. “Relax. I’ve eaten here often enough that I’ve seen people do much worse.”

She rolls her eyes. “Then reported on it.”

“Not all of us have legs that stretch to our armpits,” I start but have to duck as her roll comes flying across the table at me. Fortunately, I catch it mid-air before it hits the patrons behind us. I put it to my lips and take a bite. “Thanks, Likitha. I was hungry.”

“You are ridiculous.”

I murmur quietly, “Ridiculously in love.”

Not quietly enough. Like a hungry wolf, Liza snaps up those words like they’re fresh meat. “Care to repeat that?”

Miraculously, a waiter appears and Liza looks ready to beat the crap out of the poor man with her water goblet.

“Let’s order and then we can talk,” I suggest if only to save the poor man from being maimed. I surreptitiously wink at Liza as I rub my shoulder, remembering all the nights she’d punch me after I said something truly obnoxious to her—as only best friends can do.

We place our orders. After, Liza reluctantly hands over her menu. I can’t restrain my smirk, knowing she wants to hold onto it so she can try to beat me later. “It’s okay, Liza. There are other things to hit me with.”

Her eyes narrow in a promise of retribution.

When we’re alone again, she doesn’t even wait for me to take a sip of water. She just demands, “Now, repeat what you said about being ridiculously in love? I hope you mean with your wife.”

I relax against the wingback chair and study her. Early on in my living arrangement with Sula, I told Liza something was “off between her and Basset.”

That was all it took. She called her lover. From that moment on, I’ve received advice that includes “you’re being a stubborn ass” to “listen with your heart” and finally “stop tripping over your own ego. She has reasons.” This leads me to believe she knows all about what’s happening from the opposite end of our situation.

When I called to ask her to lunch, informing her I knew about West Moore’s machinations, she was overwhelmed with joy. “Good, she spoke of it to you. Now, don’t fuck up, Arek.”

Then she lectured for twenty minutes about causing her to use the word fuck in front of her nieces.

“I was an idiot. You were right,” I admit.