Leaving Annalise (Katie & Annalise Book 2) by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

parts.”
    I squirted Pantene conditioner into my hand and rubbed it into my hair, only noticing my mistake when it didn’t lather. I stuck my head under the water. “Oh my God, Ava, he came to see me and he’s really sorry and the only reason it took so long is because of the baby, but maybe it will be different whenever he can get rid of it—”
    “Baby? Somebody getting rid of his baby?” Ava shrieked.
    “No, not getting rid of like getting rid of. I meant when the baby leaves, because right now the baby is living with him.” I rubbed shampoo into my brillo-pad hair and started scrubbing.
    Ava ripped the shower curtain open. She was still in the hot pink silk teddy that she wore like a housedress. Her voice shot up an octave. “You pining over this man who make a brand new baby with another woman and that OK with you? What wrong with you, Katie?” She planted her small hands on her hips and cocked her head.
    I snapped the shower curtain shut. “No, you’ve got it all wrong.”
    “I only got what you tell me.”
    “Let me try again.”
    “I listening.”
    “Nick’s little sister and her baby moved in with him last year to get away from the baby’s dad, because he had just gotten out of jail. So Nick’s life was really complicated, and it still is, but he said his heart stops when I walk in a room, so he had to come.”
    Silence from outside the shower. I took advantage of the break in Ava’s inquisition to rinse out the shampoo and try the conditioner again.
    Finally, Ava spoke, her voice lower. “You believe him?”
    “Yes, of course. What, you think he’s lying to me?”
    “I don’t know the man. That’s why I asking you.” She opened the shower curtain again and I realized I was not going to win a battle over my modesty with Ava. She leaned so close the water beaded on her face. “You got it bad for him. He hurt you once. What make you think he won’t again, and here you go throwing a perfectly good fish back in the sea only to end up with one that rotten in the head.”
    “Nick is not a rotten-headed fish, Ava.”
    “You know what I mean.”
    “I do. And he’s not. And, besides,” I said as I turned my face away and squirted shaving cream on my leg, “I have had six orgasms since I saw you last night, and that has to count for something.”
    I’d just thought Ava was shrieking before.
    “Six? Six? That man give you six orgasms? Where he staying? What his room number?”
    I threw a handful of shaving cream at her, then switched legs. “I’m considering never letting the two of you meet again.”
    “What you doing here, then? Hurry, hurry.”
    “So, now that you know what the emergency is, could you please help me pack a just-in-case overnight bag and quit badgering me?”
    “I got just the thing for you to wear,” she said, and sprinted out of the room, muttering, “I never had six. Six? Six?”
    I finished my shower and threw on a robe, then packed overnight essentials and padded wet-footed into my bedroom. Ava had already thrown every garment I owned onto my bed, and most of her stuff, too. Poco Oso was running in and out of the closet, feeding off the excitement in the air. Ava rattled off outfit advice that was nearly as worthless as Oso’s help.
    “This one work real well for me,” she said, holding up a black mesh body stocking. I shook my head violently. She shrugged, wadded it in a ball, and tossed it toward her room. It landed ten feet short of her door.
    I held up a zebra tube top and shirred black satin miniskirt accusingly. “I couldn’t pull this off in a million years. On you, it shoots sparks. On me, it’s just awkward.”
    She harrumphed and threw it on the floor. By the time we’d agreed on my clothes and sleepwear, my canvas overnight bag was bulging. I’d have to hide it in the toolbox, as it screamed “desperate woman making premature assumptions.”
    I slipped on my favorite pair of tan linen shorts and a lime-green tank and looked around my room. I