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And she’d slept like a rock. The moment her head had hit the pillow, she was out.
Funny how having answers, as difficult as they were to hear, gave her peace.
Though there was a brief moment that morning right before she came around the side of the building and saw his car where she worried he’d be gone again.
She wondered if she’d always have a little bit of fear first when it came to André. An apprehension. That seemed expected but she wished it wasn’t.
Her phone lit up with a new text and she read it while hanging her bag on the copper coat rack in the corner of the lounge.
Z: I have the weekend off.
NIKKI: Come to Chicago
Zara replied with aBlues Brothersgif.
Nikki snorted.
Who was this woman?
The more time they spent together, the more Nikki was convinced that Zara Lorna was a super dork trapped in a pop star’s body.
She didn’t hate it.
A low whistle brought her head up. She turned the screen off on her phone and put it facedown on the high table.
Johnny stood in the doorway.
It wasn’t like she didn’t want to tell Johnny what she was working on with Zara. She did! She just couldn’t yet.
“So is this your office for the rest of the summer?” he asked.
“Looks like it.” Nikki adjusted her computer keyboard and surveyed her new “desk.”
André had set it up almost exactly how she had it in the other room. Right down to the Post-its scribbled with notes she no longer needed.
“He was in here early this morning comparing photos on his phone to make sure he hadn’t missed anything.”
“That’s…a lot,” she muttered.
“Do you want me to kick him out?” Johnny asked. “I have a couple cousins who can be very menacing. And an auntie that will make him rethink all his life decisions.”
“No.” Nikki chuckled. “We talked last night and cleared the air.” She smiled, remembering the long hug that had seemed to put them both back together. “I think we might even be friends now.”
Johnny tilted his head to the side and lifted his eyebrows. “Well, you’re the best kind of friend someone could have. So I hope for his sake, that’s true.”
The compliment hit Nikki in the heart and spread throughout her body. “Thanks, Johnny,” she murmured.
He waved it off, like he would, and left her to do her job.
Which was so much easier to do for some reason.
It was mostly administrative stuff. She had to schedule a few commercial clients and show Asa how to access the scheduling app (again). And she also had to plug in a secret session with Zara that needed to be “on the books” but not really.
Every time she looked up, her eyes were met with the beauty of the lounge André had built. It kept her refreshed and inspired.
Sometime in the afternoon Sunshine Capone showed up at her door.
“There’s the second-smartest woman I know.”
