Page 13 of About Last Night

"Marie, thank God. Where are you?"

"I just walked into the apartment. I stopped on the way home from Greg's to pick up pineapple juice. Why aren't you, um,busy?"

"Because Steve's not here."

"What? But he answered the phone when you called."

"No, hisBest Mananswered the phone. Steve gave the guy his room because the man was sick and didn't feel like going out with everyone else." She waited for the revelation to sink in and was rewarded with a gasp.

"You mean, you greeted the Best Man wearing that pink getup?"

Janine relived her humiliation yet again. "Noooooo. I mean, I crawled into bed with the Best Man wearing this pink getup."

For once, she had achieved the impossible—Marie was struck speechless.

"Marie, are you there?"

"Are you saying—" her sister make a strangled noise "—that you put a stroke on the Best Man?"

"No! We sort of realized the mistake, Marie."

"At what point?"

Janine remembered the kiss and experienced her first all-body blush—not completely unpleasant—then leaned against the enclosure. "My virtue is intact."

"See, exciting things do happen to you."

"Really?Humiliatingwas the first word that came to my mind."

"Isn't your Best Man that dreamy Jack Stillman?"

"He was. But Jack is AWOL, so Steve asked Jack's brother, Derek, to stand in."

"Is he gorgeous too? And single?"

Her head had started to throb again. "Marie, I didn't call to discuss the Stillman gene pool. I called to see if you would come to pick me up. I left my purse under the front seat of your car, and I have no money and no key."

"Well, sure I'll come back, but don't you want to wait for Steve?"

"I don't think so." She wasn't sure she could go through with her plan to seduce Steve with the memory of another man's mouth on hers so fresh in her mind.

"You lost your buzz, ergo your nerve."

"Well—"

"Janine, if you come home, you won't be any closer to the answer you went for."

The sick feeling of anguish settled in her stomach again, but she appreciated her sister's objectivity, quirky as it was. "You're right, but Derek said the guys are supposed to be out all night."

"Okay, so you wait in Steve's room until morning." Marie laughed. "That is, unless you think he won't do it in the daylight."

Janine tried to smile, but she felt too disjointed to respond.

"Oh, wait," her sister said. "You said that the Best Man is staying in Steve's room."

"No," Janine said morosely. "He left."

"Left to go to another hotel?"

---