Chapter One

Two mojitos later, Nicole admitted to herself she was feeling pretty good. As she looked around the club, her gaze caught the profile of a guy sitting at the bar involved in an animated conversation with an older man. The younger guy had striking, dark features, the kind that made you look twice, and a compelling energy about him. He seemed vaguely familiar, but Nicole couldn’t place him.

As she began to relax, the tension finally started to drain from her shoulders. Her day hadn’t started out so fabulous. Earlier she had been miserable when she had called her best friend, Annie. Nicole had just put her eight-year-old son, Josh, on a plane to New York to spend six weeks with his father on a movie set in Brooklyn.

“Why couldn’t my ex-husband have a boring, stable job that kept him in Los Angeles?” Nicole had said. “Like a mortician or an M&M sorter. Why does he have to travel around the world directing movies?”

“Somehow I can’t see your ex as a mortician, Nic. Besides, he always took his work home with him. Imagine if he were a mortician!”

Nicole made a weak attempt at a laugh.

“Look, you finally have a free night,” Annie had said. “It’s ladies’ night out. Why don’t you come with us? We’re going to Mojitos, the salsa club on Foothill Boulevard.”

“Oh Annie, I don’t think I’m up to it.”

“What are you going to do instead? Stay home and mope?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of getting into my pajamas and cleaning the house.” The vision of a shiny kitchen floor without muddy kid prints all over it flashed before her eyes. Nicole almost shivered in anticipation.

Annie wasn’t giving up. “When was the last time you went out and had some fun?”

“Madonna concert, 1987.”

Annie was silent. “You’re not serious,” she finally had said.

“Of course I’m not serious.” Although Nicole would be hard-pressed to remember the last time she went out with adults after eight p.m.

“Come for just an hour, Nic. Dance. Have a drink, and then leave if you want.”

Nicole had to admit it sounded a little more enticing than a gleaming floor. “I’m only staying for one drink.”

Baby steps. She’d take baby steps toward her temporary life as a single woman. It’d been six years since she’d assumed the role of single mother, and all her fun thus far had been rated G. Hell, she deserved to have a little fun.

She leaned back in her chair and watched the women on the dance floor. Some were wearing tight skirts with teasing slits up the side, while others wore seductive spaghetti-strap dresses adorned with rhinestones, sequins, and glitter. The men had on hip-hugging slacks and shiny dress shirts open at the neck. Some men’s shirts were even wide open to their waists, revealing a smoothness of skin or curling hair that traveled down, down…

“Hey Nic, you up for another mojito?” Wanda shouted from across the table.

Wanda was like a watermelon—round and juicy, with a thick, brash rind, but sweet, fleshy center. She was married to her high-school sweetheart, had three kids under the age of ten, and enjoyed discussing sex as easily as one discusses dinner plans.

“Sure, why not?” Nicole shouted back.

Annie cheered. “You go, girl! Now that we’ve got you drinking, let’s get you dancing.” She scanned the room with her eyes. “Where’s our token male?”

Paulina, sitting to Annie’s left, quickly shushed her. “He’s three tables over, in a frighteningly orange shirt. Please do not call him over or my retinas will be scorched.”

“Don’t be such a sourpuss, Paulina,” Wanda said. “Ricky’s like a peacock, trying to attract you with his colors.”

No one could blame him for being head over heels for Paulina. She had a face that made men remove their wedding bands within five minutes of meeting her. Annie had referred Nicole to her about a year ago when she had wanted her eyebrows shaped. Paulina was Annie’s aesthetician and waxer extraordinaire.

“How many waxers do you know who can do a Brazilian in less than half an hour?” Annie had said, in the same tone of voice as a mom bragging about her gifted child.

“I’ve never had one done,” Nicole told her. “I’m kind of attached to my pubic hair.”

Annie leaned into her. “You don’t know what you’re missing. Talk about heightened sensations.”

“You mean the ‘my hair is being ripped from my tender labia sensation,’ or ‘this pain rivals the pain of childbirth sensation’?”

“I am talking about the sensations when a guy goes down on you.”

“The only one that has gone down there lately is my gynecologist.”

And Annie, always the optimist, had merely laughed and said, “You never know when things might change.”

As if by mentioning his name, Annie had willed Ricky to notice them and swagger over.

“I must say I am dazzled by all the beauty sitting at this one table,” he said, allowing his eyes to linger on each woman before settling them firmly on Paulina. “Here I am. What are your other two wishes?”

Paulina rolled her eyes and turned away while Annie said, “I want you to meet Nicole.”

He sauntered over to Nicole, took her hand and raised it to his lips. His gentle kiss both surprised and charmed her. “Ricky Z,” he said, without letting her hand go.

“What’s the Z for?” Nicole asked.

“My full name is Ricardo Felipe Fernandez Zaverjelos,” he explained, with the slightest hint of an accent. “Which would you rather pronounce?”

“Got it,” she told him, wondering if she’d ever get her hand back.

“Although I am sure anything uttered from your lovely lips would be most delectable.”

Nicole jerked her hand back and whispered to Annie, “Is he for real?”

“Come on, Casanova,” Wanda said, getting up from her chair. “You and me on the dance floor, now.”

“My pleasure, señorita.” Ricky held out his arm for Wanda, which she readily embraced as he led her away.

“He’s harmless,” Annie reassured Nicole. “Really, except for the loud shirts.”

“He kind of reminds me of a sexy used car salesman, if there is such a thing.”

“He’s annoying,” Paulina said.

Annie reached for a tortilla chip. “Ricky’s got it bad for Paulina.”

“Oh. Well, he seems nice,” Nicole said, as Paulina grunted.

“He is. That’s why we call him ‘our token male,’” Annie said, crunching on her chip. “He’s always at this club, so when one of us needs a dance partner…”

“…or we’re trapped by a man we don’t want to be talking to,” Paulina added.

Annie nodded. “I can’t count how many times Ricky has saved me from conversations going nowhere with dudleys I couldn’t get away from.”

“Speaking of dudleys,” Paulina said, “how was your date the other night?”

Nicole braced herself for the details. Annie’s dates were notoriously disastrous. She certainly went out on enough of them. In the seven years Nicole had known her, Annie had never had a relationship last longer than six months. Something always went wrong, and she was back on the prowl again.

“You mean the one who insisted I meet him at the restaurant? Go ahead and ask why he insisted I meet him at the restaurant.”

“I’ll take this one,” Nicole told Paulina. “Annie, why did he insist on meeting you at the restaurant?” She grinned.

“He met me at the restaurant because he takes taxis everywhere. Ask me why.”

Nicole looked over at Paulina, barely able to contain her laughter. “I got it,” Paulina said to Nicole. “Why, Annie?”

“Because he has three DUIs, that’s why!” Annie shook her head in amazement. “Mind you, he let me know all this while on his fourth gin and tonic.”

Paulina and Nicole burst out laughing. “Go ahead and laugh,” Annie said. “I’m glad someone finds my miserable dating life so funny.”

Nicole put her arm around Annie’s shoulder and hugged her. “Annie, I’m sorry, but you do have the worst luck when it comes to dating.”

“I do, don’t I? Maybe if I looked like Paulina, I wouldn’t have so many problems.”

“Oh, please,” Paulina said, shaking her head. “Everybody has problems when it comes to dating.”

“Even you?” Nicole asked, not quite able to believe a woman so beautiful could have any problems with men.”

“Especially me,” Paulina said cryptically, and left it at that.

They watched Wanda and Ricky dance. An extra fifty pounds didn’t stop Wanda from dancing effortlessly.

“Are you going to dance, Paulina?” Nicole asked her.

She shook her head. “I’m not a salsa dancer. I don’t like to touch when I dance. I need freedom to be able to move.”

Annie snorted. “In other words, you’re a control freak and you don’t like the man to lead.”

“Ha-ha, very funny.” Paulina thought for a moment. “I never thought of it like that, but you’re right.”

“Nicole was the one who made me take salsa lessons with her in the first place,” Annie said.

“Have you ever danced salsa outside of the classroom?” Paulina asked Nicole.

“No,” she answered weakly. It was embarrassing, but true.

“Then what was the point to all those lessons?” Annie said.

Nicole smiled proudly. “To lose twenty pounds of Prozac weight, which I did, thank you very much.”

“Good for you.” Paulina nodded.

Wanda returned to the table, looking flushed and exhilarated. “Any man that can move his hips like that has got to be amazing in bed.”

“Do you really think there’s a correlation between the two?” Nicole asked.

“Oh honey, absolutely,” she said, fanning herself with her napkin. “I would bet my firstborn on it.”

“What about your husband?” Paulina said, raising her eyebrows. “Can he dance?”

Wanda took a long sip of her drink. “Larry has two left feet. But thank God he’s trainable.”

“Let me get this straight,” Annie said. “You can be a lousy dancer, yet learn to be a good lover, but if you’re already a good dancer it’s guaranteed you’ll be a good lover?”

“Exactly!” Wanda said, smacking her hand on the table so loudly it made Nicole jump.

Paulina didn’t seem to buy it. “Has this theory ever been tested?”

“Do tell,” Nicole urged, giddy from mojitos and female camaraderie.

“In my dreams it has,” Wanda said, with a face so serious you knew she wasn’t kidding. “Some of them are so steamy they come with a disclaimer attached.”

Annie sighed. “I’m lucky if mine are rated PG-13.”

Wanda looked past Nicole’s shoulder and then gave her a wicked smile. “Why don’t we have Nicole test out my little theory. There’s a hottie over there that’s been scoping her out for the last ten minutes,” she said, tipping her head toward the bar.

Paulina, Annie, and Nicole immediately whipped their heads around to see the alleged hottie.

“Oh, that’s real subtle, ladies.”

“Hottie? Scoping? What are we, seventeen?” Nicole said, scanning the assortment of males. “Wait, let me guess—the short, balding man with the flushed face?”

“He does seem to be looking our way,” Annie said. “You can have him, Nic.”

“Actually, he’s a client of mine,” Paulina said, turning back toward the table. “I wax his back.”

“No, no, no,” said Wanda, excitement making her voice rise a notch. “I’m seeing tall, I’m seeing dark, and I’m seeing delicious.”

Annie patted her friend’s back. “Careful, Wanda, you’re salivating all over what little you have of the front of your dress.”

“Just because I’m married doesn’t mean I can’t admire.”

The “hottie” was the good-looking guy Nicole had noticed earlier. Now that she was able to see him full frontal, she realized why he had looked so familiar. She turned back around and drained the last of her mojito. “If you’re talking about the guy in the black shirt, I know him. He’s my neighbor.”

Wanda’s eyes grew wide. “That hot man lives next to you?”

“Technically, he isn’t my neighbor. His mother is. He doesn’t—”

“Does this he have a name?” Annie interrupted.

“William doesn’t actually live there with her,” Nicole clarified.

“Then how is it you happen to know this man’s name?” Paulina said.

“He’s not even a man. He’s a boy.”

Wanda looked toward the bar and slowly raised one eyebrow. “Honey, I don’t see anything boy about him. I see all man.”

The cocktail waitress approached their table and set down fresh drinks for each of them. “Compliments from the man at the bar.”

“The short, bald one?” Paulina asked.

“No, the hot one in black,” said the waitress.

Wanda raised her glass to William to say thank you. He smiled and nodded. “And he’s a gentleman to boot,” she said, without taking her eyes off him.

“How young is this man-boy, exactly?” Annie said.

“Looks mid-twenties to me,” Paulina guessed.

Nicole had to admit she didn’t know. They had only spoken briefly in passing. Which is not to say she hadn’t noticed how attractive he was. Oh, she had noticed, all right. The first time Nicole ever laid eyes on him she was on her way to get the mail and he was outside of his mother’s condo in a tight tank top washing his car—a luxury sedan the color of fine merlot. She was a sucker for a man with a nice car, and this vehicle looked as if it slept at night swaddled in down comforters.

She hadn’t meant to stare, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from this beautiful, sexy guy with skin that made her think of grade A maple syrup. He soaped up his sponge and ran it over the hood, the roof, and all four doors. He rubbed lightly as he went, his muscles flexing and his tendons straining with each action.

What is the matter with me? Nicole asked herself, shaking her head. She looked down and focused on the task of retrieving her mail. I’m forty-one years old, for God’s sake. When did I become a dirty old woman who lusts after men half her age?

She sorted through her mail, refusing to look up even when she heard the hose turn on. To add insult to injury, there was a catalog with her name on it entitled Change of Life. An entire catalog devoted to menopause. Pills to enhance libido, gels to increase lubrication, herbs to calm mood swings.

Can somebody please shoot me now before I have to go through all this?

Nicole looked up. Might as well get in one last gander before her vagina shriveled up like an old discarded sponge.

He was drying the car as if it were his baby. Caressing it, stroking it until it shined, no part left untouched, right down to the alloy wheels. She wondered if such thoroughness and attention to detail carried over into other activities in his life as well.

Nicole turned to leave, deciding she had had her fill of more than enough eye candy stimulation to last her throughout the week. Her movement must have caught his eye, because he suddenly glanced up from his crouched position. His eyes slowly traveled up her entire body and Nicole felt herself blushing like some Catholic schoolgirl. He smiled a confident, almost cocky smile, and then he winked.

He winked at her.

An awkward wave was all she could manage. She quickly made her way home, clutching the mail tightly to her chest and praying her menopausal catalog had been hidden from his view.

“I’ll bet he’s a good dancer,” Wanda said dreamily, breaking into Nicole’s flashback. “And you do have the summer ahead of you. Why not jump on the horse, so to speak?”

“First of all, I have no desire to ride a horse,” Nicole said with a smile, “and second of all, said horse is just a pony, so to speak.”

Wanda finally focused her gaze on Nicole. “Exactly how long has it been since you’ve been in the saddle?”

How long had it been? There had been no one since Stephen, and their divorce was going on five years. There had been virtually no sex between them for the last six months of their deteriorating marriage, unless you counted angry, resentment-filled I-can’t-stand-to-look-at-you-so-why-am-I-having-sex-with-you sex. Technically it had been five and a half years.

“Five and a half years,” Nicole said, cringing slightly. It sounded so much worse when she said it aloud.

There was silence all around. Six disbelieving mascara-laden eyes stared at her.

“What! I’m a single mother working full-time, with no help from anyone whatsoever. When would I possibly have found the time, much less the energy to date?”

“Oh, honey, how do you function?” Wanda said, her voice dripping with pity.

Annie threw Wanda a sharp look. “What she means, Nic, is maybe it’s time to focus on yourself and your needs.”

“I don’t have needs anymore. I gave them up in the delivery room along with my modesty.”

“Look, no one knows better than I do how noble a job it is to be a mother, what with three rug-rats of my own and being a stay-at-home mom,” Wanda said. “I was always putting my kids’ needs before my own. I was also worn out and irritable all the time.”

“Trust me, she was,” Paulina said.

“I had zero sex drive. I started to put on weight. I went to sleep when my kids did. I never wanted to go out with my husband, because I didn’t want to leave the kids. Is it any surprise my marriage took a complete nosedive?”

Nicole stared at Wanda, open-mouthed. What she had just described could have been a page ripped from Nicole’s own diary after Josh was born.

“Answer this, Nicole. How was your son today at the airport?”

“What do you mean ‘how was he?’”

“I mean, was he anxious and nervous about leaving you, or excited, like he couldn’t wait to start his big adventure?”

Nicole remembered when the announcement she had been dreading all morning finally came: pre-boarding for anyone needing assistance, including unaccompanied minors. Josh had shot up like his pants were on fire.

“Well, I’ll sure miss you too,” Nicole had said drily, wishing she felt a little of her son’s obvious enthusiasm.

“I’ve never been out of California before. I’m excited. New York is soooo far away from here.” He hoisted his backpack onto his thin shoulders and started to make his way to the gate.

Nicole followed, trying to quell the separation anxiety she was already feeling.

What was she going to do without her son for almost an entire summer? She had no significant other. Josh was her significant other. They’d never been away from each other for longer than four days.

Many would argue this was a good thing for Josh, a healthy step toward independence. If Nicole had her way she’d keep her son swaddled tightly in a blanket close to her for the rest of her life. Of course, she’d have to let him loose to attend therapy, but still…

Nicole looked at Wanda and sighed. “Let’s just say he couldn’t wait to reach the portal that would lead him to freedom.”

“It’s time to cut the cord, Nic. Plenty of divorced mothers everywhere are forced to deal with their kids leaving them every weekend, or every holiday and summer. It’s just something you have to get used to.”

“You mean like the frown lines staring back at me in the mirror and slowed metabolism after forty?”

Annie laughed. “Tell me about it.”

“So what happened?” Nicole asked Wanda. “How did you cut the cord?”

“Ladies’ night out is what changed me. I didn’t come willingly at first. I had to be persuaded. This one over here”—she pointed at Annie—“doesn’t take no for an answer. But I’m glad I listened to her, because now I have one evening out of the week when I am nobody’s mother or wife. Just Wanda Woman.”

“You sound like some religious fanatic,” Paulina said.

“She’s right, you know,” Nicole said. “I don’t remember what I used to enjoy doing before I became a mother. The memory of myself as a woman is vague. I do seem to recall enjoying sex back in the day.”

“Why not start dating again?” Paulina said, even though ever since her own divorce three years earlier she never once had mentioned whether she was dating.

“I can coach you,” Annie told her. “After many years of experience, I’m considered an expert in the field.”

Just the idea of dating sent shockwaves of terror through Nicole. Dating required an entire portion of her brain that had been shut down a long time ago. Details like what to wear on a date, subjects to talk about on a date, should you kiss on a first date had all been replaced with child-rearing details: what to wear to work the next day when you’ve been up all night with a sick child and you only have five minutes to get dressed, watching one’s language unless you want the f-bomb peppering every single one of your child’s sentences, and figuring out what age is no longer appropriate for your child to see you naked. Hardly romantic stuff.

“I don’t think I’m ready to date. Getting highlights is about as much adventure as I can stand.” Her hand self-consciously raked through her previously bland, now-highlighted brown hair. “I actually have lots of stuff planned for these next six weeks. I want to work in my garden. There’s a long list of movies and books to catch up on. I can spend more time with my nana—”

Wanda interrupted her with a huge yawn. “Sorry, you lost me after ‘garden.’”

“If Nicole’s not ready, she’s not ready,” Paulina said.

“How long did it take you to start dating again after your divorce, Paulina?” Annie asked.

“Everybody’s different,” Paulina said, with a wave of her hand. They stared at her until she answered. “Okay, two months.”

Nicole covered her face with her hands. “What is wrong with me?”

“Use it or lose it, honey,” Wanda said. “Remember, you’re a woman first and a mother second. Now’s the time to rediscover that.” Wanda took a sharp intake of breath. “And here comes the archeologist who can uncover your hidden treasure, so to speak.”