What A Girl Wants Read Free Page B

What’d I miss?” Suz pulled a napkin out of the canister on the table and stuck it down her shirt.
    Poor, poor Suz. Hayley looked jealously at her friend’s rather spectacular endowments. All that cleavage—it must be like a wading pool in her bra. “Hey, Suz. We ordered your usual.”
    Audra cut to the chase. “Hayley’s got quite the tale of murder and sexual intrigue.”
    â€œExperienced that myself last night. A thousand guys in a dark bar grabbing my ass and me wanting to kill them all.” Suz jammed her fork into the pile of pancakes in front of her, ignoring Audra’s wince when the fruit garnish skidded off her plate. Well, that was Suz, all right; she did just about everything with maximum . . . robustness.
    Diane looked up. “I thought you were enjoying that gig as the Johnny Beer girl.”
    â€œGig’s fine,” Suz said. “Just a little tired of the same guys week after week.” Suz’s original goals for putting her mass communications degree to good use had nothing to do with being able to flirt simultaneously with large groups of men in bars. However, over the past several years, she had turned the oft-disparaged occupation of “bar promotions girl” into an art form. In fact, she did so well on tips and commissions that she regularly forgot she was supposed to be looking for a “real” job.
    Suz shoveled another bite into her mouth and chewed. “You know how it is. Guys are like glow sticks. Put the stick in yourhand. Shake it just right. Light goes on. Everybody has fun. Then it’s used up. Time to find new fun. Know what I mean?”
    â€œShar-peis and glow sticks.” Hayley turned to Audra. “I can see why you’re hesitant to stoop to the B-list. In any case, I think you should know that it wasn’t a story. It’s true what I said. I found the senior copy editor, Fred Leary, dead on Friday, and when the investigating detective came to question me, we ended up. . .you know . . . we ended up getting a little, uh, a little . . . ‘personal’ in my cube. We didn’t actually do it, of course. But we got . . . how should I say this? We got ‘close-ish.’ ”
    Silence.
    â€œÂ â€˜Close-ish’? You and this policeman got ‘close-ish’ at your office . . . What exactly does that . . .” Diane paused and cocked her head. “Wait a minute. Doesn’t Fred Leary sit right next to you?”
    â€œYes, as a matter of fact, he does. Did.”
    Audra leaned forward. “And you . . .” She wiggled her fingers suggestively. “Right next door? Good Lord. That’s disgusting.”
    â€œYeah, that is kind of disgusting.” Actually, Suz looked impressed.
    â€œThis could be useful,” Diane said. “By all means, keep going.”
    â€œIt’s just that the whole thing is really horrifying when you think about it. A man died. People walked around the cube in which his corpse lay for, like, a day, having one-sided conversations without realizing he was never going to answer.”
    She couldn’t look at her friends. The whole thing was too terrible. “All of a sudden, Fred seemed . . . less important. Since he was already dead. I just kind of zeroed in on the detective.” She cringed at the words and rubbed her eyes. “The key word being ‘seemed.’ At the time. I don’t know why I did it.”
    Diane nodded sagely. “A spontaneous adrenaline burst of sexuality triggered by acute emotional upheaval.” She turned and made a notation.
    â€œSo anyway, one moment I’m answering questions about Fred’s decomposing body, and the next minute I’m grinding up against this very well built . . . big . . . beautiful detective man. And the thing is—”
    â€œA Big Dick! Get it?” Suz blurted