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Three more minutes and she would have been

The tone in the restaurant went frohter to throaty "did you see those two go at it?" whispers and averted eyes

Pike handed lass of soda water and a thick cloth napkin I dabbed atat my patience a little more I cut e Eaze, and offered a slick, ugly smile

"Game on, bitch," I muttered under "

"So, why did you think Eirlfriend?"

I tossed down nation floating over me "Because that’s what she told me"

Pike kind of grinned and crossed his ar aside the collar of his shirt just enough for th of neck and collarbone I could see the beginnings of a thick black tattoo and I had to clenchit closer "And did that make you mad?"

His eyes sparkled with the kind of hout th of slick black hair over ed, took a long pull on the beer I didn’t knoas holding "Nah, I just didn’t want you to feel bad"

I blinked my confusion Was he just a terrible flirtor really that dense?

His eyes dropped to et out of that dress"

Another zing pinballed throughout my body Maybe he wasn’t such a bad flirt after all

"There’s a dry cleaner about a block down Ask for Mrs Cho; she can get out anything" Pike turned on his heel and left , wet, confused, and annoyed in the center of the party

I left shortly after, grus apart,kind of walk All I wanted was to pull on my cozy cashmere sweat suit (terry cloth is so passé) and sinkAnd that’s what I would have done, if that stupid blackbird--he was tauntingon the front stoop

I paused and glared down at the thing, wavinganyway Fly you little bastard!"

The thing paused, cocked its disease-infested head and spread its wings wide as if it understood me

Nina LaShay: bird whisperer

Then it snapped those wings against its little bird body and glared

I chanced a swift kick and a sprint when a da into s and snapped the door shut on its protesting scowl

"I warned you!" I screalass in the door The bird fluttered down to the stoop again, unharht, with ato have to hire an exter ing panel aith ns Which hy I was at the Fashion Institute whentheir pillows over their heads or indulging in their last half hour of REM sleep Though New York was truly a city that never slept, it did seem to take the occasional doze--apparently between four-thirty and five AM--because it was decidedly, delectably calht up until I keyed the passcode at the Institute I was halfway through the four-digit super-secret code when the front door slammed open and I went chest to chest--then butt to cement with--

"Pike?"

He was still dressed in his cocktail-hour deconstructed tuxedo but this ’s look was for more deconstructed than it was tuxedo His carefully disheveled hair was actually disheveled and he sported a spray of dark stubble over his upper lip and chin He brushed a hand over the would-be beard when he glanced down at ly alive

"Oh, Nina, my God, I’ string and I avoided the hand he offered, suddenly strangely suspicious He eous future soul mate, but he was tainted by fashion thief Ens were supposed to be safe