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How is Drew by the way? Is he looking for a girlfriend?”
    “I don’t think so—as a matter of fact, he mentioned some hot guy at work he is dying to get to know a little bit better. Colin, I think his name is.”
    Colin’s eyes widened to saucers before he slapped my left thigh playfully. It didn’t hurt the least bit but the heat it sent through the silk sheet wasn’t a good thing. His swat had been a little too near my aching sex which hadn’t seen any action in over three months and I was totally feeling the absence.
    “That’s cool. Listen, I just need a place to crash for a while. If you can talk to Drew…”
    “Listen, we’ll be there in about twenty minutes. Can you please wait outside? I don’t want to have to troll that fucking club looking for your ass.”
    Aubrey sighed in annoyance. “Sure, fine. I am in a dress that hits me just below my ass and it isn’t exactly one hundred degrees outside. Just phone me when you get here and I’ll make my way down, okay?”
    “Fine.” I ended the call and threw my phone down on the bed before my hands went directly to my hair to hold it out of my face.
    Every time it looked like I was about to get a handle on my life, my life seemed to throw a curveball which always seemed to manhandle me. Do people ever grow up? Of course they don’t. We, as a species, didn’t grow up, we just got older and no one was a better example of this phenomenon than Aubrey Gault.

Chapter Five

     
    “ SO, DO YOU wanna tell me what’s going on here?”
    I glanced at Colin’s profile and a part of me wanted to smile though he looked a bit pissed off we’d had yet another interruption so I decided to play it safe and just give him the details he needed to know.
    “Aubrey is my cousin on my mother’s side of the family—my real mother. Her father and my mother were siblings. They came from a fairly decent family. Hard working Creole Louisianans who provided a good life for their children who grew up to become responsible adults. Unfortunately, my uncle fell hard for an exchange student at Louisiana State University. She was from Montreal and it was love at first sight, or so I’ve heard.
    “The woman is a total basketcase. She left Louisiana State University their mid-sophomore year and went back to Canada. My uncle didn’t even know he had a daughter by this woman, Sandrine, until Aubrey was ten. She’d been in and out of the system because her mother is a paranoid schizophrenic with an alcohol and drug problem. Anyway, she’s always been smart as a whip and she looked my uncle up on the internet.
    “By this time, my uncle is married and has two sons but his wife is a complete and utter sweetheart. They take in Aubrey but she is just a nightmare. She doesn’t want to go to school, severe emotional problems, sexual abuse…you name it, the woman has been through it. I mean, she’s only twenty-six but her life is completely out of control and she kind of goes from man to man.”
    It was the first time I’d stopped talking long enough to take a moment to breathe.
    “How did she manage to get here to Seattle?”
    “Um, after a stint at some brothel in Nevada, she decided to look me up and she’s been here since January. I had enough issues with my dad dying so I just threw some money at her and hoped for the best—like maybe she would get bored and go home or something but that didn’t happen. She’s sexy and has a knack for meeting the right people. She’s quite popular at Bare—you know, the strip club for all the wealthy and moneyed of the city—and she manages to turn up on time and does her job but she can’t seem to keep anything else.”
    “So, what do you want to do?” Colin wondered out loud after a long silence.
    “I don’t know…we’re leaving on this trip soon…?”
    “How about next week?”
    “Yeah, that’ll work. She can take my room and I’ll butter up Drew to let her stay because I can’t have her out on the street. I mean, my uncle