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  A CERTAIN WAY

  A Phaze Fury HeatSheet by

  Renee Blaine

  Phaze 6470A Glenway Avenue, #109 Cincinnati, OH 45211-5222

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  eBook ISBN 1-59426-937-8

  A Certain Way © 2006 by Renee Blaine

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Cover art © 2006 by Kathryn Lively

  Phaze is an imprint of Mundania Press, LLC.

  www.Phaze.com

  I t was my own fault. It was Friday, the night I always worked late at the bank. I was never home before seven, and my husband, Richard, would have dinner from the Crock Pot dished up and waiting for me when I walked in. He didn't like eating alone, and besides, I had to heat the rolls before we could eat. We had a routine, and my coming home early was not part of that routine. He liked thingsa certain way. It was my own fault. My favorite lingerie shop was having its semi-annual sale and I had gone shopping during my lunch hour. I wanted to surprise him with my purchases. Lately, he had seemed more and more distant, and when he was speaking to me, or paying attention, it was as though I had done something wrong. He'd started complaining about the size of my breasts, going so far as to make an appointment for me to have a consultation for augmentation. I'd tried to broach the subject several times, as I was quite happy with the comfortably full breasts I'd been given by nature, but he brushed me aside.He liked things a certain way. Everything was a certain way—his. The house was quiet when I pulled into the driveway. The garage door was closed, and a single light burned in the living room against the growing dusk. I smiled, pleased that my boss had allowed me to leave a couple hours early, that I had made it home before Richard. I pulled my bags from the car and pushed the door closed with my hip, walking through the neatly tended bank of flowers and shrubs that bordered the sidewalk to our front door. I stopped to smell one of the last roses of summer, breaking the half-open bud off the bush. I'd put it beside the bed to perfume the air while we made love.

  I unlocked the door and pushed it open. The warm, comforting scent of pot roast and home rushed out to embrace me. I had a bottle of Richard's favorite Burgundy in one of the bags—I'd open it, let it breathe, and go shower and get dressed. When he came home I'd be waiting for him, with a glass of wine, a home-cooked meal, and a wife dressed in silk and lace for his pleasure. He would be happy, I thought, and maybe we could actually talk, and re-explore our marriage.

  Turning down the hallway, I started towards our bedroom, intending to start the bath running before making my side trip into the kitchen. The door was just slightly ajar, and flickering golden light spilled through the crack. I stopped in the hallway, puzzled. A soft, feminine giggle clarified everything for me. I bent and put my bags on the floor, quietly, and tiptoed to the door, peeking in.

  My entire life had been a matter of playing second fiddle to my sisters. I had three, all beautiful and talented statuesque blue-eyed blondes with larger breasts, better figures, and more sex appeal than I had ever had. I was the shy one, the quiet one with the mousy brown hair and odd green eyes, and when I'd come home with my handsome, successful fiancé, the one question in all their minds had been, "Why you?" Admittedly, I had been quietly smug about my catch, happy to tell them what a marvelous man he was, glossing over the minor setbacks and uneasiness in our relationship.

  My younger sister, Cara, was straddling my husband, laughing as he licked and nibbled at her breasts. They bounced as she rode him, making it a game- he would catch one rosy nipple in his mouth and play with it for a moment, then turn and try to capture the other as it jiggled up and down. I could see my husband's lovely cock sliding in and out of her, gleaming with wetness. She threw her head back—long, blonde curls brushing his thighs—and began to rock, grinding herself into him as his fingers reached for her clit. I had seen enough. I didn't try to be particularly quiet as I turned away from the door. They probably couldn't hear me over their own moans and gasps and curses anyway. I picked up the bags as I passed, slinging them over my left wrist while my right hand worked the heavy gold and diamond wedding set off my ring finger. I dropped it carelessly on the floor. I'd always hated it anyway, preferring delicate creations of silver or white gold to the ornate yellow gold chunks Richard had chosen. I left the front door standing open behind me. I didn't care if he knew I'd been there. I wasn't there anymore.

  The streets of our suburb had never seemed so tedious. Cookie cutter houses with tiny variations in personality, bought for the prestige of address, not passion. I hated them. I hated all of it in that moment. I was just driving, as far away from what I had allowed my life to become as I could get. I couldn't see through the thin shimmer of tears. I pulled off on the shoulder and let the evening traffic crawl by, taking long, slow breaths, trying to clear my mind enough to think. My best friend lived two states away, my parents and I weren't on good terms. The only friends that I had were Richard's carefully chosen friends, acquaintances from work or church. He liked people a certain way, too. There was no one I could trust to understand. I glanced at my laptop case, on the seat beside me, and managed a smile.

  It took twenty minutes and getting lost twice to remember the way to Daniel's place. The duplex looked deserted, the garage closed, no lights on, which probably meant he was home. I pulled my tasteful SUV into his driveway and let it idle for a moment, trying to get myself back under control. I checked my face in the rearview mirror, wiping away smudged mascara and most of my make-up with a tissue from my purse. My face looked younger without the paint, pale and frightened, with a touch of red around my eyes. It wouldn't matter. I left everything in the car, left the car unlocked and keys in it, and walked to the door, knocking with more confidence than I felt. There was a crash and a curse from inside, and I had to smile.

  When the door swung open, and Daniel blinked out at me, that wavering smile grew into a laugh. He hadn't changed so much over the years. He still looked like the skater-punk teenager we'd both been in high school, his dark, wavy hair falling over his eyes and down his shoulders. The faded khaki pants he was wearing were the same ones he'd worn in high school, complete with the band patches and ink scribbles, and the rip high on his left thigh, the pocket showing white through the frayed cloth.

  "Laura! What are you doing here?" Daniel pushed the door open, motioning me inside. "Don't tell me that piece of shit laptop of yours went out again?" Oh yes, that was something else about Daniel. He was the most amazing computer whiz I'd ever known. I stepped through the door into the comfortable, chaotic space he called home. A giant saltwater aquarium took up the wall behind his computer bank, angelfish the size of my head drifting lazily through the filtered blue light. A tangle of parts was dumped haphazardly across his couch, spilling onto the coffee table and the floor. A snowboard leaned against the wall, and halfneglected potted plants battled for space amongst a tangle of magazines, notebooks, and computer manuals.

  "Still living in a slum," I teased him as he closed the door. "Do you ever throw anything out?" He grinned at me lazily, arms folded across his chest. "Still Miss Polly Priss," he retorted, taking in my neat bank suit and heels. "What's up?"

  "I just needed to see a friendly face," I said. "I haven't seen you much lately."

  Daniel frowned and moved away from the door, moving ove
r to the couch and dumping wires and circuitry unceremoniously against the wall beside his snowboard. He motioned me over.

  "Sit down. I'll get us a beer. If you still drink beer, that is?" He was teasing me again, but his eyes were serious. There was a reason we were still friends after more than ten years. I sank down gratefully into the comfortably squashed cushions. "A beer sounds great. You still drinking Heineken?" "Yeah." His voice trailed off as he moved into the kitchen, reappearing a few minutes later with two frosty opened bottles and flopping down on the couch, handing me one. I took it with a smile and lifted it to him.

  "Cheers." That first sip tasted like heaven. It had been years since I'd had a beer. Richard thought that women who drank beer were too masculine, too crass for words, so I'd quit. Quit drinking the things I liked, eating what I liked, quit smoking, quit dressing in clothes I enjoyed. He had liked things a certain way, and I'd tried to be perfect. I took another long swallow, slid my shoes off and kicked them under the table, and sighed, ruffling my hair loose from the careful bun I'd put it up in that morning, scattering pins everywhere. Daniel just settled back against the arm of the couch, watching me, waiting for me to settle enough to talk. I set my drink aside and gave him what I knew was a weak smile.

  "I'm going to be very rude and get comfortable, if you don't mind, Danny." He laughed and shook his head, waving me on. I reached up under the demure skirt and unfastened the stockings Richard preferred me to wear ("pantyhose are so unattractive") from the garter belt and rolled them down my legs, sliding them off and tucking them into my discarded shoes. I shrugged out of the tailored jacket, dropped it on the floor regardless of wrinkles, and reached under the waistband of my skirt to unfasten the garter belt.That joined the heap on the floor, and I settled back into the couch, feet tucked under me, feeling decadent and somehow naughty in my perfectly proper camisole and skirt.

  "Feel free to keep right on stripping," Daniel chuckled. "But I need another beer. You?" I shook my head and he went back to the kitchen, coming back with the rest of the six pack and dropping it with a clink of glass on wood on the table. "I don't want to get up again," he explained. "Now spill, Laurie. You look like hell warmed over and just loosened up more than you have in six years."

  "It was that obvious?" I sighed. "I think I just left my husband, Daniel." Daniel choked on his beer. "No shit? Why?" He leaned forward and snagged his cigarettes from his back pocket, lighting up. He tilted the pack towards me and I accepted with a wry grin.

  "I walked in and found my sister riding him like a circus pony." I was shocked at how steady my voice was, how cold I felt inside as the words sank in.

  "Well, damn." Daniel looked at me, his gentle eyes moving over me slowly. "I always said he was a fuckwit. Are you, well, hell, are you okay?" He was so sweet. He always had been. I smiled, thinking about things I hadn't allowed myself to remember in years. Graduation night, sprawled on a blanket beside a bonfire with our friends and a bottle of sweet Hatteras Red wine, talking about the future. Daniel was going to be a hacker legend and fight the system, and I was going to run a coffeehouse and Internet café, giving him a base of operations. We were going to be rich, underground famous, wild and sophisticated and madly passionate about life. He'd held on to most of those dreams, although he did more IT and programming work than hacking, as far as I knew- but I had lost mine.

  The thought started me crying. Not for Richard, not for the end of my marriage, but for that bright-eyed eighteen-year-old I had been. Two years later I had been married, and somehow that outgoing, fun, bright child had faded into, as Daniel had so succinctly put it, Polly Priss. Warm, familiar arms wrapped around me, and I put my head on Daniel's shoulder and cried. I didn't really notice when he gently took my unlit cigarette and put it on the table, or when he shifted me to sit in his lap and murmured softly that it was all going to be okay, that I was strong enough to get through this. It didn't matter at that point, although it would later. When the tears finally ran out, Daniel wiped my face with the sleeve of his shirt and kissed my forehead.

  "You know what you need? You need Chinese food. Stay right here, I'll be back in a few minutes." Pressing a fresh beer into my hand, he left me curled on the couch and jogged out the door, floppy hair, baggy pants, beat up Vans. My friend, the crazy one, who would let me cry all over him, and then gorge me on Chinese food and get me to drink beer until I was willing to laugh with him again. I shook my head and finally lit a cigarette. The first drag made me cough, the second went down like silk, and my body let out a sigh that I hadn't known I was holding in. By the time Daniel came back, arms laden with fragrant brown bags and fortune cookies and chopsticks, I was calm again.

  "Your cell phone was out in the car, ringing like mad. I brought it in, in case you want to answer it." He handed me a foil carton of sesame chicken and pork fried rice, grinning devilishly as he passed over the chopsticks. "Or you could just let me answer it for you." I laughed and shook my head as he handed me the phone. It beeped in my hand and I glanced at the number. Without thinking, I chucked it across the room into a half-dead potted fern.

  "Brat." I pushed at him with my foot. We ignored the chirping of the phone at five minute intervals as we ate, catching up on gossip, being real friends again. He found me a pair of his jeans and a belt, and we both laughed at how skinny I was compared to high school. By the time we were getting a second six pack out of his fridge, the phone rang again and I retrieved it, ready to face the inevitable fight.

  "Where are you? You were supposed to be home hours ago!" Richard's voice boomed into my ears, and I held it away from my head. Daniel moved up and slid an arm around my shoulders, tilting his head to listen. I took a few deep breaths while Richard fumed in ominous silence on the other end.

  "I was home hours ago," I finally said, fighting to keep my voice level and calm. "I was home two hours early in fact." The silence changed from ominous to stunned. Apparently he hadn't realized I had been there.

  "We'll talk about this when you get home," Richard said, and his very tone of voice was condescending. I knew that tone, it meant that I was the one in the wrong. Fury flared through me. How dare he try to make his actions my fault, make me feel inadequate, yet again? Six years of sacrificing myself, my soul, for this? My voice came out flat and harsh, vibrating with rage.

  "No, we won't. I'm not coming home, Richard. Not tonight, not tomorrow. I'll be by in a few days after I've talked to my lawyer, to pick up my clothing and personal effects." Daniel squeezed my shoulders as I spoke, and I leaned on him, letting him be my friend, letting him reassure me that it was perfectly okay for me to be angry. "Laura, you're being unreasonable. We can work this out. You just

  need to come home, now." "No, Richard, I don't. I'm fine where I am." I was proud of how

  steady my voice was, of how strong I sounded. "Laura, you are coming home, if I have to come get you myself! You are my wife, we will settle this between ourselves, not in front of strangers."

  Daniel snatched the phone from my hand. "Try it, asshole," he snapped, and slapped it closed, hanging up on Richard. The phone instantly began to ring again, and Daniel opened it long enough to turn it off, then tossed it towards the couch. I was still staring at him, a little shocked, but grinning.

  "I never liked him." Daniel shrugged sheepishly, ducking his head, and I just stared, seeing him, really seeing him, for the first time in years.

  I had forgotten just how beautiful he was. Half-Irish, half-Japanese, with smooth dusky skin and his mother's Asian features and dark, liquid eyes, his father's heritage showing in the highlights of his dark hair, and the strong, solid build of his body. He was only a couple of inches taller than me. I reached up and flicked that dark, auburn-streaked hair out of his eyes, glad he was my friend, that he was standing up for me. "I should go," I said. "I'm going to get a hotel room or something." "Hey, no." Daniel reached out and hugged me again. I breathed him in, his spicy cologne and warm skin, the faint remnants of cigarette smoke in his hair. "You can
stay here. That's what friends are for, right?"

  "I don't want Richard hassling you, babe. I'll just rent a room somewhere until I can find an apartment. That way the manager can call the cops if Richard finds me."

  "And I can't?" Daniel looked offended. "Come on, Laura. Ten years, right? How many times did we cover each other's asses back in the day?"

  "I know, but this is different than cutting school or getting wasted at a party. It won't just be Richard, it'll be my sisters, my parents, everyone." "You can't drive. You've been drinking." "Daniel," I said in exasperation. "Why are you so determined for me

  to stay?" He bent his head and pressed his mouth gently to mine. "Because I want you to." There was nothing but a warm, pleading question in his eyes. He'd never push, let me go if I decided to walk out, let me stop at any point. He was a gentleman and always had been, but that didn't stop him from turning to me a look so full of desire that it made me sigh.

  The worst—or maybe best—thing was, I wanted to stay. I wanted to put my fingers on that tiny patch of smooth golden skin showing through the hole in his pants leg, thread them through his wavy hair and kiss him. I hadn't kissed Daniel since high school, and even then only in friendship. I wanted the comfort of someone touching me, and maybe, just a little, I wanted to even the score.

  "No. I can't." I pushed away as far as the tiny kitchen would allow, shaking my head. "I don't want to use you to soothe my own bruised ego and get back at Richard."

  "Laurie." Daniel's smile carried into his voice, turning me back to look at him. There was a devilish gleam in his dark eyes. "I'm willing to be used." "It's not fair—" "It's not about fair. It's about what feels right now." He moved closer and wrapped his arms loosely around my shoulders. "I want you to stay with me."

  I barely had to tilt my face up to his, smiling at our similar heights, to kiss him as lightly as he had touched me. One of his arms slid from my shoulders to my waist, drawing me in, his other hand cradling my cheek as he deepened the kiss in sweet increments. A brush of his tongue against my lips, the slow, easy caress of his mouth, until I ran my tongue lightly against his and drew a gasp from his throat. The smooth golden taste of the beer we'd been drinking, the lingering spicy-sweet flavor of the glaze on the sesame chicken, it was just...right. Easy and gentle and familiar, the slow slide from touching to taking.