ceiling fan two days earlier.
After such a devastating blow, Cheryl and Larissa relied on each other more than ever. As a result, Larissa and Thaddeus moved into Cheryl’s single-family ranch in the small Atlanta suburb of Marietta. It was a bit of a tight squeeze, but the sisters were doing all they could to make the living arrangement work.
Cheryl placed a gentle hand on Larissa’s back and spoke just loud enough to break through her snoring. “Rissa, why don’t you go to bed?”
“Hmm?” Larissa lifted her head, but didn’t open her eyes.
“Go to bed,” Cheryl said, using the opportunity to close her sister’s schoolbooks.
“Can’t,” Larissa moaned. “I have a big test tomorrow and I’m not prepared.” She sat up and stretched.
“You’re not going to learn anything by drooling on your textbook. I don’t think that’s how it works.”
“I knooooooow.” She dropped her head into the palms of her hands for a second and almost immediately drifted off to sleep again.
Cheryl put her sister’s book back on the table and chuckled when her sister jumped. “I’ll put on some coffee for you.”
“Thanks.” Larissa grabbed her book again and opened it up. “I can’t wait until this quarter is over with. It’s really kicking my butt.”
“Didn’t it just start?” Cheryl asked as she shoveled Folgers grinds into the coffee filter.
“What’s your point?”
“Hang in there. Next year this time, you’ll be holding that degree.”
“More like I’ll be falling out and crying, and calling out for Jesus,” Larissa corrected.
“Whatever. You just make sure that you get that degree, too.” Cheryl hit the brew button and then turned back toward the table. “About Thaddeus’s hair…”
Larissa groaned. “Oh. I’ll take care of it this weekend. Drae recommended this great barbershop in Atlanta and I’ll take him there.”
“Do you want me to take him?”
Larissa’s eyes widened with hope. “Will you have time? I thought that you were starting some new super-duper secret case tomorrow?”
“I am. But I can take Thaddeus Saturday morning, if you want.”
“If I want? Girl, if I had the energy I would jump up and kiss you. That means I can sleep late for once.”
“Not a problem.” Cheryl pulled out a chair and sat down while she waited for the coffee to finish brewing.
“I know that you probably can’t wait for me and Thaddeus to finally move out and find our own place.”
Cheryl frowned. “I never said that.”
“Oh, please. You don’t have to.” Larissa eased back in her chair. “Any sane single woman would love to have her place back—child-free, so that you can do what single women do with the opposite sex.”
“Give it a rest.” Cheryl stood and went to the cabinet for two coffee mugs. “I like having you and my Energizer Bunny nephew around. We’re a family.”
“True. But I imagine that one day—maybe one day soon—you’d like to start your own family.”
Cheryl glanced over her shoulder.
“Maybe with a certain lieutenant?”
“Oh, God, please. Just say you’re kidding.”
“What?” Larissa shrugged. “You know Jason still has the hots for you. He still calls—”
“What?”
“C’mon. Don’t play coy. You know that man is like a puppy dog around you.” Larissa laughed. “I don’t know what you put on him, but it’s clearly something that he can’t shake or take a pill for.”
Cheryl huffed out a long frustrated breath and poured their coffee. “I tell you what. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking when I hooked up with that man. Maybe I bumped my head or something.”
“You mean to tell me that you don’t feel anything for him?”
“Zip….nada….nothing.” She quickly added French-vanilla creamer and sugar to their mugs and headed back to the table. “You know it all happened so soon after Mom and Dad died and… Maybe I was just weak. He caught me at a vulnerable time. Insert standard cliché here.”
“Sounds like it makes life real interesting around the department,” said Larissa as she carefully picked up her coffee mug. “Was he at least good in bed?”
“Excuse you.”
Larissa shrugged and refused to retract the question. “Hey, I can’t remember the last time I even had sex. So you’re going to have to forgive me for getting all up in your Kool-Aid. I have to get my jollies off some kind of way.”
“You know…if you want to go out sometime, I can babysit Thaddeus.”
“Ughh. The last thing I need in my life right now is the complications of a man.” Larissa shook her head. “Maybe after I get at least one thing off my plate.”
“So does that mean that you’re going to take a rain check?”
“Is the offer good until next summer?”
“As a matter of fact it is.”
“Then, yes, ma’am. I will.” Larissa straightened up in her chair and flashed her sister a silly grin as she thought about a potential date she might have…a year from now. “Now all we have to do is find you a new man.”
Instantly, Xavier’s face popped into Cheryl’s head, and less than a second later, her body was flush with a tingling warm sensation.
“Ooooh. Looks like you already have a new man in mind,” Larissa said, easily reading her sister.
“What? No.” Cheryl shook her head but the damage had already been done. She popped out of her seat. “You want some cake?”
“Liar, liar, pants on fire!” Larissa wagged her finger. “Who is he? And where did you meet him?”
“It’s no one. Stop it.” Despite her protests, Cheryl couldn’t look her sister in the eye. She made a living deceiving criminals when she went undercover, and yet she was unable to get a simple lie past her sister. So she did the next best thing, she sliced them both two huge pieces of lemon cake.
“Pathetic.” Larissa laughed as she accepted her late-night snack. “Go ahead. Keep your secrets. Deny your only sister the pleasure of living vicariously through you.”
“Oh, God. Someone please give Ms. Larissa Grier her hard-earned Academy Award.”
“I’m
