go to Korean barbecue when I was expecting the Top of the Mark, so all she gets is a kiss and some garlic breath? With a key party, you don’t have to ask yourself questions like this. Your key fits, you like the person, you hang around and talk for a while.”
“What if you don’t like the person? What if they have garlic breath?”
“Then you go put your ticket in the prize-drawing thing, slip them a mint and move on. Everyone knows the drill, so there’s no hard feelings.”
“It’s like a giant mixer.”
Viv nodded. “Only cooler.”
Lauren turned off the recorder. Cool was good. Inside Out liked cool, though Left Coast would probably turn up its nose at it. “Thanks for the insight.”
“Mind you, this event is set up for hetero mixing,” Viv said. “I have to work a little harder.”
Lauren looked out over the twisting, laughing crowd. “What you do is swap your lock for a gay guy’s key. That way both of you are lined up to get the right partner.”
“Oh-oh.” Viv’s face, a perfect oval with the kind of fine complexion that needed no makeup, brightened. “Good plan. I’m all over it.” She leaned over and gave Lauren an affectionate peck. “Gotta go unlock some possibilities.”
Lauren followed her out into the crowd and, for the next forty-five minutes, did her best to circulate and talk to people.
“Mind if I try you on for size?”
Oh, please. She’d heard at least five versions of that one. Lauren pasted on a polite smile and turned to the man—well, kid, really—in the scuffed leather jacket and presented her chest to him. Just how many variations of “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours” could people come up with? By the end of the evening the odds were good she’d find out.
The backs of the kid’s fingers brushed the peach silk of her tank top as he lifted the tiny suitcase. He jumped. She didn’t. Lauren gazed at him thoughtfully as he flourished his little key and tried to fit it into the lock. He looked familiar. Where had she seen him before?
Her lock didn’t open.
Oh, good.
“Nice to have met you,” the guy said cheerfully, obviously not that cut up that he wasn’t going to be spending the rest of the evening with her. He moved on to Rory, who was standing ten feet away. She topped him by a couple of inches, but he, evidently, was a brave man. He reached for her cleavage.
Lauren looked out over the crowded dance floor. The guy was in her reader demographic. She should have interviewed him while she’d had the chance. But she’d already talked to six or seven people and so far hadn’t found one who presented an opposing view. Everybody seemed to think a key party was a good thing. But then, if you hated them you’d probably just put a check in the mail to Maureen’s office, wouldn’t you?
She glanced around the room in an attempt to locate Michaela, who had gone to get more drinks. Those who had found the person with the key to their suitcase were crowding the stage, where Maureen was busy handing out prizes and putting the numbered slips from the lockets into a big rotating basket like the ones the lotteries used.
Lauren moved her stool closer to Rory’s when her sister sat down. “Is there a reason that kid looked familiar?”
Rory always knew stuff like this. A woman who had subscriptions to People and Variety and who hosted movie-and-dinner parties where people actually came in costume had to know.
“Alien Bodyguard.”
Lauren snapped her fingers. “That’s it.” He’d played the hapless younger brother killed off on the first episode of Alien Bodyguard, one of the midseason TV shows Lorelei had ripped to shreds. That had started a lovely big controversy about turning science fiction novels into TV shows that had made her blog traffic peak at ten thousand hits a day. She’d better go interview him before his key fit someone’s lock. A celebrity quote wasn’t something you lucked onto every day.
“No sign of Johnny Depp?” Michaela swiveled around a good-looking jerk who was making graphic hand motions and put their drinks on the table, including a soft drink for herself.
Good girl, Mikki. Every time her sister resisted temptation meant a victory in a long chain of victories that took her further away from the alcoholic darkness of four years ago, which had peaked after her breakup with her husband.
They chatted for a few minutes and then Lauren said, “Why do they pair the women up with men, anyway? My perfect date is a little old lady with an early bedtime.” She scanned the room for a leather jacket. “Then I could go home and start on this story.”
Michaela bumped her shoulder as she sat. “Don’t be so focused, honey. Have some fun with this. Your partner could be tall, rich and gorgeous.”
“I hope he’s tall, rich and gay, and I can give his key to Vivien. Don’t forget, I’m in the market for a motorcycle, not a man.”
“What about the fun part? You’re like a laser beam, tracking your target.” Mikki looked half-amused, half-exasperated. “Come on. Let’s get out there and dance.”
But before Lauren could reply, Rory nudged Michaela and her sister froze at the sight of a man approaching them.
“Oh, my God,” Lauren murmured. As if her thoughts had conjured him up, Mikki’s ex, Nolan Baylor, approached them with those bedroom eyes and that same confident grin, both trained on her sister. But how could this be? Wasn’t his law practice in Los Angeles? What was he doing here, looking all buff and casual in his charcoal polo shirt? And what business did he have spoiling Mikki’s night by showing up?
But as anyone in her family could tell you, Mikki Correlli could take care of herself. “What the hell are you doing here?” she snapped.
In answer, Nolan grinned and flourished a small, white-gold key.
2
LAUREN COULDN’T DECIDE whether to leap up and claw his eyes out, or let Michaela do it. Something seemed to combust in the air between her sister and former brother-in-law as he practically taunted her with the key. Her eyes flashing with anger and contempt, Michaela made a big show of ignoring him and introducing his friend, Tucker Schulz. Tuck’s eyes signaled interest, but that was the last thing Lauren could deal with amid all this sudden tension. Her options seemed to be sticking by Mikki’s side for support and fading into the wallpaper. Neither was very appealing.
Thank God there were no serious men in her past to reappear and mess up her life. She’d had enough trouble keeping it on an even keel on her own. After she’d come to live at Garrison Street, it had taken years for her to figure out that there were people in this world who would actually love you and stick around when you said you loved them. Her childhood had taught her the opposite, after Dad had taken off when she was ten. When she was fourteen, Mom had looked at the choice between her habit and her daughter—heroin or the kid? Hmm, that’s a hard one. Let’s pick heroin. And the choice had killed her.
That was why love—the kind of love that meant picket fences and permanence and kids—was one helluva scary proposition, one that both attracted and repelled Lauren.
Not that
