“That won’t be necessary,” the dean said. Then, “You pinned them to the bulletin board as a joke?”
“Yes, sir.” Dev made a good show of looking shamefaced. “I didn’t think about the consequences, sir.”
“No, you did not,” Trammel said scathingly. “I fired the poor girl.”
Dev nodded unhappily. “That’s what I understand. I’m here, Dean Trammel, to ask you to reconsider. Because my actions harmed her unfairly—and harmed my friend Adam, as well. They are innocent parties in all of this, and I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”
Dean Trammel looked him over in silence. Then he looked at Adam, who met his gaze squarely. Trammel transferred his gaze back to Dev and blew out a disgusted breath. “Why don’t you try.”
“Excuse me, sir?”
“Try. Telling me—and Mr. Burke—how sorry you are.”
“Ah. Yes.” Dev swallowed. “I apologize from the bottom of my heart, sir. I really do.” He turned to Adam. “I’m sorry I was a dirtbag.”
“And a scum-sucking bottom-feeder,” Adam couldn’t help adding. “And a degenerate pig.”
Trammel’s lips twitched.
They waited for several beats in silence before the dean got up and rounded his desk, their cue to get up, as well.
“Mr. Burke, I’m sorry that I leaped to conclusions. Thank you for being man enough to face me and explain. That can’t have been easy. Mr. McKee, I hope you’ll think about the possible consequences of your actions in the future. But likewise, thank you for your honesty. While I have no authority over you, since you’re not a student here, I would hope that you will also apologize profusely to Nikki Fine.”
“Yes, sir. You can be sure of that.”
“Excellent.” Trammel opened the door and gestured them out. “Gentlemen, have a nice day.”
He turned to Margaret as they headed for the reception exit. “Will you get Nikki Fine on the phone for me? Thank you.”
NIKKI CURLED INTO a fetal position after work, her feet throbbing from standing all day at the bakery. She closed her eyes and ignored the blinking red light on the phone that told her insistently that she had voice mail.
Anyone she cared about talking to had her cell phone number. That meant the message was a hang-up from a telemarketer or a political action committee, or a representative from her college or a charity asking for money that she didn’t have.
She closed her eyes against the insistent little red light and gave a weary yawn. She was hungry, having avoided chowing down countless pastries and muffins at Sweetheart’s, but she was too tired and too demoralized to get up and make herself something to eat.
She wanted to fall asleep and wake up again with feet that didn’t throb. But her T-shirt had absorbed the aromas of the bakery, and so every breath she took reminded her of how hungry she was.
A nice big greasy pepperoni pizza would do the trick. She had a twenty-dollar bill in her sock drawer…but then she’d have to sit up and find the number of the pizza place. She’d have to expend energy she didn’t have by dialing the phone and actually speaking to someone, and she’d been smiling at and speaking to strangers all day, making change and filling little paper bags with muffins and Danishes and doughnuts.
Maybe if she prayed for a pizza it would show up, like her mom’s gift roofers. Okay, that was a bit sacrilegious, so she apologized to God.
No sooner had she done so than a knock sounded on her door.
Nikki sat up, rubbing her eyes. Maybe God
had
sent a pizza. No, she was kidding herself.
The knock sounded again. Nikki heaved her legs over the side of the bed and stood, then ambled to the door in her bare feet. She peered out the keyhole to see Adam and another guy standing there.
22
NIKKI GROANED AT THE SIGHT of the two jerks.
No. She was not opening the door. Absolutely not.
She smelled like a giant cookie, she had no makeup on, and she hated both of them. Therefore, she was not home.
“Nikki?” Adam called. “I know you’re in there. Your car is in the lot.”
So? She could be at a neighbor’s. She could be in the shower. She could be walking her invisible dog.
Nikki said nothing.
Then the other guy, who must be the idiot Dev, put his eye to the peephole to try to see in.
My kingdom for a sharp stick.
Really, did she have a pencil handy? She could jab it right into his eye through the hole.
“Nikki?” Adam called again. “Please. Just give us a moment of your time. We want to apologize.”
And a fat lot of good that would do. Would it get her job back? Would it erase the public humiliation of having the dean and Margaret see her practically naked? She thought not.
Nikki turned her back on the door and walked to her bedroom again. She crawled under the covers and began thinking about food. Burgers with bacon and cheese. Crispy egg rolls and pork fried rice. A giant deep-dish pizza with extra pepperoni. Her stomach gave a last, anguished growl before she drifted into dreamland, where she sat at a red-gingham-covered table and ate them all.
She woke disoriented a couple of hours later, unsure of what had brought her to consciousness. Then she realized what it was—another knock on the door. Why was her apartment Grand Central Station today? Annoyed, she rolled out of bed and stumbled to the peephole for the second time.
A fast-food delivery man stood outside. With a pizza! Nikki’s stomach practically yodeled in gastric delight. God
had
sent her a pizza, despite her doubt and disrespect a couple of hours ago.
She’d unlocked the door and opened it before she thought about how weird and coincidental this was. And so when the delivery man turned and she saw that it was the Dev guy under the red-and-blue cap, it was too late. He stuck his foot inside in case she tried to slam the door on him, then kissed her cheek and said, “Hey, babe!” before she could even hiss.
Adam appeared behind him with, of all things, a portable CD player. “Nikki,” he said, “meet Dev. Dev, Nikki.”
Looking faintly apologetic, he pressed Play, and pulsing, throbbing stripper music boomed out.
Dev’s hips began to gyrate before Nikki could close her gaping mouth and scream, “No!”
He flashed her a diabolical, dazzling grin and cakewalked into the apartment, doing his best Michael Jackson impersonation while she backed away from him.
Pizza box balanced on his upturned palm, Dev then whirled and gave her the back view, shaking his butt and grooving with his pelvis. He smoothed his free hand over one bun in a laughably perverted way, trailing it down his thigh before spinning again to face her.
Two things prevented her from diving for the phone and calling 911. First, she couldn’t help laughing at the idiot. And second, the pizza was
real.
The scents of pepperoni, cheese, onion and garlic wafted out of the box, infinitely more seductive than doofus Dev and his pathetic crotch-grabbing antics.
Damn it, she was
mad
at them. She didn’t
want
to laugh! It made her even madder, which made her laugh harder, which made it very difficult to stay angry. And the two guys knew it, which gave her the urge to slam both of their heads together.
This was manipulation, plain and simple.
Over the music and her own laughter, she heard the unmistakable sound of Velcro being peeled, and suddenly Dev’s pizza-man shirt went flying past her. He dropped the pizza box on her coffee table and laced his fingers behind his neck, thrusting his own, er…pepperoni forward shamelessly in time to the music.
She averted her gaze to Adam’s face. He looked pained.
In Dev’s defense, he had a very nice chest and a flat, muscular tummy. But Nikki lunged for the pizza and ignored him, while Adam turned off the soundtrack.
“Okay, that’s enough, stripper-boy,” he said.
Dev stopped dancing, looking a little sheepish. “Aw, man. I didn’t even get to rip off my pants.”
“And I’m deeply thankful for that,” said Adam fervently.
Nikki opened the box and inhaled with appreciation. “You two,” she said, taking a slice, “are beyond pathetic.”
“We know,” Adam agreed. “But we really are desperate to apologize.”
Nikki raised her eyebrows, unable to say anything because her mouth was full of divine carbohydrates and salt and grease. She chewed and swallowed, having only one thing to say before she took a second bite. “Go ahead.”
“Right. We’ll do that. But Dev wants to put his shirt back on first, don’t you, Dev?”
“I do?”
“Yes. Would you want
your
girlfriend ogling
my
naked chest?”
“I don’t have a girlfriend,” Dev pointed out.
“That is beside the point—”
“Neither do you, Adam,” Nikki said acidly.
Adam nodded. “Fair enough. But I hope to, er, change that in the next few minutes.”
“Really?” she said, around another bite of pizza. “How interesting.”
“Dev is going to apologize first,” Adam said. “Aren’t you, Dev? Then he’s going to go.”
“Mmm,” Nikki replied. “Well, if he’s your ride, then I hope he doesn’t go far.”
Adam sighed. “Dev?”
Devon haphazardly stuck his shirt back together and then slid to his knees in front of Nikki as if she were first base. “Babe,” he began.
She shook her head. “Not acceptable.”
“Doll?” asked Dev.
“Nope.”
“Queen Nikki?”
“Better.” She pulled a piece of melted cheese off her next slice and dripped it into her mouth.
“Okay. Queen Nikki, I most humbly and excruciatingly apologize for my dastardly, bastardly behavior. I hope that you can forgive me.”
She rolled her eyes. “Why don’t you say this like you actually mean it?”
Dev nodded. “’Kay. Nikki, in all seriousness, I was a toxic, half-drunk asshole when I put up those pictures. I was trying to punk him. I didn’t think about the consequences to you, or to Adam. I’m really, really sorry.”
“Wow,” Nikki said in wondering tones. “I think you may not be acting.”
“I’m not acting, Nikki. And in fact, Adam and I went to see—”
“I’ll do that part, Dev. Thanks,” Adam said firmly. He stood up. “I’d like to be alone with Nikki now.”
“If that’s okay with her,” Nikki interjected. “After all, this is
her
apartment that you’ve invaded. You might want to ask.”
Adam took a deep breath and turned to face her. “Is it okay?”
She put the pizza down and wiped her hands on a tissue from the box on her coffee table. She shrugged, then nodded grudgingly.
Dev got to his feet and turned the silly cap around on his head so that the visor of it hung over his neck. He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Nikki, I truly am sorry. And you can be sure that whatever I have to do to fix it, I will do. Okay?”
“I don’t think it’s fixable, Dev.” Her voice was quiet. “But I do appreciate your apology.”
He nodded and walked to the door.
“Even if you got in here by playing yet another trick on me,” she tossed after him.
Dev, his hand on the doorknob, looked over his shoulder and gave her a rueful wink. Then he left.
ADAM SAT NEXT TO Nikki on the couch. She’d never looked more beautiful to him than right now, in her torn jeans and mussed ponytail, still with sheet marks on her face. She had a pizza crumb lurking in the left corner of her mouth, where she got a dimple when she smiled.
She wasn’t smiling right now.
Acid churned through his stomach and took a running leap for his throat, but he swallowed and ignored it. “Nikki, we went and talked to the dean today.”