"So man, how long has it been?" he said, smiling. "Jesus, that long? No, things here are good. I've got a boyfriend now, going on three years." He gently kissed the top of my head and I couldn't help but smile.

"No, seriously. What, you think I was going to wait for you?" Charlie said.

My eyes popped open. Who the hell was he talking to? Going to wait for whom?

"Very happy. He's an actor," Charlie said. And then, after a moment, Charlie laughed. "I know, I know, but I love him anyway."

Charlie tousled my hair, and gave me another wink. I wasn't as receptive anymore. I shot up, and stared at him as he wound up his conversation.

"You too, man, and thanks. You've been a huge help."

He clicked off the phone.

"Hey," he said, as he leaned in and kissed me softly on the lips.

"Hey," I said flatly. "Who was that?"

"Friend of mine in Miami."

"I don't remember you ever mentioning a friend in Miami." I knew I was being the unreasonably suspicious boyfriend, but after snooping around after Juan Carlos all day, it was in my blood.

"We met in Michigan. At the Police Academy. Good guy."

There was a long silence as I considered dropping the whole subject. But a lot of people have learned not to bet on me dropping anything. "So were you just friends, or were you, you know, more than just friends?"

"Yeah, there was a flirtation for a while. Pretty innocent though. Never got past the groping stage. But then he dropped out of the Academy and joined the military. We kind of lost touch."

"So what brought about this big reunion?" I said, my eyes boring into him.

Charlie was so used to my drama, he never flinched or blinked or lost his cool. He just chuckled to himself, and took my hand.

"You."

"Me?"

"Yeah. You've been so caught up in finding out if Laurette's husband had anything to do with that Teboe guy getting poisoned, I decided to make a few calls. I heard this guy was living in Miami, doing some side work for the police, so I got his number from the South Beach precinct, and rang him up to see if he knew anything about the victim."

I perked up. "Did he?"

"Did he ever." Charlie snaked his hand behind my back, and yanked me across the couch until our faces were inches apart.

"Well, what does he know?" I asked.

"Later," he said, and lowered me down on my back. He lifted my head in the crook of his elbow, and jammed his lips over mine. Our tongues danced and probed together, and he wrapped his legs around mine and locked them into place. Charlie didn't demand much from me, but when he got hot and horny, he hated to wait. We weren't going anywhere.

He was the best lover I had ever known, and if I had been smart, I would have just gone with the flow, and put my curiosity into neutral, but once my mind starts racing, there's no turning back, and I just couldn't help myself.

I reached up, kissing his cheek, his forehead, making my way over to his right ear. Charlie's anticipation was building. This was always the part where I talked dirty.

"So what exactly did your friend know about Teboe?" I said.

Charlie let out a sigh, but chose to ignore me. He ripped open my shirt, and started caressing my chest with his hands. I slipped mine up underneath his sweater and did the same. Then, he grabbed ahold of my zipper and yanked it down, cupped a hand below my genitals, and rubbed furiously. I gasped, lost in the pleasure of his touch. Charlie was certain this would do the trick. No more questions until we were through.

"Did your friend know whether Teboe and Juan Carlos worked at the same restaurant?" I said.

Charlie stopped and pulled away. I could see the frustration on his pained face. But he knew it was a hopeless cause.

"Yes," Charlie said. "He confirmed it. The two met working at the Nexxt Cafe. Teboe was a chef. Juan Carlos a waiter. My friend was keeping tabs on Teboe because he was investigating Javier Martinez."

I had no clue who that was, so Charlie enlightened me. "Big head of a Miami-based crime family. Into money laundering, extortion, weapons smuggling, you name it. They're bigger than some multinational corporations. Teboe's last gig was working as a personal chef on Martinez's yacht. He left under mysterious circumstances, though no one knows why."

I sat up. "What about Juan Carlos? Did your friend say he was connected with the family too?"

"No. Juan Carlos never worked for them. But Martinez sure as hell knows who Juan Carlos is, and isn't a fan, to put it mildly. There was a rumor that Martinez put a hit out on Juan Carlos, which might explain why he left Florida in such a hurry."

"Why would a bad soap actor piss off a big-time crime czar? And why would Juan Carlos lie about knowing Austin Teboe?"

Charlie shrugged.

"Anything else?" I said.

"Nope. That was it."

To Charlie's chagrin, I started buttoning up my shirt.

"What are you doing?"

"Going over to Laurette's."

"Now?"

"Don't you think she ought to know that her husband is mixed up with the Tony Soprano of South Florida?"

He couldn't argue with my logic. But that didn't make him any less perturbed.

I jumped up, zipped my pants back up, and grabbed my car keys out of my pants pocket. I halted, then turned back, leaned down, and kissed Charlie hard on the mouth. "I know I'm insane, and obsessive, and really hard to handle, but just know that I love you, and I really hope you're here when I get back."

Charlie saw right through my quick fix. He wasn't going to let me off so easily this time. "Maybe," he said. "Depends on whether or not I can get a flight to Florida tonight or in the morning."

This floored me. My mouth dropped open and we stared each other down. And finally, after an agonizing thirty seconds, he gave me another one of his adorable trademark winks. "Don't be late."

"I love you," I said, as I raced for the garage.

"Yeah, yeah, I've heard it all before."

Chapter 9.

"So, Juan Carlos told Dominique that he loved me and not her, is that right?" Laurette said, clutching an apple martini in her recently renovated backyard, which now boasted a kidney-shaped pool, a blue-tiled Jacuzzi, and several bamboo trees and rosebushes.

"Yes, but he lied about knowing Austin Teboe. They did work together in Miami Beach. Now why would he lie about something like that?" I said.

Laurette took a generous sip of her martini. I thought she was considering my question, but then, after a moment, she leaned forward and said, "So it's definitely over between them then."

"Yes," I said, unable to conceal my exasperation. "But this Javier Martinez sounds like a real dangerous character, and Juan Carlos has somehow ticked him off, and at the risk of sounding melodramatic, I think your life could be in jeopardy."

Laurette's eyes brimmed with tears. I thought I had finally broken through. She threw her head back and exclaimed, "Thank God! Thank God he's not cheating on me! Oh, I feel so much better!"

She never heard a word I said.

I snatched the apple martini out of her hand, holding it hostage. This finally spurred a reaction. As her arm snapped out to grab it back, I wrenched it farther out of her reach.

"Honey, this is serious," I said. "Juan Carlos is in with some big-time bad guys, and you need to deal with that."

"Please, Jarrod, whatever past he may have had in Florida is over. His life is in LA now. With me."

"But what if it turns out that he did have something to do with poisoning Austin Teboe? What then?"

"We've been over this and over this. He's not a murderer. The only time Juan Carlos killed anyone was when he played Brutus in Julius Caesar at the La Hoya Playhouse. Now enough. Promise me you'll leave him alone."

Maybe it was me. Maybe I just didn't like the guy. I knew if I kept up this relentless pursuit of the truth, I risked losing my best friend. It was time to pull back.

"Maybe I'm just being overprotective," I said.

"And I love you for it." Laurette squeezed my hand and leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement inside the house. It was Juan Carlos. He tossed his keys on a side table in the living room, spotted us having a cocktail hour out on the patio, and sauntered out to join us.

"How was your day, honey?" he said as he leaned over his wife and gently cupped her face in his hands, stealing a soft, brief kiss.

He completely ignored me.

"Busy," Laurette sighed. "Seems with all these reality shows featuring D-list actors, my whole client roster is working." She caught herself, gently touched my arm, and with apologetic eyes, said, "No offense, Jarrod."

"Don't worry about it. I may be D-list, but I still have my dignity."

Laurette turned to Juan Carlos, who just stood there, glaring at me. "We got a generous offer for Jarrod to do Child Star Hotel, this new MTV show where a bunch of has-beens move in together and run a business, but he just won't even go there."

"A job's a job," Juan Carlos said.

I shrugged. "Call me Pollyanna, but I just think there's something better out there for me on the horizon."

"There is, sweetie, there is. You just hang in there," Laurette said as she reached out and took her husband's large, bronzed hand and brought it to her cheek as she gazed lovingly up at him. "How did your audition go today?"

"Got a callback for tomorrow."

Laurette leaped up and threw her arms around him. "Honey, that's fantastic!"

Juan Carlos never took his eyes off me. "Funny, I thought Jarrod might have told you already."

"Jarrod?" Laurette said, with all the commitment of Meryl Streep in Sophie's Choice. Her husband was hoping to expose me to his wife. Little did he know that it was his wife who'd sent me out snooping in the first place.

"It was the strangest thing. We kept running into each other today," he said.

"Really? How odd?" Laurette said, with big, fluttery, innocent eyes. She was overdoing it. If she wasn't careful, Juan Carlos was going to figure out she knew more than she was letting on. Subtlety was one skill God never had time to bestow on Laurette.

"Yes, I saw him in Burbank. At Tammy's house."

Laurette turned to me. "What were you doing there?"

I couldn't believe it. In her panicked efforts to hide her own complicity, Laurette was selling me out. She didn't mean to, but she didn't want to upset her new husband.

I just stood there, with my mouth open and my mind racing. "My dentist has an office on that street. I was getting a cleaning." How lame.

Juan Carlos grinned. He loved watching me lie. And he didn't care. He just wanted to see me squirm some more.

"After we rehearsed our scene, I drove out to the beach to do a little body surfing," he said.

Laurette ran her fingers over his hardened, sculptured biceps. "He exercises all the time. But why state the obvious?" She was proud of him. And had every right to be. He was a good-looking, sexy man. For a manipulative, cocky son of a bitch.

"It's weird. I was all the way out in Malibu, by myself, and I swear I saw Jarrod's car. That fancy Beamer he likes to cruise around town in."

"Well, it couldn't have been his if you had just seen him in Burbank," Laurette offered.

"No, I guess that would mean he was following me or something."

I was through playing Juan Carlos's little game. I stood up. "But since I've already said I was getting my teeth cleaned, I guess it doesn't mean anything."

"I guess not," Juan Carlos said, folding his beefy arms. "So what have you two gossips been whispering about while I've been out?"

There was a long, agonizing pause.

"That's agent-client privileged information," Laurette said with a forced giggle.

"I thought that only applied to lawyers." He was dead serious.

"Jarrod's NBC pilot died, so we were discussing what's next for him."

It was a good save. But Juan Carlos wasn't buying. Any of it. It was time to make a graceful exit.

"I better get home to Charlie," I said, downing the last of my own drink, handing Juan Carlos the glass, and heading for the door.

"Call me tomorrow. Give my love to Charlie," Laurette said as she gulped down the last of her apple martini.