I ignored it.

“You’re not gonna see who it is? It may be your woman.”

I smiled it off. “And if it is, then what am I gonna tell her, that I’m not coming home tonight?”

Nicole had given me a way out, and I was surely thinking about taking it.

At first she grinned at my slyness. Then she asked me, “So you live with someone?”

If I told her the truth, then she would want to come over to my place to prove it, which I did not want. But if I lied to her to save myself the hassle of an invitation, she might have flipped out at me for taking advantage of her ignorance. But she knew I wasn’t married, so how bad could she take it?

I asked her, “How much will that answer change the plans of our night?”

“Well, if you have a woman at home, then it explains why you had me suck your dick in your car instead of at your house.”

She was already taking it to the extreme. I hadn’t planned on that.

“You’re already assuming things,” I told her.

“Well, answer the question then.”

It’s funny how sour women can get when reality crashes down on their dreams. Nicole loved to laugh a lot, but she wasn’t laughing now.

She gave me no choice in the matter. I had to stand my ground or go through the same backlash I went through with Rachel at the Hilton Hotel in Miami. So I got bold and said, “I have a woman in nearly every state. I’m single, and loving it. And I don’t share space with too many people.”

“How many people do you share space with? Do you have a home in every state, too?”

She was making it a lot harder than I thought it would be to clear the air.

“No. I don’t have it like that, but I’m comfortable.”

“And you’re telling me that you have a woman in Wyoming and New Mexico?”

I grinned. I don’t know if she was joking or what, but I joked back with her anyway.

“Those two are about the only states where I’m still looking.”

“What about Oregon, Idaho, and Rhode Island?”

She was really getting into this. I said, “What are we having, geography class or something?”

“You’re the one who brought it up.”

“Well, it was only a figure of speech to emphasize that I’m a free and roaming man.”

Nicole looked ahead and nodded. She mumbled “Okay” and munched on her chewing gum.

I didn’t know how to feel after that. Did I take her back to her hotel room and drop her off or what? I still didn’t feel like going club hopping.

She said, “So, I guess we can’t go back to your place. I mean, I don’t want to get you in trouble with your Atlanta woman. But who do you have up in D.C. and Baltimore?”

She looked me straight in my eyes. I had a few prospects in D.C., but Nicole was it in Baltimore. I mean, I knew women from B-more, but not like that.