Once my gaze connected with hers I couldn’t look away.I smiled, grabbed a couple beers from the ice trough, walked up to her and offered the drink. ...he smiled, accepted and introduced herself, “I’m Nellie” she said, I told her my name, we shook hands and both smiled. Her teeth were perfect, bright white surrounded by full, red lips. I was imagining her blowing me a kiss when I heard an airhorn go off followed by a shout from one of the older brothers, “Ok bitches, that’s enough with the float.. . is similar to when I unfocus, and let my mind spread among my entire awareness?” she asked, cocking her head and drawing close, trying to cuddle up against him. Lou tensed despite himself and instinctively, Bea drew backwards. Her antennas drooped. “Lou ... are you ... do you not ... want? Me to...” She blushed. “I was going to ... that is, I...”Lou forced his hand out, cupping her cheek. Touching her smooth, sleek skin – rubbery, and warm and inhuman and so very beautiful – made him feel. Honestly, if we could triple our prices, then Oracle 6 might be the best option. But we’d go out of business if we tried that.”“Cindi already bitches about the licensing cost interfering with sales to smaller firms.”“She actually has an idea for what to do about that,” Dave said. “A stripped-down version that we could sell to small law firms like Gwen Meyer’s. The same thing for the medical software - a stripped down version for sole-practitioners. Both would cost significantly less, but would. I wore a sparkling white Valentino for the black and white ball I’d picked. The men were boring, the women snappish, the food bland, and the photographers awful. All through it I’d drunk. I drank because I’d lost the one thing that meant something in my life. I drank to dull the pain that was now, even years later, still sharp and swift. He was married, had kids, was beyond me then. And how I mourned the life stolen from me. I had a bottle of bubbly and I was weaving as I walked. No one was.