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Shaundra felt like crap the nextwhen she crawled out of bed and every bone in her body ached fro

She sighed So fifty really sucked

Shaundra walked over to her arh blood pressure machine and carried it back over to her bed to test her pressure She gri

Maybe she should drink more water She put away the machine, reached for her arsenal of medicine and downed it with a full bottle of water Everyshe followed the sa

She gazed over to the clock on the nightstand Six a, Shaundra ate the breakfast Ichiro left for her on the bedside table She gazed lovingly at the single long-ste was arriving, and she looked forward to witnessing the trees bloolasses while her laptop warmed up in her officea room connected to her and Ichiro&039;s bedroom It would have been a perfect spot for a nursery if she was foolish enough to consider Ich&039;s proposition She found her glasses and slipped thee of her nose so she could read the fine print on her table and on heron the computer strained her eyes to the point that she needed bifocals She typed in her login name and password, and moments later her desktop appeared First stop, Twitter, to catch up on All-K-Pop, her favorite Asian entertain over all the new male pop idols, Shaundra surfed over to Facebook, where she said goodto her fans and Happy Birthday to those friends celebrating their birth After reading all the current posts, she clicked on her profile page to make sure that no one had posted any advertisements and to read comments from her friends, fans and familyto her move to Osaka

Shaundra friended a couple of people and then went to her fan page, where she wrote about her current works in progress and upco releases She posted all of her new book covers and announced a contest for her latest gay book, Manly

The next stop was perusing her publishers&039; Facebook pages to catch up on what her felloriters were up to One quick surf brought her to Aoe Their fans had been busy since early thisgirls professing their love to the fellows A few had uploaded their favorite Aomori music videos, and a lot of the China tour

What&039;s this? Shaundra groaned So at the club the other night and one of her fighting with Ale her when they saw that their es of YouTube Oh God, she thought What were her fans going to think? That settled it - no ned out of her site and went to check her e- ain She had about three hundred new letters Yahoo is going to shut ests she subscribed to, except the ones fro her that she had won a lottery and the ones trying to sell her penile enhancement products

She zeroed in on the e-mails on how to promote her books, read some reviews on her books and responded to editors who had sent her ARCs that needed tidying Her eyes landed on several new requests for friendship from Facebook and Twitter There were also about fifty fro her latest debacle with Yori Shaundra clicked on the first one So she received, and a few said so with Yori

Enough Shaundra put checkmarks in the boxes and deleted all of them All that was left in her box were Calls for Submissions and a letter frori her latest video She clicked on it Shaundra groaned

Harper wanted her to do so with him in China in a couple of weeks when they went overseas The last time she did this type of work for hiers, a rapher and God knoho else At fifty, she seesoon and would stop by to see how she was doing

Shaundra replied, See you when you get here We have a lot to catch up on She sent the reply

A part of her was really excited about seeing Harper again, since she hadn&039;t seen hi day She wondered how Dorothy, Jackson and Riley were doing She promised herself she would call or drop theet down to so

Shaundra&039;s head still throbbed The medicine hadn&039;t kicked in yet, but she had a lot of work to do Her current project for her New York publisher was an erotic vampire series, and she owed NiiKi, her Japanese publisher, a book for their Asian gay line She reached for the thermos of coffee that Ich had left for her and poured herself a cup Shaundra moaned when it hit the pit of her stonore it, she told herself

For the life of her she couldn&039;t concentrate on her work

She kept rehashing her dance with Yori over and over in her ? Did she love Silk that ree to dance with him, even when she knew he still carried a torch for herproven by a gigantic bulge in his pants that she felt when he held her close? If she was Amaya, she would have slapped her too

Shaundra knew better but still did the burind on the dance floor with the sexy Japanese man who still held a special spot in her heart

The door to her office opened and Ichiro entered "Good , beautiful wife"

Shaundra looked over and smiled at him Ichiro was dressed cutely in a dark brown suit and on his way to another businessquite the entrepreneur with the opening of his restaurants in Japan and Korea She still hadn&039;t met his relatives but looked forward to it one day before the band left for China She was pretty proud of his acco away so often cut into her face tiot a lot of work done with the ti like sunshine and a new light cologne he&039;d just purchased, and kissed her "I should be back this afternoon," he told her

"I&039;ll be here"

He peered over her shoulder at her laptop "What are you working on?"

"A new book for Mr Niigata"

"Yaoi?" he asked with a disgusted look on his face

Shaundra nodded

"I don&039;t knohat people get out of reading such trash"

Shaundra frowned at him

Ichiro quickly covered his mistake "I don&039;t enre Two men roorgeous J-popper a homophobe? "I have this philosophy that people fall in love ho they fall in love with It doesn&039;t matter if they&039;re both ued "And how do you knohat two ether behind closed doors?"

"I don&039;t, but I have seen ay porn?"

"Not lately, but I have seen quite a few movies"

Ichiro didn&039;t fail her He blushed beet red "Oh Shaundra, how can you stand to do that?"

"Would it be better on you if I wrote about tohtened and smiled "Maybe"

"You do understand that I would have to watch a lot of lesbian movies and do a lot of research"

"I hope you o to the library or surf the Internet"

Shaundra hued the subject "If ether, women wouldn&039;t have been created"

Shaundra chuckled "You are so innocent"

Ichiro frowned "Don&039;t teasemen look at you like you&039;re dessert"

Yes, she did know She went through it daily "Ooh, hit a nerve Are eous husband?"

"I don&039;t want to talk about it," he said

The guys of Ao around the issue of their feminine looks To her it made them hot, and that hat drew her to them in the first place

"I&039;m serious about my beliefs, Shaundra"

Shaundra rose and went into his arms For a moment she felt faint, but she quickly recovered "I know you are and so am I It&039;s just fiction I don&039;t have so you with another man Or another woman either, for thatYori join her and Ichiro in bed, but she was never going to act upon the to happen"

Shaundra pinched him on his backside, and Ichiro quickly backed away fro," Ichiro answered "I&039;"

Shaundra eyed hio "Okay, see you later"

Ichiro headed for the door and stopped "One : try to stay away from Amaya and Yori today"

"Yeah, yeah, I already know Anyway, I probably won&039;t step foot out of this office except to get so for lunch or to use the toilet I have a lot of work to do"

"I mean it, Shaundra," Ichiro said like he didn&039;t believe her

Why is he being this way? Usually he had the temperament of a kitten Now he sounded like ahusband

She raised her right hand as she sat down in her chair "I proo anywhere near Yori or his crazy wife

I will stay in our suite until you come home"

Ichiro rolled his eyes at her sarcasant did not fit him If she wanted to be treated like a child or a possession, she would haveShaundra looked down at the caller ID Juanda Shit "Hello"

"Have you lost your lad to talk to her eldest daughter, but not this"No"

"Then you ain?"

It would be nice every now and then to get a call fro? or so like that" "Oh, so you&039;ve seen it?"

"So have several million viewers I think they crashed the server, because I&039;ain"

Great, sarcas "She started withwith that woman&039;s husband?"

"Because he askedsuch a big deal out of this? It was just a dance

"Were you out on a date with hi, and she caether?"

Shaundra laughed Where did this girl get these ideas?

"No, we all went to the club together He asked me to dance after she went to the ladies&039; roohed "My e," Shaundra said in her own defense "We are all supposed to be friends, so I didn&039;t see anything wrong with dancing with a friend"

"Put yourself in her shoes You and her husband were once a hot item, and then she co with him on the dance floor to &039;Freak Me Baby&039; What would you have done?"

Shaundra sighed "Probably the saized to her"

"Hell no," Shaundra answered rudely "She&039;s been picking with me since she ca her butt was all I did to her"

"You&039;ve changed," Juanda said "You didn&039;t used to be so vindictive Where was Ichiro during all of this?"

"Home," Shaundra replied "He&039;d just returned from a business trip and was tired We had already o out for a while"

"Does he know?"

"Most of it He did show up toward the end before the police arrived"

"The police? Please don&039;t tell me that you went to jail"

"No, but Yori and his wife did"

"And you&039;re still sharing a house with them?"

"Yes"

"Are you crazy? What happens if she wants to retaliate?"

"Then I&039;ll deal with her"

"Mother, fifty-year-old wo over a man"

"I know," Shaundra replied The more she talked to Juanda the more her head hurt And she felt a bit feverish "But I had to defendme like that Maybe I shouldn&039;t have danced with Yori, but I&039;"

"I know," Juanda said "Just do me a favor Please stay away fro out a soon as they can find a house"

"You do know that I worry about you, and Japan is a heck of a long way to be traveling to visit you in the hospital"

"How are the kids?"

"Fine," Juanda replied "And don&039;t change the subject"

"I thought you were through Listen I appreciate the concern, but I can take care of ht hook"

Shaundra chuckled

"This isn&039;t funny, Mother I swear, sometimes I think our roles have reversed"

"Ich wants us to adopt a baby"

Silence

"What?"

"Ichiro wants us to adopt a baby"

Juanda squealed "That&039;s good news Areed to it yet"

"Why not?" Juanda asked, sounding disappointed

"Because I don&039;t know if I can handle a baby That&039;s a big responsibility for soreat mother, and my kids love you"

"Yeah, and I can send theet on my nerves I can&039;t do that with an adopted child"

"Too bad you can&039;t have one of your own or find a surrogate mother Then the child would at least be Ichiro&039;s"

"Are you volunteering?" Shaundra asked

"Hell no," Juanda answered "I&039;hed The tere quite a handful "I hope he changes his mind We&039;re both at the top of our careers, and we don&039;t have tie?"