by Jane Henry
“We’ve all been there,” Hillary interrupted, and Tess nodded seriously. “The early days of a serious relationship can be so overwhelming, especially for a submissive, and nobody knows that better than we do. It sometimes helps to know you can talk about it.”
Alice sighed and felt her shoulders slump.
“It is overwhelming,” she admitted. “The whole trust thing, you know?”
Heidi nodded. “Boy, do I ever. That’s the hardest part.”
“What made you think it was a serious relationship, anyway?” Alice asked Tess, as Tess blended foundation across her forehead. “I just called you and asked to borrow a dress!”
“You asked to borrow a dress because you were going out with Slay,” Tess corrected.
“Well, yeah…” Alice agreed.
“I remember the way you looked the minute you found out he was shot,” Tess whispered. “You looked like your whole world was ending.”
Alice remembered it too, and pressed her lips together.
“So I called Heidi and told her you needed the dress,” Tess said.
“And when she told me, I remembered the way Slay watched you when we were at Charlie’s school fair,” Heidi said, placing her hand on Alice’s shoulder. “Always focused on you, always knowing exactly where you were and who was around you.” She smiled. “And I was thrilled, because he’s a good guy. And he deserves someone like you.”
Alice felt a lump form in her throat. “You think?”
“I know,” Heidi confirmed. “So I decided I had to bring the dress over myself. And I called Hillie…”
Hillary said, “And I knew I had to come, too.”
“Because she loves to collect inspiration for her novel writing,” Heidi joked.
Hillary elbowed her sister gently. “No. Because I love Slay. In a very platonic, brotherly way,” she quickly amended. “Slay helped rescue me from, uh, Marauder,” she said, with an audible shudder in her voice for the man who had held her against her will twice. “And then Matt tried to set me up on that one ill-fated date with him.” She snickered. “You know, the very first day I met you, Alice, I could tell that you had feelings for him. And that he had them for you, though he tried to hide it.”
“But it is a serious relationship, isn’t it?” Tess said, bringing the conversation back around. “When one of these guys finally finds the girl he wants, he seems to go for it, no holds barred. It’s just the way they do things.”
“It is serious,” Alice said, looking from one face to the other. “I guess I was the only one who didn’t see it coming. I mean, Slay told me he’d been thinking about me for the longest time, and wanted to see if I was the type of girl who’d be on board for a serious, long-term thing. For the last few months, he’s been testing me.”
Hillary rolled her eyes. “Okay, that’s probably not the best way he could have put it. But, really, haven’t you been doing the same with him? Haven’t we all done that? We’ve gotten to know our guys and knew they were the ones for us… sometimes even before they’d figured it out,” she said with a rueful smile.
“I suppose. It’s just… I haven’t had the best luck with guys,” Alice admitted as Tess applied some blush to her cheeks. “The one guy I was serious about before this was Charlie’s dad, and when he found out I was pregnant, he left me high and dry. My mom keeps trying to set me up with guys from her church, but the only one who’s been interested is this slimeball who won’t stop texting me even though I don’t reply, and would probably faint if I told him I work at The Club and like to be spanked. So… I dunno. It’s hard to believe that things with Slay are real. I just keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, to see his major flaw. And I know it’s wrong, so I’m trying to trust him. It’s just… hard.”
Tess nodded. “I get it. I really do. The way I was raised, I figured a man as kind and talented and good as Tony would’ve been out of my reach forever. It was hard to believe that he was mine.”
“And Matteo wanted to keep our relationship platonic for the longest time,” Hillary put in. “I really thought he’d never come around.”
Alice blew out a breath. “But it seemed to work out well for all of you, right? You just trusted your guys, and everything was fine?” she asked hopefully.
Hillary gave a wide-eyed look to Heidi and then to Tess. “Er… Yeah, something like that,” she hedged.
“There were some hairy moments,” Tess admitted as she stepped back and snapped her eyeshadow case shut.
“But it all worked out,” Heidi soothed.
Alice opened her mouth to ask for more details when they all heard the sound of the lock in the front door, followed by a rumble that could have come from a herd of stampeding buffalo. She heard Charlie call, “We’re home, we’re home, we’re home!”
She shook her head and yelled, “Charles Murray Cavanaugh! Shoes off at the door and no stomping!”
“All right, Momma!” he called back.
Heidi smiled. “Being a mom adds a whole other level to everything, huh?”
“I’m glad Tony and I are planning to wait another year or two before we think about kids,” Tess told them.
Hillary pursed her lips and started to say something, but stopped herself.
Charlie careened into the room, ran over to where Alice was sitting, and threw his arms around her for a quick hug.
“You look… fancy,” he decided when he pulled back.
“Thank you. How was drawing club?” she asked.
“Good! Mrs. O’Gara said that we could draw whatever we wanted, so I drew Beast from the X-Men for Slay, because he kinda reminds me of Beast.”
Alice blinked. “The, um, blue guy with the fur? Reminds you of Slay?”
“Yeah,” Charlie confirmed.
Hillary turned a snicker into a credible imitation of a cough, and Tess turned her head away, likely to hide her smile, but Alice nodded solemnly. “I’m sure he’ll love it,” she said seriously.
Charlie’s smiling was blinding. “Cool!” he said.
“Hey.” Nora walked into the room, blonde hair swinging behind her, and smiled at each of the ladies. Her eyes caught on her sister, who was busy sorting through lipglosses. “Tess, can I talk to you for a minute? I could really use some advice.” She nodded towards the hallway.
“We can help if you want,” Hillary offered with a wide smile, gesturing from herself to Heidi to Alice. “We’re great with advice, too.”
“Uh…” Nora looked at Alice, hesitated, then nodded. “Okay.”
Alice turned to her son. “Charlie, honey, you can go and watch an episode of X-men, and then Nora will come play with you, okay?”
“Awesome!” he breathed, running out of the room before she could change her mind. Alice chuckled.
“Okay, spill,” Tess told her sister.
Nora licked her lips and darted another nervous glance at Alice. “Okay, so there’s this girl I know. And she, um, is dating a guy who seems like a nice guy. The problem is, her guy has a very, extremely questionable associate.”
Heidi’s forehead wrinkled. “Define very, extremely questionable.”
“Like, the associate is a criminal and a thief and a drug dealer, that kind of very, extremely questionable,” Nora said.
“Yikes,” Hillie breathed.
“Wait, are you talking about Mom’s old boyfriend, Roger? Is he hanging around her again?” Tess asked, dabbing a final bit of gloss on Tess’s lips before putting her makeup away and zipping up her bag. Alice knew that Tess’s and Nora’s mom had been dating an asshole who had attempted to level-up from a small-time thief to a big-time criminal, and had gotten Nora kidnapped in the process, but they’d all thought he’d left town weeks before.
“I have no idea if Roger’s around,” Nora said, shaking her head. “I haven’t seen Mom in a month, and I don’t even talk to her on the phone.” Alice noted that Nora didn’t seem very upset about that, either.
“So, wait, your friend is dating a guy, and that guy is friends w
ith a drug-dealing criminal?” Heidi repeated. “Does the guy know he’s hanging out with a criminal?”
Nora nodded slowly. “Evidence would, um, suggest that he does, yes.”
“And does your friend know that her guy is hanging out with a criminal?” Alice asked distractedly.
She stood up and took stock of her appearance in the mirror. Damn. Tess had somehow managed to do a smoky-eye thing without making Alice look like she had two black eyes. She looked pretty darn good, if she did say so herself.
“Uh, no. I can say pretty confidently that she doesn’t know,” Nora said.
“Hmm,” Alice said. “Well, then you need to tell her.”
“Agreed,” Heidi said. “If your friendship is close enough that you can tell her the hard stuff like that.”
But Tess had been watching Nora closely and she seemed to come to a realization. She closed her eyes for a moment as if praying for patience. “Actually, I think before you tell your friend anything, you should check your facts,” she said pointedly. “Like, are you sure her guy is hanging out with a criminal? Not just, say, bumping into him on the street and being polite?”
“Yes,” Nora said, raising her chin defiantly. “Don’t treat me like I’m a little kid who’s imagining things, Tess. He is not the nice guy you think he is! It’s a fact.”
Tess shook her head impatiently. “Nor, honest to God, you need to let this go.”
“I can’t!” Nora argued.
“You won’t,” Tess said. “I have had this conversation with you a million times. Tony has had this conversation with you at least half a million times. He saved your life.”
“You weren’t there, Tess,” Nora argued. “You don’t know how it was!”
“No, I know I don’t, honey,” Tess said, throwing her hands up in frustration. “And I’m not saying you should forget it, or that you shouldn’t talk to your therapist about it, or that you have to be best friends with this guy and invite him over for dinner. I’m not even saying that he’s a good guy, although any guy who helped rescue you can’t be all bad, as far as I’m concerned. But I’m telling you that you need to stop obsessing about him, for your own safety!”
“Who are you two talking about?” Heidi demanded.
“Diego,” Nora said flatly, ignoring her sister’s glare. “Diego Santiago.”
Heidi looked blankly from Hillary to Alice to Tess, seeking an explanation. Hillary frowned, as though trying to place the name, but Alice remembered it all too well. She had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach as she asked, “Diego? Isn’t that the guy who brought Nora home after she was kidnapped? The one who’s friendly with… Slay?”
“That’s the guy,” Tess confirmed wearily. “Nora believes he works for Salazar, the same guy Roger worked for.”
“Whoa,” Heidi said. “Seriously?”
Nora nodded vehemently. “He did. He does. Diego hung around with Salazar and Roger and the other guys at my mom’s house. I heard them all talking about selling drugs, about women, about hurting people,” Nora said. “I had to lock myself in the bedroom.” Her brown eyes were glazed with remembered fear.
The guy who had told them Slay was shot, who had called Slay by name, worked for a drug dealer? What?
“Nora,” Tess said soothingly, reaching out a hand, but Nora shook her head.
“When Roger brought me back to Chalo Salazar’s warehouse after he’d kidnapped me, Diego was there. He wasn’t there to rescue me. He was there as one of Salazar’s goons. Slay showed up, Roger shot him. Salazar went ballistic on Roger, saying they didn’t need this kind of complication, and told Diego to get rid of me. So yeah, Diego brought me home, but only because Salazar told him to. If Salazar had decided to keep me, Diego would have gone along with it. I bet he would have killed me if Salazar had told him to.”
“Honey,” Tess said, wrapping an arm around her sister’s shoulders while Nora stood stiffly, tears in her eyes.
“Nora, Slay is a good man,” Hillary reminded her gently. “I haven’t met all of Matt’s friends and associates, but between the guys he tattoos, and the guys he’s worked security with, the guys he’s served with, even the guys he grew up with, he knows a lot of what you might call questionable people—people who have made bad choices, sometimes out of desperation, and ended up on the wrong side of the law. I bet Slay knows people like that, too.”
Nora looked away and said nothing, so Hillary took a deep breath and plowed on. “But even though they’ve done questionable things, Matteo doesn’t cut that connection because he still cares about them. I don’t think that makes Matteo a bad person. It’s not that black and white. Diego may or may not be a bad guy, but Slay definitely isn’t, even if he and Diego are acquainted.”
Nora nodded stiffly without meeting Hillary’s eyes.
“Nor, I’m more concerned that you’re still looking into this Diego guy,” Tess said worriedly. “You’ve been searching for him online; you keep thinking you see him on the street or around campus when you’re taking your dual enrollment classes…”
“Because I do!” Nora insisted.
Tess continued as if she hadn’t heard her. “I don’t know what it is about Diego that’s got you so obsessed, but you need to stop. Think about it this way, Nor: if he is a bad guy, or even a questionably bad guy, you’re only putting yourself in danger by looking into him.”
Nora opened her mouth to argue, then shut it without speaking. “Okay,” she said finally.
“Okay?” Tess repeated.
“Yeah, okay.” Nora smiled more fully. “You’re probably right. I’ve developed an unhealthy obsession somehow. I’ll talk to Margot, my counselor, about it. And I’ll drop it.”
“You will?” Tess was dubious.
“Totally. Yes. Consider it dropped!” she said brightly. “Hey, Al, I’m gonna go play with Charlie now, okay?”
Alice nodded woodenly and watched as Nora left, and then as Hillary stepped forward to speak to Tess in a low voice. Her chest was tight with a feeling she recognized right away as totally irrational fear… though somehow, knowing it was irrational didn’t make it any less real. Hillary was right, of course. Slay knew Diego because they served together or something, and when Nora had been kidnapped, of course Slay had called on any and all resources to get her back, especially the ones who might have information on criminals. It didn’t mean that they were tight, as Nora said. It didn’t make Slay a criminal, just because he knew one.
And yet an insistent voice in the back of her mind wondered whether the rest of the world would see it that way. What would her parents think? What would Charlie think?
Heidi seemed to recognize the panic in Alice’s eyes and placed a comforting hand on Alice’s forearm. “This isn’t a big deal, honey. Really. You know Slay. We all do.”
Alice let out the breath she’d been holding. “Right. I know you’re right. I’m going to ask him about it, let him explain.”
Heidi smiled. “Good! For a second, I thought you might fly off the handle.”
Alice nodded. “Even just a couple of weeks ago, I would have. But I’m trying really hard here.” She gave Heidi a small smile.
“Atta girl,” Heidi said, wrapping her arms around Alice in an impulsive hug.
Then, turning to Hillary and Tess, she continued, “All right, glam squad. I think it’s time for us to pack up and get out of here before Slay shows up and sees us all standing around gawking. And I told Dom I’d be home on time.”
“Not to mention, it’s nearly dinner!” Hillary pointed out. “I’m ravenous.”
Tess rolled her eyes. “I think you have a hollow leg, Tinker Bell. But if you want, we can stop by Cara on the—”
“Yes!” Hillary cried grabbing Tess’s arm excitedly. “Definitely. What do we have on the menu with capers?”
“Capers?” Tess looked bewildered. “Wow. That’s oddly specific. Um, there’s the chicken picatta—"
“Yes, that’s what I want. Will Rao make mine with extra capers?�
�� Hillary asked. “And maybe some pepper flakes?”
Tess grabbed her makeup bag and rolled her eyes. “Uh, I’m sure he would. What’s gotten into you?” she laughed.
She gave Alice a wink, Hillary kissed her on the cheek, and they were off, leaving Alice with Nora, Charlie, and her thoughts.
Alice had mostly composed herself and had taken on the task of selecting some jewelry to compliment the dress when Nora appeared in the bedroom doorway a little while later.
“Hey, honey,” Alice said, holding a pair of dangly earrings against her ear and admiring the look in the mirror. “You okay? I want you to know, I appreciate you saying you’d stay overnight tonight, but if you’re too upset, we can—”
“Alice, I don’t think you should go out tonight,” Nora blurted out, clasping her hands together. “I’ll stay if you want me to, but…”
Alice shook her head and turned away from her dresser. “Nora—”
“I didn’t tell you guys the whole story,” Nora said, walking over to sit down on the edge of the bed facing Alice. “Tess is convinced that I’m obsessed with Diego so whenever I tell her the stuff I find out, she comes up with the most random excuses in the book for how I must have misinterpreted things. But I’m not obsessed with Diego. I’m just determined to do whatever I can to bring these guys to justice.”
“O-okay,” Alice agreed, leaning back against her dresser. “But don’t you think you should let the police take care of it? Or—”
“The police aren’t involved,” Nora said hotly. “Not one police officer ever came to interview me or anything after I got home.”
“What? But why not?” Alice demanded.
“I asked Tony that. He said it was because Slay asked them not to. I guess Diego did Slay a favor and tipped him off to where I was being held. Maybe Slay didn’t want to get poor Diego in trouble by getting the cops involved,” she said bitterly. “But in the meantime, there are these criminals, Alice, and they’re still doing who-the-hell-knows-what to other girls, girls who don’t have anyone to come and rescue them. And I can’t tell the police what I know because of Slay and his friend Diego.”
Alice frowned. Well. When you put it that way. But…