But I nearly bumped into him when he stopped abruptly.
I was about to say something when I looked up at him and saw his head was turned to the right.
And he was statue-still.
Weird.
I looked to the right.
There was a little rectangular window there.
And in the studio beyond was Hattie.
Dancing.
I stood, staring, mesmerized.
I’d never seen her dance.
I’d seen her strip, yeah.
But dancing?
Oh…my…
God.
She was wearing some gray capri leggings with a design of laser cuts down the sides and a light pink crewneck tank with gathering along her ribs, her feet bare, her long, curly hair pulled back in a ponytail.
And she was leaping.
Again.
Again.
Again.
She’d land soft and bound up like she was on a trampoline, back leg straight, front leg bent before her, arms held to her sides.
Flying like an angel.
I was watching and holding my breath.
She was magnificent.
She did some pirouettes, then suddenly fell in the most graceful splash to the floor, on her side, bottom arm stretched out in front of her, before she found her feet in a miracle of motion and pirouetted again.
Thus commenced some moves where she used the room to its fullness with skill and poise and talent and imagination.
Her leaps were works of art.
The line of her arms should be captured by a sculptor.
My God, seriously.
I knew she’d trained, but I had no idea.
No freaking idea.
On this thought, in the midst of a sequence of moves, abruptly she stopped.
She went back.
She did them again.
But stopped.
Went back.
Did them again.
What on…?
She stopped, went back, did them again, but when she stopped that time, I tensed when I saw the way she tensed, every muscle in her body standing out in sharp relief.
This happened before she did a half squat, balled her fists and slammed them on the tops of her thighs in a way that had to cause pain.
“What on…?” I said out loud this time.
She did it again.
And again.
Shit.
This couldn’t go on.
When I was about to move, I felt Axl do it.
Straight to the door, he knocked hard twice, then walked right in.
“Yo,” he said like it was a casual greeting.
But Hattie whirled on us.
“Ha—”
That was all I got out before I was arrested by the look on her face.
She was staring at Axl and she knew.
She knew he saw her dancing, maybe.
But she knew he saw her hurting herself.
Definitely.
This was bad.
This was lockdown-and-never-open-up-again bad.
“Hattie,” I said carefully, making a move toward her.
She jerked away, walking swiftly, muttering, “Sorry. I’ve gotta go.”
“Hattie,” I repeated, walking swiftly too, toward her.
She’d grabbed up her shoes and workout bag by the time I got to her, and she skirted me, not surprisingly doing this gracefully.
I dumped my hat and shoes on a chair.
“Hattie, honey, hang on,” I urged.
“You can use the space,” she said, rushing toward the door and doing it wide to give Axl, who was standing only a few feet into it, plenty of room. “Sorry, I just…” She didn’t bother finishing that.
She got close to the door and Axl moved like lightning.
He caught her hand.
She jerked to a stop and her head snapped back to look up at him.
“Hattie.”
Oh…
Man.
I was melting.
Serious puddle-of-goo time.
His deep voice wrapped around her name in that achingly gentle way?
Amazing.
Hattie didn’t think it was amazing.
Violently, she pulled free of his grip, whispered in a very different aching way, “Sorry,” and then she dashed out of the room.
Axl turned to the door as she did, but he didn’t go after her.
I stood where I was.
Eventually, I called, “Axl.”
“I’m on it,” he said to the door.
“Axl,” I said his name softer this time.
He turned to me.
And I full-on took a step back at the look on his face.
“I’m on it,” he growled.
“Okay,” I whispered.
“You know what that was?” he clipped out, each word so short, it was a wonder he pronounced all the letters.
“Well, I think her dad was kinda hard on her considering the fact she’s not the principal of the New York City Ballet and he found anything less seriously unacceptable. And by ‘kinda hard,’ his disappointment could be communicated in physical ways. So, until what we saw just now, I didn’t know she still danced, outside of stripping.”
I fought taking another step back at the heightened look of displeasure my words put on his face.
“What on earth is happening with Hattie?” Pepper asked, strolling in with her daughter, Juno, who saw me, her face lit up, I forced mine to do the same as I put my arms out wide to invite her to come to me, something she did, running right to me to give me a hug. “She nearly bowled us over when we were on our way in here,” Pepper finished.
“Hey, sugar,” I said to Juno.
“Hey, Rinz,” she said back, still holding on to my hips.
I gave her a squeeze. She gave me one too then stepped to my side and I looked to her mom.
Pepper was staring at Axl contemplatively because Axl had only minorly adjusted his terrifyingly wrathful expression in the presence of a child.
“I’ll be outside,” he grunted, then he went right to some hooks by the door, hung my coat on one, then out the door he went, closing it behind him.
Pepper approached me, asking, “Did Hattie and him have a thing?”
I glanced down at Juno, then said to her, “I’ll share later.”
“Oh, I know you get Boone like Evie got Mag and Lottie got Mo and Hattie is gonna get Axl,” Juno told me.
What she did not add was that Pepper was going to get Auggie.
“Did they fight?” Juno asked.
“No, honey, he saw her dance,” I told her.
“He saw her dance?” Pepper asked quietly.
So I was right.
Pepper didn’t know she still danced either.
And maybe she didn’t until she had a big studio space open to her.
I looked to my friend. “Yes. And I couldn’t tell what she was doing wrong, but we also saw her mess up.”
Pepper pressed her lips together.
In other words, she got me.
So, the rundown was, my dad was an absent dick. Evie’s dad was a neglectful dick. Pepper’s dad was a judgmental dick.
And Hattie’s dad was an actively evil, children’s-animated-film-villain-level dick.
He was still in her life, fully in her life since he was sick with diabetes and about a dozen other maladies, didn’t manage his care very well (that was, at all) and she went over to his house a lot to take care of him.
And when she did, he broke her apart.
Systematically.
Time and again.
I mean, it might not say a lot about me, but I kinda wished he’d get so bad, he had to be placed into nursing care or something.
Or just die.
But in my defense, that was how bad this dude was.
The door opened, Lottie came in calling, “Hey,” and then looked around and her brows went together, as she asked, “Where’s Hatz?”
“Rinz and Axl
saw her dancing. Rinz and Axl also saw her mess up,” Pepper shared.
“Oh shit,” Lottie said, her gaze drifting to the door, beyond which was Axl.
“So…yeah,” Pepper finished.
Lottie started to move back toward the door, a set look on her pretty face, but before she faced the eye of the tiger, I said quickly, “He’s on it.”
Both Pepper and Lottie turned to me, but it was only Lottie who asked, “What?”
“He’s on it as in on it,” I told them.
“On what?” Juno asked.
I looked down at her. “Hattie is having a bad day,” read: life, “and he’s gonna make it better.”
“Cool,” Juno said.
Ah, to be a kid and not understand the staggering effort that Axl was going to have to expend to get in there with Hattie.
“He’s on it?” Lottie asked.
I looked to her and nodded.
“How on it?” Lottie pushed.
“Well, we can just say that if she was the Holy Grail, and he was King Arthur, it’d take about a week before that cup was in the display case at Camelot.”
“Finally,” Pepper muttered.
I gave her a look that said, Yeah, right. And you and Auggie are up next.
She gave me a look that said, Mind your own beeswax.
I changed my look to say, Not on your life.
She changed her look to say, Whatever.
I adjusted my look to say, I’m getting it regular from a hot guy who makes me breakfast and I’m pretty sure you’ve named your vibrator Augustus.
She rolled her eyes.
She so totally named her vibrator Augustus.
“Are you guys gonna dance, or what?” Juno asked.
“We’re gonna dance, baby,” Pepper said softly to her girl.
I turned my attention to Lottie.
She was now staring out the window.
So I went to her.
She wasn’t only queen bee at Smithie’s, she was our queen bee. A little older than us. A lot wiser than us (except Evie, no one was wiser than her, maybe not even Stephen Hawking). And she’d assumed the duty, with not a small amount of resolve, to look out for us.
“She’s gonna be all right,” I promised.
“I know a thing or two about a dad who isn’t worth much,” she said to the window and then looked to me.
I hooked my arm in hers.
“And you’re all right, and Evie’s all right, and look at me, I’m all right. And you know, it isn’t only Boone who’s making me that way. I’ve always been that way, really, because I have you guys.”
It took a sec, but Lottie finally let it go.
“Was she a good dancer?” she asked.
“Lottie, you would not believe.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think she’s done it in years.”
Hmm.
Dance space.
Alone time.
The need obviously couldn’t be held back.
Which was a problem if she was actually holding it back.
“We all need to look out for her, Rinz,” Lottie declared.
Directive received.
Though I was going to do that anyway.
I nodded.
She unhooked our arms but hooked me about my waist and turned us, saying, “Let’s dance.”
And then we danced.
* * *
Axl and I were scarfing down burrito bowls at Chipotle when my phone rang.
Okay, I was scarfing. Lottie was a drill master with the whole ironing-out-revue-routines thing.
Axl was eating normally.
I looked to my phone.
It was Joker.
“Joker,” I said to Axl when I saw his raised brows. I took the call with a “Hey.”
“We got a sitch at your house.”
I shot straight in my chair.
How could this be?
First, only the plumber was working, and he came by recommendation of Tack Allen, last president of the Chaos MC. So I’d felt safe leaving him alone because I was pretty sure he wouldn’t screw me by, say, yanking all the copper pipes out of my house to sell them on the copper black market, this courting the wrath of a bunch of bikers that seemed pretty easygoing. But I had a feeling if you screwed someone over that they’d taken under their wing, they’d frown on that.
And second, with the plumber the only one working, I didn’t know why Joker was even there.
“Why are you there?” I asked.
“I wasn’t, until I rode by and saw guys offloading a bunch of shit into your house.”
What?
“What kind of shit?” I asked.
“I don’t know, but I’m going in and I’m about to find out,” he answered.
“Be there in a sec,” I said without further delay. I disconnected and said to Axl, “We need to-go lids.”
He’d obviously read my mood because he was out of his seat, saying. “Leave it.”
Was he crazy?
Leave a perfectly good Chipotle burrito bowl?
“We can’t leave it,” I told him. “Neither of us are even halfway done. And it’s a Chipotle burrito bowl.”
“Ryn, do you have a situation?”
“I think so.”
“I’ll buy you another fuckin’ bowl. Leave it.”
After we dumped our bowls (oh, the humanity!), we hightailed it to my house.
And I realized we had more of a situation than the situation I thought we had when I saw Tack was there, as was Hawk.
And Boone.
“Uh-oh,” I said.
“Fuck,” Axl said.
Axl parked, we both got out, we did that quick, Axl headed to Hawk, and I moved across the lawn to Boone.
“What’s going on?” I asked him.
“You’ve had a delivery.”
Please tell me it’s not a dead body. Please tell me it’s not a dead body. Please tell me it’s not a dead body, I chanted in my head.
“Far’s I can tell from what you’ve shared about your plans, all the flooring, wood and tile, and all the cabinetry for the kitchen. Plus, a Wolf stovetop, a Dacor microwave and oven, a Sub-Zero fridge and a Bosch dishwasher,” Boone shared.
I blinked up at him, repeatedly.
When I could again operate my mouth, I asked, “What?”
“Not sure this neighborhood could support the increase in value all that means to the property, but easy, you could tack on another ten K, maybe fifteen, even if that shit is worth far more, and get it, because most homebuyers know how much that shit is worth,” Boone went on.
“What?” I asked again.
He had something in his hand I hadn’t noticed until then and I noticed it because he was now offering it to me.
It was a piece of paper.
I took it, and on it, it said,
Ryn,
This is partial payment on what I owe.
Keep cool,
BR
Well, apparently, Brett hadn’t disappeared.
“Oh boy,” I said to the note.
“Yeah,” Boone said to me.
I looked up at him. “How did he know what stuff to buy?”
“I don’t know because we’ve been careful and you’ve had no tail, but at a guess, you got quotes for all that at stores and it would not be hard to call around, ask for quotes with your name on them, and order what was quoted.”
“This makes sense,” I mumbled.
Yeesh.
Brett.
“I can’t keep all of that,” I told Boone.
“You could argue that you could,” he replied.
I studied him closely, unable to get a lock on where he was with all this, though it didn’t seem positive.
“Would you argue that?” I asked.
“Your life is fucked up and will be for an indeterminate amount of time because of this asshole. So yeah. You’ve been scared out of your mind. Can’t move without protection. Can’t work. And your life is not your own. I think that’s worth
some kitchen cabinets.”
And tile.
And wood flooring.
And appliances.
Top of the line appliances.
I did not remind him of that.
“But isn’t it dirty money?” I asked.
“He could use it for this, or he could buy himself a yacht. Don’t think you’d have to work hard at guessing which way I’d swing on that.”
I studied him even closer. “Are you angry?”
“I want you to be free and clear, not dogged by this asshole.”
That wasn’t it.
What it was, was that very morning, Boone had swooped in to save the day.
And now Brett had beat him to that punch and did it Sub-Zero style, something Boone probably wouldn’t, and maybe couldn’t do (I didn’t know, we hadn’t gotten to the discussing-finances stage of our relationship—his loft was sweet, so was his car, as were his clothes, not to mention his stoneware, but he didn’t have a Sub-Zero).
Okay, breaking it down.
There was me.
Also the as-yet-unmet (by me) Whitney and Muriel.
And harking back, Boone making the decision to enter the military in the first place.
I was getting the sense my man was not superhuman (just close), but he had a hero complex.
“Well, I’m not gonna accept it,” I told him.
“Your call,” he grunted.
I looked around. “Why is everyone here?”
“Because Cisco has resurfaced and he left a note and we kinda need to talk to him to see if some of the shit he’s not sharing included Mueller and Bogart or others trying to horn into his action, considering as far as we can tell, it’s business as usual even if the boss is in hiding. But we suspect he’s got a rat in his operation so that might not be the case. And him dropping this load on you is the only lead we got.”
“Oh,” I muttered, which wasn’t a lot to say with all he’d just shared, but it was all I had. Then in my normal voice, I said, “I’m going to call and tell him I can’t accept.”
“And I’m gonna advise, Rynnie, that you at least take a night to sleep on that,” Boone said, the thread of irritation no longer in his voice. “This lessens your…our,” he amended when I gave him a narrow look, “investment by at least twenty-five K, probably with ten coming in the other side. That might not be worth hearing a man get shot on your back deck. But it’s not gonna suck.”
Hmm.
Moving on.
“Have you eaten lunch?” I asked, hopeful he had not, and he’d go to Chipotle with Axl and me.
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