I opened my eyes.
And like I was addled . . .
I smiled—huge—at my own damned door.
Blessings
Shirleen
THE NEXT MORNING, I walked into the offices.
I didn’t miss a step as I marched to my desk, regardless of the fact that Luke Stark had his thigh leaned against the extension where my computer was, Vance Crowe had his ass up on the corner, Kai “Mace” Mason was leaning against the opposite end, Hector Chavez was lounged on the couch across from it, boots on the coffee table . . .
And Lee Nightingale was sitting in my damned desk chair, leaned back, elbows to the chair arms, his hands linked on his abs.
“Well?” Luke asked.
“Sss!” I hissed, moving directly to my occupied chair.
“Give it up, Shirleen,” Vance ordered.
I lifted my hand, slapped my fingers against my thumb at him and snapped, “Zzzp!”
I stopped. Dumped my Prada on the desk. And put my hands to my hips to glare down at Lee.
He didn’t move.
Though his mouth did.
“Indy called you seven times last night.”
“Ava called five,” Luke put in.
“Jules called three,” Vance added.
“Sadie called Indy, Ava, Daisy and Jules repeatedly,” Hector stated from the couch.
“Stella and me were out to dinner with Roxie and Hank, and those two were manning their texts like they were planning the Normandy invasion through them,” Mace shared.
I swung an arm out to indicate all five men.
“I’m not talkin’ to all you all,” I declared.
“Indy only let up when Roam and Sniff got home and checked in on you after I told them to do that,” Lee announced.
My eyes got huge and I forgot I wasn’t talking to him.
“You told my boys to check in on me?”
“They said you were in bed, reading,” Lee replied. “And I took that as I didn’t have to go out and murder someone for bein’ a dick to my girl.”
So that was why they knocked on the door and stuck their heads in.
Both of them.
Usually it was just a shouted, “We’re home, Shirleen!”
“What excuse did you use to tell them they had to check in on me?” I asked.
“As far as they knew, you were out with the Rock Chicks. They always check in on you after you’re out with the Rock Chicks. They didn’t think anything of it since my wife is a Rock Chick, you were supposed to be out with her, and who knows what you all get up to.”
“What, with stun gunning and car chases not out of the ordinary,” Luke filled in.
This made sense.
And this was true. Whenever I was in after being out with the Rock Chicks, one or the other of my boys checked in physically.
Just not both of them.
“You’re in my chair,” I pointed out to Lee.
“Technically, it’s my chair,” he returned.
This was true too.
Fine.
He wanted to play it that way?
I picked up my bag, mumbling, “I’ve been meaning to take some time off.”
“Shirleen, you can have your chair back when you tell us how it went last night,” Lee stalled me.
“Who says I want my chair back?” I asked. “Maybe I want to call Daisy and have some brunch before we go shopping.”
“Daisy’s at work at Ally’s office, and anyway, I know you’re not talkin’ to her since she called you last night, ten times, and you didn’t answer her either,” Lee retorted.
“The girls bought themselves Shirleen’s Patented Silent Treatment for a whole week for their shenanigans,” I shot back.
Suddenly, Lee’s expression shifted.
And I’d become accustomed to a lot from these men. Their hotness. Their sweetness with their women. Their occasional scariness when they got pissed or on edge.
Even so, I took a mini step back at the look that hit his face.
And the tone of his voice I’d never heard in my life and I’d known Lee since he was a teenager.
“You didn’t have a good time?”
“We’re going to a movie tomorrow night.”
Lee relaxed.
“So you had a good time,” Mace growled.
I drew in a big breath and let it out on a sigh.
“Yeah,” I told Mace. “He’s nice. He’s handsome. He didn’t blink at me ordering a four-course meal at an expensive restaurant and he was right there with me. So we’re gonna take in a movie tomorrow.” I then glared at Mace. “Happy?”
Broody Mace left the building and he smiled at me. “Yeah.”
I turned back to Lee. “Now will you get outta my chair? I got invoices to send.”
Or not.
I was feeling the need to have a new outfit for movie night. An outfit I could order online and pick up at Nordstrom on the way home.
“So it’s all good,” Lee noted, straightening his long body out of my chair.
“The date was all good,” I corrected. “You men and your women interfering with my life and setting me up like that was all bad.”
“Can’t be bad if you had a good time,” Vance pointed out.
I positioned myself in front of the chair Lee had vacated and skewered him with my eyes.
“And what if it had been a disaster?” I asked.
“We would have killed him,” Vance answered casually.
This might have been sweet, or funny, if it wasn’t possibly true.
“You’re officially not allowed to kill or maim or otherwise torture Moses Richardson even if things don’t work out with us,” I decreed.
“So you had a good time,” Hector remarked, having risen from the couch to stand between Mace and Vance in front of my desk.
He was grinning.
I looked among the testosterone brigade. “You’re all pretty pleased with yourselves, aren’t you?”
“Pretty much,” Luke rumbled.
His lips had formed a half-grin.
Okay, they got what they wanted from their interrogation, it was time for me to shop.
So even as I sat my ass down, I had a hand up, shooing them. “Fine. Now git. This conversation is at an end.”
As I spoke, my purse rang.
I reached in, took out my cell, saw the number was local but not programmed in.
As much as I wanted to ignore it because in all likelihood it was someone trying to sell me something, I couldn’t.
Local could mean a local marketing call.
It could also mean I forgot I scheduled the boys in for their dental cleaning and the dentist office was calling to remind me, which would be good, since if that was the case, I’d forgotten (mental note: put dentist appointments in planner; second mental note: buy dental appointment stickers). Or the school was calling about something. Or Roam’s girlfriend’s father was calling to schedule an inter-family meeting to discuss the variety of reasons why chicken and waffles were never happening again.
So I took the call.
“You got Shirleen,” I said into my phone.
“Mornin’, baby,” Moses said into my ear.
Heat and goose bumps both fought for control of the surface of my skin.
“Hey,” I whispered, my eyes dropping to my desk, but that desk, the office, the men and the world had vanished.
Everything had become Moses.
He was calling me the morning after a date.
No messing about for him making me wait to hear his voice, pretending he didn’t want to connect with me, letting me know right away I was on his mind.
“How’d you sleep?” he asked.
“Good,” I lied.
I didn’t sleep.
I kept reliving that kiss, the sound of his laughter, the sight of his smiles, his words about me being perfect over and over again.
It was the best sleepless night in history.
“Good,” he replied. “So, might be too ea
rly for a home date, but I got a slow-cook brisket recipe that’ll knock your socks off. I introduce you to that, you introduce me to Tarzan. Work for you?”
I loved brisket.
“Alternately, the Mayan has a retrospective screening of Set It Off. We can hit The Hornet after,” he went on.
Oowee!
Latifah, Jada, Vivica and Kimberly?
Oh no.
How was I going to decide between brisket or Latifah?
“Too much goodness, my man,” I told him. “I can’t pick.”
“You know I’m gonna choose you bein’ on my couch, even if I have to watch a white boy swing from a tree.”
I burst out laughing, this making me look up, this reminding me I had an audience who had not, I was not surprised to note, shooed.
Damn.
I had five sets of hot-guy eyes on me in varying degrees of amusement and warmth.
But it was Lee who approached me.
And then it was Lee who bent down and kissed my forehead.
Yes.
You read that right.
Lee Nightingale bent down and kissed me, Shirleen Jackson’s forehead.
Hell and damnation.
And it was Lee who whispered, “You’re welcome.”
When he pulled away, I gave him a death glare.
But honestly?
My heart wasn’t in it.
He knew this and thus gave me Liam Nightingale’s Patented Get-In-Your-Panties Smile.
He had no intention of getting in anyone but Indy’s panties, and I had no desire for that.
Still.
It was just the way it came out.
I fought fanning myself and continued to push out the glare.
He wandered away.
His men followed him.
Moses called in my ear, “Shirleen? I lose you?”
“The men were hanging around my desk, annoying me. I had to give them my death glare to get them to move out, and when I have to pull out the death glare, I need to concentrate,” I explained.
He chuckled.
Hearing it, the world suddenly felt right for the first time since Leon Jackson looked across the high school cafeteria at me.
I was in trouble.
Or I was in heaven.
Time would tell which one.
Moses brought me back on target. “Tarzan and brisket or Latifah and popcorn followed by bar food?”
Tarzan included his couch, which was a plus and a terrifying minus.
Queen Latifah included a dark movie theater, which would mean no chat, and a possibly loud bar, but definitely other people around, which would mean no meaningful chat.
And I wanted to get to know Moses Richardson.
And maybe, just maybe, I should get what I wanted for a change.
“Brisket,” I forced out.
“That was my choice, sweetheart.”
Hmm.
“I gotta get back to my kids, but first, tell me how the men are annoying you,” he ordered. “Do I have to have a talk with Nightingale?”
I wondered briefly how that would go, and even briefly it was strong enough for me almost to say yes just to find out.
“Maybe we can save you gettin’ in his face for when he does something stupid. Like refusing to wear a vest when the mission calls for one,” I suggested.
“Does he do that?”
“He loves his wife, his family, wants to make his own one day, and isn’t a moron, so . . . no.”
That got me another chuckle before, “Okay then, I’ll let you handle the men and I’ll go handle my kids. I’ll text you my address. Six too early for you?”
If he lived anywhere in the Denver Metro area, a six o’clock date meant I had time to get home and get changed, refresh makeup and check my ’fro and deal with lift, or shrink, and moisture, depending on where the day took it.
And this was fantastic. I could now focus my Nordstrom shopping and not knock him dead with too much fabulousness (but still bring just enough fabulousness) since we were going to be at his house, not out on the town.
“Six works,” I replied.
“Right. Text you and call you tonight.”
Call me tonight?
When I didn’t say anything, he asked, “You got something on tonight?”
Only continuing to phone block all the Rock Chicks.
And maybe door block them if they descended en masse at my house, which could happen.
In fact, they were probably planning that right now.
Or ambushing me at the office.
“No,” I answered.
“You good with a call?” he pressed.
“I, uh . . .”
“Wanna get to know you, Shirleen. We don’t gotta talk until James Corden comes on, but phone talk is easier than across-a-table talk. Especially in the beginning.”
Boy, he had this date shit down.
“It is?”
“Yeah, baby,” he said, sounding like he was smiling. “Prove it to you tonight.”
“All right, good,” I replied quietly. “I’d like that.”
“Good.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.”
“Mm-hmm.”
A pause then, “Sweetheart, I’m sorry but I gotta go.”
Damn.
“Okay. Yes. Right. I’ll let you go.”
Another chuckle then, “Talk to you later, Shirleen.”
“You sure will, Moses.”
“Later, baby.”
“Later, uh . . . Moses.”
That got me another chuckle before he disconnected.
I stared at my phone after I took it from my ear, having the strange urge to hold it and what had just been coming from it to my chest.
Then I jumped so high, I nearly fell out of my chair when I heard, “So I don’t gotta kill my best friend for settin’ my aunt up with some asshole of a brother?”
I lifted my eyes to see my nephew and ex-partner in crime (literally), Darius Tucker, standing at my desk looking like he was trying to attempt X-ray vision as he scowled down at me.
Boy, the power of Moses Richardson was fierce. Darius could be silent as a cat but no one got in that room from either door without me knowing.
Normally.
“Those boys tell you they set me up?” I asked.
“Nope,” he answered. “Monty told me. Thought it’d be best if shit went south, I was in the know so if some asshole fucked you over that Lee and the guys set you up with, I only had one reason to murder them, not two.”
“It went okay, son,” I said quietly.
“Just okay?” he asked irritably.
“No. It went real good. He seems like a decent man. So we’re having a movie night tomorrow.”
“You ever think Leon was a decent man?”
I pressed my lips together.
When Darius’s father was murdered, Leon had honed in for the kill, recruiting my nephew to groom him to be his right-hand man, using Darius’s grief that manifested as anger to drag him into a life that was not for him. A world he should have never known.
And by then, I was so cowed by my husband I had not saved my nephew from that nightmare.
We’d become partners after Leon had been killed.
In other words, I hadn’t saved my nephew from an ongoing nightmare.
“We got things we should hash out, Darius,” I said meaningfully.
“No we don’t,” he returned, as ever, catching his aunt’s meaning.
I lifted my chin. “We should have hashed them out ages ago.”
He shook his head. “No need. We were both drowning. Can’t save someone when you’ve got two lungs filled with water.”
“Son—”
I shut up when he leaned into a fist on my desk.
“You think you should have saved me. I think I should have saved you. And you know what, Aunt Shirleen?”
“What?” I whispered, staring into cold, dark, dead eyes that I hadn’t seen looking like that since the bad old
days.
He’d been redeemed.
He’d been reunited with his one true love.
He wasn’t living the life.
But he was finding his way there.
With Lee’s help. The Hot Bunch. The Rock Chicks.
Malia.
And lastly . . .
His son.
He told me the what.
I just didn’t get it.
“On that, I win.”
“Come again?”
“I didn’t go home to him. I didn’t go home to him bustin’ my lip or blacking my eye or whatever he did to you that I still feel sick in my gut thinkin’ about when you walked funny and wouldn’t look anyone in the eye.”
I swallowed.
It was good in the bad old days, and now, in the good new ones, Darius was exceptionally observant.
Though I was seeing it might also have been bad.
“So I shoulda saved you,” he declared.
“If you tried, you woulda died.”
“And that was a result I should have risked if it meant I might have bested it and got you free.”
“Darius—”
“But it didn’t happen that way and here we are.” He pushed off my desk and swung a hand out. “Can’t go back. Just gotta move forward.”
“No,” I disagreed, realizing right then how wise Moses’s advice was. “We gotta be in our nows.”
“What?”
Holding my nephew’s gaze, I stood.
“We gotta be in our nows, son. I met a decent man and he wants a second date. You got a second chance with Malia and your boy. That’s our nows. And they’re good. So we gotta be where our feet are. Right here. Right now. Not back then, where there’s nothin’ good, but it doesn’t matter, we can’t change a thing. Not in the future, which we don’t know what’s gonna happen and we got no control over it anyway. The now. Right now. Where it’s good.”
“I always trusted you.”
Lord God, I was going to cry.
“Darius.”
“I always loved you.”
So going to cry.
“Son.”
“And the only reason I stayed in was to protect you.”
That shut my mouth.
“And I don’t regret it,” he finished.
“The only reason I stayed in was to protect you,” I shared.
“The vicious cycle,” he muttered.
“I regret that. The fact you stayed in for me. The fact I stayed in to protect you instead of getting you out. Hell, I regret all of it,” I whispered.
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