by Jody Klaire
“Just,” she slurred to herself. “Been there a while, I’d say.”
Thinking too much hurt, but Renee made the effort to try and memorize Nan’s advice. Aeron had attitude. She knew that. She met her in Serenity Hills when posing as her psychiatrist.
Aeron Lorelei had a bucket load of it.
That made her grin.
There was nothing wrong with being fiery. Nope.
Aeron was trouble or had trouble with fleeing, she couldn’t remember. She’d go with trouble? Well, Aeron’s past did give that one credence. Before she’d been locked away, Aeron had a rap sheet longer than Renee cared to look too deeply into. Sam had led her into trouble but she got the feeling that Aeron didn’t need a lot of persuading.
Trouble. Attitude.
A flight risk. Lilia had left, and if she wasn’t hallucinating or crazy then the grandmother had done the same. Which meant Aeron could bolt for the hills at any moment. Renee wasn’t too sure about that. She’d wanted to stay in Oppidum. She’d wanted to stay in St. Jude’s. If anything, Aeron was happy to be rooted, somewhere, anywhere.
Nope, she’d cross that one off, whatever the Nan delusion or hallucination said. She peered at her glass. Could tequila make you hallucinate?
Aeron had a good heart and she cared. Renee was convinced of that. Aeron had the biggest heart. She was so sweet and loving that she suffered for it sometimes.
“To help her grow, you need to grow yourself.” Renee wagged her finger in the air as she told herself. “That means try being a professional.”
She needed to be a good example. A responsible guide and leader. Someone who Aeron could count on for impartial advice yet never crossed over boundaries.
The door to the bar opened sending a blast of wind at Renee and she nodded to herself in agreement. From now on she was a commander, a professional.
“Hey, Renee, don’t look now but you got a mountain heading in your direction.”
At Fitzpatrick’s weird announcement, Renee peeked over at the door.
Aeron.
Aeron in a biker jacket and jeans. Her hair swept out of her face. A twinkle in her eyes, and a v-necked white t-shirt showing off every muscle she had.
Renee’s heart did some odd happy dance. She groaned and thunked her head to the table.
Professional, right.
Good luck with that.
SEEING RENEE SMACK her head on the table, I hurried over to her. She was dressed up in a military skirt suit, the jacket draped over the edge of the booth and her shirt rolled up to the elbows. She wasn’t impeccable like always and she looked . . . well . . . kinda inebriated.
“You okay, you need me to get you somethin’?” I sat opposite her, wondering why she’d needed to drown herself in—I picked up the glass and smelled it—tequila or near it.
Renee shook her head, which succeeded in making her roll her head around on the surface. Her blonde hair draped into whatever goop covered the table top.
“You eaten?” Maybe if I got some food inside her she would sober up a bit.
“Black doesn’t need food,” Fitzpatrick slurred at me as he stood next to the booth, wobbling. He wore a suit, unlike Renee. Some folks on the base didn’t wear uniforms. I never got why. “She’s got a date with Jack.” He shook a whiskey glass.
“No, she ain’t.” I got up and went around to her. She looked green. I weren’t a fan of folks drinking. Usually, being around them made me feel a bit wobbly too. “Renee, you eaten?”
She picked her head up with her hands to peer up at me, a bar mat stuck to her cheek. “This morning count?”
I pulled her sleeve up and checked her watch. “It’s half past eight.” Trying my best not to glare, I focused on Fitzpatrick. “When did you start drinking?”
He grinned and downed his glass. He had spilled I didn’t know what down the front of his shirt. “Liquid lunch.”
Great.
“Well, you’ve had enough.” I hoisted Renee up into my arms and flicked her jacket over her. No way was she gonna be able to walk. “We’re gonna get some food in you and water . . .” The wave of alcohol hit me as she clung on. The woman had drunk half of the Mississippi I swore.
“Nan says hi,” she slurred into my shoulder as I carried her out into the cool air. “You’re trouble, Lorelei.”
“That’s what she says, huh?” I doubted Renee had seen anything. One, she couldn’t and two, she was having trouble keeping her eyes open.
“Yup. Did you know your Nan was your great-grandma?” She nodded when I looked down at her. “She ran off . . . like Lilia.”
I didn’t know that. I mean, I hadn’t even known if Nan was related to me at all until she’d said so in a letter. “Where’d she go?”
“Nan doesn’t know. She said I need to grow up.”
Either I wasn’t getting it or Renee was talking drunk. I went with the latter as she didn’t have the ability to see nothing. Before she met me, she didn’t think folks could either. If you didn’t count my mother.
“’Cause you can’t stand?”
Renee nodded, her cheek still had pieces of mat stuck to it. “And I’m thirty-five. Grown-ups do not get hammered, do you know that?”
“Sometimes they do but for a reason, or if they got a problem.” Renee didn’t have a problem, I knew that much. I hadn’t ever seen her drink more than a glass come to think of it.
“The reason is that I’m thirty-five.” She lolled her head back against my arm. Her jacket slid and I caught it before it dropped onto the ground.
“I got that but why does that particular age make you drink?”
She grinned up at me. She tried to tuck my hair behind my ear for me but instead poked me in the eye. “It’s today,” she whispered.
Today? She held onto my shoulders as I freed up one hand to fish in her pockets for her keys. “Your birthday?”
She nodded, head butting me as she did so. “Yup. Old maid.”
Guilt hit me in the gut with a shovel. “You kiddin’ me?”
“It’s not that old.” She wagged her finger at me and I managed to catch her before she clattered to the floor. It weren’t easy juggling a floppy birthday girl and trying to open a door. “I’ll have you know that some people think older is attractive.”
“You turning into one of those women who whine about stuff?” I teased, getting the door to budge on the second attempt. “Next thing you’re gonna be asking me if your butt looks big in jeans.”
Renee craned her head around as if trying to examine the area in question. “Does it?”
“You’re wearing a skirt.”
“Oh.”
Yeah, oh. I carried her inside and placed her on the sofa, trying to figure out how I could have been such a fool. How could I have missed her birthday?
“You want something to eat?” I couldn’t burn toast but I hoped she had leftovers in the fridge.
“Nope.”
“You’re gonna get a bad head. Will you at least drink some water?” The heat felt like it was stuck on high. Renee would be dehydrated or sick or something. Maybe Doctor Andrews should come check her out?
“What you worrying over, Lorelei. I get wasted every year.” Renee grinned up at me, kicking off her heels. “Tomorrow I whine, then it’s all forgotten.”
I picked up her jacket and thumbed over all the colored bars on the breast. I didn’t get it. Renee was a commander, she always did things the right way—well, most of the time. I didn’t get how somebody so set on guarding herself would get hammered in full view of the base. I didn’t like it. Sure, most in there had been liquored up too, but she wasn’t like that. It didn’t sit right and I didn’t get it.
“You’re drinking water.” I stomped over to the cupboard. Why would she be so weird about birthdays? I never celebrated mine. I got why some folks wouldn’t want to neither but marking it with poisoning yourself and getting sick for a day didn’t seem clever. And, there was one thing about Renee I’d always been able to count on is that she
was clever. I took the glass over to her and poured some of it over her as she fought me before drinking it.
“You happy now?” Her shirt soaked through, she had water dribbling down her chin and her hair smattered across her face.
“Happy? Not even close.”
“Don’t be mad.” Renee pulled me into a hug, thwacking the glass against my cheek on the way past. At this rate I’d be the one needing to see Doctor Andrews.
“You never told me it was your birthday.”
She smiled up at me, kissed me on the forehead and her head lolled back. Thank goodness she started snoring louder than the Harley or I would have been worried.
With a sigh, I lifted her upward and took her into the bedroom, trying to figure out how to change her into something that wouldn’t leave marks when she slept.
She didn’t make it easy neither. Trying to stick her in an oversized Broncos’ jersey felt like tussling with a WWE wrestler. Who made women’s clothes and why did they make the zips so tiny? With my mitts it was impossible.
After completing my mission, I flopped her back and plumped up the pillows for her before slumping onto the bottom of the bed to catch my breath. I was gonna note this date for the simple reason that I would need some kind of physical training to attempt that again.
“Aeron?”
Torn between throttling her and demanding to know why she hadn’t told me it was her birthday, I grunted a response.
“I’m cold.”
“You can’t be cold, it’s ninety degrees in here.” I took off my leather jacket, realizing maybe that’s why it felt that way.
“Stop being mad and cuddle.”
I shook my head at her. Back in Oppidum, I’d been pretty tired after my birthday. I hadn’t wanted to be alone either after surviving Sam. No doubt she was going through the same. I didn’t need burdens to hear the fear in her voice.
“Comin’.” I snuck out to my place where I picked up a shirt and shorts to wear before heading back. Renee was snoring again by the time I got there.
“You still need me to stay or can I—?”
“Please.”
I sighed. Least I could do, seeming as I hadn’t even got a card for her. “You got a lot of explaining to do, dimwit.”
Renee chuckled and flopped her leg over mine as I squeezed in, and snored onto my shoulder. It was nine in the evening. I weren’t tired. I pulled a book from her side table and read the back cover.
Some slushy romance.
“What is it with you an’ France,” I mumbled as I opened it up.
“Born there,” Renee mumbled back.
I raised my eyebrows even though I knew she had her eyes shut. “How come?”
“Dad was stationed there for three years. Mom went with him.” She snuggled in closer. I had to laugh, considering she was drunk, exhausted, and snoring in fits, she could still carry on a conversation. Whether any of it was close to accurate, alcohol accounted for, I didn’t know.
“Where?” Not that I knew France from Dakota.
“Monaco, it’s a principality but they speak French.” Renee’s voice got heavier as her breathing slowed. I hoped it was her falling asleep. Either way I was gonna be checking on her every five minutes.
I hadn’t heard much of Monaco. Maybe this book would tell me something ’cause getting anything out of Renee was harder than changing her into bedclothes.
“Happy birthday, dimwit,” I whispered as she set off roaring again. “Maybe next time, we can get you through it sober.”
Chapter 11
SUNLIGHT BATHED THE bedroom as I got up and headed into the kitchen. I didn’t know how to make food but I figured that it would be a good time to try. I’d watched Renee enough and I knew that folks who tried to drink their weight in liquor needed grease to soak it up. I was also certain that Renee’s head might feel like it was falling off her shoulders so I ducked out to the store to get her something that would help.
When I got back, I pulled out the bacon and eyed up the pans Renee had in the kitchen. I was pretty sure she used the big one. I placed it on the stove and stared down at it. She added something to the pan. I pulled open the cupboards and found some bottle of stuff but I was pretty sure vinegar wouldn’t be tasty. I settled for some butter from the fridge. That looked to work and fizzled away as I added in the bacon.
I didn’t attempt eggs so I cut up some of the vegetables in the fridge, remembering how she washed and peeled them. It smelled pretty good.
As the bacon sizzled away, I pulled out a pack of rice. It weren’t the breakfast Renee would make but just looking at it made my stomach growl.
Hearing a strained, “Hello?” from the bedroom, I grinned. Good enough to stir the slumbering one.
“In here.”
Renee’s relieved sigh made me chuckle as she padded into the room. Her hair was still smattered across her face, complete with bits of bar mat. Her top was twisted up and her shorts looked like panties. “Are you cooking?”
I nodded. “Well, attempting to. I mean, I ain’t sure when it’ll be ready to eat or nothin’.”
Renee tucked her hair behind her ears and walked into the kitchen area. She examined my experiment and gave me a big squeeze. She still smelled like a Tequila bottle. “Tomatoes, bacon, onions and . . . cheese?”
I shrugged. “I didn’t know what went.”
She pulled out some plates then looked at the headache stuff I’d got her. She smiled down at them. “I suppose I owe you an explanation?” She rubbed her head, glancing toward her bedroom. “Especially if you find out whoever owns that leather jacket.”
I portioned out the food the best I could and attempted to figure out the orange juice squeezer thing. “I do.”
Renee took it from me, opened the fridge, and pulled out a container already made up. “You, you own a leather jacket?”
“Do now.” I took the plates over to the table and pulled out the wooden creaky excuse for chairs. “Helps when I’m on the bike.”
I didn’t miss Renee’s double-take.
“Please, just for once, don’t get all mad at me. I can’t drive a car, can’t fly either but I been screeching around on dirt bikes since I was a kid.” I nudged the plate toward her as she came and joined me. “I enjoy it and I’m wearing a helmet and a jacket and dragging jeans with boots. I even wear gloves, promise.”
Renee looked down at her food and spooned a load into her mouth. She was buying herself thinking time.
“Good?”
Renee nodded. “Little oniony but . . . not bad, not bad at all.”
I tasted my own product. Okay, it weren’t one of Renee’s masterpieces but it was edible. I’d take that. “You liked the jacket last night.”
Renee’s fork clattered to her plate.
“You swallowed wrong?” I was about ready to pat her on the back but Renee waved her hand to say she was fine.
“How drunk was I and what did I say?” Her expression was so serious, I wondered if she thought she’d murdered somebody.
“You were thirty-five, it was your birthday and you were born in Monaco.” I shook my head. The slushy romance had featured the South of France. She was a mush ball, I knew that much. The book had been dog-eared and battered. “Can’t believe you let me miss it.”
Renee pushed her food around, staring at the plate. “Anything else?”
I peeled the pieces of bar mat from her cheek. She looked up at my touch. “Other than you liked my jacket and didn’t want to be on your own, nope.”
Renee shoveled food into her mouth, her hair, still a mess, dropping forward. I watched her with fascination. She knew I was watching her too but wouldn’t look up. I shook my head at her. She made her own rules. “You mad about me missing it or riding?”
“I’m not that bad.” Renee stabbed at her food. I raised an eyebrow, which I knew she saw from her frown. “You’re being paranoid.” She lifted her eyes and sighed. “Fine, so I am but I’m not angry with you right now.”
I st
illed her hand. “Then why you massacring the tomato?”
Renee chuckled, rapping my knuckle with her knife. “Why I’m trying to pretend when you can read my mood, I don’t know.” She took a breath and met my eyes. “I’m embarrassed at my behavior.”
I didn’t know why she needed to be embarrassed. I leaned forward and stilled her hand again. “This because Nan chewed your ear out?”
“Nan?”
I nodded. “According to you, she told you to grow up.”
Renee stared at me, munching on her food. “She told me?”
“Yup,” I said, finishing my plate. “Don’t ask me ’cause I don’t know.” I watched her watching me. It was a lot harder to figure out folks without my burdens but it felt freeing. I could interact with her like a normal person.
“So,” Renee said, clearing her throat. She sat back and tucked her hair back again, focusing on me. Her top was still twisted up. “How has the motorcycle training been going?”
“I passed yesterday.” I grinned. Frei was an awesome teacher. I’d loved learning from her. One on one, she was beyond cool. “So I can ride all over now.”
Renee bit her lip. “Just not in the rain . . . or icy conditions . . . or when it’s windy.” She shrugged, righting her top. “I get scared.”
I spotted more bar mat, picked it off, and showed it to her. “Well, if your hangover ain’t hanging on then I got a way to make you feel better ’bout it.”
She pulled her mouth to the side and shook her head at the pieces on my fingers. “You do?”
“I picked you up some clothes yesterday.” I nodded toward her bedroom—with Frei’s help. I didn’t get clothes. It was why I’d gone to look for Renee in Dusty’s.
Renee fiddled with her jersey. “Oh, I’m not sure, Aeron.”
I got up and took the dishes to the sink, then retrieved my jacket and slid it on. Renee cocked her head as I strode into the kitchen. “I love this bike. I wanna show you.”
Renee grumbled but a couple of minutes later appeared changed and ready for the day. Jeans, boots, and a biker jacket with a turtle neck sweater underneath. She looked cool. I didn’t miss her take a couple of tablets for her head though.