I was never going to get tangled up with a man again, no matter who, no matter what.
* * * * *
After Noah cleaned me out, Sissy and I went to Pandora’s Box on Broadway, I stocked up and got myself a rabbit vibrator and a smooth, sleek silver one (so I could have variety) and enough batteries to last a year. Once I got them home, out of their boxes and loaded up with batteries, I vowed ever-lasting fidelity to my vibrators.
That was that.
Seriously.
The end.
So there I was, now a dedicated, bitter spinster with revenge on my mind. Not revenge for myself but for Sissy and every other woman who’d been fucked over by a shithead guy.
* * * * *
I stopped cleaving at the cucumber, tossed it into a bowl with the arugula I’d already nearly annihilated and had started on the onion when the phone rang.
I threw down the cleaver and picked up the phone.
“Yo,” I said.
“Yo, yourself,” Sissy said to me. “How’d it go with Luke?”
I could hear the anticipation in her voice. She thought he’d fall in love with me on sight and put a ring on my finger within the hour. She loved me and thought I was funny and cool, what could I say? It sucked to disappoint her.
“Not good, I didn’t ask him. I’m going it alone,” I tried to make it short and sweet.
Silence for a beat and then, “What do you mean, not good?”
“I mean, not good,” I decided maybe I shouldn’t tell her right now about how it actually went. She had enough on her plate and anyway, I wasn’t ready to relive it. “I think he’s kinda pissed that I didn’t return his calls after his father’s funeral.”
“You should have called him,” Sissy told me and she’d told me this before, like, five dozen times.
“Too late now. Anyway, we go ahead with the plan as it was, just without Luke. I’ll go to your house tonight.”
Sissy hesitated. “I’d be a lot more comfortable if you had Luke with you.”
“That isn’t gonna happen.”
“Okay, then maybe you can call Riley. I think he has a bit of a crush on you, now that you’re hot. Maybe he’ll go with you.”
The idea of Riley, who’d done a body fat test on me seventy-five pounds ago (and one just three weeks ago and about seventeen in between), having a crush on me made me burst out laughing.
“Riley does not have a crush on me,” I said when I quit laughing.
“Riley thinks you’re fine,” Sissy returned.
“Riley has a girlfriend with bleached teeth and a perma-tan,” I told her.
“He broke up with her ages ago. Anyway, you make Riley laugh, even when he’s holding your feet and you’re doing ab curls.”
“There’s nothing to laugh about when you’re doing ab curls.”
This was true, I hated ab curls. I hated exercise and I wasn’t that hot on cucumber, arugula, onion and Bulgar wheat tabouleh. I’d rather have a huge burrito with spiced meat, cheese, sour cream and guacamole and a humungous chocolate chip cookie but I hadn’t worked my ass off (literally) to go back now.
“Tell me about Luke,” Sissy changed the subject, knowing, after twenty-two years of being my best friend that I was holding out on her.
“Later.”
“Now.”
“Later, Sissy. It…” I stopped, then started again, “wasn’t good.”
“Was it bad?”
“No, it was just… weird.” Weird really wasn’t the word for it but I was going to go with that for now.
“Well,” she said, giving in and her voice had gone soft. “Then don’t worry about Dom. I’ll come home in a few days, we’ll do it together.”
“No!” I said, kind of loud. I didn’t want her to come back. I didn’t want Dom to talk her into taking him back. I wanted her clear of him. I wanted Sissy to come back to herself and for Dom to be out of her life, forever. “I’ll take care of it,” I finished.
“I don’t…”
“Sissy, I’ll take care of it.”
“I don’t like it. Dom’s not really a guy you mess with.”
“I won’t get caught.”
“Crap,” Sissy muttered, her second thoughts clear in her voice.
“I’ll be all right. I’ll go tonight, search the house. It’s his poker night, right?”
“Yeah,” I could tell she still didn’t like it. “Call me when you get home.”
“Okay.”
“Later, honey.”
“Later.”
I hung up, tossed the draining Bulgar wheat in with the other junk, chopped the onions, cried a little bit, threw them in too, mixed it up with a dash of olive oil, lemon juice and salt and pepper. I got out a fork, took a huge bite and said, mouth full, “Blech.”
It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t a burrito and a chocolate chip cookie either.
You know, you really should listen to Sissy, Good Ava said to me.
I think some breaking and entering will be fun! Bad Ava put in.
Shit.
* * * * *
I was about to head out for my evening’s festivities when the phone rang.
I’d put on dark jeans; a black stretchy, fitted, long-sleeved t-shirt; black flip-flops; and, of course, my silver. I should probably have left my silver out of the equation since it was glittery and would catch the light but I didn’t go anywhere without my silver. And anyway, I’d been to Dom and Sissy’s a gazillion times, all their neighbors knew me and wouldn’t blink an eye that I was there. Furthermore, I had a key (well, not really, but I knew where they hid the spare).I didn’t answer the phone. Night had fallen, it was getting late and Sissy told me that Dom’s return from the poker game was up in the air. If he was doing well, he stayed out late, if he was losing, he cut it short, came home and likely took his bad luck out on Sissy by saying shit to her that made her feel like dirt.
The answering machine kicked in as I grabbed my keys and bag.
“Hey, Ava? It’s Ally, long time no see or hear, chickie. You’ve been, like, Ms. Invisible and loads of shit has gone down,” pause, then, “I heard you were at my brother’s offices this afternoon and had a situation with Luke. Sister, what was that all about? I didn’t even know you knew Luke. Call me, pronto. I want the dirt, Indy wants the dirt, we all want the dirt. We’ll do drinks. Hornet, tomorrow night, seven o’clock. See you there.”
Disconnect.
Shit.
Indy Savage and Ally Nightingale were Rock Chicks like Sissy and me. Those two were hilarious, crazier by far than Sissy and me or at least Sissy recently, for sure. We’d met at a concert years ago and went to dozens of them together. Sissy and I usually never missed one of Indy’s kickass parties, she had a lot of them and she always had bowls of cashews and everyone knew bowls of cashews meant kickass party. Sissy and I also used to hang out at the used bookstore on Broadway that Indy owned called Fortnum’s. I hadn’t been in ages, at least eight months, maybe longer, since before Indy hooked up with Lee Nightingale. Indy had had a crush on Lee since practically birth, Indy and Lee’s parents were best friends and she and Lee and Ally and Lee’s brother, Hank had grown up together. It was super-fucking-fly that they were finally together, it made you think the world wasn’t shit.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go to Fortnum’s or see Indy and Ally (Ally worked there on occasion). It was just that Noah had cleaned out my bank accounts. I’d felt the need to score a couple more accounts for my at-home graphic design business to make up for the money he stole so, unusually, I was busy.
See, with Aunt Ella’s money and a barely-there mortgage, I didn’t have to work that hard. I’d bought the house dirt cheap, mainly because it was a nightmare when I bought it, but I’d fixed it up, mostly myself, not the electricity or the plumbing, just refinished the floors, re-skimmed the walls, did the tile work, painted, shit like that. I had a couple of business clients that kept me relatively busy, out of trouble and in plentiful amounts of my sliver. However, when yo
ur rat-bastard ex-boyfriend steals over five thousand dollars from you, it pushes you to put your nose to the grindstone.
I decided to call Ally tomorrow, after I searched Dom’s house and figured out what I’d tell her about Luke.
I went to my Range Rover, backed it out, hit the button for the garage door to close and headed to Sissy and Dom’s. They had a very nice, popped-top bungalow in Washington Park. Sissy loved it and I liked it too. I hoped she got it in the divorce settlement.
I did a drive by, checking for lights and to see if Dom’s BMW was parked in their back drive off the alley. It wasn’t, so I parked around the corner, hoofed it up to the house, went around the side to the back and found Sissy’s fake rock by their outdoor Jacuzzi which held the key. I opened it with the combination she gave me, put the rock back where I found it, went to the door and let myself in.
I didn’t bother with gloves, my prints were likely all over the house anyway.
I also didn’t turn on the lights. I knew the house like the back of my hand. I’d partied in it, had Christmas dinner in it, had crashed there on many occasions (normally drunk) and even helped Sissy clean it a number of times.
I didn’t know what I was looking for, shirts with lipstick on the collar? Love letters?
I had the bad feeling that I was going to have to follow Dom with a camera and take pictures of him while he was doing the nasty with some bimbo. I didn’t relish that idea so I hoped Dom was a love-letter-keeping type of guy.
I went to the kitchen drawer where I knew Sissy kept her small Maglite and I decided to start in the bedroom.
I’d seen enough movies and television to do a decent search. I started at his nightstand and found an industrial-sized box of condoms he had to have bought at some warehouse retail store (I didn’t even know they made boxes of condoms that big). I made note of this, knowing that Sissy was on the pill therefore Dom didn’t need condoms. Sissy and I had both gone on the pill together, me for friendship’s sake at the time since I’d been a virgin. I lost my virginity at twenty-three to a sweet, goofy, geeky guy named George (it wasn’t awful, but it also wasn’t great, by the way) but I’d been on the pill for two years before that for no reason at all.
I shrugged off thoughts of my contraception history, checked the bottom and insides of the drawer, the back and bottom of the nightstand but nothing going.
I was moving to the closet, intent on my task when, suddenly, a steel-band-like arm wrapped around my waist, a hand went over my mouth and I was lifted clean off my feet.
Freaked out, legs pumping and screaming under the hand, I was carried out of the bedroom and into the living room like a weighed as much as a rag doll.
I planted a well-aimed, savage elbow to the side of who I suspected was Dom, someone who I not only didn’t want to catch me snooping. I also didn’t want to be alone with him, at all, ever.
I heard a grunt when my elbow connected and I was dropped. Heart pumping, mind flying from thought to thought, I caught only one and that one thought was go.
I started to run but was caught by the back of my shirt. It went way tight against my chest and I was yanked back, again off my feet. My shoulders slammed against something hard right before I was whirled around and the arm went around me tight, pulling me against a solid torso just as the hand went back over my mouth.
“Quiet,” Luke Stark clipped.
Ho-ly crap.
I went still and stared, though I couldn’t see much of anything. I’d dropped the Maglite somewhere in the bedroom.
What in the hell was he doing there?
“You gonna stay quiet?” Luke asked.
I nodded. His hand went away.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I whispered, not knowing what to think, or feel, just shocked out of my mind.
Was he following me? And, if so, why?
“Could ask you the same thing,” he said to me, cutting into my thoughts.
“I’m visiting a friend,” I lied quickly.
His body tensed and I felt something fill the room, something crackling and dangerous. I couldn’t see it in the dark but I could feel it. I could feel it because his arm got tight and it hauled me even deeper into his body so we were pressed close, chest to crotch.
Fuckity, fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Stop lying to me Ava,” I could tell by his tone that he was not happy, so not happy that I had to admit I was a little scared of him.
“I’m not lying,” I lied.
“You’re tellin’ me that Dom Vincetti is a friend of yours?”
“No, Sissy Vincetti is.”
He knew Sissy, he’d met her way back in the day. This was likely why his arm relaxed enough for me to pull away and put a foot of space between us which was a far more comfortable position, believe you me.
“Sissy isn’t here,” Luke said to me.
“Well, I know that now,” I said, like I’d expected her to be there, in other words, I lied, again.
“You often go to your friend’s houses when they’re not home and search them in the dark?”
Eek!
Before I could think up another lie – because it wasn’t any of his business what I was doing there, I mean, it would have been his business, if he hadn’t carried me through his offices like a caveman that afternoon, but it wasn’t his business anymore – he reached forward and grabbed my hand, tugging me back into the bedroom.
“Luke, stop. What are you doing?”
He bent down, nabbed the still-lit Maglite from the floor and snapped it off. “We’re gettin’ out of here,” he said, pulling me out of the bedroom and back into the living room.
I planted my feet when he started to yank me across the room. He stopped and looked back at me.
“No. You’re getting out of here,” I flashed at him. “I’m, um… looking for the earring I left here the other night.”
That sounded like a good lie.
Luke obviously didn’t think it was a good lie. He gave my hand a sharp tug, I fell forward and, without a word, he started walking, dragging me behind him.
I yanked my hand out of his, stopped again and cried, “Luke!”
That’s when the room exploded.
One second, we were standing there, me glaring at him in the dark, him holding his body tense like he was just stopping himself from shaking some sense into me. The next minute there was so much noise and flying debris, every thought flew out of my head.
Luke moved quickly. He threw himself at me in a body tackle and we went down to the floor. He landed on top of me, body slamming into mine and immediately pulled himself up, wrapping his arms around my head and leaning his shoulder into the floor, my face pressed into his throat, his head tucked in, temple against the top of my forehead.
Glass, dust, plaster and bits of Sissy’s adored pottery collection flew everywhere as machine gunfire blasted through the huge living room window.
I lay under Luke, pretty certain I was going to die and wishing I’d made a will. Now, my sisters and mother were going to get all Aunt Ella’s money. I should have left it to Sissy and a cat shelter.
The noise finally stopped and, even though it felt like it had gone on forever, it was probably less than a minute. Luke didn’t move, just kept me tucked tight underneath him and it hit me that our position meant he was using himself as a shield to keep me safe.
Whoa.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Stop right there.
That was too much, it was all too much, time for me to bury all this somewhere deep and have a nervous breakdown later, when Sissy and I were on a beach enjoying Dom’s money.
“Luke,” I whispered and his head came up.
I was quiet because I could tell he was listening and not to me. Then his head tilted down and I could feel his eyes on me.
I lifted my hand up between our faces, index finger and thumb held an inch apart and I said, “Maybe I’m in a little bit of trouble.”
It was then he made a noise and it sounded an awful
lot like a growl.
Chapter Three
That’s Who I’m Keeping Safe
“Luke?”
“Quiet.”
He knifed off me, yanked me to my feet and wasted no time pulling me through the room, through the kitchen and out the backdoor.
Rock Chick Revenge Page 4