“You are such a jerk!” I snapped and gave him a shove that was so hard, he rocked back at the shoulder. I was too angry to realize I’d finally scored a physical push. Instead, I kept ranting. “You know, Lucas Stark, the reason I got contacts and lost weight was because you hugged me at your Dad’s funeral and later I overheard Marilyn and Sofia making fun of me, and you, because we looked stupid together. You, hot, handsome Luke hugging me, Fatty, Fatty Four-Eyes. They said the sight of us made them throw up a little. They said you had to be gay to hug me. I vowed, vowed,” I shouted the last word at the top of my lungs, caught in a dramatic tizzy I could not control and didn’t even try, “that you wouldn’t lay eyes on me again until I could be held by you and if anyone saw us no one would throw up a little or think we didn’t look right together.”
I was on a roll, so on a roll, I didn’t notice the air in the room change again. Nor did I notice the look and feel of Luke changed. I just kept right on yelling.
“And last night when you thought I was sorting through stuff in my head, I wasn’t. I was remembering that motorcycle ride you gave me, after which you got in serious shit with your Dad and my Mom and you called me precious cargo. So I wasn’t sorting through stuff in my head, you pulled me through last night and you didn’t even know it, you big idiot.”
I shoved him again, this time his shoulder didn’t go back. I didn’t notice that either. I just kept on raging.
“You told me that it felt good when we were growing up to know I thought you could move mountains because you needed that. Well, you knew what I grew up with! I couldn’t have gotten through it without knowing you were across the street and you were the only person in my life who gave a shit. Other than Sissy, you were the only person in my life who gave a shit!”
“Ava –
“I’m talking now,” I interrupted him using a line he’d used on me. I ignored the side of his mouth going up in one of his sexy half-grins and kept on going. “So I don’t care who you were for eight years, it doesn’t change who you are to me. So don’t give me any ultimatums and don’t threaten me. I am who I am, a big dork who makes mistakes and deals the best way I can. I’m going to keep making mistakes and being a big dork because that’s who I am. You can’t deal with it, then you best walk out that door because that’s the way it is.”
I stopped talking and realized, first, that I was breathing heavily and second, that I had been shouting the whole time and it was likely everyone could hear.
Shit.
Oh well, fuck it. Now was not the time to be embarrassed for being me.
Hell, there was never a time to be embarrassed for being me.
“You through?” Luke asked, cutting through my world-rocking epiphany of coming to terms with being a dork.
I thought about it.
“Yeah,” I replied.
“Your mother and sisters come to town often?”
I blinked in confusion, not only at his change in subject but at his calm, rational tone. Gonzo Luke was a memory.
“Not really,” I told him.
“But they come to town?”
“Sometimes.”
“Do I have to be nice to them?”
I took in a soft breath.
It had happened. I’d lost control, opened up and let Luke see my soft spot. I’d told him everything, held nothing back.
And he was smiling at me.
I felt something shift then settle, the soft spot was still there, still vulnerable, but now that I showed it to him, I closed the door on it, locked it and handed Luke the key.
I felt goose bumps rise on my skin but I ignored them and answered his question in a quiet voice. “Probably.”
“That’s gonna be hard, babe.”
“You’re a tough guy, macho man, you can hack it.”
His arms came around me and he slid me forward on the counter so my special girl parts were pressed against his hard boy parts. My arms lifted and closed around his neck.
“Fair warning, they say shit to you I don’t like, especially those fuckin’ sisters of yours, I may not be responsible for what comes out of my mouth,” Luke told me.
“I’m sensing that Marilyn and Sofia have earned a new title, that’s twice you’ve called them ‘those fuckin’ sisters of yours’.”
He ignored my comment and the fact that I impersonated his deep voice and kept to his theme. “I’m not shittin’ you, Ava. I’m not gonna stand around and listen to those bitches cuttin’ you down.”
Apparently, Luke took me giving him my key pretty fucking seriously.
Daisy was right. The best way to guard your heart was to trust a good man to take care of it for you. Lucky for me, considering there weren’t many around, I found myself a good man.
Caught up in this new knowledge, I whispered, “Okay.” Then leaned forward and, even with a cut lip, I kissed him hard.
His mouth opened over mine, his tongue slid inside and even with a cut lip he kissed me back, making the hard kiss so hot, I melted into him.
Oo, Good Ava breathed. I feel so much better now.
Weirdly enough, Bad Ava added, I do too.
You do? Good Ava asked.
Yeah, Bad Ava answered. Go figure.
Well, finally, Good Ava commented.
Still lots of fun to have even if we are Luke’s woman, Bad Ava noted.
I’m not thinking that’s a good thing, Good Ava leaned in and said in my ear.
Bad Ava giggled and she sounded happy.
* * * * *
After our mini-post-drama make out session, Luke took me out of the kitchenette and in the hallway the black guy I’d never met was talking to another guy I’d never seen before and Shirleen.
“Shee-it,” the black guy said when he saw us. “You white girls got attitude. Far as I can see, these boys need to get their heads examined. I’d put up with that shit for about a fuckin’ second.”
Any normal person would politely pretend that they hadn’t heard a thing. I was learning quickly that I was not surrounded by normal people anymore.
Since normal for me was a Dad who would up and leave, a fading beauty queen of a mother who was so engrossed in her own life she forgot her daughters had one too and might need her help, and my two “fuckin’ sisters” who were mean as snakes, I figured not normal was not so bad.
Shirleen had different thoughts and turned on the black dude. “Like black women don’t have more attitude then ten of these white women,” she declared as if that was a good thing.
“Black women don’t give you shit by yellin’ at your ass for, fuckin’, ever. They get fed up, they quit bitchin’ and burn down your house or stick you with a knife. Makes it easier. Either way you know it’s time to get your shit together and you just gotta call your insurance man.”
“And you are?” I asked before Shirleen could retort like she looked like she was preparing to do, big time.
“I’m Smithie,” he answered. “You dance?”
I blinked at him, stunned by his bizarre question. “Do I dance?”
“Smithie.” For some reason Luke’s voice was a low, warning rumble and Smithie’s eyes turned to him.
“What? You too? What’s fuckin’ wrong with strippin’? Daisy stripped and everyone likes Daisy. Lottie strips, everyone likes Lottie.”
I was stuck on the “stripping” explanation to “do you dance”?
Then it dawned on me that Smithie must be the owner of the strip club where Jet worked as a cocktail waitress during her drama and where her sister Lottie was currently a stripper (and the best one in the Rocky Mountain region if rumor could be believed).
“Now that Daisy’s with Marcus, she strip anymore?” Shirleen asked.
“No,” Smithie answered.
“Lottie got a man?” Shirleen carried on.
“No,” Smithie snapped, cottoning on to Shirleen’s point.
“Luke look like the type of boy who’d let men watch his woman take her clothes off while she’s dancin’ around on a stage
with baby oil slathered all over her body?” Shirleen pushed.
“All right, all right, fuck,” Smithie muttered. “Can’t a man recruit? Nothin’ wrong with asking.”
I looked at Luke. “I think I need cookies.”
He gave me a half-grin and touched my nose.
What he did not do, I noticed, was charge out and buy me cookies.
I demoted him from The Best Man Ever to just The Best Man I’d Ever Met. Superman would have charged out (hell, he’d have flown) to get Lois Lane cookies. I was pretty sure of it.
Luke’s eyes moved to the other man who hadn’t said anything. The other man was huge (as in enormous), every inch of him, as far as I could tell, was muscle.
“Jack, you in on the meeting?” Luke asked him.
I sucked in breath.
Jack.
Jack was the guy in the surveillance room that saw me start to put my hand down my own pants.
Shit!
I stared at Jack. I thought Jack would ogle me, give me a look, something, anything, to communicate, like a lecherous, icky man, that he knew what he knew.
Jack didn’t even glance in my direction. He kept his eyes on Luke.
“Brody and me are takin’ shifts in surveillance,” Jack told Luke. “Other than me Lee’s pullin’ everyone off assignments until Dexter is found. Even Monty’s goin’ into the field.”
Wow.
I didn’t know who Monty was but the way Jack said it I got the feeling this was a big thing.
“Well!” Shirleen snapped. “What you all standin’ around for? Shit. That dickhead’s gonna be drinkin’ piña fuckin’ coladas in Mexico before you all pull your fingers out of your asses.”
I sucked in breath yet again and, at the rate I was going I was going to pass out. Still, I wasn’t certain Luke would take to anyone, even a scary Shirleen, telling him he had his finger up his ass.
I turned to him. “Luke –” I said softly to try and tame the wild beast before he went gonzo again. Luke’s hard eyes moved from Shirleen to me. He wasn’t happy with her but he also wasn’t going to go gonzo. I let out a breath then started a different (read: safer) subject. “I’m not sure I want Lee to –”
“Decision’s made, babe,” Luke said. “Lee doesn’t often change his mind. The sooner this is over, the sooner we can all focus on other shit.”
“Yeah, like the next one of you white bitches who tears into one of these boys lives. Who’s up next, is it that Hawaiian guy?” Smithie asked.
“Far as I can tell, it’s Ally. She’s due,” Shirleen countered. “That cop boyfriend of hers got himself into the FBI. He’s off to DC. No way in hell Ally Nightingale is gonna leave Denver. Soon, she’ll be a free agent.”
“My money’s on Hector,” Jack threw in. “He’s a wild man. Some woman’s gotta tame him before he gets himself killed.”
“I’ll take that action,” Shirleen said.
“Oh my God. This is cool,” I breathed, excited to be in on the ground floor, finally, of one of these bets, especially when it wasn’t one that involved me.
Luke’s hand came to the back of my neck. “Babe.”
I turned to face him, lost in the excitement. “Who do you think it’s gonna be?”
“I don’t wish this shit on anyone,” was Luke’s answer.
As much as it killed the mood, I had to admit, Luke had a point.
“Lord!” Shirleen shouted, reaching the end of her tether. “Do I have to go out and whack this guy personally?”
Yikes.
Luke sliced a killing glance at Shirleen before he pulled me into him with pressure at my neck and kissed me softly.
“I want you to stay in the offices and I don’t want you to do anything stupid,” he warned when he was done.
The knee weakening I experienced with his kiss vanished and I glared at him. He gave me a half-grin, totally unaffected by the glare.
Then he was gone.
Jack peeled off and disappeared behind a door but Smithie and Shirleen remained.
I looked at them.
“Well?” Shirleen asked, as if she was expecting something.
And I knew what she was expecting. I also knew what I had to do.
I may have realized, finally, that I was Luke’s woman that I belonged to him and that he could be trusted with my heart, my body, my troubles and all my vulnerabilities.
But I still was a Rock Chick.
“I need to talk to the girls,” I told Shirleen.
“Oh shit,” Smithie muttered. “Here we go.”
“Oowee, that’s what I’m talkin’ about,” Shirleen cried in glee.
Uh-oh, Good Ava murmured.
Yippee! Bad Ava hooted.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Vibrator Ceremony
Shirleen walked Smithie and I into what she called the “Down Room”.
It was a big room. It had a couch, a TV, a treadmill, a weight bench and a bunch of weights. It also was filled with Rock Chicks, Tod, Stevie, Tex and Duke.
When we walked in, everyone turned to stare.
“Hey,” I said.
Sissy came forward and gave me a big hug. I hugged her back. She pulled away and looked up at me. I braced in preparation for her to say something that would make me cry.
“I’m thinking you aren’t fuck buddies with Luke anymore,” she said on a grin. Clearly my shouted diatribe in the kitchenette announcing my elevated relationship status with Luke superseded all my other dramas, including being duct taped to a steel support and then fondled by my con man ex-boyfriend.
I looked to the ceiling.
“I’m thinkin’ her vibrators are gonna get lonely,” Daisy noted.
I closed my eyes.
“I’m thinking we should have a vibrator ceremony. Maybe we can all stand around in the dead of night, carrying candles and chanting while she buries them in her backyard,” Ally added.
I made a low, frustrated sound in the back of my throat.
“I’m thinkin’ you bitches best stop talkin’ about vibrators. We got a pack of wild men in the next room plannin’ a human hunt and you women are talkin’ about sex toys,” Smithie threw in, sounding exasperated.
I looked at Smithie and said with feeling, “Thank you.”
“Who brought him?” Tod whispered loudly to Indy.
“I did. I figured we needed all the help we could get,” Jet replied.
“He’s kind of a kill joy,” Tod went on. “I like the idea of a Vibrator Ceremony. After we’re done burying them, we could make canapés and drink champagne. It’s a lot more fun to talk about that than hunting down humans.”
Tod was not wrong.
“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Duke exploded.
“All right!” I shouted before I lost any more control. “Listen up.”
All eyes turned back to me.
I took a deep breath.
Then I realized I didn’t have anything to say.
So, as any good Rock Chick would, I winged it. “Let’s break this down. First, some guy hit Bobby in the head with a baseball bat. Seems everyone has forgotten that but I haven’t. I don’t even know Bobby and I know something’s gotta give with the guy who hit Bobby. You with me?”
There were a couple of nods but mostly the Rock Chicks looked confused.
“Um, he’s kinda in jail,” Roxie reminded me. “Remember, Hector and Darius got him? Hank told me Bobby ID’d the guy from mug shots and after that he confessed.”
Oh. Yeah. I forgot the first part, the second part was good news.
I decided to forge ahead. “Okay, that’s sorted,” I announced. “Then, second, last night was not good. For some reason it seems it was worse for Luke than it was for me.”
“That’s because you’re a steel magnolia, Sugar,” Daisy chimed in.
She got more nods than I did.
“What the hell does that mean?” Tex asked.
“You seen the movie Steel Magnolias?” Daisy asked Tex.
“Fuck no,” Tex stat
ed the obvious.
“Watch it, then you’ll understand,” Daisy went on.
“Will someone please tell me why we’re talkin’ about a fuckin’ Julia Roberts movie?” Duke put in.
“It wasn’t a Julia Roberts movie, it was a Dolly Parton movie,” Daisy snapped back.
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