Rock Chick 05 Revenge (9 page)

I pulled out of my mini-hot guy trance and walked toward him. “I’m Ava.”

“I know,” he was still grinning, his blue eyes dancing. I figured I wasn’t in on the joke but let it slide considering I had to focus on getting dressed and getting out of there without having Luke’s “talk”.

“I brought your bag.” He handed it to me and I took it.

“Thanks,” I said, feeling like a dork but happy to have my purse.

“Your Rover’s in the garage.”

I looked at him and smiled, more than happy to have my car. “Thanks again.”

“Your keys,” he handed them to me and I took them. “Your purse is beeping.”

I dipped my chin, feeling kind of weird because he was really cute and kept grinning at me. “Thanks again, again,” I said to him.

His grin faded a bit but didn’t go away and he was now watching me closely. “You okay after last night?”

Wow, what a sweet guy,
Good Ava said in my ear.

Flirt!
Bad Ava yelled.

As usual, I ignored them.

“Sure,” I said. “It gives me something juicy to put in my memoirs.”

He threw back his head and laughed. His laughter was deep and nice so I laughed with him.

“You got that right,” he told me when he was done laughing.

I got over feeling weird and gave him a big smile.

“Matt.”

Both our heads swung to Luke who hadn’t moved but now his arms were crossed on his chest, his legs were planted and his brows were knit. He looked kind of pissed off, which was confusing. Maybe he wasn’t a morning person.

Matt looked at his feet and chuckled. I threw Luke a look, walked to the counter and plopped my purse and keys on it, digging for my cell.

“I need to go out,” I announced, still digging in my purse. “Get a diet pop.”

This was met with silence. I located my cell and yanked it out, flipping it open and glancing at Luke. Matt had come closer and both of them were staring at me.

“Diet pop?” Luke asked.

“Do you have any?” I returned.

“No.”

“Then I need to get some.”

“It’s seven o’clock in the morning,” Luke told me.

“I know.”

“You drink diet pop at seven in the morning?” Luke asked.

“Well… yeah. I need to wash the toothpaste taste out of my mouth.”

Luke and Matt kept staring at me.

I looked at my cell. Six missed calls.
 

Crap.

I pressed buttons on my cell, my eyes on it, and said, “I’ll just get dressed and pop out.”

I really did need diet pop to wash the taste of toothpaste out of my mouth. However, this had the double duty of being my excuse to get the hell out of there so my Diet Pop Destination was my very own fridge.

“Do you mind?” I heard Luke ask and my head came up. “Ava and me need to talk.”

Matt was grinning at me again. “You need anything else?” he asked me, amusement in his voice. “Breakfast?”

I looked at Matt then at Luke. “No, really, I’ll go.”

“You’re not going,” Luke said.

I narrowed my eyes at Luke. “I’m going.”

“Matt’s goin’.” Luke returned.

I opened my mouth to say something but Matt moved. “No problem. Diet pop,” Matt said.

“Get a case,” Luke told him.

My eyes bugged out. A case of diet would last me a month.
 

Matt burst out laughing and hit the button on the elevator.

“I don’t need a case. I just need one,” I told Matt.

“A case,” Luke said decisively.

The elevator doors opened and Matt walked in. “I’ll get a case,” he told Luke and the doors closed.

“Really, that’s unnecessary,” I said to Luke.

He didn’t reply.

I sighed, heavy and annoyed. He wanted a case of diet? Fine. Who cared?

I gave up and scrolled through my missed calls: five from Sissy, one from Riley.

Hmm. Riley. Interesting.

“Ava,” my head came up and I looked at Luke.

Shit. It was time for the talk.

“Do you have any food?” I asked in an effort to delay. I didn’t like to eat before I’d had my diet soda but desperate times called for desperate measures.

“Yeah,” he answered.

“Do you mind?”

His body relaxed and his lips moved. They kind of twitched, like he knew my thoughts and found me amusing but was trying not to smile.

I squelched the desire to throw my phone at him as he offered, “Help yourself.”

I dropped my phone in my purse, walked around the counter the opposite side to Luke, and went to his fridge.

I was stunned to see it was packed with healthy eating options: low-fat yogurt, high-quality, multi-grain bread, tons of fruit and veggies. I spied a half a cantaloupe wrapped in cling film and pulled it out.

“Can I have some cantaloupe?” I asked, turning to Luke.

He tilted his chin up in a nonverbal “yes”.

There was a cutting board in his sink. I put down the cantaloupe and went to work cleaning the cutting board.

“You’re well-stocked.” Again, I was delaying “the talk”.

“Sandra went shopping.”

“Sandra?”

“A woman I’m seein’.”

At his words it took every bit of energy I had not to freeze, gasp or maybe vomit.
 

Of course he would be seeing someone. Luke was hot. Luke was a guy. Luke had a testosterone-fuelled job. He had to be getting it from someone. He didn’t strike me as the kind of guy who would be faithful to his hand like I was faithful to my vibrators.

“Will she mind if I eat her cantaloupe?” I asked, drying the board and not looking at him.

“It’s my cantaloupe. Sandra got it but I paid for it and it’s in my fridge,” he answered.

I nodded, set down the board, unwrapped the cantaloupe and grabbed a knife out of a big butcher block and started cutting. I tried not to think about the messy bed Luke threw me into last night and hoped he hadn’t thrown me into a bed that got messy through his activities with another woman.

I failed at not thinking about it.

“Will she mind that I spent the night?”

Why did you ask that? Silly girl,
Good Ava remonstrated me.

I’m so sure! He handcuffed you to him and slept with you when he’s seeing someone else. What a jerk,
Bad Ava huffed.

“We’re not exclusive so it’s none of her business,” Luke answered.

See! He’s a jerk,
Bad Ava ranted.

Good Ava kept her silence, likely pouting.

He had come to stand by me at the counter. I could see the side of his hip leaning against it out of the corner of my eye. I ignored the hip and kept cutting.

“Do you want cantaloupe?” I asked, keeping my eyes on my task.

“No, I want to stop talking about cantaloupe and start talking about your troubles.”

Shit.

“Okay,” I said, still cutting. Then I was silent.

So was Luke, for a moment, then he broke the silence.

“Ava,” his voice held a warning.

My mind raced for an excuse for another delay and it found none.

Fuckity, fuck, fuck,
fuck
.

Time to get it over with.

“Um… well. You know my friend Sissy?” I asked, eyes on the melon.

“Yeah.”

 
“She’s married to Dominic Vincetti.”

“I worked that part out,” he told me.

“Now, they’re kind of separated.”

Silence.

“She’s going to file for divorce.”

More silence.

“She’s up in Wyoming, staying with her Mom.”

I looked at the cantaloupe and realized I had cut far too much for just myself. Oh well, at least Sandra wouldn’t have to worry about cutting up the cantaloupe next time she was there. I put down the knife, picked up a chunk of melon and popped it into my mouth.

“Are you done?” Luke asked, my eyes slid sideways to look at him and I swallowed.

“Um… yeah.”

“That’s it? Your trouble is that Sissy’s filing for divorce?”

I grabbed another chunk and put it into my mouth while I turned to him and leaned my hip against the counter. “She’s my best friend. Her troubles are my troubles.”

Luke stared at me for a beat then said, “So why were you there last night?”

“She needed something and asked me to get it for her.”

“She needed something out of Vincetti’s nightstand?”

Hell and damnation.

I looked down at the melon and back at Luke. “I cut too much melon just for me. You sure you don’t want any?” I stalled again.

He shook his head, totally seeing through me, but took a chunk and put it in his mouth. I found watching him chew was weirdly fascinating and decided I was not a dork, I was a freak.

Once he swallowed, he said (his voice kinda scary), “Ava, I’m not gonna tell you again not to lie.”

Crap.

I took another chunk of melon and chewed while glaring at him. “You know,” I told him, again trying to stall. “This is really none of your business.”

“It became my business when you and I were caught in a hail of gunfire.”

Hmm.

In all fairness, he was kind of right, though I wasn’t about to tell him that nor was I going to give in. I didn’t ask him to be there.

I nabbed another chunk of melon and chewed it angrily, now seriously glaring at him. “I didn’t ask you to be there,” I pointed out. “You weren’t even supposed to be there.”

“Okay, then it became my business when you walked into the offices yesterday.”

“No it didn’t.”

“Yes, it did.”

“No. It didn’t.”

He took another chunk of melon and threw it in his mouth calmly then his eyes came back to me and I noticed he was totally oblivious to my glare.

“I don’t need your help,” I told him, switching subjects and still delaying.

“Right,” he said.

“I don’t.”

“Maybe you would have had the presence of mind to get out of the line of fire last night, maybe you wouldn’t. With the way you freaked out afterward, I doubt you would have. The way I figure it, you owe me double.”

I blinked with confusion. “Double?” I asked. “I owe you double for what?”

“Saving your ass last night and not telling me you have a situation.”

I shook my head, not following. “Excuse me?”

“You’re standing here, right now, because of me. And yesterday, I told you if I found out you had trouble, you’d pay. You’re paying.”

I was not getting a good feeling about this.

“I don’t… I don’t even know what to say. That’s just crazy,” I told him.

“Nope, it isn’t. Last November a friend of mine did something brave but stupid to save someone she cared about. She got a bullet to the chest and another one to the belly for her troubles.”

Yikes.

I sucked in breath at his announcement and the way he shared it. He looked angry and his body was tense and I knew this event affected him in a profound way (as it would anyone).

I stared at him but he wasn’t finished talking. “I saw her on the floor, bleeding while her man tried to staunch the flow with a fucking bath towel. Before she went down, she shot a man in the head, killing him. She’s got to live with two kinds of scars now. The kind you can see and the kind you can’t.”

Ho-ly crap.
 

“Luke,” I had lost my glare and my anger and my voice went soft.

Luke didn’t feel like responding to my soft voice. He came closer and it took a lot of effort, because his intensity was freaking me out, but I stayed where I was even when I saw his eyes were shining with anger.

“I’m not playing this fucking game with you, Ava. You told me last night you wanted to know why I cuffed you. So now I’ll tell you. You’re playin’ with fire and I’m not about to stand around and watch you get burned. Before Jules got shot, there was Roxie, another friend of mine’s woman who was stalked by her ex, beaten, abducted right from his fuckin’ house while he was out runnin’, and taken on a crazed, zigzag ride through three states. We found her cuffed to the sink in a sleazy motel. Before Roxie there was Jet, whose Dad got some poker debt and his loan shark tried to use Jet to force payment. She caught the attention of a fuckwad and ended up kidnapped and nearly raped. Before Jet there was –”

“Okay, I get it,” I broke in quietly.

Jeez.

I was freaked out and he hadn’t even gotten to the car bombs yet. Boy and I thought all the men I had met were assholes.
 

“Tell me right now what you and Sissy are up to,” he demanded, moving back but only slightly.