Rock Chick 08 Revolution (20 page)

So now I had a lot to do, including
serious shopping, which would have been made easier by the gift cards at my pad
that were probably melted. My insurance would undoubtedly not cover everything,
and my income had been significantly reduced. Fortnum’s sold a shitload of
coffee and the tip jar was never light. Then again, the tips at Brother’s were
a whole lot better, so that was going to be a hit.

I also had a decision to make
because I’d known for some time a career as a bartender/barista was not for me.

Now I had an excuse to make things
official.

But, although licensing was
voluntary for investigators in Colorado, to be taken seriously and charge that
way, I needed a license. And this might be a problem. I no doubt had the hours
of investigation logged to get it. I just did not have those hours in any
official capacity. Lee, Hank, Eddie or my dad would have to vouch for me, and
the prospect of that happening was not rosy.

I also now had a boyfriend, and
always had a family who would not take kindly to this career shift. And by “not
take kindly” I meant their reactions would be volatile.

But it was what I wanted to do, and
not on a whim. I’d been doing it for a long time, and loving it, and now I had
the opportunity and the time to go for it.

I just had to manage the reactions
of those around me.

On that thought, I activated my
phone, checked the time then scanned the area.

Still no Indy.

Fuck.

It wasn’t like we didn’t disagree
or even fight.

But this kind of silent anger was
not her thing and it unnerved me.

I was about to hit buttons to call
her again when my phone rang with the display saying, “Zano Calling.”

I took the call and put my phone to
my ear. “Hey.”

“Hey, baby. She show?”

My insides warmed. He was checking
in because he was concerned for me.

Totally sweet.

“Not yet,” I replied.

“She will.”

Totally supportive, which was also
sweet.

On this thought, I saw her blue
Beetle drive by, Indy’s redhead at the wheel.

I let out a breath and said, “She
just drove by.”

“Good,” he murmured.

“It’ll take half an hour for her to
find a parking spot, which is plenty of time for me to get her a coffee,” I
told him as I left my table and headed inside. “So I’m on that.”

“It’s gonna be okay, Ally.”

Jeez. This together
together
shit with Ren was
so
easy.

And awesome.

“Thanks, babe,” I whispered.

“See you tonight.”

“Later, Zano.”

“Later, honey.”

We disconnected, and by the time I
came out with the coffees and resumed my seat, Indy had found a parking spot
and was walking up to my table.

She made it to me and stopped.

I looked up at her through my
kickass, gold-framed, orange-lensed Ray Bans that had been payment on a “job”
and also had luckily been in my purse when my belongings exploded. She looked
down at me through her righteous, huge, black-framed, black-lensed Hollywood
Starlet shades.

I opened my mouth to speak but she
got there before me.

“Tex knows we’re here, he’s gonna
go ballistic.”

This was a promising opening.

“This is clandestine because we
need privacy, and that’s because I need to know I’m cool with you before I take
on the Rock Chicks,” I explained.

She said nothing and didn’t move.

This was not promising.

I slid her cup toward her. “I
bought you a skinny vanilla latte.”

Her shades dipped to the cup then
came back to me. Other than that, she said nothing and didn’t move.

This was definitely not promising.
India Nightingale was Queen Coffee. I didn’t think I’d ever seen her turn down
a cup. Definitely not a vanilla latte. In fact, during road trips, I made sure
we had a bottle of tequila for when we reached our destination. Indy made sure
we had travel mugs filled with java.

I closed my eyes.

Then I opened them and stated,
“That night Ren fought with Luke, in an effort to calm him down, I suggested we
go for drinks. He took me up on that offer. We went to Brother’s but when we
got there, it wasn’t about Ren and Luke and Ava. It was about Ren and me. And
it was good. So good, he took me to his house. That was better.
Way
better. Out of our stratosphere
better.”

Indy remained silent, another bad
sign. She got me. I was talking about sex. And the Rock Chicks existed on a
conversational diet heavy on sex talk, Hot Bunch bitching and skincare tips.

Time to pull out the big guns.

“I fell in love with him, chickie,”
I whispered and watched her lips part.

There it was, thank God. I was
getting in there.

So I kept at it.

“In one night, I fell in love.”

She bit her lip.

Yes. Getting in there.

“I woke up in his arms in his bed
and I was happy. Totally happy, babe. So happy I was lying there smiling. And
he curled me closer, shoved his face in my hair and said Ava’s name.”

That did it.

Her body jolted before she yanked
out a chair, sat her ass in it and leaned toward me, exclaiming on a horrified
hiss, “Oh my God! Seriously?”

I nodded. “Seriously.”

“Holy crap,” she breathed.

“It killed,” I admitted.

“It would,” she agreed.

“Ren was asleep when he did it,” I
explained. “I snuck out. He got pissed that I did, came over that night and
that didn’t go very well. I didn’t share why I left so he didn’t know until
yesterday why I established stringent fuck buddy boundaries. Boundaries, I’ll
add, that he didn’t really adhere to and, looking back, I didn’t either. Since
he was asleep, he didn’t know he did it and was pretty upset when I threw it in
his face. He explained, we worked it out. I love him, he loves me and it’s all
good.”

Something moved over her face that
I could read even behind her shades.

Surprise.

And warmth.

“You love him?” she asked quietly
and I felt my lips tip up.

“Yeah,” I answered just as quietly.

Her head tipped to the side. “He
loves you?”

I nodded and full-on smiled. “Oh
yeah.”

No surprise that time. Just warmth.

“He’s good to you?”

My smile got bigger as my hand
lifted to touch the pendant at my neck. “Definitely.”

Her shades dropped to my throat.
Her mouth got soft but she didn’t say anything. I knew she’d like the pendant.
I knew she’d know it was from Ren. And I knew she’d know, just looking at its
kickassness, that it was thoughtful and generous and said it all.

She took in a breath, looked at me,
and asked, “Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”

Right. The hard part.

“He said Ava’s name,” I told her.

“And?” she prompted when I said no
more.

“And that hurt,” I answered. My
voice was quiet, but there was a tremor in it that was not me.

And Indy knew me. She knew what
that tremor meant. She knew exactly how much it hurt.

This was why her hand shot across
the table and grabbed mine as she murmured, “Oh, Ally.”

“I didn’t want to share. I didn’t
want to relive. It haunted me enough as it was. And I didn’t want Ava to get
wind of it,” I told her.

“I see that, but you know I would
never—”

I cut her off.

“I know. And I know it isn’t the
same. You’ve been in love with him since you were five, but it still kind of
is, so what would you do if Lee was holding you in his arms in bed after you
had a great night, the best you ever had, and he said another woman’s name in
your hair?”

Her hand gave mine a squeeze. She
didn’t answer, but she didn’t need to. Her face, even with shades, said it all.

She let me go, grabbed her coffee,
sucked some back and put it on the table, her shades again locking with mine.

She got me.

“And all the other stuff?” she
asked.

This time I got her. Conversation
about Ren was done. We were moving on. She wanted to know about my activities.

Another hard part.

Crap.

I leaned forward.

“I’m good at it,” I told her.

“I know you are,” she replied, and
no doubt about it, hearing her say that and do it instantaneously felt
great
.

But I expected nothing less. That
was pure Indy.

“No, Indy,
I’m good at it,
” I stressed
.
“It’s in my blood. It’s who I am. I think I needed to prove that to myself, and
the other night in the mountains, I did. What happened there was extreme, and
Darius, Brody and me, we kicked its ass. It was awesome. So now, I need to
prove to Hank, Lee, Dad, and probably the hardest, Ren, that this is my thing.
I’m good at it. And I’m going to keep doing it.” I took in a breath then made
my point. “Now, do you think I’d get the chance to do that if I did my thing
with the Rock Chicks tagging along?”

She saw the wisdom of this
statement, and I knew it because she sat back and sucked back more coffee.

“Right. No,” I answered for her.

“I would have kept that secret,
too,” she told me something I already knew.

“I dig that,” I replied. “But
honestly, think about it. If I shared—you, me, our history, the way we are—can
you sit there and tell me you wouldn’t have finagled a way to get involved, or
at least take my back somewhere in the last two years?”

She saw the wisdom of this
statement too, and I knew it when she didn’t answer.

Tacit agreement.

“Right, no,” I repeated. “And if
you did, Lee would lose his mind, you’d lose your mind with Lee for losing his
mind, and all that would land on me. I’d have a choice. Stop doing what I love
to do, something I’m good at, something that’s
in me,
or be responsible for friction between two of the most
important people in my life. And Indy, I’m not going to stop. So I had to
manage that situation another way. And I picked secrecy.”

She nodded. She got this, too.

Thank God.

Then she asked, “So what are you
going to do?”

“I’m going to get licensed and put
out a shingle.”

Her head jerked. “Seriously?”

“Totally seriously.”

Her lips spread in a big smile.
“That’s freakin’ awesome, honey.”

Again, pure Indy.

There was a reason she was my BFF,
and it was not because we’d been thrown together as babies because our parents
were best friends and we had no choice.

It was because she was the absolute
shit. We clicked. She was not yin to my yang. She was not Laverne to my
Shirley.

We were cut from the same cloth.
She might be a redhead and me a brunette. She might have curves where I had
angles. And she might be a tad bit less crazy than me (a
tad
).

But other than that, we were
sisters.

To the core.

I did not share any of this deep
crap with her.

I didn’t need to.

She already knew it.

Instead I guided the discussion to
something (else) that was important.

That was, I warned, “No Rock Chick
involvement. I don’t tell Roxie how to design websites. I don’t tell Jules how
to counsel runaways. And you need to back me on that.”

She lifted a hand, palm my way.

A Rock Chick Promise.

“You got it. I’m all in on backing
you on that.”

“That includes you,” I added. She
dropped her hand and I knew what was coming, so I started, “Indy—”

“What if you need a decoy or
something?” she asked.

Yep. I knew that was coming, and it
was precisely why this conversation was two years late.

Fuck.

“If I do, that decoy won’t be you.”

Her head twitched. She was
offended.

“It’s always me.”

That was true too, but now it
couldn’t be.

I leaned in further in order to lay
it out.

“This is the deal and you know it.
My brother, your husband, runs this town. What he doesn’t run, Marcus or Vito
do. And Hank and Eddie protect it. In that mix, there are allegiances and there
are alliances. Some of them are unholy, but for some reason, all of them work.
And if you think you don’t come with Daisy, Jet, Roxie, Jules, and I could go
on, and those men won’t shut me down because you do, you’re wrong.

I put my hand flat on the table
between us and kept talking.

“Honest to God, Indy, this is the
first time I understand what I want to do with my life. And if I’m going to be
taken seriously doing it,
I
have to
do it. I have to be professional about it. I have to be smart about it. And I
have to make my own allegiances and alliances, and the most important ones I
can make are with Lee Nightingale, Marcus Sloan and Vito Zano. You get
involved, Indy,
any
of you, I’m done.
Lee will see to it, and even if he didn’t, any member of the Hot Bunch has
enough cred on the streets to make that happen, and any one of them wouldn’t
hesitate. I don’t want to be done, and I need to do everything I can to avoid
that. Are you with me?”

“I’m with you,” she said softly.

“I need to believe in that,” I told
her, then continued with the honesty. “I love you, but I can’t be making my
plays in that game, focusing my attention on that and dealing with you or any
of the Rock Chicks at the same time.”

Her hand came out again and curled
around mine. “I’m with you. I get you. I understand. And you can
believe
in that,” she stated firmly.

Yeah. I could believe in that. Indy
wouldn’t lie to me.

Or she would (told you we were cut
from the same cloth), just not about something like this.

I drew in breath and let it out,
saying, “Thank you.”

She grinned and replied, “Our next
come to Jesus, should there be one, which I hope there isn’t, but if there is
and you feel the need to court the wrath of Tex, let’s do it at Paris on the
Platte so I can get a Café Fantasia and make it worth it.”