Rock Chick 08 Revolution (21 page)

Shit. I should have thought of that.
Paris had the second best coffees in Denver.

I grinned back. “Agreed.”

Her hand tightened on mine. “Love
you, honey.”

Again with the breath, this one
going in deep and coming out deeper. “Right back at cha, sister.”

She let me go, let the tough part go,
and I knew this because she again sat back and she changed the subject.

“So. Ren Zano. He’s hot. You’re
hot. You look great together. And bonus, he doesn’t seem to mind you throwing a
punch at him at a wedding, which is good news for you.”

I laughed because this was true.

She continued after I stopped
laughing and she did it smiling, “So you love him. He loves you. Are there
Catholic classes in your future?”

My brows drew together. I wasn’t
following.

“What?”

“They’re Italian. They’re Catholic.
You’re not. You’re Presbyterian, and the last time you were in a church, the
reverend had to stop services to shout at you to turn your headphones off
because AC/DC’s ‘You Shook Me All Night Long’ was screwing up his message.”

This was true.

And I’d learned from this to sit in
the back.

“In other words, I’m not sure
you’re going to convince them your gig is more important than theirs. What does
Ren say about that?” she asked.

I didn’t know what Ren said about
that. Ren and I had been too busy breaking a commandment to discuss religion.

Or pretty much anything.

“We haven’t gotten that far,” I
answered, and I saw her brows draw together over her shades.

“Okay,” she said slowly. “So what
about the families? How are you going to handle that?”

At least I had that sorted.

“They’re just going to have to
deal,” I announced, and Indy stared at me.

Then she repeated, but in a
question, “They’re just going to have to deal?”

“Yep,” I replied nonchalantly.

“Ally, honey, you
have
met your father, haven’t you?” she
asked.

I waved my hand between us. “Indy,
it’ll be cool.”

She ignored me.

“And Hank.”

“Hank wants me happy,” I reminded
her.

“He does. With a cop, a firefighter
or marine.”

This was true, too.

“Well, he isn’t getting any of
those,” I pointed out.

“So what you’re saying is, you’re
telling them you’re getting in the family business at the same time hooking
your star to a man who’s already in the family business, but his family
business is
family business,
and you
think it’ll all be cool?”

“Not immediately,” I conceded.
“Eventually.”

“I’m thinking you might need to add
nuances to your plan,” she suggested.

“And I’m thinking I’m me. They all
know me and have my whole life. They know I do what I want and find a way to
get what I want. I want Ren. They love me, they’ll deal. They give me shit,
I’ll deal… for a while. It continues, they make a choice. But I’ve already made
mine.”

“Lee was broody last night, and in
his many levels of broody, it was beyond the my-sister’s-apartment-exploded
broody, which is at the top of the scale. I think you get that’s a little
scary,” she shared, and she would know his many levels of broody. She’d lived
through them all, repeatedly.

But I understood what she was
saying.

Ren and I had made it official.
This meant it wasn’t a fling those around us could pretend wasn’t happening and
wait for it to be over.

It meant it was something they had
to deal with.

I was a little sister to two alpha
male brothers. Me finding a man was going to be something they would not dig
dealing with normally.

Ren being a Zano didn’t make
matters better.

“Not to be a bitch or anything, but
that’s not my problem. It’s Lee’s,” I replied.

“It’s his and what’s his is mine,”
she returned.

I was hitting another
conversational danger zone. I could feel it.

So I moved to avoid it.

“Indy, babe, I told Ren I was
worried that you were mad at me. He called me just before you showed to check
in. He was concerned about me and didn’t hesitate showing it. That’s sweet.
That’s also Ren. He does that kind of thing all the time, even when I
considered us fuck buddies. I’ll admit he and I have things to discuss. I’ve
been closed down for a year so we haven’t done much of that. We’ll also do it.
And with the families, I get this road is going to be rocky. What I’m saying
is, when they see the way he is with me,” I leaned in, “I promise you,
they’ll deal.
” I leaned back and
finished, “It’d help if you had my back on that, too.”

“Last time I saw you with Ren, you
aimed a punch at him,” she reminded me.

Shit.

“So,” she went on, “I think I need
to delay my answer to that until
I
see him with you.”

I could give her that.

Totally.

“Deal,” I agreed.

She shook her head but muttered,
“Deal.”

I sucked back some coffee and
asked, “How much shit am I facing with the Rock Chicks?”

“They’ve had a whole night to rip
it to shreds so they’ve mostly burned it out. They’ll get over it,” she
answered. “Tex is beside himself, though. He’s going stir crazy without
anything exploding or anyone getting kidnapped. He likes to be a sidekick and
he’s got grenades and tear gas that are going unused. He doesn’t need to use
them, but he prefers living a life where that might be a possibility.”

She was not wrong.

She kept going.

“Duke’s being quiet so, heads up on
that. I think he’s hurt. And Smithie’s pissed because he knows no way he’s ever
gonna get you to dance for him if you’ve hooked up with a Zano. And you were
his last hope.”

There was no way Smithie was ever
going to get me to dance for him anyway, even though he asked—frequently—so
that last was a relief.

I summed up. “So, not bad. Except
Duke.”

“You need to find your time to
connect with him,” she advised.

I could do that. Duke had been so
much of a fixture in my life, I didn’t remember a time when he wasn’t in it. He
also cared about me a lot, showed it, and I returned the favor (in my way).

I nodded then declared, “Brother’s
also let me go so we gotta get to Fortnum’s. The tip jar just became my
livelihood.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “You were
fired?”

“How I lasted this long was a
miracle.”

She didn’t agree verbally, but her
smile did it for her.

Then it faded and she asked, “You
gonna be okay?”

“Right now, all my belongings would
fit in a carryall and I’d have room to spare. Still, I’ve got everything a girl
needs. So yeah, I’ll be okay.”

“Yeah, you will,” she said softly.

She was one of the reasons I’d be
okay, so she should know.

“That doesn’t mean I don’t need to
hit Fortnum’s, but before, we gotta dash through the mall. I have two changes
of clothes. I need to stock up and then we gotta bounce.”

She nodded again as she rose,
taking her coffee. I went up with her, doing the same. We left our cars where
they were and moved down the sidewalk heading out of Cherry Creek North toward
the mall.

“You know, it would go a long way
to smoothing things over with those three if you sent Roxie, Tod and Stevie to
the mall to deal with your wardrobe emergency,” Indy noted.

I stopped dead on the sidewalk and
turned to her.

She was
so
right. And I was a Rock Chick, which meant I was a shopper. But
I had shit to deal with, and as much as it killed, the time suckage of buying
new jeans and tees was suckage I didn’t need.

“Why didn’t I think of that?” I
asked.

“I don’t know,” she answered,
grinning. “Maybe because you were worried about me, your apartment exploded and
you got fired.”

I grinned back. “Oh yeah. That took
some headspace.”

“I see that,” she replied as we
made to turn back.

But as we did, my eyes caught on
something through a shop window and I again stopped dead.

Then I stared.

Then I whispered, “Holy shit.”

“What?” Indy asked.

“Holy shit,” I repeated, not
answering, still staring, and also not believing my eyes.

“
What?
” Indy also repeated, but I knew she saw it when she
whispered, “Holy crap.” And a nanosecond later she shouted, “
Holy crap!
”

In unison, we ran to the door of
the store and then we ran through the store to the display.

And without a window separating us
making the sun play games with our eyesight, there they were proving we weren’t
having a mutual solar hallucination.

Stacks of them in an upright
display, at the top of which was a starburst sign that announced
New Series by Local Author.

And under it were dozens of hot
pink books that included the Denver skyline, a film strip filled with pictures,
and the white title in (what I had to admit was) a kickass font:

Rock
Chick.

Chapter Twelve

Did I Mention the Suits?

“Oh my God.”

“Holy crap.”

“I don’t believe this.”

“Blooming heck. Did that really
happen?”

“This pink color is the bomb.”

The Rock Chicks were reacting to
the book.

We were at Fortnum’s and we were
holding an impromptu Rock Chick Powwow that Indy had hysterically called to
order while riding shotgun with me on our way to the store. She was too freaked
to drive. And anyway, she had a strict rule against driving and dialing and she
was doing a lot of that.

As usual, no one wasted time
hauling ass to Fortnum’s.

Now there were stacks
of pink books that we’d bought in
Cherry Creek on the low table in the seating area in front of the big plate
glass window where we were congregated.

The good news was, a published
(maybe) fictionalized account of Indy and Lee’s courtship took precedence over
anyone giving me shit for being secretive about my non-Rock Chick activities as
well as not sharing details as I was carrying on a fuck buddies relationship
with Ren Zano for a year.

The bad news was, a (maybe)
fictionalized account of Indy and Lee’s courtship had been
freaking published.

“Oh my God,” Tod chortled, and
everyone looked to him to see his book open, his eyes to it, a huge smile on
his face. “I remember that. That was hilarious!” He looked to the group. “And
this is fab…you…
las.
I’m famous!”

“Tod, this is not fabulous,” Indy
snapped.

“Yes it is,” Tod disagreed.

“It is not,” Indy retorted.

“You’re famous, too,” Tod pointed
out. “Or, you’re already famous with those newspaper articles, but you’ll be
more
famous with this book.”

“I don’t want to be
more
famous,” Indy shot back.

 
Tod stared at Indy like she’d just declared
the sparkly fringed crochet dress Tina Turner wore for her 1971 Beat Club
performance of “Proud Mary” was in bad taste.

Then he asked, his voice pitched
high, “Why on earth not?”

Indy brandished a pink book at him
and yelled, “Tod! They have the kitchen counter scene in this! I don’t need the
world knowing about the kitchen counter scene.”

“What page is that?” Shirleen
muttered to Sadie, frantically flipping through a book.

“I’m looking,” Sadie muttered back,
doing the same.

“That scene was hot,” Tod said to
Indy.

“That wasn’t a
scene
, Tod,” Indy returned. “That was my life!”

“I remember hearing that story,”
Roxie whispered to Ava. “Tod’s right. It was hot.”

I looked to Roxie, my gut
clenching, as Daisy asked, “Who’s this Kristen Ashley person?”

“My guess,” Tod took his attention
off Indy and looked at Daisy, “it’s a made up name. Kudos to whoever picked
that,
great
romance novelist name.
But totally fake. No one’s named Kristen Ashley.”

“It’s not a strange name, Tod,”
Stella pointed out.

“How many people with romance
novelist’s names do you know?” Tod asked Stella.

“Ava Barlow,” Stella answered.

“Hmm,” Tod mumbled.

“India Savage. Allyson Nightingale.
Roxanne Logan. Juliet Lawler. Sadie Townsend,” Stella carried on.

“Point taken,” Tod murmured.

But I was listening with half an
ear.

The rest of my focus was on
Fortnum’s.

I saw a lot of faces I knew. This
was because Tex’s coffee was revered, thus practically everybody came back for
more. It was also because, with the newspaper articles, as Tod noted,
Fortnum’s, the Rock Chicks and the Hot Bunch were already famous in Denver.

Therefore we had a lot of regulars,
and those regulars didn’t always just pop by for a coffee.
 
Fortnum’s had been around a while. It had
that feel that was real. That feel that invited you to stay. That feel that assured
you you were welcome. That feel that many gave in to and hung out.

Sometimes for hours.

Right then, the place wasn’t
packed, but the seating area in front of the espresso counter was full and
there were people in line for coffees. And Jane, Indy’s other employee outside
Duke, Tex, Jet and me, was even ringing up a
book.

The kitchen counter story had been
talked about, more than once, in that space.

I obviously hadn’t had time to read
the book, though I’d skimmed parts, but it was safe to say most of what was in
it had been discussed, at length and in some detail, in that space.

And easily overheard. The Rock
Chicks weren’t about quiet. Not even close.

That meant it could be any regular
that spent time there.

Why I hadn’t thought of this when
wondering who spilled to the papers, I did not know.