SLACK: A Day in the Life of Ford Aston (Rook and Ronin Spin-off) (5 page)

“Yeah, I love the drive. I just look out the window and think about my grandparents and how fantastic it will be to see them. We’ll have early calves this year for my 4H project and I get to stay up there and help.” She stays silent for a few seconds. “I love the babies. Why are you working on Christmas Eve?” she asks, as she turns with my packages.

“I don’t do Christmas Eve. I usually just try to avoid the whole holiday.”

“Well,” she huffs, “you failed. You have a present to unwrap and two people you love will get a gift from you this year.” She flashes me her braces and I smile back as she pushes my packages across the glass.

I stuff them in my coat pockets and shoot my finger at her, Spencer style. “Merry Christmas, Sasha Alena Cherlin. Hope you do well at State next year so you can tag that deer. And may your calf be the biggest one at weaning.”

She covers her mouth to laugh and I turn around and walk away grinning.

“See ya around Ford Aston,” Sasha calls out after me. “Tell your mom I said Merry Christmas too!”

Yeah, yeah… I walk out and stuff my packages into the glove box, then laugh at what just happened. I feel like I should be saying,
bah humbug
. But I don’t. Because I still got a pet date in about eight hours.

Chapter Five

I think about Sasha and what her life might be like all the way back down into Colorado. Daughter of a gun dealer. Sharpshooter at age twelve. 4H calf-raiser. Reader of
Little House
books.

That’s quite a combination.

I’m the son of a psychiatrist, socially unacceptable genius, con-man hacker, film producer.

That’s quite a combination too.

Why can’t I find a twenty-five-year-old Sasha? Now she… is a
freak
. But in the best kind of way. Why can’t I find a well-adjusted freak?

Signs for Fort Collins appear on the side of the road and I get off on Mulberry and head towards downtown. I might as well go empty out the few things I have up at Spencer’s house in Bellvue before I go home. Nothing better to do. I still have seven hours until my pet date tonight. I turn right at College and head north, glancing over at Anna Ameci’s when the smell of Italian food makes my stomach go ape-shit. And who do I see? Veronica Vaughn walking out of the restaurant, hanging on the arm of a well-dressed man.

Hmmm.

I know Spencer and Ronnie have had their difficulties, but I haven’t seen either of them since the Shrike Bikes show ended a few weeks ago, so I had no idea they broke up. I pull into one of the many empty parking spaces and get out to go butt into her business. Veronica is dressed like a runner, but I know better. Ronnie does not run. The man leans down and kisses her on the cheek and then walks off, leaving her standing in front of the restaurant. He gets into a new Buick Lacrosse, and drives away.

Being the good best friend that I am, I memorize the plate for future evaluation.

Veronica is daydreaming when I walk up and tap her on the shoulder.

She whirls around. “Holy fuck, Ford! What the hell? You scared the shit out of me!”

“It was intentional.”

She rolls her eyes. “Well, what do you want?”

“That did not look like Spencer.”

“Wow, you really are a genius,” she snaps back at me. “That guy is the farthest thing from Spencer there is. He’s polite, attentive, and interested. Need I say more?”

“So you and Spencer broke up? Because I’m pretty sure he has no idea you’re seeing other men.”

“I don’t have time for this,” she says pushing past me. “Spencer can go fuck himself. I’m done waiting on him to grow up. He’s almost twenty-four years old and he still acts fourteen.” She walks down the sidewalk towards Laurel, then stops at the light and pushes the walk-button repeatedly.

I follow her.

“What are you doing? Go home, Ford.”

“I was on my way to Spencer’s actually. To clear out my shop apartment. Wanna come?”

“Spencer’s in Denver with his family and since I’m not part of his family, I’m gonna walk home and spend Christmas Eve with my
brothers
.”

“I have the codes, I can get in everywhere.”

She stops anxiously shuffling her feet and looks up at me. Spencer’s Veronica is tall and tough, has big blonde hair, perpetual red lips, suicidal high heels, and a never ending E-cig.

But this other man’s Veronica looks small and fragile, has no make-up on, her hair is straight and up in a ponytail, and she’s not puffing.

Something is definitely wrong.

“Come with me. I’ll let you snoop through all his stuff.”

The light turns and her walk signal flashes, but Ronnie stands still. “Yeah, right. You’ll probably record me and post it on YouTube so Spencer will break up with me.”

I point my finger at her. “So, you admit you’re still in a relationship with him!”

She shakes her head and then starts to walk across the street. I reach out and grab her arm before a car comes barreling around the corner. “Shit, Ronnie. Watch where you’re walking. You die on my watch and I get the blame.”

“Your watch?” she sneers.

I shrug. “I’m with you, I’m responsible for you. Which is why I’d like to know what’s going on with that man you just kissed.”

“I didn't kiss him, he kissed me. On the cheek.”

“Same thing.”

She plants her fists on her hips and taps her foot. “Ford, what the hell do you want?”

“Come with me to Spencer's. I’ll drop you off at home when we’re done.”

“Why? So you can pump me for information?”

I chuckle. But it’s my diabolical chuckle. The one that says
Don’t fuck with me or your life might take unexpected and unwelcome wrong turns
. “No, Ronnie. So you can talk me out of going to my FoCo apartment, looking up your man’s license plate using my DMV crawler, then calling Spencer and giving him that man’s address, so he can show up on his doorstep tonight and start asking questions. Because that’s pretty much where I’m at right now. I do not cover for anyone outside the Team.”

“Right,” she snaps back. “And since Spencer can’t commit, I’m not on the team. I’m nobody, I’m—”

I cup my hand over her mouth because her last few words came out rather shrill, and people are starting to stare. “Come with me or I do the crawl and make the call.” She huffs air into my palm and then mumbles something incoherent. “What was that? Was that a yes?” She nods her head and I remove my hand. “Great, I’m parked down here.”

I walk off and she follows, slowly, but she follows.

We get in the Bronco and slam our doors at the same time. She folds her arms against her chest and pouts.

“Buckle up. It’s the law.”

“Fuck you, Ford.” But she does buckle up and I back out and continue up College until I get to the turn off for Bellvue. Ronnie stares out the window the entire thirty-minute drive to the shop. I park in my old spot under the carport attached to the house, and glance over at Rook’s custom Shrike Bike. Spencer made it for her last summer when she was doing his body art modeling campaign.

“He never gave
me
a bike, you know.”

“No?” I get out and Ronnie follows. The weather is still fairly mild, but the clouds are really rolling in, the threat of a storm is over and it’s just about here. I look at the bike again as we walk past and then I code the lock on the back door and hold it open for Ronnie. “You know why, though, right?”

“Why what?”

“Why he never gave you a bike.”

She stands in the kitchen, her arms still folded in defiance. “Because I’m not important. Because he never gives me anything. Because I’m just another fuck-buddy to him. Because he has no feelings for me. Take your pick, Ford.”

“No, that’s not why,” I say back. “Because he doesn’t want you to ride it, Veronica. Because he’d go crazy with worry if he had to think about you riding around on a motorcycle. Because you’re his number one, he’s just caught up in some shit right now and he doesn't want you involved. And believe me, I saw his face last summer when you almost got killed. He didn’t even know how to process it.”

“Right,” she snorts. “He processed it just fine. He was on the road to Sturgis the very next day with you guys.”

“Yeah, but that was business. You’re not business, Ronnie. You’re personal. He’s totally in love with you.”

She just stares at me for a few seconds and then blinks. “What?”

“Come on, I’ll show you.” I walk into the living room and then head into the hallway towards Spencer’s office. “I don’t have the real code for this door, but I hacked it last summer when I was bored.” Veronica grunts behind me as I key in the codes. The door beeps and I push it open and wave her in.

She hesitates. “I’ve never been in here before, Ford.”

“I know, that’s why I’m taking you in here now.” I flip on the lights and she gasps, then walks across the forbidden threshold.

And gasps again. “What the hell is all this?” she asks, panning her arms wide.

I look up and try and imagine myself as her, seeing it for the first time. But I’m no good at that empathy shit, so it’s no use. “Well, Ronin and I call it pussy-whipped, but you can call it the
Veronica Vaughn Shrine
.” I laugh privately at my joke as she takes in the walls. Every one is adorned with images of her as Spencer’s body art model. He stopped using her last year, then gave that last job to Rook, so none of these are recent. But she was his model for several years—they even went to some international contests, and Spencer has all those awards prominently displayed in a glass case behind his desk.

“I don’t get it,” she says, perplexed.

“What’s not to get?”

“Why? Why the fuck does he treat me like
shit
!” She yells that last part and I wince. “Ford!” she says turning to me, her little hands clasping onto the front of my leather jacket. “Why. The. Hell? He lets me come around once a month, if that! He forgets to call me back, he snuffs me on our dates, he hasn’t fucked me in three goddamned months, Ford!” She’s shaking me now and I’m desperately trying to pry her hands off my coat before I start freaking out from her touching. “
Three months
! Do you have any idea how fucking horny I am! I’m gonna fuck that banker, Ford. The minute he asks, because my goddamned vibrator is broken and the fucking mall sold out of the fucking Hitachi model I like, and won’t be getting any more in until after fucking New Year’s! I can’t even find them online! Not even on eBay!”

She finally lets go and turns back to the wall art.

Holy shit. Veronica is
intense
.

But she’s forgotten about me now and her attention is one hundred percent on the walls. There’s six life sized photographs of her. All in body art paint, which means she’s totally naked in every one of them. If it bothers her that I’m looking at her naked body, she doesn’t let on. But honestly, it bothers me.

I do not want to start picturing them together.

It gives me the shivers.

“This one,” she says pointing up at a photo, still a little bit hysterical, but calmer than she was about the lack of Hitachi vibrators at the FoCo Mall, “was in Austria. We won two prizes for it.”

She’s pointing to the one with her painted up as the cyborg chick that Rook loved so much last summer. That was Ronin’s favorite picture of Rook once the STURGIS contract was all said and done. Spencer is trying to talk Ronin into letting Rook be his model for Comic-Con this year. But even though Ronnie doesn’t see it yet, Spencer tells her no for the same reason Ronin will put his foot down this time as well.

No one wants their woman being displayed naked in front of thousands of men.

That’s just the facts. And even though this is such a fucking no-brainer to us men with even the slightest bit of protoplasmic possessive gene, for some stupid reason, the girls never seem to get it.

Allow me to spell it out.

“Ronnie, Spencer is a man. He doesn’t do feelings, he does caveman. When he says ‘No, Ronnie, you may not have one of my custom Shrike Bikes.’ What he really means is, ‘Are you fucking insane? I refuse to spend every Goddamn night wondering if you’re dead in a fucking ditch somewhere. You may
not
have a bike and you will
never
get a bike with my name on it as long as I’m alive, so fucking help me,
God
.’”

“But he gave Rook a bike!”

“Yeah, because it made Rook happy and she’s got Ronin to reign her in when she talks about riding it. And after she took off to Illinois alone on that fucking Shrike Bike, you see where it is now? Sitting under the fucking carport out here in the middle of nowhere, being ridden by no one. Rook will never
sit
on that bike again, let alone ride it. Ronin put his foot down and it’s over. Now, do you need me to spell out why he refuses to let you model for him anymore? Because I will. I think you’re smart enough to figure that shit out on your own, but I’ll hold your hand tonight and not make fun of your idiocy because it’s Christmas.”