Rock Chick Reckoning

by Kristen Ashley

  “Kitten –”

  What he said and what it meant finally penetrated my brain.

  “You jerk,” I whispered.

  His arms grew tighter. “Stella, listen to me –”

  “You jerk,” I repeated, my voice breaking, the tears sliding out the sides of my eyes, I didn’t even try to control them because I knew I couldn’t.

  “I didn’t know how you felt, you didn’t tell me –” he started.

  “You didn’t ask,” I reminded him.

  “Babe, if I’d have asked, would you have told me?”

  “Yes,” I said immediately and watched his head jerk back in surprise but I ignored it and went on. “I would have told you, back then I would have given you anything.”

  He watched my face as if assessing my honesty then his hand went up, his fingers sifting into my hair, he tilted his head back and shoved my face into his throat.

  “Christ, Stella,” he said but it sounded more like a groan.

  “Mace, next time you feel like ‘giving me one’, you should reconsider,” I advised, my voice had turned cold, my eyes had dried and I knew, somehow, my heart had gone hard. “Now, let me go.”

  I meant the words with a double meaning.

  Of course, he didn’t let me go.

  Instead, he muttered, “I fucked up.”

  He was right about that.

  “Yes, you did. Now let me go.”

  “I fucked up,” he repeated then used my hair to pull my face out of his throat and his head tilted down to look at me. “Kitten, I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  I knew it took a lot for him to say that.

  I knew it.

  But it hurt so much I didn’t care.

  “I’m sure you are. And I’m just as sure that I don’t give a fuck,” I lied but it sounded good, it sounded real and I watched him wince as I scored the point. I knew that seeing his wince should register somewhere but it didn’t. “Now let me go.”

  He still didn’t let me go, instead, he said, “You need to get it.”

  “Oh, I get it,” I told him even though I didn’t and I never would.

  “No, babe, you don’t. Yesterday morning –”

  I shook my head. “Oh no you don’t,” I snapped.

  He was not going to fuck with my head anymore. He didn’t want to share until he got his piece of me, so be it. I was keeping all my pieces all to myself.

  Fuck that!

  His arms got so tight they made it hard for me to breathe and I watched as his face morphed from soft remorse to the beginnings of hard anger.

  “Listen to me,” he growled.

  “We’re done talking,” I interrupted him. “I don’t want to talk anymore. Go find the bad guy, Mace, so this can be over.”

  “You need to understand where I’m coming from,” he told me.

  “I don’t care where you’re coming from,” I shot back.

  Morph complete, Mace was straight out angry. “Stella, I’m warnin’ you, you got one shot at this, you throw it back in my face, you won’t get another one.”

  Hard-hearted or not, that scared the snot out of me.

  Regardless of the fear, self-preservation took firm hold and answered for me. “I’ll take that chance.”

  His face stayed angry but I could swear I saw pain flash in his eyes, sharp and fierce. The sight of it made bile climb up my throat but I had no chance to take back my words.

  He let me go.

  Then he exited the bed.

  The loss of his body felt like a cold slap.

  I sat up and pulled the sheets around me as he walked to his jeans. His body was taut, his movements jerky. It didn’t take a body language expert to know he was pissed.

  And, what was even scarier, maybe even hurt.

  Shitsofuckit!

  Now, what had I done?

  I felt my heart start racing and swallowed the bile in my throat.

  I opened my mouth to call to him when the buzzer went.

  “Jesus,” he muttered, yanked on his jeans and walked to the alarm panel.

  “Mace,” I called but it came out more quiet than a whisper and he didn’t hear me.

  Mace hit the button on the alarm panel, Ally’s face filled the video screen and Mace said, “Yeah?”

  “Open up!” Ally demanded. “Rock Chicks!”

  He took his finger from the button, muttered, “Jesus,” again and then hit another button, buzzing them up.

  He unlocked the doors, turned to me and said, “I’ll take the dog out.”

  Then he went to his bag, pulled out a navy blue henley, yanked it on and was sitting on the platform, pulling on his boots when the Rock Chicks stormed the door. Ally, Indy, Jet, Roxie, Ava, Daisy, Shirleen, Annette and even Jules was there.

  “We hit the news!” Ally shouted, holding up a copy of the paper. “This time all of us.” Then she snapped her mouth shut and her eyes swung from me, to Mace, back to me.

  I sat, still frozen, still naked, still in bed, staring at my friends as they all stood, silent, realizing from the heavy air that they’d interrupted something.

  “Um, is this a bad time?” Jules finally asked.

  In answer, Mace got up, stalked to the leash hanging by the side of the door and whistled for the strangely attuned to her human’s emotional turmoil thus silent Juno.

  As he did all of this, the Rock Chicks and my eyes followed him.

  Mace did one more (very weird) thing before he left.

  He yanked the paper out of Ally’s hand, ignoring her surprised, “Hey!” and he shoved it under his armpit.

  Then he was gone.

  I stared at the closed door.

  The Rock Chicks stared at it too.

  Slowly, Shirleen turned to me.

  “Shirleen’s not thinkin’ good thoughts,” she announced.

  “You got that right, sister,” Jet muttered.

  Effing hell.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Maybe in a Towel

  Stella

  I wrapped the sheet around my body and then shuffled on my bottom to the edge of the bed.

  “You okay?” Ally asked.

  “I’ll make coffee,” Ava muttered and headed into the kitchen.

  My feet hit the floor and I headed toward my robe. “I think something bad just happened,” I said softly, not certain I wanted to share but too scared at what I was feeling to keep it inside.

  “You think?” Shirleen asked. “Air was so heavy you could cut it with a knife.”

  I looked at her as I struggled to put the robe on over the sheet. Her eyes were sharp but her face was soft and that combo eloquently showed her concern.

  I felt the tears hit the backs of my eyes again. I pulled breath in through my nose and decided maybe I shouldn’t share.

  “What was in the paper?” I asked, changing the subject and dropping the sheet.

  “Unh-unh, girl, what just happened?” Daisy was standing, hands on her slim, faded denim-covered hips.

  I took a moment to peruse Daisy’s ensemble which was faded denim from head-to-toe, literally. She was wearing a billed, slouchy, denim cap on her platinum blonde head, pigtails peeking out from under it at the back, wispy bangs at her forehead. She had on a tight, faded, buttoned up, denim vest, so much cleavage bulging forth from the v-neck that she was forced to leave one button undone taking the vest from indecent to mildly pornographic. Completing her look, she wore jeans, skintight all the way down to her ankles, and denim covered, pointed toed, spike heeled mules.

  I allowed myself another moment to marvel at her ability to pull off this ridiculous outfit as if it was the height of couture before she snapped, “Well?”

  I grabbed my sky-blue lace undies and pulled them on while saying, “I think I just did something stupid.”

  “More stupid than not just lettin’ Mace back into your life without this idiotic rigmarole? Bullets flyin’, Hot Bunch boys puttin’ their asses on the line, threats against all you all…” Shirleen whirled her finger aroun
d to take in all the Rock Chicks. “Still, you all act like getting a booty call from one of the Hot Bunch was like being tortured. I just don’t get it.”

  “It’s hardly a booty call, Shirleen. They get in your head, move into your house, push you around, tell you what to do, so damn bossy,” Indy sprang to my defense heatedly as I walked toward the kitchen. In fact, Indy’s words were so heated it seemed she was having a flashback.

  Shirleen put a hand to her chest and reared back. “Oh is that it? Well excuse me! You poor child!” Then she made a snorting sound. “Shee-it, any one of those boys wanted to push me around, I’d say bring it on. Hell, I’d pay for one of ‘em to move into my house. They don’t even have to do me; just walk around so I can watch. Maybe in a towel.”

  Jules looked at me and rolled her eyes.

  “You don’t understand,” Roxie put in.

  “Nope. That’s right, girl, Shirleen does not understand. So what trauma are we up against now?” Shirleen’s eyes moved to me. “You havin’ too many orgasms or what?”

  “Is there such a thing as too many orgasms?” Annette asked before I could answer. Even though I barely knew her and she’d never been to my house in her life, she was opening and closing my cupboard doors, searching for I didn’t know what.

  “No, child, that’s the point,” Shirleen replied with barely restrained patience.

  “For what it’s worth,” Annette went on, giving up on her search and turning to the group. “I’m with Shirleen on this one. Jason ain’t no slouch in the orgasm department but we got a deal, him and me. It’s like those lists you make with movie stars. If, say, you got a chance at The Rock, you could take it without getting in trouble with your partner. Me and Jason got a list, me, the Hot Bunch, Jason, the Rock Chicks.”

  Everyone went silent and stared at Annette.

  All except Shirleen, she said, “Mm, girl, you got good taste. That Dwayne Johnson is one shit-hot black man.”

  “He’s Samoan,” Annette informed Shirleen.

  “That boy is black,” Shirleen shot back.

  “Half and half,” Annette, clearly a bevy of The Rock Information, went on.

  “I want the black half,” Shirleen returned.

  “Oh my God, can we stop talking about The Rock?” Jet yelled.

  “I don’t mind a short conversational switch to The Rock,” Daisy said. “Have you seen Walking Tall?”

  “Yeah, about seven thousand times,” Annette replied.

  “I prefer Faster,” Shirleen shared her opinion. “There was no sex scene, which was a minus, but the role required two hours of him bein’ broody. Him bein’ broody for two hours is a definite plus.”

  “I made a DVD of half an hour, continuous loop of him fighting Vin Diesel over and over and over again in Fast Five,” Annette shared. “You wanna come over and watch it, I’ll make popcorn.”

  “Oowee, Vin Diesel,” Shirleen breathed.

  “I am so there,” Daisy stated.

  “Count me in,” Shirleen said after recovering from visions of half an hour continuous loop Johnson vs. Diesel action.

  I sat on the edge of a platform, fell to my back and stared at the ceiling.

  Were we really talking about The Rock?

  He was, of course, hot, but I had other, slightly more important things on my mind.

  Ally’s face filled my vision.

  “You with us, Stella?” she asked.

  “No,” I replied.

  “Okay, maybe we should quit talking about The Rock.” I heard Shirleen give in.

  My eyes moved to Ally. She was on her hands, leaning over me.

  “What was in the paper?” I asked.

  Her head came up and she looked over her shoulder. There was a weird noise made by one of the Rock Chicks, which one I didn’t know.

  Ally moved out of my eyesight but sat down beside me as I lifted up to sitting position.

  Everyone was again silent.

  Oh dear.

  Finally, Daisy answered, “Well, the whole thing is out. Indy and Lee, Jet and Eddie, Roxie and Hank, Jules and Vance, Luke and Ava. Someone talked. I don’t know how they flew under the radar this long but it’s out now. The whole thing. There’s a three-piece exposé about the whole Rock Chick on Hot Bunch experience. Today’s piece was the first one; they did Indy and Lee, Jet and Eddie. They’re gonna follow you and Mace as it goes along.”

  I stared at her.

  She caught my stare and went on, trying to make me feel better (but failing). “If it’s any comfort, sugar, they got a great picture of Mace carrying you out of the club last night. You can’t see much of you but your ass but Mace sure looks good.”

  That’s when I said, “You… are… fucking… shitting… me.”

  “I still wanna know who spilled,” Ava noted, clearly not recognizing my immense freak out.

  “I’m guessing Tex,” Ally said.

  “Uncle Tex wouldn’t talk. I’m thinking Duke. Duke can have a big mouth,” Roxie replied.

  “No way it’s Duke,” Indy put in.

  “Tod?” Jet asked hesitantly.

  “Tod’s a definite possibility,” Indy said, crossing her arms.

  I was looking from one to the other, thinking that they were focusing on the wrong thing.

  “How about May, do you think May might say something?” Ally asked Jules.

  Jules sighed then nodded.

  I’d had enough. “Who cares who did it! We have enough to worry about, someone wants us all dead. And Mace and I just had a very unhappy conversation, very unhappy, where he was about to let me in and instead of getting a piece of him, I threw it in his face. And he told me that was the only chance I was going to get. And, I repeat, I threw it in his face! I don’t want a chance but I do! I don’t want to care that I might have hurt him by not listening to what he had to say but I think I did, and furthermore, I think I care. Effing bloody hell, my life’s a shambles. I don’t know what to think! What the hell do I do now?”

  “He was going to let you in?” Jet asked softly, her eyes on me were intense and they scared me a little bit.

  I nodded.

  “And you didn’t let him?” Roxie went on.

  I tore my eyes away from Jet’s scary-intense ones and nodded again at Roxie.

  “Sugar, why’d you do a fool thing like that?” Daisy demanded to know, hands back to hips.

  “I don’t know! People are shooting at me. Mace is effing with my head. Linnie’s dead. I’m on the front page of the paper. A journalist I don’t even know because I still haven’t seen a paper is going to follow this fucked up shit between Mace and me. And a scout from a very good label told me he’s been coming to my shows. I’m not thinking straight,” I replied.

  “Oh, speakin’ of that scout, he’s comin’ to the gig this afternoon,” Shirleen put in, I felt my heart seize as my eyes cut to her.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Yeah. He’s into you. Way into you. We’re talking deal,” Daisy informed me.

  Deal?

  Daisy and Shirleen were talking deal?

  With my band?

  They couldn’t talk deal.

  Only I could talk deal.

  Effing hell.

  My eyes moved to Daisy and my breath moved to Idaho.

  “What?” I repeated a word that I beginning to hate.

  “Deal,” Shirleen took over. “Hector knows someone who knows someone who knows what he’s talkin’ about in the music business. Hector talked to him and he’s got the lingo. This Dixon Jones guy thinks Hector’s the shit, because, well, he is the shit. You shoulda seen him. It was like he did it for a living.”

  I opened my mouth then closed it then opened it again and said, “I met Hector a few days ago.”

  “Well, Dixon Jones thinks we’re your managers with Hector being Top Dog,” Daisy explained.

  My brain thought about the idea that an A&R man from Black Fat Records would think The Blue Moon Gypsies needed three managers with two of them being Shirleen a
nd Daisy and swiftly rejected that idea as seriously unpalatable and spit it right back out.

  “Hector’s a private detective,” I said stupidly, going for denial.

  “We know that and you know that but Dixon Jones thinks he’s a shit-hot music biz type. We’re lookin’ at studio time,” Shirleen replied.

  Oh.

  My.

  God.

  “Studio,” I whispered.

  “Yeah, recordin’ studio,” Shirleen told me, like I didn’t know.

  “That is fuckin’ phat!” Annette shouted.

  I turned to Ally. “Do you think, if I walk outside, someone will shoot me?”

  “It’s a possibility,” Ally told me.

  “Then that’s my next move,” I replied and stood up.

  “You can’t get shot! Dixon is meeting with you and the band after your gig at The Little Bear,” Daisy screeched.

  It was then my brain thought about the idea of any scout having a meeting with my band, who were likely to do something immensely stupid and it regurgitated that thought too. Fast.

  “He’s not meeting the band,” I said.

  “He is and you are too,” Shirleen returned.

  “Okay, you think maybe I can have a moment to process all that is fucked up with my life before it gets fucked up even more?” I snapped at Shirleen.

  “Ain’t no time to process, girl. This is life. Roll with the changes,” Shirleen retorted.

  “Don’t quote REO Speedwagon at me!” I yelled.

  “This page is done, sugar, you got to turn the page,” Daisy got close.

  “Okay, now you’re quoting Bob Seger,” I clipped. “And you’re not allowed to do that either.”

  Daisy turned confused eyes to Indy. “I thought I was still quoting REO.”

  “Maybe we should stop talking in Rock Speak and help Stella to deal with this issue with Mace,” Jet cut in.

  “Ain’t no time for that, we got a gig to get to,” Shirleen said, as if she’d been going to gigs with me for years rather than a few days. “And anyway, Vance and Matt are waitin’ outside and Vance ain’t gonna be happy if we hang out forever. He was doin’ Jules a favor, bringing us over here, he said he’s got shit to do.”