by C. L. Parker
Thanks to Cassidy, my little buddy wasn’t working quite right anymore. Though for some odd reason, he wanted to come to life at the thought of her. Traitor. Otherwise, I would’ve stayed in town and fucked Yvonne all night. That was what I should’ve done. At least then I wouldn’t have been escorted to the pokey by the oh so polite boys in tan. I also wouldn’t have been booked and charged with one count of misdemeanor assault and one count of malicious property damage, also a misdemeanor. My fingers wouldn’t be stained with ink, and my reputation wouldn’t be just as tarnished. I’d partied with my clients plenty, but never had it resulted in scandal and arrest. And Denver wasn’t even my client. Yet.
The click of the lock on my cell door sounded intimidating, courtesy of the acoustics caused by cement walls, a high ceiling, and a stainless steel toilet. A decent-looking Hispanic woman was on the other side, short and mannish in build, with her dark hair in a bun, but she had a cute face all the same.
“Matthews … you’ve been sprung, and I need this cell for the next fuckup, so let’s move.”
I was pretty sure she wasn’t supposed to talk to me like that, and I didn’t appreciate her tone; nor did I have a clue as to how I’d been sprung, but I wasn’t going to argue the point. The officers took their sweet time about getting my personal effects and the paperwork for my release, which was funny because it sure hadn’t taken them anywhere near as long to process my ass into the system in the first place. Okay, maybe it wasn’t so much funny as it was annoying as hell. But I was out the door with my manila envelope and without a clue about who’d made it possible or where I should even begin to start looking for Denver.
Fishing my phone out of the envelope, I scrolled through the long list of missed calls—all from my current clients, most likely wanting to voice their concerns—but found none from Denver. I was about to call him when I noticed that my battery had zero life, and, of course, I had no charger with me.
“Great,” I said aloud.
It was then that a rare breeze came at me, carrying the overpowering scent of Old Spice. When I heard the thud of boots on pavement and the jingling of what I could only assume was a wallet chain, I knew who’d bailed me out of jail.
“Mr. Matthews,” came the burly voice of Denver’s father.
I turned to face him with a smile, though I wasn’t sure if I’d be met with a fist to the face for letting Denver get so out of hand in the public eye. “Mr. Rockford, please tell me Denver is okay.”
“Oh, yeah. He’s just fine, son. And you gotta stop being so formal with me. Gives me the heebie-jeebies. I’m just regular folk, no better than any other Joe on the street, so call me by my name.”
“Can I assume you paid my bail?”
“Nope. That was all Denver, though we thought it best if I came here to do the deed. That boy probably needs to stay out of the limelight for the time being.”
I cringed. “Yeah, I’m sorry about that.”
“Don’t be. You took one for the home team, and we won’t soon forget that. In addition to the bail, Denver will also be covering any attorney expenses and fines that come out of this mess. It’s the least he can do for all the trouble he caused.”
“Wait. You’re not mad at me?”
Boulder gave a hearty laugh and slapped his meaty paw on my shoulder, but thankfully I had the balance not to stumble forward from the blow of it. “Hell no! Boys will be boys. Besides, once Denver gets something set in his head, he does it. The best thing you could’ve done was tag along with him to keep him out of trouble. Otherwise, I guarantee things would’ve been worse.”
Well, damn. Looked like I’d actually managed to score some points after all. Whether it was enough to one-up Cassidy or not remained to be seen.
“Where is he now?”
Boulder kept his arm around my shoulders as we walked toward the parking lot. “Numbnuts is back at the hotel with his mama. She hasn’t shown him a bit of mercy since we landed, either. We managed to get hotel security to open the door for us and then found him passed out, hugging the toilet in his suite.” He laughed in that way fathers do when their sons have learned a lesson the hard way. “If Cassidy hadn’t tracked him down, we probably never would’ve known which hotel he was staying at. She’s pretty amazing, that one. Smart.”
In the parking lot, he pointed to the passenger door of a silver subcompact car.
When I raised a brow in question, Boulder said, “Don’t laugh. It was all they had available on short notice, and I’m not one for having somebody else drive me around like I’m some bougie pansy.”
“ ‘Bougie’?” I laughed, caught off guard.
“Hey, I can keep up with you young ones. I’m hip, cool, amaze-nuts.”
“You mean ‘amazeballs’?”
“Whatever. Just get in the car, smart-ass.” Nothing about Boulder’s demeanor said he was insulted. At least not until he climbed into the driver’s side, his large frame folding up like an accordion. “God, I wish I had my bike,” he said before starting the wind-up toy.
I remembered my first impression of him and couldn’t help asking, “Your bike wouldn’t happen to have a chrome skull, would it?”
He looked at me, surprised. “With an opened jaw for the headlight. Now, how’d you know that?”
I smiled, pretty damn proud of myself that I’d nailed it. “Just a hunch.”
“You’re pretty smart, too, you know. Either way my boy decides to go, I’m glad to know he’ll be in good hands.”
“Does that mean he’s definitely decided to go with Striker?”
“Yep” was all he offered, and that was okay by me.
I used the short drive to the hotel to get on a friendlier basis with Denver’s father. Motorcycles turned out to be a topic that enthused Boulder, so I was quite pleased to ask him as many questions as I could about them. Older men love to “school” the young on that sort of thing, and I was eager to learn. Once we made it to the hotel, we went straight up to Denver’s suite, planned his great escape out the back entrance, stuffed his big ass into the back of the car like a sardine in a can, and Fred Flint-stoned our way to the airport, where a private jet was waiting for takeoff. Again, my treat.
Jesus, I was glad this horrible nightmare was coming to an end. But I still wasn’t looking forward to facing Cassidy the next day. Seeing the smug look on her face might actually be a fate worse than the one I’d already endured.
CHAPTER 11
Cassidy
Having a super-famous son couldn’t be easy. It was bad enough to find out that your child had been onstage with (what turned out to be) an underage, half-naked girl, making a fool of himself and generally acting like a lascivious idiot. But to also find out that he’d pretty much abandoned the one person who’d at least tried to protect him was like a slap in the face to the people who had raised him to be a good person. That slap was going to earn Denver one of his own … to the back of the head.
Delilah hadn’t been a happy camper when I called to rat out her son, but she and Boulder had hopped a flight to McCarran International all the same. Which had left me with the task of—within the span of their one-hour flight—tracking down whatever hotel Denver might have checked into. I’d gotten lucky in that he actually had retreated out of the public eye instead of catching his own flight back and leaving Shaw stranded in jail. Though Shaw had made some really stupid decisions and shown some gross negligence in the handling of Denver, for Denver to then desert him was a deed worse than Shaw’s.
A phone call from Delilah was the only insight I had as to what was going on, but she’d assured me her son was safe and sound and had been sleeping it off when they’d arrived. She’d nurse him back to a condition that would enable him to fly without causing even more of a ruckus, and then she was going to have a stern talk with him. Boulder had bailed out Denver’s accomplice, though Shaw would need to return for a court date in the not so distant future.
I’d done my research on Shaw’s misdemeanor charges as well—t
hat was just the sort of thing I did—and I’d learned that he’d likely be out only around three thousand dollars or so. Assuming this was a first-time offense. It was. I knew because I’d, of course, also conducted a lot of research on the likes of Mr. Matthews when I’d heard he’d been hired and rumors of his big-shot ways spread like wildfire through the office. Maybe I’d felt threatened, but I’d rather think of it as sizing up the competition. After all, you have to know the enemy before you can defeat him.
Shaw skipped work again on Tuesday, but I knew he was back in town—I’d finally talked to Denver, who had apologized profusely for nothing in particular. He didn’t owe me any sort of apology, though I supposed his sending my calls to voice mail had been rude. It wasn’t that I’d felt particularly slighted by it—busy clients did that sort of thing all the time—but he still needed to squirm for a bit to learn a valuable lesson: Thou shalt not ignore thy potential agent. Or something like that.
There was another person I was interested in watching squirm, as well. I felt like I was due a front-row seat to whatever humiliation Shaw would be feeling once he saw me again, and Monkey Business was just that. If he was going to show his face at all, it would be there. So I left work early and got real good and comfortable, with an icy brew from the tap in hand. There I sat, catching up with my friends and minding my own business (read: stalking the bar for Shaw’s arrival and walk of shame), when an audible gasp drew my attention toward Quinn. Who looked as pale as the living dead. He was staring toward a man and woman who’d just come through the door, and he wasn’t making a sound, though he definitely seemed to be trying to.
Naturally, I was concerned for my friend, so I put down the cellphone I’d only been pretending to read messages on. “What is it, Quinn? What’s wrong?”
He closed his mouth and then opened it again, but still nothing came out. I couldn’t be sure, but there might have been tiny beads of sweat forming on his brow. Obviously, he was in some sort of distress.
“Amazing. It’s like a ventriloquist stuck his hand up his butt to move the mouth but forgot to throw the voice.” Demi snapped her fingers in front of Quinn’s face. “Hey, Queer Eye, stop making fishy faces and spit it out. Who is that?”
“Daddy …” came his dramatically whispered voice. “And his wife.”
So the three of us girls did a double take, which made it what? Like six takes? Okay, so we gawked and didn’t even bother to cover it up. It was the first time any one of us had ever laid eyes on Daddy, and his wife was with him, too? Well, that was a twofer we’d be crazy to miss.
Daddy was a hunk. I wasn’t sure why that surprised me, but it did. I’d expected some burly old guy with too much around his center and not enough on top of his head who had a thing for young men that were way out of his league. That wasn’t the case at all. Daddy was tall with a medium build and had obviously spent some time at the gym. Every part of his being was well groomed, from his dark and dapper haircut to his clean-shaven face to the tailor-made suit and handmade custom Italian alligator shoes. He looked like a million bucks, and I’d bet he smelled like it, too.
“Good God, he’s gorgeous,” Sasha said, swooning.
“Pierce Brosnan,” I blurted out, not realizing I’d been squeezing Quinn’s hand. “He looks like freakin’ Pierce Brosnan.”
“You’re tapping that?” Demi asked.
Quinn pulled his hand free of my grasp. “Uh, you don’t need to know the specifics of who’s tapping whom. But I do need to know what he is doing here, of all places, with her?”
“Her” was beautiful, a match suitable for such a spectacular specimen of a man. It was all for show, I was sure: a superficial need of someone in his position to be seen with someone who was every bit as glamorous as his lifestyle. Her platinum-blond hair was perfectly coiffed, her makeup was flawless, and her diamonds sparkled so bright she needed sunglasses just to wear them. And, wow, she had the best figure money could buy. It didn’t stop there, but jeez Louise, I wished it had because I was on the verge of a very embarrassing shoegasm.
On her delicate feet were red-and-black couture d’Orsay T-straps with a smitten heel befitting a pinup girl the likes of Marilyn Monroe, and they matched her red Monica dress perfectly. Quinn was right. Why in the world would someone who was dressed for a night out with the social elite be at a workingmen’s watering hole?
With a synchronized turn of our heads, we watched as the pair practically glided across the room like they owned the place and took a seat at a table against the far wall. When Daddy glanced in our direction, we averted our eyes, but not Quinn. Quinn looked like his heart had been shattered to smithereens.
“Hey, are you okay?” I asked, taking his hand—much more gently this time.
He was still glaring across the room. “Look at her. She’s a hateful bitch. Do you know she threatens to turn his kids against him every time he tells her she can’t have something she wants?”
“That body has had kids?” Demi asked. Sasha elbowed her. “Ow! What? She looks good.”
Through clenched teeth, Sasha mumbled something at Demi that sounded an awful lot like “Shut your piehole,” though I could’ve been mistaken. Her face softened when she turned toward Quinn and said, without clenched teeth, “I don’t get it. Why are they here?”
“I’m about to find out,” Quinn said, standing. “Daddy’s on the move.”
Sure enough, Daddy was headed toward the bathrooms, giving a slight nod in that direction for Quinn to follow.
I felt bad for Quinn, I really did, but until he learned to value himself enough to demand the very best, he’d always get shorted in the end. This situation seemed like a ticking time bomb ready to go off in his face at any moment.
I still had time to kill since Shaw hadn’t shown up yet, so I turned to the next subject on the board. “Who’s the new flavor of the week, Sash?” I asked before taking a drink of my beer, which was quickly warming to room temperature. Since her last dating debacle, I hadn’t heard a thing on the man scene, which was unusual. She usually rebounded pretty quick.
Sasha wasn’t paying attention. In fact, she hadn’t even heard my question. Instead, she was staring toward the bar. At Landon, which was an interesting turn of events. But the way she was looking at him was somehow different than she ever had before. “Have you guys ever noticed how hot Landon is?”
Demi and I looked at each other and burst out laughing at the same time.
“Finally!” I said, slamming my hand down on the table.
That got Sasha’s attention. “What’s so funny? You don’t think he’s hot?” And then the pouty lip came out. It truly was adorable. I could see how it got her out of parking tickets and other sticky situations.
Demi cuddled her close and kissed her cheek. “D’awww. What’s funny is that you’re just now realizing it. I swear, Sasha, sometimes I worry about you, but I knew you’d find your way in the end.”
“What way?”
Demi took Sasha’s face in her hands and turned her in the direction of the bar where Landon was standing. He looked over his shoulder at her, as if he could feel her eyes on him, and winked. My heart grew three sizes in that moment. It was the single most swoony thing I’d ever seen, because I knew. I knew how he felt about her.
“Oh” was all Sasha said, with those doe eyes blinking. I could almost see the light coming on behind those big baby browns. She’d finally gotten it.
“Bartender!” I yelled toward Chaz. “Another round for me and my pals. We’ve cause to celebrate.”
Shaw was a no-show. Again. Curse him for making me wait to rub his nose in the colossal screwup that would forever define his career. If the universe bestowed any favors on me, anyway.
Quinn had emerged from the bathroom, quite the happy camper, to say that Daddy and “the old ball and chain” had come to Monkey Business at her request. Daddy thought she must have been suspicious of his extracurricular activities, but it turned out she’d simply had a hankering for pub food. I said
I thought it was rude for Quinn to be referred to as an extracurricular activity, which earned me the evil-eye warning from my closest friend, so I shut up about it.
We were granted a never-before-seen performance by Sasha when she morphed into Flirty Sasha and aimed her sights at Landon. She asked him out. Boldly and quite loudly, I might add. He looked surprised and maybe even a little disbelieving, but in the end, he went with it, not making a big deal out of the situation—mostly because Landon never made a big deal out of anything. He just took things as they came. And so they left with their arms linked, their courtship officially under way.
On Wednesday morning, while I was curious to know how Lansha’s (the new blended name the rest of us had debated over and settled on) date had gone, I was on a mission. A mission that found me charging toward Shaw’s office to see if he’d finally decided to bring his slacker butt to work. If he had, I was going to get my two cents in before he could make any kind of excuse about having some meeting to attend or a phone call to make.
His suite was dark when I popped in, but I could see that the light in his office was on from the crack under the door. So Ben hadn’t yet arrived, but maybe Shaw had. Without knocking—because Shaw rarely ever did—I barged inside. Sure enough, there he sat behind his desk with a pile of pending contracts before him, acting all “early bird gets the worm” when in reality he was playing catch-up from his extended weekend getaway. When he looked up and saw me, he sighed and took off his glasses, which I had no clue he wore.
“I wondered how long it would take you to pounce,” he said, slumping in his chair. “Come on in and shut the door. We don’t want to give the gossip hounds something to howl about.”
