Rock Chick Regret

by Ashley, Kristen

  “I’ll see it doesn’t happen again,” he said, still sounding like he was teasing. Then he said, “I promise.”

  Startled at the change in tone, I looked up at him. He was no longer teasing, he was very serious.

  Before I could react, he deposited me at Hector’s side. Hector lifted his brows at me.

  I pulled my lips between my teeth. Hector saw I wasn’t going to share and he sighed.

  Thirty minutes later, we left.

  It was finally over.

  And I survived.

  Thank goodness.

  Chapter Seven

  Okay

  Sadie

  After Blanca’s dinner, when Hector and I arrived back at the brownstone, my mind was on other things, loads of other things.

  Therefore, I didn’t protest when he walked me up to the door, took the keys from my hands, unlocked and opened the door for me and, with his hand on the small of my back again, guided me inside.

  Automatically, I turned to the alarm panel and hit the code, flipped the hall light switch then turned back to Hector.

  For some bizarre reason, he was looking up the stairs.

  Then he looked at me. “Stay here, by the door, until I come back.”

  I only had time to blink at him before he was gone, taking the stairs two at a time.

  What on earth was he doing?

  I did what I was told, standing by the door, feeling like an idiot and he came back.

  I opened my mouth to speak but before I uttered a noise, he walked right by me, through the hall, his hand raised, index finger pointed skyward and muttered, “One more minute.”

  I stared at his departing back then heard as he walked around downstairs. A light came on in the living room and Hector reappeared. He walked to the end of the hall, opened the door to the powder room, I saw the light go on then off then he came out, closed the door and came back to me.

  “Okay,” he said, reached around me, locked the front door then grabbed my hand and pulled me in the living room.

  “What was that?” I asked his back.

  He stopped and turned to me. Shrugging off his jacket, he threw it on an armchair. “Walkthrough. Making sure no one was here.”

  My head did a surprised little shake as I threw my bag on the chair, took off my trench and tossed it on the chair with my bag.

  “But,” I reminded him, “the alarm was on.”

  He got in close, lifted a hand and while he shifted my hair off my shoulder, he explained, “Can’t be too careful.”

  “Oh,” I said because there was nothing else to say and anyway I was recovering from the shifting-the-hair-off-my-shoulder move.

  Hector kept looking at me.

  What now? What did nice girls do after dinner with their date’s mother and select close friends?

  I wracked my brain. Finally, ever the good hostess, it came to me.

  “Do you want a drink?” I offered.

  “How much time do we have before your friends get back?” he asked in return.

  I, personally, thought this was a weird question but I didn’t tell Hector that.

  Instead I shrugged. “I don’t know, since I moved here, they’ve never gone out without me.”

  Then I realized Ralphie and Buddy never had gone out and left me home alone. Not for over a month. I was probably putting a major crimp in their social life.

  And I didn’t even notice.

  Now what kind of genuine friend wouldn’t even notice she was putting a crimp in her friends’ social life?

  Oh my, it was high time to call the real estate agent lady and get out of their hair. If I didn’t, they might not like me anymore. And I couldn’t lose them this soon.

  Hector broke into my thoughts about real estate and Buddy and Ralphie’s social life and said, “Then, no, I don’t want a drink.”

  His answer confused me. I didn’t understand why the timing of Ralphie and Buddy’s return had anything to do with anything but I didn’t have a chance to ask.

  Hector’s hands came to my hips and slowly he pulled me close. His arms slid around me loosely and his chin tipped down so he could look at me.

  “We have to talk.”

  Oh my.

  With all that happened, I forgot about our talk.

  All right, that was okay. I could do this. I could do anything. I survived dinner at his mother’s house, didn’t I?

  “Okay,” I said, mentally girding for our talk.

  He didn’t speak, instead his head bent and he touched my lips with his. My heart stuttered and I instantly ungirded.

  All right, maybe I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t even stay mentally girded for a whole second!

  “You just kissed me,” I accused him.

  His mouth moved like he was fighting a grin (again).

  “Yeah,” he answered.

  “Kissing isn’t talking,” I informed him helpfully, like he didn’t already know this fact.

  More fighting the grin. “No,” he agreed.

  He pulled me closer so my body was lightly pressed to his.

  “Well, are we going to talk?” I asked.

  He was watching me closely and for some reason there was no grin fighting anymore.

  Then he answered, “Yeah.”

  I waited.

  He pulled me closer so my body was not so lightly pressed to his. In fact, I was so close I had to lift my hands and put them on his chest, right below his shoulders.

  “Do you want me to start?” I asked, again trying to be helpful as I thought nice people would want to be.

  “You have something to say?” he asked.

  I thought about it.

  I suppose I had a million things to say. I hadn’t practiced any of them yet because I was too busy practicing what I was going to say to Lee. Talking to Lee took precedence but I sure as certain wished I’d practiced something to say to Hector.

  “Give a fuckin’ mint to know what’s goin’ on in that head of yours,” Hector muttered, breaking into my thoughts.

  I ignored him and said, “Right now, I don’t have anything to say. I reserve the right to say something later though.”

  At this, Hector started laughing. It was silent but I could feel his body moving with it. This confused me even more.

  “What’s funny?” I asked.

  “You,” he answered.

  Me? I was funny? I’d never been funny.

  Ever.

  I tried to think of the last time I was funny.

  No, there was no last time.

  I was just not funny.

  “What’s funny about me?” I asked with curiosity.

  He shook his head and brought me even closer so my body was deep in his, his arms were around me tight and my hands had to slide up to his shoulders.

  “It’d take too long to explain and we got more important shit to talk about.”

  “Oh,” I said, disappointed because I still kind of wanted to know what was funny about me. “Okay.”

  All of a sudden, he switched the subject. “What made you go out the back last night?”

  I shrugged again. “Some bartender came up to me, handed me a note. It said it was from my Mom, she’d been looking for me, finally found me and she was out back and I should meet her. I figure Harvey paid someone to give it to me.”

  Instantly and inexplicably, the air in the room changed. A current ran through it, strong and dangerous and Hector’s arms tightened further.

  My body tensed.

  “Are you fucking shitting me?” he asked, enunciating every word clearly from between his teeth.

  “No,” I whispered because the change in him was kind of scaring me.

  All of a sudden, he let go. I felt the loss of his heat like a blow and watched him walk away, tearing his hand through his hair. He stopped at the window, yanked the curtain back and looked at the street.

  I stared at him, unsure what to do. One second he seemed to be kind of mellow but amused. The next he seemed anything but mellow and amus
ed and his body language was saying to stay well away. Because of that, my head was telling me to run away.

  Instead I called hesitantly, “Hector?”

  “Give me a minute, Sadie,” he said to the window.

  I felt it prudent to give him a minute seeing as, for some bizarre reason, he seemed a tad bit upset (which was an understatement). Then after what felt like about a hundred minutes, he spoke.

  “I’m losin’ patience with this.”

  “With what?” I asked.

  He kept looking out the window. “Usin’ your fuckin’ mother to get at you. How fuckin’ low. Fuck!” he exploded.

  Again, I was confused. In my experience people could do things a lot lower than that.

  “This is Harvey Balducci we’re talking about,” I told Hector as if that explained everything which, to me, it did.

  Hector’s eyes turned to me.

  “I mean, he’s a jerk,” I went on. “And he’s crazy. And, well… he’s a jerk.”

  “People don’t do that shit,” Hector told me.

  That’s when I laughed. I mean, seriously, people did that “shit” all the time.

  “Oh yes they do,” I replied sagely.

  Hector dropped the curtain, turned fully to me, his face hard and he said, “Sadie, no. They don’t.”

  Instantly, my laughter died. “You know they do, Hector, you lived amongst us. My kind of people sell drugs and guns and kill people and kidnap them and rape them –” I stopped because Hector started toward me.

  I lifted my hand to stop him, finally realizing what I had to say, it all came to me in a flash. I was going to tell him we were different, this would never work. I didn’t belong in his world.

  Simple as that.

  But it was like Hector didn’t see my hand. He kept coming at me until he was right there.

  My hand hit his chest, he pulled me into his arms again and said, “Those aren’t your kind of people.”

  “Yes, they are. Don’t you remember –?”

  “I remember you feeding me information on your father.”

  My body went rigid and I gasped (not, I belatedly realized, the kind of response to have when I was trying to keep my clandestine informant status a secret).

  I tried to cover. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Sadie, I saw you do it.”

  I blinked at him.

  Oh my God.

  Did he see me do it? How could he see me do it? That was just crazy. It was also impossible.

  I kept lying. “You must have been mistaken.”

  He shook his head. “Mamita, I walked right up to the door and watched you do your thing and for some crazy reason you did it while you kept your father’s office door wide open.”

  “That was so I could hear if someone was coming!”

  Oh no!

  How stupid could I be? I’d given it away.

  Blooming heck!

  He pulled me closer and the dangerous current slid out of the room and he looked like he was fighting a grin again.

  I stared at him. I mean, really, it was hard to keep up with his mood swings.

  “Your plan didn’t work. You didn’t hear me coming.”

  Oh darn.

  I watched his face and realized, indeed, he did see me do it.

  Now what did I do?

  I put my other hand to his shoulder, this time to try to push away. It didn’t work.

  I gave up and my eyes slid to the side. “Oh well, then, you knew.” I tried to act like it was nothing.

  “Helluva risk you took,” he said.

  I shrugged.

  “Anyone could have seen you do it. You were lucky it was me.”

  He certainly wasn’t wrong about that.

  He went on, “You could have got yourself killed.”

  I bit my lip because he wasn’t wrong about that either.

  “Why did you do it?” he asked softly.

  I pulled in both my lips, bit them, let them go and answered simply, “He was not a nice man.”

  “No,” Hector agreed and my heart lurched.

  I ignored the lurch and looked at him.

  With his easy agreement, he’d given me my opening. My father always said you should never waste an opportunity. So I didn’t.

  “There you go. That’s why this, you and me and everyone else and your Mom and all of it, everything, isn’t going to work,” I told him.

  His chin jerked back after I finished talking then his face went dark in another mercurial mood swing. “You wanna explain how you came to that conclusion?”

  “Yes,” I told him truthfully, my back going straight. “I’m not like you and your people. I’m Sadie Townsend. My father is Seth Townsend. I don’t belong with your people, I never will.”

  His arms got tight again, the scary current came back into the room and his face got close. “Mamita, I think you’re a little crazy.”

  I shook my head. “Not crazy. I just know who I am, what I am and where I belong. All your family and friends are very sweet and nice and everything but you know, they know as well as I know, I don’t belong. I think it’s best for all concerned if this just ended here.”

  There. I did it. It was hard but I kept my cool. I made sense. I didn’t get emotional.

  I wanted to get emotional. Actually, truth be told, I wanted him to kiss me again. I wanted him to hold me in his lap and feel snug and secure and feel his heat hit me. I wanted to have dinner at his mother’s house again. I wanted to do the dishes and laugh in the kitchen with Jet and Indy again. I wanted Lee to tease me again.

  But I knew I couldn’t have those things.

  I could accept genuine friendship from Buddy and Ralphie because, well… I didn’t know why. Maybe because, when something happened (and it would) and I lost them, I would just lose two people and I’d lost more than that in my life. I’d come to love them enough and feel strong enough to ride that wave… until it ended.

  If I accepted whatever it was that Hector was offering me, there was a whole gaggle of people I would lose.

  Really, there was only so much a girl could take.

  And my father always told me to play to your strengths but more importantly, know your limitations. And I knew my limitations.

  “Is that what you reserved the right to say?” Hector asked, breaking into my thoughts.

  I nodded and pulled away.

  However, it must be noted, I didn’t actually get away. He leaned into me and one of his arms wrapped around my waist, the other hand slid up my back, along my neck and went into my hair.

  I was getting the distinct impression that I should start girding again.

  “All right, now I’ll say what I gotta say,” Hector announced.

  Oh my.

  I should have girded.

  Again, I didn’t expect him to have a response. I thought he’d just agree, leave and then well… that would be that.

  He didn’t agree. And before I could stop him, he started talking. And what he said robbed me of the ability to do anything but stand, pressed against him and stare.

  “You got cameras in your gallery, the front and back entrances, your back office and the store. You got more cameras on this brownstone, front and back entrances. Your car has a tracking device. So does your purse. Your alarm has been rewired to send a simultaneous alert to the control room if someone breaches the system. All that shit is monitored in the control room at Nightingale Investigations offices.”

  See what I mean? Nothing to do but stare.

  Hector kept talking.

  “I know you know we’ve been watching the house. We meant to be visible and didn’t try to hide. Point of that was to show the Balduccis this was not a safe place for them to get at you and to show them, straight out, you’re protected. The minute Ralphie took off and left you alone in your gallery, Monty, who manages surveillance, saw you alone and put the call out. No one was close enough to get to you quickly but Lee knew Marcus was. Lee called Marcus, Marcus dropped
everything, walked out of a meeting, went to the gallery and stayed until Ralphie came back.”

  Oh… my… God.

  I knew there was something weird about Marcus being there!

  “Ally planted the tracking device in your purse when they visited your gallery. Lee heard that the girls had planned to go there to meet you and see if you were okay. He took Ally aside, gave her the device, told her what to do. Shirleen’s assignment was to divert your attention. While you were watching Shirleen, Ally grabbed one of your lipsticks and planted the device in the cap.”

  I could not believe this. Mainly, because it was unbelievable.

  And Ally sounded like she was a little bit like Veronica Mars!

  “We’ve been tracking you, watching you and protecting you since you left the fuckin’ hospital,” Hector said. “As for me, obviously you haven’t cottoned onto the situation but, bottom line, I’m gonna do whatever it is I gotta do to make you safe. Which means something has to give with the Balduccis. They don’t get to pick how it’s gonna give, I’ve already decided. They fuck up along the way, like Harvey did last night, then I’ll take advantage. We’re working with Marcus and the Zanos –”

  “The Zanos?” I breathed, interrupting him for the first time, too shocked by this news to stay silent.

  Vito Zano was a friend of my father’s. I didn’t know if he was dirty or not but he was funny and I liked him. Ren Zano, his nephew, was very good-looking and very nice (and I didn’t know if he was dirty or not either). I always had a bit of a crush on Ren but, per usual, I didn’t let it show.

  That was, of course, I had a bit of a crush on Ren until Hector came along.

  “The Zanos,” Hector affirmed then went on. “You press charges against Ricky and Harvey, after what Ricky did to you, he goes away a long time. This would be strike three for Harvey since he isn’t the smartest of the bunch and has been caught before. He goes in again, no one would see him for awhile. Marty and Donny aren’t so dumb as Harvey. They’re just crazy. Ricky goes down, my guess, Marty assumes the throne but Donny’ll give him trouble. The Ricky-Marty-Donny rivalry is lore and you’re caught up in that so they have to go down too. I’m workin’ on it so is Lee, Marcus, Vito and Ren. It’d help if Ricky and Harvey were out of commission, which means –”