Yikes.
Indy, the blonde and the Dol y Parton lady had approached us.
“Seriously?” the blonde from the book counter asked, staring at me.
I glared at Sniff.
“I’m Indy.” The redhead came up to me and shook my hand, saving me from having to answer.
“Jet,” the blonde behind the espresso counter said and waved.
“I’m Roxie,” the blonde from the book counter put in, she shook my hand too.
“Daisy. Sugar, I like your boots,” the Dol y Parton woman offered, also shaking my hand but she was looking down at my shiny, black cowboy boots. They were a Christmas present from Nick the year before.
“Me too,” Indy said, “they’re the shit.”
“Um… thanks,” I replied as the bel over the door went.
“Holy fuck,” Roam breathed from behind me.
I twisted to look at him but he was staring, eyes wide, at the door. Slowly I turned around to the door, feelings of dread seeping through me.
Three men had walked in and at the sight of them my breath left me in a whoosh.
Al tal , al dark, one looked like the Al -American boy gone wrong but in a good way (a very good way). Another had close-clipped black hair and kil er facial hair, his mustache trimmed to razor sharpness down the sides of his mouth. If it had been on anyone else, it would have looked ridiculous but on him it was quite simply hot. The last was tal er than the other two (which meant he was seriously tal ). He had coloring and eyes that I knew, from the stories I’d heard about him, were from his Hawaiian ancestry. They al had fantastic bodies clearly noticeable under their clothes and they al looked like the badass mothers I knew them to be.
These men were Lee Nightingale, Luke Stark and Kai
“Mace” Mason, in that order.
“God dammit,” I muttered under my breath.
They approached and instinctively I moved in front of the boys.
Al of their eyes were on me and they noticed my movement. One side of Stark’s lips went up in a sexy half-grin, Nightingale’s eyes crinkled at the corners and Mace smiled flat out.
They thought I was some sil y woman, the jerks. My back went straight and my chin went up.
“Law,” Nightingale said when he arrived at our group.
“Shit, Law. He knows who you are!” Sniff piped up behind me, his voice fil ed with excitement.
“Quiet, Sniff,” I said, not taking my eyes from Nightingale.
“You got business here?” Stark asked, positioning himself beside Roxie and tel ing me not so subtly that I didn’t have business there.
“I’ve just come to get my boys,” I assured Stark. Then, eyes stil on Stark, I said to Roam and Sniff, “Let’s go guys.” I didn’t hear chairs scraping so I turned to them. They hadn’t moved.
“I said, let’s go. ” And I used my word-is-law voice.
They both immediately stood.
“Don’t forget your coffee,” Tex boomed.
I nodded to the big man but said to the boys, “Hazel’s down the street. Get in. I’l be there in a minute.”
“But, Law,” Sniff whined.
“I’l be there in a minute,” I repeated, walking over to take my latte.
I wrapped my fingers around its heat ready to offer to pay when the bel over the door went. I looked toward it and saw Vance walk in.
“God dammit, ” I hissed under my breath.
His gaze locked on me and he walked to our group and stopped, his eyes never leaving me. I felt his stare like he was touching me and my mind, working against me, flashed on this morning and my body, also working against me, reacted.
me, reacted.
Roam and Sniff had frozen.
I shook off the Crowe Effect. “Boys, get to the car.”
“I wanna work with you,” Roam said to Vance and Vance’s eyes left my face and sliced to Roam but he didn’t say a word.
“I wanna be, like, your trainee or somethin’,” Roam went on and you could tel just by looking at him that this was taking everything he had.
Crowe’s face was blank and he showed no reaction, not even to Roam’s obvious mixture of discomfort and longing.
I felt my heart squeeze and my breath freeze, worried that Crowe would make a fool of him. There was nothing in Roam’s life that he ever wanted that he actual y got and you could see, quite plainly, that there was likely nothing in Roam’s life that he wanted more than he wanted this.
“Roam –” I started to break in.
“You on the street?” Vance asked Roam and my eyes swung to Vance. He was not blank anymore, he was watching Roam closely.
“Sometimes,” Roam said. “At King’s,” he went on.
“Stay at King’s,” Crowe returned and that was al he intended to say. I could tel because his eyes cut to me.
I could feel Roam’s disappointment, it fil ed the air.
“We need to talk,” Vance said to me.
“I’l do what you say!” Roam continued and everyone looked at him because his voice had gotten louder, higher, more desperate. His body was tense, solid, and I felt my throat close. “Anything you say. I won’t mouth off. I’l just do it. I won’t be a problem, I swear.”
it. I won’t be a problem, I swear.”
“Roam?” Crowe asked and Roam nodded, confirming that was his name. “Get your diploma, get smart, once you do that, I’l think about it.”
Roam shook his head, not letting it go. “Has to be now.”
“Roam, we’l talk about this in the car,” I said to him.
Roam’s body swung to me. “It has to be now! ” he shouted and my body jerked.
I’d never heard him shout.
His face was distorted with something, an internal battle the physical manifestation of which could be seen in his expression.
“Be dead in three years,” Roam continued and my heart stopped.
“Roam, don’t say that,” Sniff put in quietly.
“I’m gonna get ‘em. Al of ‘em and I gotta know how to do it. If I don’t, they’l kil me.”
I started to walk along the front row of the crowd to get to Roam and was just passing Vance when Roam started to back up. Vance stopped me with an arm around my waist and he pul ed my back to his front. I didn’t fight Vance and didn’t try to get to the retreating Roam.
Roam backed up until he was against the wal .
“Roam, we’l get back to King’s. We’l talk,” I said softly.
“No. You’re after them. You’re doin’ it. I’m gonna do it too. They kil ed Park. They
didn’t shoot ‘im but they might as wel have. Park was…” he stopped, his voice went hoarse. “Park wanted…” he tried to go on but stopped again.
I leaned away from Vance to detach his arm from me so I could get to Roam but Vance’s arm tightened and he pul ed me deeper into his body.
“Best way to get them, Roam, is not to become one of them,” Nightingale cut in, his eyes sharp on Roam and I could tel he’d taken in everything.
“You don’t know,” Roam spat at Lee, taking (I thought) his life in his hands. I didn’t expect many people talked to Lee Nightingale like that, certainly not fifteen year old boys.
“You have no fuckin’ clue.”
“My best friend is Darius Tucker,” Lee told him.
Roam’s body went stil and his eyes grew wide. Mine did too.
“I do know,” Lee said with finality.
This hit Roam, I could tel , but he didn’t give up. His eyes went to me and Vance.
“I wanna be you,” he said to Vance quietly.
“You can’t be me. You gotta be you. And right now, you’re a kid. Be a kid,” Vance advised from behind me.
“I’m not a kid,” Roam protested.
“That ain’t a bad thing, Sugar,” Daisy put in.
“I’m not a kid!” Roam yel ed at her.
Al right. Enough was enough.
“Roam, don’t speak that way to people. It’s rude,” I put in and shove
d forward, detaching from Vance and going to Roam. “We’l get some hamburgers and we’l go somewhere and talk. The three of us.”
“Done talkin’,” Roam said.
“Roam, let’s talk with Law. Come on,” Sniff approached him too.
Roam looked down on me. “You saw him lyin’ there, in a fuckin’ al ey, fuckin’ shit and trash al around him. Trash, Law. Trash. You and me and Sniff, we al saw Park lyin’ in the fuckin’ trash,” he said to me and I knew the vision of Park’s dead body was burned on his brain too.
I swal owed then said, “Yeah, Roam, I saw him.”
“We was gonna go to California, learn how to surf. We was gonna go to Alaska and wrestle polar bears,” Roam told me, for the first time confiding the teenage boy dreams he shared with Park.
“Polar bears are mean motherfuckers. I saw that on some nature channel,” Sniff informed Roam, trying to be helpful.
“Stop saying motherfuckers,” I said to Sniff then turned again to Roam. “Let’s get a burger. Come on.”
“Park’d do it for me,” Roam said, stil not letting it go.
I wanted to touch him, hold him, put my arms around him but I knew he wouldn’t want it. He was a teenage boy and he was a street tough standing in front of a posse of the biggest badasses in Denver. He’d freak if I tried to mother him. Not to mention, he’d never had a mother who’d touched him, held him and put her arms around him in a loving way. He wouldn’t know what to do.
So instead I smiled at him. “Yeah, Park would do it for you and I’d be just as pissed at him, nagging him and getting in his face because it just isn’t smart.” Roam took a deep breath, maybe to say something, but I didn’t let him.
“And then he’d listen to me and let me help him get his life sorted out.”
Roam stared at me.
“You know he would, Roam. Think about it. You know it,” I told him.
“He would. He thought Law was the shit, even before she actual y was The Law,” Sniff added.
Roam kept staring at me.
“For God’s sakes, are you boys hungry or what?” I asked, throwing my arms out and pretending to sound exasperated.
“I’m hungry,” Sniff said.
“You’re always hungry,” I told him.
Sniff grinned. “I’m a growin’ boy.”
“I hope so. You need to fil out. The inspectors come to the Shelter and look at you, they’l think we’re starving you al to death,” I said.
“’Special y if they look at May. I swear, she eats most of the pudding cups,” Sniff returned.
“That’s not nice,” I admonished.
“It’s true,” Sniff retorted, his grin growing into a smile.
“Okay, maybe it’s true,” I relented, giving him a subtle wink.
“Would you two shut up? I want a double beef burger with cheese, giganto-sized,” Roam cut in.
I nodded to Roam immediately, trying my damnedest not to look as happy and relieved as I was that whatever it was that had a hold of him, he’d let go.
I turned to take the boys out and stopped dead.
Everyone was watching us, including and especial y Vance.
His eyes were on me and there was something in them I couldn’t read, something familiar, even precious, something I remembered from a long time ago but hadn’t seen in so long, I didn’t remember where I saw it in the first place. Before I could figure it out, the look disappeared.
I nodded in the general direction of everyone. “Nice to meet you al ,” I said then started to shove through but Vance caught my bicep and stopped me.
“Your place, six thirty,” he said, his eyes serious.
I just gave him a look. He released me and the boys and I walked away.
“What was that about?” Sniff stage-whispered to me.
“They got a date,” Roam answered, too quick for his own good (and mine).
“No shit? You got a date with Crowe? Holy fuck!” Sniff yel ed.
I rol ed my eyes. Now this would be al over the street in an hour.
“Keep your voice down, Sniff. And don’t say shit or fuck.
Don’t you boys ever listen to me?”
“No,” Roam said and grinned at me.
For the first time that day the sky of my life brightened and I grinned back at him.
Just as the door closed behind me, I could swear I heard, “Now I’m thinking Law’s the shit.” This was said in an unfamiliar man’s voice so it had to be Mace who hadn’t spoken.
“You ain’t wrong about that, Sugar,” this was obviously Daisy.
I ignored their words, got the kids in the Camaro and we went to get burgers.
It wasn’t until after we were sitting eating burgers that I tasted my latte and, even cold, it was the best flipping thing I’d ever tasted in my life.
Chapter Five
Nick’s Third Degree
At six thirty when I was supposed to be nervously anticipating Vance’s arrival at my duplex, I was in Heavy’s garage, wearing silvery-gray sweatpants with two black stripes running up the sides and a white t-shirt with the arms cut off with Gold’s Gym on the front in black. I was jabbing a punching bag and sweating like a pig.
“Jab, Jules, fuckin’ jab! ” Heavy shouted at me, sitting on a bunch of boxes stacked at the side of his garage, working through his second double pack of Ding Dongs.
“You jab like a girl. Keep your leg back, aim for the kidneys.
Jab! ”
“I’m jabbing, Heavy!” I shouted through my panting then quit jabbing and started roundhouse punching the sides of the bag then I quit doing that too, hugged the bag and stared at Heavy. “How long do I have to do this?” I asked.
“You only been at it an hour,” Heavy said and then shoved an entire Ding Dong in his mouth.
I glared at him. “Don’t you think an hour is enough?” I asked. “I’m not exactly going to be boxing with drug dealers for a whole fifteen rounds.”
“Don’t do fifteen rounds anymore, the sissies, only do twelve,” Heavy informed me.
“Wel , I won’t be going twelve rounds with them either.”
“You gotta be in shape. ‘Special y now that you’re goin’
up against the Nightingale Boys. Fuck, girl, you… are…
loco.”
I used my teeth to yank at the strings of my boxing gloves then shoved one under the pit of an arm and tugged it off.
“I’m not up against the Nightingale Boys,” I said.
Heavy shook his head. “Got a friend, he’s a cop, says Hank Nightingale and Eddie Chavez pul ed up al sorts of shit on you yesterday. Searchin’ your name and findin’ it al over your kids’ records.”
So that was how Vance knew everything.
I found this annoying. The whole bedroom interrogation that morning was bul shit. Vance knew the answers to most of his questions before he’d even asked them. This meant his “making me talk” was just an excuse to kiss me.
I didn’t know what to do with that so I didn’t do anything with it. I’d have time to think about it maybe when I was eighty.
Heavy was watching me closely as I tugged off the other glove.
“Unh-hunh,” he read my face correctly and went on.
“Unh-hunh,” he read my face correctly and went on.
“Nightingale and Chavez searched you and Lee’s got a big nerd workin’ for him who could hack into the computers at the Pentagon. By now, they know everything about you, even your panty size.”
This gave me pause for reflection. I didn’t like the idea of Vance knowing everything about me. Though I didn’t care about my panty size unless he felt like buying me a present for my birthday which was only a few days away.
What was I thinking?
Vance was not going to be in my life, thus no birthday present. And certainly not panties.
I looked at Heavy. “My birthday is Thursday,” I told him.
“Wel , happy fuckin’ birthday,” Heavy grinned, white cream and chocolate cake in his teeth.<
br />
I dropped my gloves to the floor, sat next to him on the boxes and pul ed back some tendrils of hair that had come loose from my ponytail.
“Not today, Thursday,” I took a deep breath and then went for it. “You want to go out for a drink or something?” Heavy stared at me. “Don’t you have girlfriends?” he asked.
I pul ed in my lips and hit him in the shoulder. “Forget it,” I said and smiled. “I gotta stretch.”
I got up and walked over to a mat that Heavy had put out for when he showed me moves to defend myself against attack. I dropped down on it and started to stretch.
“You goin’ to the range after this?” Heavy asked, stil staring at me.
“Yeah.”
“You goin’ out after that?” he went on and I knew what he meant, was I going out after bad guys.
I’d been giving it some thought especial y after what Roam had done. I wasn’t exactly being the best role model.
Stil , I was an adult. I was being smart and I was getting trained. I wasn’t a kid pelting a drug dealer with rocks (I had to admit, though I’d never tel Roam, that was a good one).
I looked at Heavy. “I’m going home for food and then, yeah, I’m going out.”
“Be safe,” he said, got up and went into the house.
I stretched and when I was finished I pul ed on my black, zip-up sweatshirt and grabbed my bag. I walked into the house and I could see the back of Heavy’s blond head. He was sitting in front of Monday Night Footbal .
“I’m outta here Heavy,” I cal ed.
“Cool,” Heavy cal ed back.
I walked to the front door and I heard Heavy say my name, so I turned. “What?” I asked, peering around a column to look into the living room.
He’d twisted around the side of his reclining chair to look at me. “I’l go out for your birthday but not to one of those girlie bars with martinis or any of that shit. American beer.
Televisions. Women wearing tight t-shirts. You doin’ that for your birthday?”
I smiled at him. “I could do that.”
“Great. I’l be there.”
Then he twisted around again and stared at the footbal .
* * * * *
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