Rock Chick Redemption

by Ashley, Kristen

  Then his eyes came to rest on me.

  I heard his non-verbalized request and walked to him.

  His arms came around me.

  “We’ll be quick,” he told me.

  “Okay.”

  “Lock the door and don’t open it to anyone,” Hank said.

  “Okay,” I replied.

  “The couch in the office pulls out into a bed. Your parents want to stay here, they’re welcome,” he went on.

  That was not okay but I said, “Okay,” anyway.

  He grinned at me and I got the impression he knew my thoughts. Then he kissed my forehead, let me go and nodded to my Dad.

  Then they were gone.

  “He’s cute,” Mom said to the closed door.

  Shamus came and sat on my feet so I gave him an ear scratch.

  “You’re not spending the night here,” I told my mother.

  “Your father doesn’t want you out of his sight,” Mom told me.

  “He just went to a bar with Hank,” I pointed out.

  “Well, you know what I mean,” Mom returned.

  “I’ll get you a hotel.”

  “You are not getting us a hotel. We’ve got money. Don’t fight it, it’s a parent thing.”

  “Mom,” I whined (yes, whined).

  “Roxanne Giselle –”

  “Trish, for fuck’s sake, she’s sleepin’ with the guy. Get a fuckin’ clue,” Uncle Tex boomed.

  I stared at Uncle Tex in horror.

  Mom was totally unaffected.

  “That’s okay. I’m liberated,” Mom announced. “I’ll talk Herb into being liberated too. I don’t think he’ll care though, he likes Hank. I can tell.”

  Mom had never been “liberated” before. Billy and I had always slept in separate bedrooms when we visited, and my brother Gil and my sister Mimi also had the same arrangements with their girlfriends and boyfriends and Gil had been living with his girlfriend for three years.

  I looked at Uncle Tex. “Please make them stay with you.”

  “It’s outta my hands,” Uncle Tex said.

  I sighed and gave in. I was too exhausted from my weird day and two bouts of crying fits to fight it.

  “I like his house,” Mom announced. “It’s cozy but it needs candles. And his dog is so cute!” Mom bent over and cooed at Shamus. Shamus sauntered over to her, smelled her outstretched hand and then gave her a sloppy, wet, doggie kiss on her cheek. “Ooo! He’s sweet!”

  I turned to Uncle Tex. “Will you shoot me?” I asked.

  He put his big hand on top of my head and smiled.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Get Over Here

  When Hank and Dad walked into the living room after going out for a drink, Dad’s face didn’t look ravaged with worry anymore, which I thought was a good thing. Also, when Hank and Dad walked into the living room after going out for a drink, they were carrying Mom and Dad’s luggage, which I thought was a very, very bad thing.

  “Since we were out there, we got the bags from the rental car. And you women say men can’t multi-task,” Dad declared, dumping the luggage in the living room.

  “Oh dear Lord, he remembers one thing and he wants to be congratulated,” Mom sighed and looked at me. “Men.”

  I wasn’t in the mood for Mom and Dad’s bickering, I was staring at the luggage.

  “You aren’t staying here,” I said.

  Dad looked at me, confused. “Hank said we could.”

  I looked at Hank, then to Mom, then Dad, then Tex and then I rolled my eyes.

  I just didn’t have it in me.

  “Oh, all right,” I gave in.

  Mom and I got the sheets and extra pillows and made up the bed. Hank got beers from the fridge and we all talked. Uncle Tex left, then I kissed Mom and Dad good night and they went to bed.

  Nary a word was said about the sleeping arrangements.

  Hank put an arm around my shoulders and walked me to his bedroom, hitting the lights as we walked through the rooms.

  “I’m going to have to sleep on the couch,” I told him once we’d made it to his bedroom. I got my nightie from under the pillow and started toward the bathroom while saying, “Do you have another blanket?”

  “You aren’t sleepin’ on the couch,” Hank told my back, as if that was that. Then he said, “I’ll let Shamus out.”

  I turned around and saw him walk out of the room.

  Well.

  I did not think so.

  I got ready for bed and was sitting on it, cross-legged, when he came back. The minute he closed the door, I launched in. “Hank, if I’m not sleeping on the couch, then you’re gonna have to sleep on the couch.”

  He lifted his arms and grabbed his sweater behind his back and pulled it over his head, dropping it on the floor. Then he sat on the bed to take off his boots. “I’m not sleepin’ on the couch either.”

  He got up to take off his jeans, putting his gun, badge and phone on the nightstand.

  I tried to ignore his (very nice) chest but kinda failed, (because Hank had a super nice chest and great abs too), and hissed. “Hank! My Mom and Dad are in the other room.”

  “So?”

  “So, my Dad’s going to have a conniption if he thinks we’re sleeping in the same bed under the same roof as him and Mom.”

  Hank, now naked (and looking fine by the way), got in bed.

  “He’s all right with it,” Hank said with certainty.

  I stared at him.

  “What? Did you two talk about it?”

  His hand came out and he pulled me out of my sitting position. I toppled to my side and he yanked the covers out from under me and flicked them over me.

  “No,” he answered, looking down at me as I settled on my back.

  “Then how do you know?”

  “It’s my roof,” Hank responded.

  “I don’t understand.”

  Hank reached over me and turned out the light, then he rolled me, tucked my back to his front and rested his hand on my thigh.

  “You wouldn’t, it’s a guy thing. You’re just gonna have to trust me.”

  Shamus jumped up on the bed and walked around a bit. Then he settled with a doggie groan on his side, his back pressed into my front.

  Oh well.

  Whatever.

  I was totally exhausted, way too comfy and I had the human and canine Nightingale boys’ warmth seeping into me front and back. I wasn’t going to fight it.

  I was about to fall asleep, mindlessly scratching the soft fur behind Shamus’s ears, when Hank called, “Sunshine?”

  “Yeah?” I mumbled, snuggling a bit deeper into him.

  “I’m lettin’ you go,” he told me.

  I thought it was weird that he’d announce this but it didn’t matter, Shamus was fencing me in.

  “That’s okay. I’m good,” I said. “Even if you do, I have nowhere to move, Shamus is plastered to the front of me and taking half the bed.”

  He was silent for a second and the air in the room started to feel close.

  Then he said, “That’s not what I mean.”

  I opened my eyes and looked, unseeing (for more reasons than one), into the darkness.

  “What do you mean?”

  “When this is finished, I’ll get your car back and you can go with Annette and Jason to Chicago.”

  I felt the muscles in my body tighten.

  “Excuse me?” I whispered.

  “I’m lettin’ you go,” he repeated.

  I felt my lungs contract.

  “Are you…” I hesitated, “breaking up with me?”

  His hand moved up my thigh and then wrapped around my waist.

  “You already did that, remember?”

  I was such an idiot.

  I felt my breath get shallow.

  “Though, I need you to understand something,” he said.

  I nodded my head on the pillow but didn’t say anything, couldn’t say anything.

  “I’m a cop, all I ever wanted was to be a cop.
I protect people and keep them safe on a daily basis. Doin’ it for someone I care about…”

  He stopped talking.

  I stopped breathing.

  He started talking again. “I understand why you didn’t want me to be involved with this business with Flynn,” he paused. “But you need to understand that I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”

  I started breathing again, mainly because my body needed oxygen and, if I didn’t, I would have died.

  Not that dying would be a bad thing at that moment.

  I waited for him to say something else, like he didn’t want to let me go, like he would have preferred if I didn’t go.

  But he didn’t say anything else.

  I let the silence stretch between us.

  Then I said, “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why are you letting me go?”

  His arm tightened, contradicting his earlier words. “Awhile ago, you said, if you care about something, you have to set it free, if it comes back to you –”

  “I remember,” I whispered.

  “I still think it’s bullshit.”

  Even though I felt that thing that had knitted inside me was in danger of unraveling, I couldn’t help but smile.

  “So, I go home to Chicago and you hope I’ll come back to Denver?” I asked.

  “No, you move on, I move on. If there’s some way to move on together, that’d work for me. In the meantime, I’m not waitin’ for you and I don’t want you to feel obliged to come back to me.”

  My smile disappeared, my throat closed and Hank’s face went into the back of my hair.

  “You’ve been alone and felt trapped for a long time, Roxie. Soon, you’ll be free of all this shit. You have good friends and a family that loves you. They’ll see you through.”

  I didn’t want them to see me through. I wanted Hank to see me through.

  Good God.

  I was going to start crying again. How many tears did a body make?

  I knew this was good, I knew it was the right thing, but it felt very wrong.

  “Last thing I want to do, last thing I ever wanted to do, was make you feel trapped,” he murmured into my hair. “So, I’m lettin’ you go.”

  That’s when I knew.

  I knew why his eyes looked unsettled after he’d talked to Stevie and Indy. I knew why his touch on my cheek was so poignant.

  He thought he was making me feel trapped.

  He wasn’t letting me go because he wanted to, because I’d finally convinced him I wasn’t good enough for him, because I was annoying and stubborn, because I was a nut or because my mother called out to Sweet Jesus.

  He was letting me go so I could, finally, feel free.

  Oh… my… God.

  He was such a good guy.

  The thing that I thought had started unraveling inside me tightened up.

  Then steel bands slid across it and locked it into place.

  “Whisky?” I called.

  “Yeah?”

  I took a deep breath.

  Then I took a scary plunge.

  “I think I’ve changed my mind,” I said.

  I felt his body grow tight.

  “I think…” I whispered, “I don’t want you to let me go.”

  I’d barely got out the “go” when Hank rolled me over, rolled on top of me and Shamus jerked and jumped off the bed as he kissed me.

  He went straight into one of his make-me-dizzy, full on tongue, brains scrambling, hands everywhere Hank Nightingale kisses.

  One of my arms wrapped around him and my other hand slid into his hair. I pushed off with a foot and rolled him over, getting on top, laying kisses down on his neck, collarbone and I started down his chest when he yanked me up and rolled me back. He got on top of me again and kissed me, his hands sliding my nightie up to my waist and then beginning to pull my panties down.

  It was then my phone rang.

  We both stilled.

  We listened to it ring until it stopped.

  Hank’s hands slid back up my hips, slow, not starting anything, waiting.

  Then my phone rang again.

  “Fuck,” he muttered and shifted, moving to turn on the light.

  Still under him, I twisted, grabbed my bag off the nightstand and snatched out my phone as the light came on.

  It said, “Unknown number”.

  I flipped it open. “Hello?”

  “Were you fuckin’ him?”

  My body tensed.

  Hank was mostly on top of me and looking down at me.

  “Billy?” I said.

  Instantly, Hank rolled away from me and knifed off the bed. I came up on my elbow and watched as he tagged his phone from the nightstand at the same time grabbing his jeans. Billy talked in my ear.

  “Were you fuckin’ him? Is he touchin’ you now, you bitch?”

  “Billy, where are you?” I was watching Hank. He’d hit a few buttons on the phone and it was tucked into his neck while he pulled on his jeans.

  “Fuck you, Roxie. Fuck you and fuck Detective Hank Nightingale.”

  “You listening?” I heard Hank say into his phone.

  “Is that him? What’s he saying, the fuck,” Billy said in my ear.

  “Billy, you’re in trouble. Desmond Harper’s men are after you,” I told him.

  Hank looked at me, nodded and gave me an encouraging wink.

  I felt relief flood through me. I was doing the right thing by keeping him talking.

  “Harper’s boys are behind bars,” Billy said.

  “That was the other ones, he’s sent more after you. Billy, you have to go. You have to get out of town. Harper wants his money back. He’s going to find you.”

  “How do you know this shit? God dammit! Did Detective Nightingale tell you?” Billy asked.

  “Billy –”

  “What else has he been tellin’ you? Don’t believe him, Roxie. Don’t believe a thing out of that lyin’ pig’s mouth.”

  I sat up straight.

  Um… I did not think so.

  “Don’t you call Hank a pig!” I snapped.

  “Don’t defend him to me, you whore.”

  Now, this was how I was used to fighting.

  I threw the covers back and shot out of bed.

  “Don’t call me a whore,” I yelled.

  “You left my bed two weeks ago, you bitch. Now you’re fuckin’ some cop. That’s the goddamned definition of whore!”

  “It was my bed, you idiot. You were my roommate and for some stupid reason, do not ask me why, I let you sleep there.”

  “You let… you let me sleep there? You were beggin’ for it when I first met you.”

  “I was begging for it? You have a creative memory, Billy.”

  Even Billy, completely unhinged, couldn’t fight that one.

  “I wasn’t your fuckin’ roommate. You’re my woman!”

  “I haven’t been your woman for three years, you moron!” I shouted.

  “How you figure that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I got sarcastic. “Maybe it was when I put your shit in the hall and changed the locks. Or, when I left you, like a billion times, writing you a note saying it was over. Or, maybe it was when I didn’t let you put your filthy, stinking hands on me for the last eighteen months! That’s how I figure it!” I shrieked

  While I was yelling, there was a knock on the door. Hank kept the phone in the crook of his neck, buttoned up his jeans and opened it. Mom and Dad stood there, Dad wearing his jammies, Mom tightly bundled in a robe. Hank stopped them from saying anything by lifting a hand and they stared at me, their faces worried.

  “You don’t want to leave me, Roxie. You know you don’t, you always came back.”

  “I’ve been trying to leave you for three years, Billy. You’ve just been too fucking stupid to figure it out.”

  His voice changed, got quiet, went low. “Don’t call me stupid.”

  “Billy, we’re over. O… v… e… r.”

 
; “We’re not over, Roxie.”

  “Yes we are.”

  He went silent.

  I waited.

  Then he said, “Fuck him, Roxie. Fuck him good tonight. Give him a piece of your fine ass he’ll never forget. Go down on him, you’re good at that. I remember your mouth, so fuckin’ sweet.”

  I swallowed and glanced at Hank. His face was like stone, his body completely still, the fury was coming off him like a physical thing and charging the air.

  I realized then that Hank was listening. How he was, I didn’t know, but he was listening.

  Good God.

  “Billy. You’ve got to –”

  Billy cut me off. “‘Cause tomorrow, you’ll be with me. Tomorrow, he’ll be lyin’ in bed wondering where your sweet mouth is. And you and me… I’ll make you forget him, Roxie. We’ll be gone and you’ll forget and it’ll only be you and me.”

  “I’ll never go with you,” I said but I said it to nothing, he’d disconnected.

  I flipped my phone shut, tossed it on the nightstand and looked at Hank.

  Hank was staring at me but he talked into the phone. “You get him?” he paused. “Yeah. Keep me informed.” Then he snapped his phone shut, threw his on the nightstand too and said, “He’s in Colorado Springs.”

  I stood across the room from Hank and my parents, trembling and watching Hank, wondering what he was thinking, wondering if now, after hearing what he heard, he’d not only let me go, but ask me to go.

  “Colorado Springs?” Mom asked. “What’s he doing there?”

  “On the run. He knows Harper’s boys are after him and he’s not stayin’ anywhere long,” Hank told Mom then looked at me. “Vance is in C Springs, followed him down there. You kept him on the line long enough, they got a lock on his position. Vance is headin’ there now.”

  I nodded.

  “Thank the Sweet Lord Jesus,” Mom said.

  “Atta girl, Roxie,” Dad said.

  I ignored Mom and Dad.

  “Were you listening?” I asked Hank.

  “Yeah. When I found out about the call this afternoon, I told Lee and the boys have been monitoring your phone. They put it on speaker. You okay?” Hank asked me.

  “No,” I said.

  No, no, really just no. He’d heard it and he wasn’t coming to me. I was standing across the room in nothing but a nightie, scared and trembling, and he made no move to me.

  I knew this would happen. He didn’t even want to be near me.