“No,” I answered.
“So you remember what went down last night.”
“Yes,” I snapped, then tried to get him onto a subject I wanted to talk about, namely him leaving, but I didn’t get the chance.
He kept talking.
“All that went down last night?”
“Yes!”
My voice was rising because I did remember all that went down last night. And how I felt when I woke up that morning. But mostly I remembered the name he called me when I was lying there, thinking he was my one, and he was lying there holding on to a substitute body that, since he had no shot with the real one, was just going to have to do.
“So tell me, honey, if you weren’t hammered and you remember all that went down last night, why did I wake up to an empty bed this morning?” he asked.
“I had shit to do,” I answered, and it wasn’t totally a lie. I always had shit to do. I was a busy girl.
“You had shit to do,” he said low, and his eyes were a tad bit scary.
But I didn’t scare easily.
“Yep,” I replied.
“And it was so pressing you couldn’t wake me and tell me you had to go?”
“Yep, it was that pressing.” Now, that was totally a lie.
“And it was so pressing you couldn’t find a minute to jot down a note?”
Okay, suffice it to say, I was done with this bullshit. If he needed someone to give it to him regular while he waited for Ava, and to continue to give it to him regular when he realized that he’d never get Ava, he’d have to find someone else.
In order to communicate that to him, I stated, “Dude, we hooked up. That’s it. Or that’s all I remember. But maybe I was drunker than I thought. Did I miss the part where you slid a ring on my finger?”
This was the wrong thing to say, and I knew it when the room filled with something so oppressive, it was stifling. No joke. I literally couldn’t breathe.
As I mentioned, I didn’t scare easily.
But the truth of it was, I didn’t get scared. There wasn’t a situation that I remember ever being in where I didn’t feel in control or think I could find a way to regain control. I also had the gene passed down through my family where I could sense when things were going bad in a way that I would lose control and not get it back, and I was smart enough to get the fuck out of Dodge when I found myself in those kinds of situations.
But right then, feeling suffocated by the sheer force of Lorenzo Zano’s anger, I felt a hint of genuine fear.
Then his anger dissipated.
Vanished.
It did this instantly when he said, “I get it. You’re a Nightingale.”
My back snapped straight at his tone, which said it all about his implication. I just didn’t know for certain what he was implying, just that it was no good.
So I asked, “What does that mean?”
“That means both your brothers laid waste to most of the talented pussy in Denver. Took what they wanted, walked away and never looked back. Not surprising, you a Nightingale, that’s your thing. Except you collect cock.”
And on that very effective parting shot, he turned, jerked open the door and slammed it behind him.
Standing in my apartment in the dead of night staring at the door, I didn’t feel my heart squeeze.
I felt it shrivel up and die.
* * * * *
Not surprisingly, in the coming days as Ava’s drama (that partly had to do with her courtship with Luke, but mostly had to do with the fact that the Rock Chicks were magnets for trouble) played out, I saw Ren again.
Both times he was up in Ava’s business, giving her soft looks and taking her back.
However, he did look at me. Once. When Ava’s drama reached its grand finale.
But the look he gave me was far from soft.
Unsurprisingly.
I acted like I didn’t give a shit.
Deep down, though, I knew it didn’t make any sense.
I also knew it killed.
Chapter Two
We Got a Deal
Rock Chick Rewind
Three weeks later…
I was sitting at the bar in Club, a happening hotspot in Cherry Creek that posed as a posh eatery but was mostly a pickup spot. I had on a little black dress that did the best it could (and its best was far from bad; the dress was scorching) with what little cleavage I had. I had on killer strappy black sandals that I’d borrowed from Indy, who had borrowed them from our friend Tod, the premier drag queen in Denver, and she’d not returned them.
Tod wouldn’t mind. He was generous with his shoes. I had three pairs of them in my closet already. He also had two pairs of mine.
I was there because I had my eye on Zach Gilligan, the guy a friend of mine, Helen, was dating. They’d been together for a while and she liked him a lot. But she suspected from some of the behavior he was exhibiting that he had a nasty habit that was the reason she had cash going missing from her wallet more than once. And last week, she’d “lost” the diamond pendant her grandmother gave her when she graduated from the University of Colorado ten years ago.
She feared her cash and the diamond she treasured was going up his nose.
I had no idea how I was going to prove this fact, outside of watching him with his buds, eating steak, drinking martinis, laughing, and him being the loudest and liveliest of the lot because he was so obviously coked to the gills. But I couldn’t just tell Helen he looked high. She was into him and really didn’t want to believe he was stealing from her.
It was going to have to be an eye witness account.
I was hoping that eye witness account wouldn’t include me following him to a meet with a dealer. I tried to give dealers a wide berth. Jules got jacked up by a low level dealer and ended up killing him before he killed her because he’d already put a fair amount of effort into that (in other words, two bullets in her body). For obvious reasons I wanted to avoid situations like that.
I didn’t even own a gun. I wasn’t prepared for getting on dealer radar, nor did I ever think I would be. Though, since I planned to keep doing what I was doing, I knew it might happen.
I just wasn’t prepared (yet).
So I was waiting for my shot to follow him to the bathroom. If guys were in there and they saw me when I entered, I’d pretend I was tipsy and went in the wrong door. But I was willing to do it in the hope I’d catch him in the act. If I caught him in the act, Helen would believe me. Totally. We were tight.
I was thinking this when I heard a familiar voice say from behind me, “Ally.”
Chills slid over my skin and weight settled in my gut as I realized my mistake.
In order to watch Zach with his boys in a back booth, I’d put my back to the door.
Which meant I was ripe for attack.
Fuck.
I turned on my stool and looked up at Ren.
He was wearing a well-tailored suit that looked good on him.
As for the rest, everything that was him, top to toe, was the thing of dreams.
It was then something I always loved—the fact that Denver was huge, sprawling, dynamic, eclectic, diverse and energetic, but could still be a small town—became something I hated.
Living there my whole life, I never went out without knowing there was a very good chance I’d bump into someone I knew, liked, and would shoot the shit with them in a grocery aisle or arrange to go to a movie or end up in a bar sucking back Fat Tires until we had to order a taxi.
Then there were times, and there were few, when I ran into someone I most definitely did not want to see.
Like now.
“Hey,” I greeted.
“Hey,” he replied. He looked at the empty stool beside me and back at me. “Got a minute?”
I didn’t. I had to keep an eye on Zach and time his bathroom break so it worked for me, and hopefully for my friend Helen.
But I didn’t want to blow off Ren. That might give him the impression he’d shredded me. Or at the
very least upset me.
He had shredded me. No doubt. It made no sense. Drinks, conversation, great sex and just one night. How that could lead to me feeling dead inside, I had no clue.
I just knew it did. And I wasn’t one of those chicks who denied things. I was real with everybody. Including myself.
But not including Ren. No way in hell I was going to let on he’d done that to me.
Therefore, I said, “Sure,” and turned my whole body his way.
He sat and caught the bartender’s eye.
As we were waiting for the bartender to arrive, I looked for a hot babe hanging back and found none, so I asked, “You here alone?”
His eyes came to me. “Business dinner. Saw you, told them to start without me.”
That was interesting. We hadn’t really parted on good terms. If it were the other way around, I wouldn’t make the approach.
Before I could dig deeper, or, the better option, find some way to blow him off without letting on I was doing it, the bartender came.
Ren ordered, “Vodka gimlet,” and I felt my eyes widen slightly. “What?” he asked when he looked at me.
“You’re a gimlet man?” I asked back.
“I like booze,” he answered. “I’ll drink anything but tonight I’m in the mood for sour.”
I didn’t know what to do with that.
His brows went up a couple of centimeters. “You got a problem with the gimlet?”
“I’m a bartender, Ren. A gimlet order is rare. But when it comes, it’s women who order it.”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “Know you’re tight with men who drink blood and eat nails, babe, but just to say, what a man drinks does not make that man.”
I didn’t know what to make of that either, except I didn’t like it all that much. Much like I didn’t like his parting shot of weeks ago, also a slur on my family.
“Do you have a problem with my family that I don’t know about?” I asked.
“No, and don’t know how you got that from what I said. What I got a problem with is you giving me shit about what I drink.”
“I wasn’t giving you shit. I was just surprised,” I corrected him.
“Ally, in case you don’t know this already, a man is not gonna take kindly to anyone sayin’ he drinks a woman’s drink or does a womanly anything.”
I had to admit, he had a point. And I had to admit, I’d done that. I also had to admit, that was a wee bit uncool.
Still, he didn’t have to get so irritable about it. I mean, I was very well acquainted with his manhood and his ability to utilize it with exceptional proficiency. I’d communicated learning this knowledge by having orgasms the likes of which he could not mistake as fake. Therefore, I’d hardly question it.
Whatever.
Seriously time to move on. I shouldn’t have said yes to his “minute.” I shouldn’t give a shit about what he thought about me. I didn’t anyone else. Why him?
Instead of pondering that question now, I decided to do it later and asked, “I see you stopped by to spread cheer, but I’m in the middle of something. So maybe we can wrap this up so I can get back to it?”
His eyes looked to my untouched martini, my dress, my legs, my ass in the stool and around the restaurant before coming back to me. “What are you in the middle of?”
“Something,” I replied. “Now is there something you needed?”
He studied me, again did his scanning thing of me and our surroundings, then he looked back at my face and stated straight out, “I fucked this up.”
That was a surprise statement so my head cocked to the side. “What?”
His gimlet arrived, taking his attention again. He told the bartender to put it on his table’s tab and turned again to me.
“I didn’t come over here to be a dick. I came over here to apologize for being a dick.”
Now that…
That threw me.
The men of my acquaintance didn’t apologize. They admitted no wrong verbally and instead did things (maybe) to make amends physically.
Of course, most of that was the Hot Bunch dealing with their Rock Chicks so I had not experienced it personally. Still, I’d heard about it. All about it. And sometimes I’d witnessed it. But I’d never experienced it.
I said nothing.
Ren kept talking.
“I had a good time with you. You’re funny. That whole thing you got goin’ on.” He flipped a hand out to me, my guess his flip indicating all that was me. “It’s good. It works for you. It works in a big way for me. You’re fuckin’ gorgeous. You’re a fantastic fucking lay. It was a good night. I got pissed you took off when I wanted more. Came to your house, acted like a dick and you didn’t deserve that shit. No excuse for it. But you gotta know, I felt like an asshole because I was an asshole. I’m glad I had the chance to tell you I know I was an asshole.”
On that, as I stared at him, lips parted, he grabbed his drink and slid off the stool.
Looking down at me, his gaze moving over my face and hair, he finally caught my eyes and said quietly, “And you look good tonight, honey. Beautiful.”
Still staring at him, lips parted, he turned and walked away.
It took me a while to stop focusing on all that he said, and the vision of him burned into my eyeballs walking away (he seriously could rock a suit), in order to pull myself together.
But I was Ally Nightingale, so pull myself together I did.
I turned back to Zach, but grabbed my martini on the go. I wasn’t a martini girl. More like tequila. Though I was like Ren, I enjoyed booze and could drink anything. But the martini was what I had and I needed to wash what just happened away, at least for now, so it would have to do.
Fifteen minutes later, Zach got up to go to the bathroom.
Thirty seconds after that, I followed him.
I didn’t have to do the tipsy act when I hit the men’s room because no one was visible when I walked in. But there were shoes under a stall, standing sideways so not using the facilities, just using the stall for privacy to hide a nasty habit.
Loser.
I opened the stall next to Zach’s, stepped up on the toilet, balanced and looked over the divider.
He had a vial in his hand and a spoon to his nose.
“Hey, Zach,” I greeted.
He jumped and his vial of cocaine fell into the toilet.
I swallowed a laugh.
His head snapped back to look up at me. “Ally, what the fuck?”
I answered his “what the fuck” with, “Kiss Helen good-bye, you thieving, asshole cokehead.”
Then I stepped off the toilet, pushed out of the stall and moseyed out of the bathroom, ignoring Zach making desperate fumbling noises in his stall and calling my name.
I took the back exit.
It was closer, for one. Zach wouldn’t expect it, for another.
And I wouldn’t have to see Ren as I walked through the restaurant, for last.
* * * * *
I sat in my Mustang outside Ren’s place, staring at his door.
His house really was great. It looked like it could be in The South. It had that kind of grace with a veranda, big multi-paned windows, a brick paved walkway and lush landscaping. It had a welcoming settled feel like old houses did. I liked it.
You look good tonight, honey. Beautiful.
I sighed.
A simple compliment. And highly effective.
It works in a big way for me.
My thing worked for Ren.
Well, one could say Ren’s thing worked for me, too.
Big time.
And he’d apologized for being a dick. Straight up. I’d been a bitch, stupidly spitting in the eye of the tiger by making an idiot remark about his drink after he’d approached to apologize. Then he didn’t push the drink issue and apologized.
Class.
I got pissed you took off when I wanted more.
He wanted more.
Well, one could also say I wanted more, too. Hell, my
Lelo Lily was constantly on her charger, she was used so much, me on my back in my bed, my Lelo between my legs, Ren in my head.
Fuck.
It was going on summer so the days were longer, but it was full-on dark so it was really late.
Still, I threw open my door, folded out of my car and clicked on my high-heeled sandals across the street (I hadn’t changed, for a reason that would hopefully work for me), up Ren’s brick paved front walk and to his ash green front door.
He had a doorbell so I didn’t pound. And anyway, I wasn’t pissed. I just rang the bell, and seeing as I could see light filtering around the drapes to my left, I figured he was up.
Ren didn’t strike me as early to bed, early to rise.
He wasn’t.
The door opened and there he stood wearing the trousers from his suit (dark blue with a hint of a shine, perfect freaking fit) and his tailored shirt (blue, gray and black stripes on white, open at the collar, rolled back at the cuffs; hot).
“Ally,” he greeted, staring down at me, and strike that on the list of one of the many things that did it for me with Ren.
He was up a step, but I was in four inch heels. Being five nine that put me at tall. Still, he was way taller than me. So much taller, no matter what shoe apparel I was wearing, if he wanted to take my mouth, he’d have to work for it.
The thought made my inner thighs quiver.
Time to do what I came there to do.
“Zano, I know it’s late, but I was out and I thought I’d come by to say it was totally cool what you—”
I spoke not another word since his arm flashed out, hooked me at the waist and I was flying through the air. I landed full-frontal against his body and a quarter of a second later his mouth landed on mine.
He dragged me in as I opened my lips and his tongue thrust inside.
He kicked the door closed behind me.
We made it to the bed this time before I had my first orgasm.
But when I had it, we were both still fully clothed.
The next three, he gave me naked.
* * * * *
The next morning…
I woke up naked and mostly sprawled on Ren.
There was a heavenly throb between my legs that suggested strongly that the first time with Ren was not a fluke.
Rock Chick Revolution Page 4
