Kristen Ashley - Rock Chick Revolution

Eternity.

So I broke the staredown and I moved to the door, but turned at it and swept a glance through them all again, my eyes ending on Hank and Lee.

“One last thing. There’s something wrong with Darius, and if you two haven’t clocked that, color me stunned. But I figure you have, and since you’re dudes and dudes don’t get up in the business of other dudes, you’re steering clear. A heads up: I’m done steering clear. I’m gonna sort that, and if I had your help, I’d be obliged.”

On that, I left.

And by the time I got in my car, I felt my throat burning. My eyes were hot and my hands were shaking.

Not from nerves or fear.

From emotion.

Because I honestly didn’t know which way any of them would swing.

I just knew I did not lie.

If they moved to shut me down, these people I loved I’d never forgive.

* * *

I opened the door to Ren’s place and smelled garlic.

What the hell?

I dumped my purse on an armchair and walked into the kitchen.

Ren was wearing jeans, a loose pale yellow shirt, sleeves rolled up, feet bare, and he was at the stove, a stove that held steaming pots and pans.

“What’s going on?” I asked and he turned to me.

“Kiss, Ally,” he ordered instead of telling me what was going on.

I walked to him, noting, “I thought we were going out.”

He again didn’t respond until I got close, put a hand to his abs and rolled up on my toes to touch my mouth to his.

When I rolled back but stayed close, he answered, “You didn’t wanna miss your show. I’m makin’ stuffed shells.”

Jeez.

I couldn’t take it.

Just when I thought my man couldn’t get any better, he did.

“We’ll go out tomorrow night,” he muttered.

I focused on him and saw his eyes were probing.

That was when, again, he got even better.

He did this by saying in his sweet voice, “The meet didn’t go well.”

He read me.

“Not really.”

“You wanna talk about it?”

“Nothing to say. They don’t want me in the business. That’s not a surprise. Now they have a decision to make because I already made mine.”

He nodded, read me again and did what I needed.

He let it go.

“You want me to turn on the sauna?” he asked.

That sounded awesome, but if I was in there, I wanted to be in there with him. Not up there alone and him downstairs cooking.

“No, baby,” I murmured. “But thanks.”

“Then sit your ass on the counter. I’ll get you a glass of wine and you can keep me company while I put the shells together.”

That sounded better so I complied and Ren got me a glass of wine.

I sipped.

Ren worked.

When he was nearly done, I got off the counter and got on cleaning the pots, pans and utensils so later clean up would be a snap.

I heard the oven door close then I felt arms wrap around me from behind at the same time I felt Ren’s hard heat at my back and his mouth at my ear.

“They’ll come around,” he whispered there.

I closed my eyes, opened them and rinsed a pot.

I put it in the drainer, saying, “I hope so.”

He gave me a squeeze. “I know so.”

I turned off the faucet and twisted my neck to look at him. “How do you know?”

“Because they love you.”

I pressed my lips together and my eyes got hot again.

Then he again gave me what I needed. He bent, kissed my neck and lifted to catch my eyes.

“We’ll eat in front of the TV. I’ll go turn it on.”

I nodded.

He grinned and gave me a squeeze.

He went to turn on the TV, came back and refilled our wine glasses.

I put the last pot in the drainer and followed my man to the TV to veg out and await stuffed shells.

* * *

“Jesus,” Ren muttered, and I tore my eyes off Castle to lift my head from where it was resting on his chest seeing as we were both stretched out on the couch, Ren on his back, me tucked to his side between him and the couch.

“What?”

“Jesus,” he repeated, eyes glued to the TV.

He was making me miss it!

“What?” I snapped.

He lifted a hand that held the remote and paused the show.

Then he turned his head to me. “Do you watch this show because of that woman?”

I felt my brows draw together. “What woman?”

“The brunette who’s the spittin’ image of you.”

What was he talking about?

“Do you mean Stana Katic?” I asked.

“I don’t know her name. The tall knockout brunette.”

Jeez. Did he think I looked like Stana Katic, otherwise known as the most beautiful woman on American television today?

“You think I look like Kate Beckett?” I asked.

“Who’s Kate Beckett?” he asked back.

“Stana Katic. She plays Detective Kate Beckett, Castle’s partner on the show. Or, more accurately, Castle’s her partner,” I informed him.

“Then no. If she’s the gorgeous, bossy, badass homicide detective I just watched for the last five minutes, I don’t think you look like her. I think she’s the spittin’ image of you.”

Wow.

Cool!

“Seriously?” I asked.

“Babe,” he muttered, his eyes wandering back to the TV where Beckett was paused having a conversation with Castle, “fuck me, definitely seriously.”

This.

Was.

Awesome.

I didn’t share I felt that, nor did I tell him that wasn’t the reason I watched Castle (though it was part of it; Kate Beckett was the freaking bomb).

I just said the truth. “I never noticed.”

He looked back at me. “How could you not notice?”

I probably didn’t notice because I was paying more attention to Nathan Fillion.

Since this was the reason, the answer I gave Ren was a shrug.

Ren’s arm around me curled me closer, his head turned back to the TV and he hit play.

I turned my eyes to the TV and studied Kate Beckett.

She did kinda look like me.

Totally cool.

I relaxed into Ren and tangled my legs with his.

It was then it hit me we’d never done this, something totally normal like relaxing in front of a TV.

It also hit me it felt nice.

And last, it hit me that after a busy day that didn’t end great, this, just this, was exactly what I needed. A belly full of Ren’s cooking. A wine glass that, unless I wanted it to be, never was empty. A couch. A TV. A good show.

But most of all.

Ren.

The next morning, post-coffee rush at Fortnum’s, the bell over the door rang.

I had a lot to do, and unfortunately part of that was keeping liquid until my insurance check came in. My credit card balance was getting high and my bank account balance was never high. Thus I needed my take from the tip jar.

I twisted from doing dishes at the sink, looked and saw Mr. Kumar and his mother-in-law, Mrs. Salim, enter the store.

They were regulars. They were also (kind of) part of our posse.

Mr. Kumar owned a corner store on Tex’s block and he’d been dragged into two Rock Chick Rides, Indy’s and Ava’s. He was a good guy who, against the odds, kept his little store open. I helped by shopping there occasionally, even though it was out of my way.

I didn’t know much about Mrs. Salim except that every time I saw her, I feared she’d keel over and quit breathing, she looked that old. And this wasn’t being mean. Seriously, she looked that old. Just saying, the woman’s wrinkles had wrinkles.

I also knew she liked to read.

As usual, Mrs. Salim shuffled to the books.

Mr. Kumar came to the coffee counter and, weirdly, had his eyes on me.

He stopped and looked at Tex. “Did you speak with her?”

I turned from the sink, grabbing a towel to wipe my hands.

“Talk with me about what?” I asked.

“No,” Tex answered Mr. Kumar “I talked to Hank.”

“But the police aren’t doing anything!” Mr. Kumar suddenly cried, and the skin on the back of my neck prickled.

I moved to the espresso counter, jamming in close to Tex. “Talk to me about what?’

“Hank says they’re lookin’ into it,” Tex told me.

“Looking into what?” I asked.

“And I’m keepin’ an eye out,” Tex went on, still not answering me.

“Keeping an eye on what?” I snapped.

“The rash of burglaries on our street,” Mr. Kumar finally answered me.

“You’ve had a rash of burglaries?” Indy asked, coming up to the counter, hands full of empties.

“Yes,” Mr. Kumar answered.

“I’m keepin’ an eye out,” Tex stated.

Giving big eyes to Tex, Mr. Kumar then turned to me. “Tex looks out for the neighborhood, but he’s not finding anything. I talked with some of my customers and we got a… what’s it called?”

I didn’t know what he was talking about so I couldn’t tell him what it was called.

Luckily, he found the word and stated, “Kitty. To pay you.” He dug in his pants pocket, pulled out a card and turned it to me. “We’re hiring a Rock Chick.”

I looked at the card, a card I’d asked Brody to make for me way back in the day when Indy and I were searching for Rosie.

Mr. Kumar had kept his.

Righteous.

What was not righteous was, as much as I wanted the business, I had to make coffee, continue my stripper education and robberies happened at night, the same time as stripping did. And last, there was only one of me. Brody was strung out finding out about the books and he never worked in the field, unless that work required him to be in a surveillance van. Darius worked for Lee and was on the stripper case with me.

I couldn’t take the case.

And that sucked.

“I’m sorry Mr. Kumar,” I said. “I have another case I have to work at night and I can’t be two places at once.”

His face fell. “But we’ve had nine cars on our streets broken into,” he told me. “Stereos stolen. Glove boxes rifled through. Windows smashed. All this in less than two weeks. People are worried.”

Crap.

“I’m keepin’ my eye on it,” Tex repeated, sounding more than his usual grumpy.

“Tweakers,” I muttered, and Mr. Kumar looked at me.

“I’m sorry?”

“Tweakers,” I repeated. “People who need to steal car stereos and fence them to buy drugs.”

Mr. Kumar nodded.

“No one would hit one neighborhood repeatedly in that time unless they were stupid or desperate, and tweakers are both,” I told him.

Mr. Kumar nodded again.

It was then it occurred to me that no one would hit Tex’s street because he did keep an eye out. He did this by sitting on his porch randomly, but often, with a shotgun across his lap and night vision goggles on his head. The presence of a sleeping cat also in his lap was not unheard of.

This was a weird thing to do, but this was also Tex we were talking about. And except for when Rock Chick business leaked into their ‘hood (because Ava lived with Luke now, but she still owned the pad she used to live in there; not to mention Indy’s business brought us there, repeatedly), crime was nil. Probably because Tex lived there and sat outside in night vision goggles with a shotgun.

Shotguns were definitely deterrents. Wild men wearing night vision goggles having shotguns were much stronger deterrents.

This meant the culprits likely knew this, kept an eye on Tex and when he went off duty, they did the deeds.

In other words, locals.

I looked up at Tex. “You got a house in the ‘hood that’s home to a bunch of meth heads?”

“Only about every other one,” he replied.

Fuck.

Door to door action.

Hector.

Hector said if I had a case he could work with me, he was there.

It would have to be pre- or post-stripping (likely post, which would make it a long night), but we could hit the houses, gain entry cops couldn’t by being badasses (or Hector could be one; I’d pretend to be one), hope they didn’t immediately fence the property they stole and therefore call it into Eddie or Hank so they could get a search warrant and roll in.

“I’ll take the case,” I said to Mr. Kumar.

He grinned.

“I said, I got an eye out!” Tex boomed, and I looked up at him.

“You’re getting married tomorrow,” I reminded him.

“Yeah, and it’s no big deal. A piece of paper. Nance already lives with me and we’re not takin’ a honeymoon for a coupla weeks ‘cause she’s got some cruise she wants to take and they were all booked up for the week we wanted so we had to wait. So I can keep an eye out.”