Kristen Ashley - Rock Chick Revolution

This was Vance.

We were standing by the driver’s side door of my Mustang in Lee’s parking garage in the dead of night, and he was being bossy.

He had also taught me sick good things that night, so I decided not to give a shit that he was being bossy.

“Right,” I agreed.

He reached into his back pocket, pulled out a small black leather pouch with a zip around three sides and handed it to me.

“Those’re yours. Picks. You buy locks at a hardware store and practice. When you’re up, I’ll be timin’ you. You got thirty seconds.”

I looked up at him and nodded but said, “I didn’t bring anything to give you.”

He gave me his shit-eating grin.

I decided to get serious.

“Appreciate you doing this, Vance.”

“The grip you got on that guy’s junk, no hesitation, bringin’ him down to his knees. Fuck. His face,” Vance replied. “Half the team’s terrified of you. Bobby’s having nightmares. I had no choice. Jules and I want more kids. Don’t wanna piss you off.”

It was clear he didn’t feel like being serious so I lifted a hand and socked him in the arm.

He lifted a hand and caught me at the back of the head.

Then he shocked the shit out of me by pulling me in and kissing my forehead before letting me go and murmuring, “You did good tonight.”

“Do you kiss Mace’s forehead when he does well?” I asked and his eyes got intent.

“Learn now, you’re a woman. This is a man’s job, not because more women don’t have the stones to do it, but because they think they need to have stones in order to do it. The way of the world, men can do shit you can’t. What you gotta remember is, you can do shit that men can’t. You play to that. You use it. I am not gonna treat you like one of the guys ‘cause you’re not one of the guys. That doesn’t mean I won’t treat you with respect. And what you learn now is, even if you get treated differently, there’s no difference. Yeah?”

This was very profound. And wise. And I’d never thought of it like that.

But I liked it.

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“Now I gotta get home to Jules and Max,” he muttered.

“Right,” I replied. “Give Max a cuddle for me.”

“Will do,” he said, moving toward his Harley.

“Vance?” I called and he turned back. “Really. Thanks for tonight. I appreciate it.”

“You’re a Nightingale,” he replied then finished enigmatically, “Anything.”

He roared off on his Harley and I was in my car following him when it hit me what his “anything” meant.

He was an ex-con, recovering alcoholic. And Lee had taken him on, trained him, and offered him a different life. A better life. And when he won Jules then they had Max, he got the best life there could be.

And he appreciated it.

I parked outside Ren’s, the jazzed feeling I had expiring and fatigue setting in. So I wasted no time getting in and quietly changing into a nightie, washing my face and brushing my teeth.

I slid into bed next to Ren, turned into his heat by curling into his back and snaking an arm around his waist.

He grabbed my hand, slid it up his chest and held it there.

“How’d it go?” he mumbled sleepily.

I pressed closer.

“It was righteous.”

His hand gave mine a squeeze. “Good.”

He was right.

He fell back to sleep.

Not long after, I followed him.

I moved into the middle aisle of bookshelves and did it stealthily.

If I found my target, I didn’t want to be disturbed.

It was the next day, late morning at Fortnum’s. The store would be closing in an hour so we could all get ready to go to Tex and Nancy’s wedding. But Jet, Indy and I were taking off in thirty minutes to hit the mall to buy dresses (and probably shoes).

So I didn’t have a lot of time.

I found her in the way back room, beyond the middle room with its table filled with crates, crates that were filled with vinyl.

She was shelving books in Women’s Studies.

Tall, extremely thin, dark hair that was graying and she left it at that.

Jane.

“Hey,” I called and she jumped.

Then she turned to me. “Hey, Ally.”

I got close and asked, “You going to Tex’s thing?”

“Yes,” she answered.

“Going to Blanca’s after?” I asked.

“For a little while.”

This meant she’d show her face, leave a present and get the hell out of there.

Let’s just say Jane wasn’t social.

“You write those Rock Chick books?” I went on conversationally, and her eyes went huge.

She took a step back.

Fuck. My gut feeling was right.

She did.

Holy crap.

I followed her. She took another step back and we kept going, but as we did it occurred to me she would think I was on the attack. So I reached out, grabbed her hand and held it just as her shoulder hit a shelf.

“It’s okay,” I whispered.

“It’s… okay?” she asked incredulously.

I nodded. “I’m not mad.”

“You’re… not?”

 I shook my head. “I’m not. But, if I’m gonna have your back, I gotta know why you wrote them and why you didn’t tell anyone you did.”

“You’re going to have my back?”

This was going way too slowly. I had to speed things up.

I squeezed her hand. “Yeah, Jane. I’m gonna have your back. But you gotta talk to me. We don’t have a lot of time and we don’t wanna get caught talking.”

“No one ever comes back here,” she spoke mostly the truth.

“Duke does, and he’s here and avoiding me, so that’s a possibility.” I squeezed her hand again. “Chickie, spill.”

She stared at me.

Then she licked her lips and said softly, “You probably know, since I was a little girl, all I ever wanted to do was write.”

When she stopped speaking, I nodded encouragingly and kept hold of her hand.

“Romances,” she went on.

“Okay,” I said.

“I’ve written a lot of books, Ally,” she told me.

“I know, honey,” I replied.

“All romances,” she stated.

“Okay.”

“Well, mostly romances, some mysteries.”

“Right,” I said with waning patience, while struggling with not showing my patience was waning.

Her eyes drifted beyond me and she whispered, “And those romances are the best kind ever.”

I knew what she was seeing in her mind’s eye and I knew she wasn’t wrong about that.

She looked back at me. “Real,” she said quietly.

“Yeah,” I replied.

“But they’re more. They’re about love of all kinds. They’re about family. Family of all kinds.”

She wasn’t wrong about that, either.

I felt a tickle in my throat and repeated, “Yeah.”

“It’s extraordinary. So I had to share it, Ally.” This time her hand squeezed mine and she leaned toward me. “I had to.”

“I feel you,” I whispered.

“But, I did it and the first one is out there and it felt good to do it. To finish one. Then the other. And the next. And let it out there. But putting it out there, something happened.”

“What happened, babe?” I asked.

“People… readers… they say it makes them laugh.” She paused. “Out loud.”

I still hadn’t read it, but we were a pretty wild bunch. I could see that.

I nodded.

“It’s a gift,” she said, her voice funny, deep with emotion. “Watching you all get close, witnessing all that happened making you closer, feeling that love. But it was another gift, maybe even a bigger one, precious, knowing that sharing it makes people I don’t know laugh. It makes them happy. Some of them write to me. They tell me bad things are happening in their lives. But they read my book and it takes them away. It makes them smile. Laugh. Even if for moments, or better yet hours, they can forget the bad, be with us here at Fortnum’s, and laugh.” She tipped her head to the side. “That’s beautiful. So how can it be wrong?”

“It isn’t wrong,” I told her.

“Lee’s angry,” she replied.

He was.

Crap.

“Is that why you didn’t tell anyone you were going to do it? Because you had a feeling they would be angry?”

She nodded.

Jeez. Jane.

I shared space with her nearly every day, I meant something to her, she meant something to me, but I had no idea her well ran this deep.

“The newspapers?” I pressed.

“That was me,” she said quietly. “When stuff was going down with Stella, they called here. I said no comment. Then I sent letters anonymously. The reporter who reported it doesn’t even know it’s me.”

Another mystery solved.

“These readers that write to you. Can that be traced?” I asked and she shook her head.

“They go to somebody else and they send them to me. But I’ve been assured it’s untraceable.”

“Brody’s pretty good, Jane.”

She pressed her lips together.

I studied her. She was worried.

Then I said, “Leave it to me.”

Her brows drew together. “What are you going to do?”

“Nothing, until I have to. Then I’ll take care of it.”

It was her turn to stare at me before she asked, “Why are you helping me?”

I smiled and gave her hand another squeeze before I lifted it up between us and got closer.

“Because, no matter how old we get, we always need to believe in fairytales.”

It was then, Jane smiled back.

Mostly, I knew, because she agreed with me.

* * *

“Oh my God, Herb!”

“What?”

“My God!”

“Woman! What?”

“You might wanna leave some for the other guests.”

I took a handful of cashews (Indy’s addition to the party and part of what Herb was gobbling up) and popped a few into my mouth, watching Roxie’s Mom and Dad (and Tex’s sister and brother-in-law), Herb and Trish—in town from Indiana for the big event—fight in Blanca’s backyard.

Don’t be alarmed. I’d been around them more than once. This was what they did.

Blanca was Eddie and Hector’s Mom. I’d known her ages, and when she did something, she went all out.

Tonight, even though this was “just family” (for Rock Chicks though, this meant a huge shindig), Blanca didn’t let the team down.

There were bright colored paper lanterns strung in zigzags in the air from house to fence posts across the backyard. There were lit lumieres lining the fence all around. There was low music playing, all love songs, in English and Spanish. There were tables groaning with food, and in the middle were large, bright bouquets of flowers (the flowers, Sadie’s contribution). Blanca had even set up a bar where her eldest son, Carlos, teamed up with Willie Moses, were making people drinks.

Jet had made caramel layer squares (three batches). As I mentioned, Indy had brought the cashews. Ren and I brought a mixed box full of bottles of liquor and a couple cases of beer. Roxie, Stella and Sadie had spent the morning helping Blanca and her daughters Rosa, Gloria and Elena in setting up and cooking.

Tex, wearing another suit (and for once, seemingly content in it), and Nancy, wearing a pretty mint green dress with a fancy thing that was kind of a hat but way smaller so it was mostly a decorated headband (and it had a cool-ass feather) got hitched earlier by the Justice of the Peace. They did this while Indy, Duke and I stood by Tex, and Trixie, Ada (Nancy’s old neighbor, and by “old” I mean that in two ways) and Blanca stood up with Nancy. Jet and Lottie, by the way, Nancy’s daughters, walked at her sides guiding her to Tex.

The deed done, it was time to party.

My favorite time.

And now Herb and Trish were, as ever, going at it.

Herb looked at the table where he had been stuffing his mouth (a table covered in food) to another table five feet away that was also covered in food then across the yard to yet another table which was—you guessed it—covered in food.

Then he looked to his wife. “It’s not like Blanca’s gonna run out.”

“You don’t eat from the bowl, Herb,” Trish shot back. “You get a plate and you never double dip.”

“First, I don’t need a plate when I can stand here eatin’,” Herb replied. “And second, I don’t got cooties. Who cares if I double dip?”

Gross.

“I do,” Trish retorted, and I bit back my verbal agreement.

He glared at her.

Then he declared, “I need a beer.”

“You’ve already had five,” Trish informed him.