Rock Chick 03 Redemption (38 page)

What was wrong with me?”

“What was wrong with you?” he asked.

My head jerked like he smacked me in the face.

Then I started struggling. “Get off me, I’m going home!” He caught my wrists and held them over my head.

“Answer my question, what was wrong with you? Why were you with him?”

“I thought he loved me!” I shouted. “He promised me everything. He was ful of grand dreams. He was going to show me the fucking world. I was young and stupid and believed him.”

“So, you’re sayin’ that you’re stupid because you believed a pack of lies some shithead fed you?”

“Yes!”

“It’s
you
who’s wrong in this scenario, just because you loved someone and since you did you trusted him to tel you the truth?”

I blinked in the darkness.

I hadn’t thought of it that way.

“That’s what love’s al about, Roxanne. You love someone, you trust them always to tel you the truth.”

“Hank, please, get off me,” I begged.

“Did he get you to deal drugs?” Hank asked.

“
What?
” I screeched.

“Did you deal drugs with him? That’s what he did. He was a drug dealer. Smack.”

For some reason, the last word he said jarred me out of the moment and I became confused.

“What’s smack?” I asked.

I could almost hear Hank’s teeth grinding.

“Jesus. You don’t even know what it is. How in the fuck can you think you’re gray?”

Then it hit me.

“Oh…
smack
.” I said with dawning understanding.

“What is it?” Hank asked.

“Drugs,” I answered.

“What kind of drugs?” he persevered.

I thought about it, trying to remember what they were referring to on the TV cop shows when they mentioned it. I didn’t want to sound uncool that I didn’t know what it was but I kinda didn’t.

For some reason, as I was silent and trying to think, Hank’s body started moving like he was laughing. His hands loosened from my wrists and he buried his face in my neck.

“Sunshine, you’re a nut.”

Yes, definitely laughing.

“Are you laughing?” I asked just to check.

He rol ed off me, to his side, but took me with him, his arms locking around me.

“Smack is heroin,” Hank’s voice stil sounded amused.

“Oh God. Sid Vicious died of an overdose of that,” I told him.

“Yeah, a lot of people die of overdoses of that.” It took me a moment to realize that our conversation had taken a drastic, and very weird, turn.

I felt it important to keep on target.

“I don’t deal drugs, Hank. I design websites.”

“I know,” he replied and lifted a hand to run his fingers through my hair at the side of my head, then he tucked it behind my ear before his arm locked around me again.

“Roxie, people in six different states have been bringing up your name and no one knows who the fuck you are. On my desk, I got copies of employment records, apartment leases, phone bil s and credit card statements a mile high with your name on them. I can track your life for the last four years and none of it was even a little shady. Whatever Flynn did, he protected you from it. Every piece of paper and every report that comes in shows you’re as pure as snow.

You’re about as gray as the North Pole.”

Oh… my… God.

“You checked up on me?” I asked, horrified.

“I checked up on Flynn. Doing that meant I had to check on you since the only thing we got, except arrest reports and his name linked to various pieces of scum, is the trail he left through you.”

I tried to process that but Hank interrupted my processing by asking, “Did you know he was dealing drugs?”

I closed my eyes in despair.

Here we go,
I thought.

I took a deep breath. Then, I admitted, “I had no idea. At first I didn’t care. Then, I knew he wasn’t out al day doing good deeds but I didn’t ask questions. I just didn’t want to know.”

I thought that said a lot about me and none of it was good.

Hank said quietly, “You’ve just proved my point, Sunshine.”

“What point?”

“You didn’t work with him, you didn’t even know what he was about. The only thing you did was fal in love with an asshole. He lied to you and you believed him because you loved him. It’s easier for other people to see what kind of guy he was. They didn’t care about him, they only cared about you. You haven’t lived a life of crime, you just lived with a criminal who lied to you about who he was. Al this time, you’ve been living a normal life, Roxie. You aren’t to blame for letting the wrong guy into your heart.” I didn’t say anything because there was nothing to say.

Except he was wrong.

He just didn’t get it.

I didn’t want a cop boyfriend who was forced to run checks on my old leases and phone bil s to track down an ex-lover on the run. It was humiliating, pure and simple.

When I was silent, Hank kept talking.

“Roxie, it would be different if you let him stay in your heart. But you didn’t do that. Eddie told me that you tried to turn him out years ago. You were a woman alone doing the best she could, but, Sweetheart, you’re not alone now.”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I said, and al of a sudden I didn’t. Not that I wanted to talk about it before, just that, since we were, I didn’t want to do it anymore. I was exhausted; it felt like I’d run a hundred miles without even an energy bar to see me through.

His hands moved to stroke my back. “Al right, Sunshine, we won’t talk about it anymore.”

His fingers trailed soothingly up and down my back.

Honestly, it was too much. I couldn’t cope.

He was such a good guy and there just seemed nothing I could say to get him to back off and leave me be.

It didn’t matter that I didn’t actual y want him to back off and leave me be.

It was about me caring about him so much that I wanted him to have something better than me.

I prepared to move. “I think I need to be alone. I’m going to go sleep on the couch.”

His fingers stopped moving and his hands pressed against my back.

“No you aren’t.”

“Please, Hank. I need to be alone. I have to think.”

“That’s the last thing you have to do.”

“Real y Hank –”

“Quiet, go to sleep.”

“Seriously.”

“Roxie, quiet.”

“Oh for God’s sake,” I snapped.

I lay there, angry, or trying to convince myself I was angry.

What I did know was that my body was wound up and tense.

Hank just kept his arms around me and kept his silence.

Then, I spent some time trying not to think, but everything he said was tumbling around in my head, al I could do was think.

Through this, Hank kept his arms around me and kept his silence.

Then, when I stopped trying to stop thinking, I stopped thinking altogether and fel asleep.

Hank’s arms were stil around me.

Chapter Twenty-One
There Was Just No Shaking This Guy

“Wake up, Sunshine.”

I opened my eyes as the light switched on and I blinked, temporarily blinded.

Then, I saw Hank’s thighs, upright, at the side of the bed.

They were encased in black track pants with three thin stripes running up the sides, the outer two white, the inner one dark gray.

I decided no one should be upright, especial y Hank.

He’d had, like, two hours of sleep.

I closed my eyes again.

“No waking up,” I mumbled, rubbed my face into the pil ow and turned away from the light.

The bed moved when Hank sat on it. Then the covers slid down to my waist and Hank’s hand rested there.

“Get up, Sweetheart, Shamus needs his walk.” I felt his lips touch my shoulder, then the bed moved again and he got up.

I was lying mostly on my side but partial y on my bel y. I felt Shamus in front of me and I squinted my eyes at him.

He saw me squint, his tail wagged, he edged up to me and rested his chin on my waist. He blinked twice and then closed his eyes again.

Since Shamus closed his eyes, I did too.

Clearly Shamus was in no mood to walk. Shamus shared
my
mood, which was to sleep more and forget my life was a disaster. Though, Shamus’s life wasn’t a disaster and he probably didn’t comprehend that mine was, but if doggie brains could comprehend such complex situations, I felt pretty certain he would commiserate and let me sleep.

I’d fal en asleep again when I was suddenly pul ed across the bed, flipped, then lifted, an arm behind my knees, one at my waist.

“What the hel !” I screeched, grabbing on to Hank’s shoulders as he walked the few steps to the bathroom, carrying me, then he dropped my legs and set me on my feet in the bathroom door.

I tipped my head back and frowned at him. He kept his arm around my waist and was grinning at me.

His hair was damp from a shower and he looked awake, alert and refreshed.

I found this supremely annoying.

“How can you be bright-eyed at this hour? You’ve barely slept,” I asked. I didn’t know what hour it was; al I knew was that it wasn’t a good hour.

He kept grinning.

“Conditioning,” he answered. “Get dressed. I have to get to work but before that we have to walk Shamus, have breakfast and then you have to spend an hour doing whatever-it-is-you-do that, in the end, makes you look no more cute and sexy than you do right now.” I stared at him.

Was he serious?

“Excuse me?” I asked.

“Get dressed, Roxie.”

“I’l have you know that I’ve spent years honing my getting-ready routine to a fine and practiced art and, when I’m done with it, I look far better than I do right now.”

“No you don’t.”

My mouth dropped open.

He wasn’t only serious, he was insane.

I’d been perfecting my high-maintenance toilette since I was twelve years old. My family was always yel ing at me to get out of the bathroom. I never left the house without at least two coats of mascara, a shimmer of blush and one lipstick and one lip gloss just in case I changed my mind sometime during the day as to which was more appropriate for my outfit.

“Yes I do,” I told him. “When I wake up my eyes are al squinty and my face is al blotchy and my hair is always a mess.”

He pul ed me into his body and tilted his head down so his face was an inch from mine. “I see you’re in the mood to argue but I have to get to the station so can we argue while we’re walkin’ the dog?”

Then, before I could answer, he rubbed his nose alongside mine, let me go, turned me around to face the bathroom, put his hand to my ass and gave me a little shove. I whirled around to glare at him and say something smart, or at least say something, but he was already walking away.

Shamus sauntered into the doorway of the bathroom and sat down, tail wagging and his tongue rol ed out.

“Whatever,” I muttered and grabbed my toothbrush.

* * * * *

We didn’t argue while walking Shamus. I pouted and practiced my cold shoulder while trying not to think about my life’s spiraling descent through the seven depths of hel .

My cold shoulder didn’t work; literal y nor figuratively.

Hank ignored it completely and slung his arm around my neck, making me walk pressed against his side.

I also managed to think of nothing but my downward life spiral through the depths of hel and by the time we made it back to his house, I had waltzed through the fourth depth of hel and was careening headlong into the fifth.

Hank left me to my thoughts and my getting ready routine. While he scrambled eggs and made toast, I showered.

I was standing at his bathroom sink applying blusher, when he brought me coffee and a plate of food. They were good scrambled eggs, with a hint of garlic and some cheese and the toast was toasted perfectly, not too light, not too brown and with a generous coating of real butter and grape jel y.

I found it immensely irritating that Hank was even a good, fucking cook.

I ripped off a chunk of toast angrily with my teeth and chewed while Hank watched me. He was leaning against the bathroom doorway, foot crossed at the ankle, plate in his hand, forking up some eggs.

“What now?” he asked. His eyes were lazy and amused.

“Nothing,” I said with my mouth ful .

“You have jel y on your face,” he told me.

My eyes flew to the mirror.

Shit.

I rubbed it off, put down my toast and took a sip of coffee.

He walked into the bathroom, kissed the side of my head and walked out.

Fucking Hank.

* * * * *

We were parked behind Fortnum’s and I had my hand on the door handle when Hank stopped me and turned me to him.

“You want to tel me what’s buggin’ you?” he asked.

“No,” I answered.

His eyes smiled but his mouth didn’t.

How he could smile, I did not know. Even if it wasn’t a ful blown smile, to my mind there was nothing to smile about.

“Is this about our conversation last night?” he went on.

“No,” I repeated, this time it was a lie.

It was
totally
about our conversation last night. I couldn’t get it out of my head, any of it. Last night, he’d made sense.

In fact, everyone made sense, Daisy, Duke, everyone. I wanted to believe, even tried to believe.

In my heart, I couldn’t.

Deep down, I knew I had to protect myself from that time; the time that happens in any relationship, when my judgment was cal ed into question. Then, where would I be?

What would I say? I didn’t have solid moral ground to stand on and Hank was a pil ar of solid moral ground. Any relationship had to have equality. Ours did not. He was clean and good, I was dirty and, if not bad, then at least dubious. Who wanted to be the dubious girlfriend?