Rock Chick Redemption (Rock Chick #3)(3)

I was ready to take Uncle Tex’s advice and cut him loose.

When I told him this, Bil y backed me up against a wal , his forearm against my throat, his pretty-boy face contorted and ugly with a rage I’d never seen before. He hissed at me, “Where I go, you go. You belong to me. We’re never going to be apart, you’re f**kin’ mine… forever.” Needless to say, this scared me. Bil y had never acted like this. I didn’t like to be scared. I never watched horror movies, ever. I didn’t do scared.

I knew at that point it was over. Any residual hope I had for Bil y and me was gone in a blink. Firstly, I didn’t like his arm at my throat, it hurt. Secondly, I didn’t like the look on his face; it freaked me out. Lastly, I wasn’t anyone’s, but my own.

In other words, f**k… that.

Somehow, we stayed in Chicago and whatever it was that had Bil y in a panic calmed down.

I didn’t. I packed his shit, put it in the hal and changed the locks.

This did not go over wel . He broke down the door with a sledgehammer.

This did not go over wel either. I had a conniption fit.

We had another rip roarin’ fight and he talked me into taking him back.

Don’t think I was stupid or weak. I had no intention of real y taking him back. I had long since realized that Bil y was exactly what Bil y was and I didn’t want any part of it. I’d loved him, yes, it was true, but he wasn’t what I thought he was (or what I tried to convince myself he was). I was beginning to fear the stink I sensed on him would start to transfer itself to me.

But a sledgehammer was serious business.

I was going to have to be smart (final y).

Therefore, I was building what I liked to cal my Sleeping with the Enemy Plan.

I started to save money in a new account Bil y didn’t know about. I stashed newly purchased clothes Bil y had never seen and would never miss at Annette’s place and I left.

First, I went to my folks’ house.

Bil y came and brought me back.

I expected this. I was stil stashing money and clothes at Annette’s, biding my time.

Then I went to a girlfriend’s in Atlanta.

Bil y found me and brought me back.

Again, I waited.

Then I went to a hotel in Dal as.

Bil y found me and brought me back.

This plan took a long time and this was unusual for me. I wasn’t the most patient of people and I felt, acutely, that my life was ebbing away day-by-day, month-by-month, year-by-year. I had to see it through though, and I’m kind of stubborn so I kept at it.

It was the last time to leave Bil y, a two-part end of the plan. I was going to go to the last place he thought I thought he wouldn’t look, knowing (like al the others, when I’d left breadcrumbs) he’d eventual y look. Then, after he brought me back, I’d go there again, having set up the plan beforehand and getting help (I hoped) while I was at it.

Though things got kind of f**ked up, mainly because Bil y’s stink had settled on me, just like I’d feared.

See, it was then that I went to Denver.

I went to Uncle Tex

And, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you looked at it, I looked at it both ways; fortunately, because I’d remember it with bittersweet clarity for the rest of my life and unfortunately, because it would never last) it was then that I met Hank and my plan got total y f**ked.

* * * * *

Now I’m sitting on a stinking bathroom floor in a sleazy motel, cuffed to a sink and, if I can help it, Hank Nightingale wil be a memory. He deserves better than me.

I just hope I can figure out a way to make Hank agree.

Chapter Two

Whisky

This is how it began.

* * * * *

A few months ago Uncle Tex wrote to me about some folks he met, one of whom gave him his first job since Vietnam. He’d had it rough, readjusting when he got back from ‘Nam. He spent some time doing time and was living meagerly off a smal inheritance (including a house) he got from a childless uncle who’d taken a liking to him, supplementing the inheritance by cat sitting. If you could believe it (I couldn’t when I read it), Uncle Tex was now making espresso drinks at a used bookstore and coffee house cal ed Fortnum’s. My Uncle Tex had been incarcerated for hunting down and then nearly beating a drug dealer to death. Now, several decades later, he was making fancy schmancy coffee.

How weird was that?

He seemed to like it and his letters were fil ed with stories about al the people that worked there and the regulars who came in, especial y the lady who owned it, India Savage (but, according to Uncle Tex, folks cal ed her Indy).

In his letters, I could tel that Uncle Tex liked everyone, especial y Indy (and, lately, another girl named Jet). He said Indy had “spunk” and Uncle Tex liked spunk. He also liked mettle, which he told me Jet had, even though (he said) she didn’t know it. Lastly, he liked sass which he said another girl he worked with, Al y, had (apparently, in abundance). In his letters, I could also tel that this Indy person had kind of adopted Uncle Tex and that it was changing him, for the good.

So, I worked Denver into my plan, thinking maybe this Indy had performed some magic and Uncle Tex wouldn’t close the door in my face (like he did with my Grams when she tried to visit al those times, and with my Mom, when she and my aunts went with Grams al those times).

Therefore, I decided to add a second agenda item to my plan, getting Uncle Tex back to the family: kil ing two birds with one stone.