Rock Chick Regret (Rock Chick #7)(178)

We fought about the furniture because I wanted to help pay.

He refused.

I pushed it.

We came to a stalemate.

Days later, in bed, he held off letting me finish until I begged him then he demanded I shut up about the furniture and I agreed.

Turnabout, I guessed, was fair play.

I wasn’t complaining.

The zipper went all the way down, Hector got off the bed, the dress was pulled off at my ankles and I heard the heavy material land somewhere in the room.

This should have alarmed me. The dress was velvet, it was gorgeous and it was expensive.

I didn’t lift my head.

Instead, I laid in nothing but a pair of emerald green, French cut panties on the bed.

I heard Hector’s boots then clothing hit the floor then he came back to me. I was pulled up, rolled into him, the covers yanked out from under me then snapped back over me. I settled with my head on his chest, my arm around his abs.

“Sadie, the pins in your hair are jabbing my skin.”

“Blooming heck,” I muttered, rolled with a heavy sigh to my back and started to pull the pins out of my hair.

Hector got up on an elbow and watched me.

Then he asked, “What’d we buy Hank and Roxie for their wedding?”

My hands in my hair stilled and just my eyeballs rolled to look at Hector.

Hector and I had bought Eddie and Jet a brand new kitchen for their wedding. Jet loved to cook, Eddie was fixing up their house but on a cop’s budget and with work and Rock Chick duties taking up most of his time, he’d not gotten around to giving her a new kitchen. I heard her (on several occasions) waxing poetic about how she’d love something “state-of-the-art”.

So Hector and I gave it to her.

It cost twenty thousand dollars and it made two hot-blooded Mexican-American men temporarily lose their minds.

Jet, at first, had been shocked.

Then, when I explained myself, she’d been understanding then appreciative then gleeful.

Blanca went straight to gleeful and started hinting (broadly) that she needed a new kitchen too (Hector didn’t know it yet, but that was her Christmas present).

Jet had talked Eddie around. It took awhile but she did it.

“Um…” I answered Hector’s question.

He fell to his back, stared at ceiling and muttered, “Fuck.”

I got up on my elbow and looked down at him, hair half falling down, half still in pins.

“Hector! I’m loaded! What am I going to do with my money but spend it on friends?”

He got up on his elbow, Mr. Mood Swing fully morphed into anger and faced me. “I don’t know,” he clipped. “Save it? Put our kids through college with it? If tonight was anything to go by, we’ll need it to pay for their goddamned weddings. Fuck, knowin’ you, we’ll need every last penny to pay for ours.”

My breath went out of me in a whoosh.

Then it came back on a surge.

Then I whispered, “What?”

“You heard me,” he shot back.

I sat up and looked down at him. “Are you asking me marry you?”

He sat up and faced me. “Are you shittin’ me?”

I blinked.

Then I said, “No.”

“What do you think we’re doin’ here? Playin’ house?”

I blinked again.

“Christ, Sadie,” he clipped. “Look at my f**kin’ arm.”

I looked but I didn’t have to. He’d had the rose tattooed there months ago, within weeks of me moving in.

It was extraordinary, the stem, the leaves, the petals all exquisitely drawn and filled in with vibrant colors. It had taken two goes, the outline first then, weeks later, after that healed, the filling in.

My heart fluttered then my belly fluttered then I whispered, “Hector –”

“What’d we get Hank and Roxie?” he ground out, interrupting me.

I decided just to answer and get it over with.

“It didn’t cost as much as the kitchen,” I told him.

“What’d we get?” he repeated.

“Nowhere near as much as the kitchen,” I said for good measure.

He gave me The Scorch.

I sighed.

“We bought them a full set of Mikasa china.”

Hector just kept giving me The Scorch.

“Twelve place settings,” I went on.

He continued The Scorch.

“And… um… serving dishes.”

More Scorch.

“And their silver.”

Still more Scorch.

“With the hostess set.”

More Scorch.

“That’s it,” I finished.

He dropped to his back, muttering, “Dios mio.”

I pulled my lips in then my hands went back to my hair and I yanked out the rest of the pins.

While I did this, Hector laid with the back of his arm over his eyes, the rose tattoo on full display.

I shook my fingers through my hair then leaned into him, reaching to the nightstand, I dropped the pins on it and then settled with my chest on his.

“Hector,” I called.

Silence and no movement.

“Maybe we should…” I hesitated, not sure if now was the right time, “talk about what I did for Christmas.”