Rock Chick Regret (Rock Chick #7)(40)

Everyone but Indy and Lee were in front of them, I walked behind them, Indy and Lee behind me.

A few steps from the living room door I decided it was time. I had my opportunity so I stopped and turned to Lee.

“Can I talk to you a second?” I asked.

Lee and Indy stopped. Lee’s eyes came to me and he nodded.

Indy said, “I’ll just –”

My gaze swung to her and I interrupted, “No, it’s okay. You can stay. This won’t take long.”

Indy nodded but she took Lee’s hand and it looked like she was bracing. Lee just kept watching me.

Throughout dessert, I practiced what I was going to say so I was ready.

I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, looked at Lee and said, “I’ve spent my life around bad people. Bad people that did things to hurt other people and they had no regrets.”

“Sadie –” Lee started.

“Please, hear me out.”

Lee stopped talking.

“It was hard, living in that world,” I told him.

He was silent. Indy was silent. I went on.

“It would be harder living in a world where a good person blamed himself for what a bad person did.” I paused then delivered my grand finale, what I thought was rather decisively (if I did say so myself), “You share no responsibility for what happened to me.”

Immediately Lee said, “I appreciate that but it doesn’t change the fact that I –”

I interrupted, “You hold onto this regret it’s going to…”

Now what did I say?

I didn’t expect Lee to do anything but feel off the hook. He was messing up my grand finale! I didn’t think to practice different responses to his possible responses! Why couldn’t he just agree and let it go so we could go have coffee?

This being nice to people was hard.

Oh well, I just had to make it up. “It’s going to be… ” I searched for a word. “Very um…” come on Sadie! “Upsetting,” I finished.

Both Indy and Lee were staring at me.

I was spent, I had no more but I didn’t feel it was appropriate to walk away.

Finally Lee grinned and said, “I wouldn’t want to upset you.”

His tone was bizarre. Then it hit me that he was teasing me.

Yes, teasing me.

The Ice Princess reared her head. “Well. Yes. See that it doesn’t happen.”

For some reason what I said made Lee burst out laughing. It made Indy do the same.

They laughed right in the face of the Ice Princess!

How bizarre was that?

Lee moved in (shattering my Ice Fortress, by the way), threw his arm around my shoulders and walked me into the living room, Indy following.

“I’ll see it doesn’t happen again,” he said, still sounding like he was teasing. Then he said, “I promise.”

Startled at the change in tone, I looked up at him. He was no longer teasing, he was very serious.

Before I could react, he deposited me at Hector’s side. Hector lifted his brows at me.

I pulled my lips between my teeth. Hector saw I wasn’t going to share and he sighed.

Thirty minutes later, we left.

It was finally over.

And I survived.

Thank goodness.

Chapter Seven

Okay

Sadie

After Blanca’s dinner, when Hector and I arrived back at the brownstone, my mind was on other things, loads of other things.

Therefore, I didn’t protest when he walked me up to the door, took the keys from my hands, unlocked and opened the door for me and, with his hand on the small of my back again, guided me inside.

Automatically, I turned to the alarm panel and hit the code, flipped the hall light switch then turned back to Hector.

For some bizarre reason, he was looking up the stairs.

Then he looked at me. “Stay here, by the door, until I come back.”

I only had time to blink at him before he was gone, taking the stairs two at a time.

What on earth was he doing?

I did what I was told, standing by the door, feeling like an idiot and he came back.

I opened my mouth to speak but before I uttered a noise, he walked right by me, through the hall, his hand raised, index finger pointed skyward and muttered, “One more minute.”

I stared at his departing back then heard as he walked around downstairs. A light came on in the living room and Hector reappeared. He walked to the end of the hall, opened the door to the powder room, I saw the light go on then off then he came out, closed the door and came back to me.

“Okay,” he said, reached around me, locked the front door then grabbed my hand and pulled me in the living room.

“What was that?” I asked his back.

He stopped and turned to me. Shrugging off his jacket, he threw it on an armchair. “Walkthrough. Making sure no one was here.”

My head did a surprised little shake as I threw my bag on the chair, took off my trench and tossed it on the chair with my bag.

“But,” I reminded him, “the alarm was on.”

He got in close, lifted a hand and while he shifted my hair off my shoulder, he explained, “Can’t be too careful.”

“Oh,” I said because there was nothing else to say and anyway I was recovering from the shifting-the-hair-off-my-shoulder move.