Rock Chick Renegade (Rock Chick #4)(136)

“I am,” I said, stopping in front of the counter.

“What’re you doin’ here?” Heavy asked.

“Thought I’d come by, tell you in person. Then I thought maybe you guys might want to meet us for drinks later.”

They stared at me. Then they stared at each other.

“Shee-it. Crowe’s dumped her again,” Zip muttered.

Daisy giggled.

“Crowe has not dumped me,” I snapped. “And he didn’t dump me the first time. It was a misunderstanding!”

“Why aren’t you havin’ drinks with him?” Heavy asked.

“He’s in New Mexico, after a skip.”

The light dawned and both of them looked a lot less cantankerous.

“Where you goin’ for the drink?” Zip asked.

“Smithie’s,” Daisy replied.

“I’m in,” Heavy answered immediately.

“Me too,” Zip put in.

Smithie’s was a strip club. Daisy used to work there (as a stripper, pre-Marcus). Jet did too (as a cocktail waitress, pre- and start-of-Eddie but most definitely not now as Eddie wasn’t fond of the outfit the waitresses had to wear or the clientele). Jet’s sister Lottie (better known as Lottie Mac, Queen of the Corvette calendar) now worked there as a stripper and apparently the best one this side of the Mississippi, and that included Vegas. She was such a good stripper, Lottie was a local celebrity, even I had heard of her.

“We’re going to get something to eat, we’ll see you at Smithie’s after you close down the shop,” I told them.

“Later,” Heavy said.

As we walked away, we overheard Zip saying, “Loco, f**kin’ loco, what kind of women go drinking at a strip club?”

Daisy turned her head and smiled at me.

I smiled back.

* * * * *

“Oh my God,” I breathed after Lottie was done with her two song dance, “I want to be a stripper.”

Roxie giggled beside me. “That’s what everyone says.”

Lottie was gone, disappeared behind the stage. The crowd was wired, screaming for an encore. I was right with them on my feet shouting for her to come back.

She didn’t strip. I didn’t know what she did but it wasn’t stripping (though, she did dance around in fancy underwear and rip her bra off at the end).

The only way to describe it was a work of art.

We were sitting in the VIP section right up next to the stage.

When Daisy and I drove up in Daisy’s Mercedes, I thought we’d never get in. There was a velvet rope and a line clear around the building.

Daisy just walked up to the front of the line, said, “Hey Lenny,” to the huge black guy that was the bouncer and then swanned in like the place was named “Daisy’s” and not “Smithie’s”.

She went directly to a cordoned off area where Jet, Roxie, Indy, Ally, Tod and Stevie were all sitting.

Our asses no sooner hit the chairs when an older, heavyset black guy came trotting up to us.

“Smithie!” Daisy squealed with delight.

Smithie ignored her and pointed at me. “You!” he shouted even though he’d stopped not two feet away from me.

I went still and stared at him, mentally inventorying my purse for weapons. I’d so lost hold on my head crackin’ mamma jamma that the only things I could think of to use were my nail file or I could throw my panic button at him. Neither of these were likely to instil terror in his heart.

“Can I help you?” I asked, slowly standing again.

“You Law?” he shot back.

Oh shit.

I decided on silence.

“I want no trouble tonight. We’ve had our quota of bar brawls this year,” Smithie said to me.

“Smithie,” Jet put in placatingly.

Smithie’s angry gaze swung to Jet. “You were the cause of two of them,” he snapped.

“Was not!” Jet huffed. “Just one, the other one was a shooting.”

Smithie looked to the ceiling.

Jet looked at me. “No one got shot,” Jet assured me. “All the strippers jumped the shooter. It’s kinda funny if you –”

“It ain’t funny!” Smithie roared and everyone around us turned to stare.

“Smithie, Sugar, Law’s given up the street,” Daisy cut in.

“Yeah, right. Trouble follows you bitches around like the plague and more often than not, it traipses its tight ass and long legs in here. Not tonight. Got me?” Smithie declared.

“We’re just having a few drinks,” Ally said.

“See that you do.” He snapped his fingers and a waitress in a red, micro-mini and a black, skintight camisole with “Smithie’s” in red script across the front came tottering to our table on high heels.

Smithie’s eyes moved to me and he stared. I stared back.

Then he looked me up and down and asked, “You dance?”

“No!” Indy, Jet, Roxie, Tod, Ally and Stevie all said in unison.

“All right, all right. Shit,” Smithie put his hands up and then looked at me again. “Hear you’re Crowe’s woman.”

I nodded that, yes, I was Crowe’s woman.

At the thought, I grinned.

Smithie did not. “Shit. Those boys need to get their heads examined.”