Rock Chick Renegade (Rock Chick #4)(148)

I informed him of this but he just grinned at me.

* * * * *

A couple of days after I was moved from ICU, in the middle of the night I heard weird noises.

Considering hospitals weren’t the most restful places in the world, I suspected some doctor or nurse was there to check up on me. Instead I saw Vance and Hector in a death-lock at the door, torsos together, legs planted. Clearly Hector was trying to get in and just as clearly Vance didn’t feel like allowing that.

“Vance,” I whispered and both men froze in death-lock position and looked at me, “let him in.”

“Princess,” Vance said low.

“Let him in.”

Vance hesitated a moment then stepped out of the death-lock but he didn’t pretend to be happy about it and Hector approached the bed.

“I didn’t know about Shard,” Hector told me the minute he hit my bedside and I noticed he also hadn’t gone to etiquette school to learn you should start a conversation with words like, “hi”, “hello” or “glad to see you aren’t dead”.

“I know,” I told him.

“I thought Roam wouldn’t want one of Lee’s boys saving him from Cordova. Cordova was a moron, Roam would lose face. I thought he’d prefer you to take care of it.”

“I know,” I repeated.

“If I’d have known –”

“I was cocky,” I broke in and my eyes slid to Vance who’d moved to the other side of my bed. I didn’t exactly want him to know this part since it might piss him off. However, I also didn’t want Hector to go on blaming himself for something that was my fault.

I went on. “Earlier that night, I’d had too much to drink and I didn’t tell you that. I walked right in. I didn’t think. I saw Roam and just went in. It wasn’t your fault. It was mine. I didn’t think.”

“I shouldn’t have –” Hector began.

“You did the right thing, I didn’t. Please don’t worry about it. It was my fault.”

He stared at me a beat and I stared back noticing, even though he still was in undercover-disheveled-mode (and seriously needed a haircut but who was I to say all that thick, dark hair needed to be cut, mainly because, longish and messy, it looked hot), he was a seriously good-looking guy. He had Eddie’s edge, the one that made you wonder about him, made you think he could turn to the dark side in a nanosecond.

Eddie had it under control. Hector did not.

After we stared at each other awhile, he nodded and left without even a glance at Vance.

When the door closed behind him, Vance said, “Jules.”

My gaze slid to him, I took one look at his face and then I closed my eyes.

“I need an angel nap,” I said and I wasn’t lying. I did need an angel nap. I also needed an excuse to avoid a Vance Lecture and that’s where angel naps came in handy.

Before I slid into my angel nap, I heard, “Jesus, you’re a pain in the ass.”

* * * * *

Second, Roam was released before I was, for some reason to Shirleen who the hospital thought was his grandmother (a fact that Andy came from the Shelter to confirm, lying like a pig in mud).

The bullet had hit Roam in his right side, luckily missing any vital organs. He was motionless on the floor because on his way down he smashed his head against Cordova’s coffee table and it knocked him out. So not only was he beaten bloody and shot, he also had a serious concussion.

During a visit to me, Sniff explained that Roam didn’t feel much like letting Shirleen mother him during his convalescence at her house. This was mainly because Shirleen wasn’t a motherly-type person who cooed and spoiled and ran herself ragged making certain that Roam had every comfort. Instead, she told Roam what to do, like, a lot. Things like rest and study with Stu (who came over to work with Roam and Sniff) and not to fill his head with too much junk by watching television but instead she gave him books to read. I knew it freaked out Sniff but Roam put up with Shirleen, then again he was probably scared not to.

Where Roam went, Sniff went, so Sniff was staying with Shirleen too.

When Roam was fit enough to take to the streets again, Shirleen told both him and Sniff they were welcome to stay as long as they liked.

They told me since Shirleen lived in “one phat crib” they decided to stay awhile even if staying with her had rules.

It was a long time later that I realized that during all of Roam and Sniff’s visits they never cursed.

Not once.

* * * * *

By the way, Roam and I never talked about it, him trying to save my life and me taking two bullets to save his.

However once, while I was still in the hospital, I caught him looking at me funny. I grabbed his hand and mine went tight.

So did his.

For a second.

Then he pulled away.

With a fifteen year old runaway that was all that needed to be said and it was the best he would allow me to give him and it was the best I was going to get.

I was happy with that.

* * * * *

Needless to say I wasn’t pregnant. I’d asked a nurse in a quiet moment and she told me there was bleeding, what kind of bleeding she couldn’t say.

After I got out of the hospital, my periods resumed as normal and I went right on the pill.

My body, the nurse told me, had been through too much trauma not to miscarry.