Rock Chick Renegade (Rock Chick #4)(88)

For some reason though, throughout breakfast, Tod argued with Roxie (not Indy) about all things wedding. This argument took the form of Tod saying what was going to happen and Roxie saying whatever Tod said was going to happen wasn’t going to happen with a lot of, “We’ve been here before, Tod.”

Indy ignored them and gabbed with the rest of us about her and Lee’s plans to go to Lee’s cabin in Grand Lake for Thanksgiving; whether something big was going to happen between Tex and Jet’s mom (apparently, Tex was Roxie’s uncle and that would make Jet and Roxie related by marriage, I was learning this was an incestuous group); and a lengthy discussion about Luke and my conversation last night.

Indy confirmed that all the guys on the team knew about my cherry popping.

At this news I ordered another mimosa.

“Men think virginity is hot,” Ally assured me after I’d given the waitress my order.

“Maybe for eighteen year olds, not for twenty-six, nearly twenty-seven year olds,” I told her.

“No… um, they just think it’s hot,” Indy put in, “even Lee thought it was hot.”

I stared at her.

“Yeah, Eddie thought it was hot too,” Jet shared.

I turned my head and my eyes bugged out at Jet. “How does Eddie know? He’s not even a member of the team.”

She just looked at Indy and kept her mouth shut. Lee had told Eddie.

These guys.

“Hank knows too,” Roxie decided to stop arguing with Tod and enter our conversation. I actually felt the blood drain from my face when I looked at her. “For the record, he also thinks it’s hot.”

That was it. “I’m moving to Nicaragua,” I announced.

“Oh Sugar, it ain’t that bad,” Daisy threw in. “Vance thought it was hot.”

That was true, Vance thought it was hot – for about a day (okay, maybe two).

I caught the waitress and doubled my mimosa order.

“You should know pretty much everyone is pissed at Vance for leaving you,” Indy said after I finished my bid for a drunken stupor.

“He didn’t leave me. I broke up with him,” I reminded her.

“They don’t look at it that way. They figure if he wanted you, he could have, you know, talked you out of it,” Indy went on.

I was thinking, deep down inside where I didn’t want to go, they were right. Any thinking about Vance made my heart hurt so I pushed it aside.

“It’s better this way,” I told them all.

They just stared at me and I knew they didn’t believe me.

Whatever.

Time to talk about something else.

I turned to Tod. “I like tangerine and chocolate for wedding colors,” I lied.

Tod’s eyes got wide and happy.

“Oh shit,” Ally muttered.

“Do not even go there,” Roxie warned, eyes narrowing on Tod.

The discussion soon got heated.

I was off the hook.

* * * * *

I went to training with Luke and nearly at the end of our hour’s session I dropped him to his back with me on top.

“Yee ha!” I shouted in his face, sitting astride him, chest pressed to his.

“What do you do now?” Luke asked, hands at my hips, mini-half-grin on his lips.

“I don’t know,” I sat up, “maybe this?” Then I swung my arms out in front of me in a continuous loop and chanted, “Go Jules, go Jules, go Jules.”

The door opened, my head swung to it in an oh-my-God-not-Vance panic and I saw Mace walking in wearing a white tee with some surfer design on the front and black track pants with white stripes up the side. He looked at us on the floor, face blank like every day he walked into the down room and saw a woman astride Luke.

Maybe he did.

Then I was flipped onto my back and Luke was on top.

“Hey!” I snapped. “I was celebrating.”

“Probably you should celebrate after you’ve incapacitated your target,” he told me.

“I was thinking you might want to have a family one day,” I returned.

He laughed in my face. I frowned in his.

“Babe, you weren’t even close. Though, you wanna be, I’d give it a shot.”

“Stop flirting with me,” I snapped.

“Stop bein’ so cute,” he shot back.

The treadmill came on and both of us looked to it and saw Mace jogging. It was then I realized I was lying on the floor with Luke on top of me having a conversation.

Damn.

“Don’t mind me,” Mace said, face no longer blank. I didn’t know him very well and he normally looked like he was in a bad mood (Mace was Mr. Seriously Broody Hot Guy Badass) but now he looked like he was going to laugh.

“You have a big mouth,” I told him, turning my snit on him.

He jacked up the speed on the treadmill and the jog went to a run. He was completely unaffected by my snit.

“Too good not to share,” was all he said, knowing exactly what I was talking about.

“You’re on my list,” I said to Mace and then looked at Luke, “you too.”

“What list?” Luke asked.

“My Annoying Men I’m Going to Kill List.”

Luke rolled to his side and came up on an elbow. He was flat out smiling now.