Rock Chick Rescue (Rock Chick #2)(114)

“Says Eddie,” I answered.

She cocked her head a bit and nodded. “What’d I say about the coffee maker?”

Wonderful.

* * * * *

Shirleen lived in a gated community; new, big, fancy homes built so close to each other you could pass the gravy through the window to the neighbors next door. Stil , they were better than anything I’d ever lived in so I suspected running a bar with a poker table in the back paid well . Daisy, Matt and I marched up to the house (wel , Matt didn’t march, after listening the whole way to Daisy talk a mile a minute, bouncing around subjects ranging the scope of revenge threats to skincare tips, he fol owed us looking like he’d much rather be anywhere else, in the middle of another shoot out, having his nails yanked out by the roots, anywhere).

Daisy rapped on the door and within seconds, it opened.

Darius stood there.

What in the hell?

“What are you doing here?” I asked, too shocked at his presence to be polite.

“Shirleen’s family,” he answered, obviously not surprised at my surprise.

Wonderful.

Only I’d get a scary drug dealer’s family member conked unconscious while my shit went down.

My f**king luck.

I couldn’t dwel , I just had to go with it.

“Can we talk to her?” I asked.

He stepped wide and we marched through.

Half a dozen people were hanging around in the living room/kitchen open plan area that had high, cathedral ceilings. They al watched as we strol ed in.

Shirleen was lying on a big, poofy couch decorated in bold black swirls against a white background. It made me dizzy just looking at it.

She looked fine, but how would I know, I was no nurse.

“Hey Shirleen,” Daisy said.

“Hey Daisy-girl,” Shirleen replied, a big smile on her face, then her eyes slid to me and the smile died.

I didn’t take that as a good sign.

I didn’t know what to say, so I said, “Hey Shirleen.”

“What happened to your head?” she asked.

I looked to Daisy, then back to Shirleen. “Fratel i held me at gun point. I got grazed trying to get away.” Her eyes grew wide, then her lips went thin.

“You okay?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Head hurts and I’m pissed off, other than that, fine.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“What you sorry for?”

If she didn’t know, I wasn’t certain I wanted to enlighten her.

Oh well , in for a penny, in for a pound.

“It’s my fault you were hurt.”

At that, she burst out laughing.

“Girl, you got a screw loose. You hit me on the head?”

“No,” I said.

“Don’t you worry about Shirleen, Shirleen can take care of herself. If she can’t, she’l find someone who can.” That’s when Shirleen looked to Darius.

“You know ‘bout Jet gettin’ shot?” she asked.

He nodded.

“That’s it, son, you hear what I’m sayin’ to you?” He nodded again, this time his lips were turned up a little at the ends.

Something scary was going on and I knew it was the truth when Matt tensed and Daisy’s wide eyes swung to me.

“Shirleen,” Daisy said, turning back to Shirleen, “I got Marcus on the case.”

“Wel , then, I got Darius on the case. This is good, this means them stupid-ass motherf*ckers won’t get away, wil they? Think they can f**k around at Shirleen’s table, shoot my friends, I don’t think so.”

No.

No, no, no.

I mean, okay, I liked it that Shirleen wasn’t mad at me and thought of me as a friend but I figured we were talking about someone getting whacked. Although I wanted my problems to go away, and I wanted the fix to be permanent, I wasn’t ready for that.

“What are we talking about here?” I asked.

Shirleen opened her mouth to speak but Daisy cut in,

“Her man is Eddie Chavez.”

Shirleen’s mouth snapped shut and her eyes grew wide.

Wonderful. Now, Eddie was “my man”.

I took in a deep breath.

Whatever.

“Real y, I can’t…” I started to say.

“Shut your mouth, get yourself an iced tea and sit your ass down. We’re gonna watch Days of Our Lives.” Without further ado, she flipped on the TV and someone handed me an iced tea. I was a little too scared of Shirleen to disobey her order to watch Days of Our Lives, even though I had other things to do, a lot of other things, like tel Eddie that I was pretty certain I just saw Shirleen give the order for Vince Fratel i to be whacked. Instead, I walked forward and sat down in a chair that was upholstered in Barney the Dinosaur purple.

Shirleen’s eyes watched Matt and Darius move toward the door.

“She’s got Nightingale’s protection,” Daisy said, settling in on the migraine couch at Shirleen’s feet with her own iced tea.

“Figured that after I heard his army swept through last night. That boy rocketed straight from wild child to badass motherf*cker, now he scares the shit out me.” I was a little surprised to hear Lee could scare the shit out of Shirleen.