Rock Chick Revolution (Rock Chick #8)(169)

“I am,” Daisy declared, sitting her ass, encased in a skintight green skirt, down in her office chair. This afforded us a view only of a white blouse that was unbuttoned way beyond professional levels that had the added attraction of being nearly see-through, so we saw the miles of lace that was her bra. Not to mention a head of hair that needed its own area code.

Shirleen narrowed her eyes on Daisy, and I cautiously got closer to the desk.

“What’s really on your mind?” I asked Shirleen and she looked at me.

“Shit’s boring,” she decreed.

Oh man.

Tex in black woman form.

I didn’t know which was worse, but at that moment, with Shirleen close and in a pissy mood, she was.

“Everyone’s hooked up, you were the last, and you were boring,” she complained. “Sure, you stripped. And it was hot. La-di-da. But now, no more apartments exploding. No one’s left to get kidnapped. Nothin’. The boys, they take care of business. I answer the phone. I send invoices. I run payroll. Then I go home and watch TV. I didn’t sign up for that shit.”

“So you came over and picked a fight with Daisy?” I asked.

“What the hell else am I gonna do?” Shirleen asked back then leaned in. “File?”

My answer to that would be yes.

If I was insane enough to verbalize it.

I wasn’t, so instead I studied her and got closer.

My voice also dipped lower when I pressed, “Okay, Shirleen, now tell us what’s really on your mind.”

She pulled in a breath, looked at Daisy, looked at me then declared, “Sniff’s got a girlfriend.”

Oh shit.

“They’re tight. He’s never home,” she went on.

Crap.

“I never see him,” she kept going. “And when he’s home, he’s on the phone…” she paused, “with her.”

Hmm.

Momma wasn’t liking her cubs shifting away from the den.

Shirleen wasn’t done, and she saved the scariest for last.

“And we gotta have the talk, and not only do I not wanna have the talk, I don’t know how to have the talk.”

I was thinking, with Roam and Sniff (mostly Roam, but it also could be with Sniff) it was a little late for the talk as in, the sex talk. Both had been serial daters for a while, with Roam going for the world record.

I didn’t share that either.

But Daisy (as always) was in the mood to share.

She flicked a wrist and advised, “Just buy him a pack of condoms and put it on his pillow.”

“Say what?” Shirleen asked, eyes huge.

“That says it all,” Daisy answered.

“What it says is I’m down with him havin’ sex, which I am not,” Shirleen fired back.

“He’s a boy. He’s seventeen. It’s gonna happen, if it already hasn’t, sugar,” Daisy pointed out.

“He’s my boy and it’s not gonna happen until he gets what it means,” Shirleen retorted and finished, “And it has not already happened.”

Hmm.

Maternal denial.

I moved to switch subjects by asking, “What does it mean?”

She swung her gaze to me, and I successfully stopped myself from taking a step back.

“You don’t know?”

“I know what it means to me. I just don’t know what you want Sniff to know what it means,” I replied.

“You do the business with Zano. What’s that mean?” she returned.

“I said I knew what it meant to me,” I repeated, trying for patience. “I want to know what you want to share with Sniff.”

“That he should find a girl that means something to him so it will mean what it means when you do the deed with Zano. Or Indy with Lee. Mace with Stella—”

Daisy interrupted Shirleen with, “We get it.”

Shirleen looked at her. “You with Marcus.”

“Oh darlin’,” Daisy waved a hand, palm out, “to get to a Marcus, he’s gotta get in the saddle before he finds The One. And do it a lot. Comprende?”

“And maybe along the way get some silly white girl knocked up?” Shirleen shook her head. “No f**kin’ way.”

Daisy leaned toward Shirleen and put her hand to the desk, reiterating with strained patience, “That’s why you buy him a pack of condoms and put them on his goddamned pillow.”

“Uh… just saying,” I butted in, and both of them looked to me. “You don’t want to do the talk. You don’t know how to do the talk. But you know about eight guys you can call on who are tight with Sniff and found a woman where sex means what you want it to mean to Sniff who can talk to him.”

Shirleen’s eyebrows nearly hit the edge of her enormous afro. “Lordy, are you sayin’ you think one of the Hot Bunch should give my boy the sex talk?”

“That’s what I’m saying,” I confirmed.

“Are you crazy?” she asked.

“No,” I answered.

“Well, just sayin’ right back at cha, all ‘a those boys have been in the saddle so often before they got their Rock Chick, it’s a wonder none of them are bow-legged,” Shirleen remarked.

“Doin’ the business doesn’t require the man to have his legs open,” Daisy muttered, and Shirleen swung her glare to her.