“Be there soon as we can.”
We disconnected and I flipped my phone shut. I opened the zipper on my bag and saw that Mom didn’t do too badly though she didn’t exactly follow directions. There were jeans and a goodly amount of my silver to chose from but instead of any old tee, she picked an army green, boat-necked, long-sleeved tee with tiny orange and hot pink flowers flowing from the hem at one side to come up in a swirl on the midriff. She’d decided against flip-flops and added a pair of dark brown, suede shoes with a peek-a-boo notch in the toe, a high, thin, wedge heel and a thin strap around the ankle. As a finishing touch, Mom threw in a matching brown suede belt with a heavy, oval, silver buckle.
Okay, so she wasn’t exactly an Entirely New Mom but she was a Somewhat New-ish Mom. She had put in the jeans. I wasn’t going to quibble.
I got dressed, put on my silver, strapped on the shoes and went to the bathroom to do something with my hair. Mom had stocked me with comb, hair products, travel-sized face stuff, loose powder, mascara, blusher, deodorant and perfume, most of which was probably hers because mine was scattered to the four corners (read: at Luke’s and at Roxie’s).
I did my best with what I had, considering the cut lip and black eye were still there (but finally fading) and was walking into the bedroom when my phone rang.
I flipped it open. “Yo.”
“What’s this about breakfast?”
It was Shirleen.
“Hey Shirleen. Did Ally call you?”
“Fuck no. Luke told me before he took off. I’m in the lobby and I’m hungry. Matt’s comin’ up to your room. Get your ass in gear.”
I couldn’t help it, I started smiling. “All right, keep your pants on. We’ll be down in a second.”
“Be snappy.”
Disconnect.
There was a knock on the door before I completely flipped the phone shut. I shoved it in the back pocket of my jeans as I walked to the door. It started ringing again but I ignored it while I opened the door. I had a smile of greeting for Matt on my face.
The problem was, it wasn’t Matt knocking on the door.
It was Noah.
Fuckity, fuck, fuck, fuck!
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Convoy, Chaos and Cookies
“My life sucks,” I told Noah.
He pulled a gun out of the pocket of his jacket and pointed it at me.
I stared at it. “You have got to be kidding me,” I said.
“Not even fuckin’ close,” Noah replied
My cell in my back pocket quit ringing just as the phone in the room started ringing. I didn’t have a chance to do anything about it as Noah grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the room. The door closed behind me, shutting out the sound of the ringing phone.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Noah answered.
He didn’t know?
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“I mean I don’t know, shut up. We’re takin’ a ride.”
We were walking toward the elevators, Noah’s hand on my arm pushing me in front of him. One elevator dinged, it opened, Matt walked out and halted when he saw us. His body went tense and within a second Quick Draw Matt had a gun. I didn’t even see where he got it. He just had it trained on Noah.
Eek!
“Let her go,” Matt demanded and any normal person would obey him mainly because he sounded scary, not to mention he had a gun. This surprised me because I didn’t think he had it in him to sound that scary. Sure, he was a hottie with a great body but he didn’t seem as badass as the rest of the boys. At his tone I realized I was wrong about that. Way wrong.
Noah had his gun pointed at my back. When he saw Matt’s gun, he moved it to my temple.
Uh-oh.
“Back off,” Noah said.
Matt’s eyes were at my temple, his mouth went tight, he took two steps back and we took two steps forward.
“Call the elevator,” Noah ordered and I suspected he was talking to me mainly because he still had my arm in his hand and he shook me. I tagged the elevator and it opened immediately.
Matt didn’t take his eyes off us and I didn’t take my eyes off him as Noah backed us into the elevator all the while turned to face the doors.
Matt stood outside the doors, eyes on me and they were active which I took as a good sign mainly because, at that point, I was holding on to anything I could get.
The doors closed.
Shit!
Noah took the gun from my head and put it to my back again.
“Noah, this is a bad idea.” I told him.
“I think you know by now, Ava, that my name is Walt,” he replied.
“Okay then, Walt, this is a bad idea,” I repeated.
“Got no leverage. They messed up Kurt, they messed him up bad. Motherfuckers. They aren’t gonna mess me up. Fuck that. You’re the only leverage I got. They won’t come near me if I got you.”
I wasn’t certain that was true. “Noah, I mean Walt, I’ll talk to Luke. Just let me –”
“Time to talk to Stark was after I taped you to a post.”