I asked, “Where’s your date?”
“I was worried about you. You weren’t pickin’ up your phone. Dropped her and came to you.”
Again.
Why couldn’t he be a dick?
Seriously.
“You still don’t look good, baby,” he whispered, and it happened.
What happened was something that never happened. Not to me. I was a Nightingale. I was a cop’s daughter. I was the daughter of a cop’s wife. I was tough. It was born in me and bred in me.
So it took serious shit, like Indy marrying my brother—something she and I both wanted since forever—to make me lose it.
But right then, I lost it.
I felt it happen and had no hope of stopping it. The wet forming in my eyes, making my vision bright. Then the tear breaking loose and gliding down my cheek. Then one on the other side.
“Ally,” Ren murmured, eyes to my cheeks.
“I was mean to her,” I whispered.
His eyes came to mine.
“Baby,” Ren whispered back.
Another tear.
“I was mean to her, and that night, she was raped.”
“Honey.”
Another tear. “She looks like a fairy princess and she was raped.”
Then I totally lost it, taking two steps back to escape at the same time I stupidly lifted my hands to cover my face and hide my emotion (which would make escaping difficult, seeing as I couldn’t see).
But I got no further.
The light from the hall was extinguished because Ren was inside, and I knew this because I was being held tight in his arms.
As I felt the strength of his arms surrounding me, the heat from his body penetrating, one of those hiccoughing sobs burned up my throat and made my body buck in his embrace.
God!
I so totally hated crying!
His arms separated, one going low and again tight around my waist. The other one moved so his hand could stroke my back and I heard him encourage into the top of my hair, “Talk to me.”
I didn’t know why I did it. I just knew I needed to do it and he was the only one around.
So I did it.
I pressed my hands and face into his chest and let it all hang out.
“I thought she’d been mean to Daisy. I thought she hated Hector. And I came to Lee’s office the day she came to Lee’s office to ask for his protection.” My head shot back and I cried, “And I was mean!”
His hand soothingly stroking my back (and I had to admit, I’d lost it, but it still was soothing) moved to cup my jaw and he replied, “I know what went down with Daisy and Sadie, and also Sadie and Hector, and Sadie’s not the kind of girl who lets people in. So at the time, honey, you couldn’t think anything different.”
“She got raped that night, Ren!” I stated loudly.
“I know, baby,” he said comfortingly.
“Now she’s a Rock Chick and you heard her tonight!” I kept talking loudly, tears sliding from my eyes. “And I haven’t figured out how to make amends.”
“You and your posse taking her in and having her back is doing that, Ally,” he pointed out.
“Obviously not fast enough!” I returned. “But none of my posse was ugly to her. Except me and Shirleen, but Shirleen got her chance to make amends. Sadie even asked for her.”
And this was true. Shirleen was Darius’s aunt, Lee’s receptionist, and also a Rock Chick of the Daisy variety (which meant she wasn’t attached to a Hot Bunch boy, but she was a Rock Chick all the same).
She’d been snippy with Sadie that day. But when Sadie finally reported her rape, she’d asked for Shirleen to be there.
“Ally, baby, what happened with Sadie tonight didn’t have anything to do with you.”
“I know that,” I snapped, yanking out of his arms and taking a step away. “But she…” I shook my head. “God, that monster broke her wrist. Gashed her face. Made her feel tawdry.”
“Come back to me, honey,” Ren urged.
I shook my head again. “No. I can’t.” I stopped talking, started pacing then kept babbling. “I have to sort this out in my head.”
I continued pacing and Ren didn’t say anything.
This didn’t last very long before he said something.
“Jesus, you really can’t deal with being mean,” Ren murmured incredulously.
I stopped pacing and whipped around to face him. It was dark but I still could feel he was watching me.
“Not to someone who doesn’t deserve it!” I yelled. “I’m all for a smackdown if a bitch is a bitch. But Sadie is no bitch.”
“No, she’s not,” Ren agreed cautiously.
“So that means I kicked a sister when that sister was low. I don’t do that shit, Zano.”
“Fuck, you’re back to Zano,” he muttered.
“What?” I asked sharply.
“Nothing, honey. Just come here, will you?”
I shook my head again. “No. I…” my eyes narrowed on him and I re-asked an earlier question. “What are you doing here?”
He gave me the same answer. “I was worried about you.”
“You ditched your date because you were worried about me?”
“Yes,” he answered immediately.
Shit.
What did I do with that?