But this was sissy behavior and not me. However, I allowed myself this bubble of happiness with Ren without letting the world intrude as he drove his sleek, high performance machine through the beauty of the Colorado Mountains.
He did this, by the way, almost the whole time holding my hand against his thigh. Yes, the fact that I loved this was more romantic girlie than Rock Chick, but who cares? A hotheaded Italian badass loved me. This required being romantic girlie on occasion.
And I picked that one.
But it was time to stop being a sissy and face the music.
So I hit the button to turn on my phone and found I had fifty-seven missed calls and thirty-three voicemails.
“Shit,” I hissed.
“What’re you lookin’ at?” Ren asked, having been around the Rock Chicks enough to know what I was facing.
“Fifty-seven missed calls and thirty-three voicemails,” I told him.
Ren started laughing.
I didn’t find it funny and found it less funny when I went to my Recents list, scrolled down and saw the vast majority of calls were not from the Rock Chicks, snippy and calling to ream me because I didn’t share.
They were from Lee, Hank and Eddie.
Not good.
Those three were also the vast majority of voicemails.
Also not good.
I turned off my phone and shoved it in my purse as Ren pulled into the parking lot of my complex. I did this deciding that maybe I could still be a sissy for a little while longer.
Ren parked. I put my hand to the handle but stopped and turned to him when I felt his fingers curl around my knee.
“We go up, you pack enough to stay at my place awhile, but you make sure you got a variety of dresses and heels,” he ordered and I bit back a smart mouth retort at him being bossy. It took me so long to do that, he was able to keep talking. “And you do that shit fast.”
At bossy part two, I failed in biting back the smart mouth and asked, “Should I salute when you issue an order? Or will nodding and instant compliance do?”
He grinned and replied, “No salutes. No nods. But you could kiss me.”
I gave him a look.
He kept grinning.
I decided to throw out a deal that he couldn’t refuse.
“I’ll kiss you, and comply with your order, if you do me a favor.”
His fingers gave my knee a squeeze and he asked, “What do you need?”
I dug in my purse, got out my wallet and opened it. I found the little pocket that had absolutely no use. A pocket I put a use to. I snapped it open and pulled out what was inside.
I dumped the wallet back in my purse, turned to Ren and lifted my hand between us.
Then I dropped the guitar pendant and it bounced between us from where I held the chain.
“What I need is for you to put this on me,” I said quietly and Ren’s eyes moved from the pendant to me.
His voice was rough when he stated, “You carried it with you.”
“Yes.”
“Always?”
I took a breath in through my nose.
Then I nodded and whispered, “Always.”
His eyes stayed locked to mine, heated and intense, before he grinned and declared, “I was so in there.”
I palmed the necklace and snapped, “Zano, do you want me pissed at you?”
“Semi-sweet Ally, just seein’ how far she goes,” he replied.
“You reached the end, mister,” I returned, twisted to exit the vehicle but instead found myself in Ren’s lap, wedged between him and his steering wheel.
Oh, and he was kissing me.
I decided to forgive him and kissed him back.
Then kissing turned into making out.
After we were done doing that, he put the necklace on me.
When the guitar was dangling in the dent of my collarbone, Ren touched it as his eyes watched.
He lifted his gaze to mine and stated, “You do know you aren’t bullshitting me. There is no semi-sweet Ally. She’s pure honey all the way through.”
I slid my fingers along the dark stubble at his jaw and whispered, “Don’t tell anybody.”
“Baby, your secret’s safe with me.”
I smiled at him.
He smiled back, touched his mouth to mine and deposited my ass in my seat.
We got out of his car and walked hand in hand into my complex and up the stairs.
I was in my head. Precisely what I was thinking up there was which dresses and heels I was going to pack to take to Ren’s.
On the way home, we’d made the deal that we were going to try this together togetherness, not fuck around and not delay. That meant me staying at Ren’s (because, seriously, his house was awesome; he even had a sauna in his bathroom).
This also meant me meeting his mom and two sisters, him meeting my family not as Ren, a member of the Zano Crime Family, but as Ren, the boyfriend of me, and me sitting down to dinner with Vito and his wife Angela.
None of this scared me. Vito liked me. Ren loved me and he was the kind of guy who, if he made that decision, even if his mom and sisters didn’t like me, they’d have to deal. As for my family, Ren was Ren and his family was his family and mine were who they were and usually this would be a Romeo and Juliet type of scenario. But I wasn’t big on Shakespeare so my family was also just going to have to deal.