Brody.
It had to be Brody. Darius wouldn’t talk. How I’d kept Brody’s mouth shut as long as I did was a miracle. But that miracle had ended.
Not surprising.
I had no idea when the news hit what I’d get, if they knew about my activities, or Ren, or both.
I suspected both, considering the number of phone calls I had and the news Brody received that morning about Ren and me.
But, at the very least, a bomb blast was hard to miss.
Before I could reply to Tex, Daisy shoved up to the front. “And Ren was up there with you. And Ren was at your apartment with you when it exploded. And Ren was walking out of Lee’s office two seconds ago and he was doin’ it with you.”
At her last two words, her mass of platinum blonde hair was shaking and she’d planted her hands on her hips.
In other words, I’d hit the Daisy Danger Zone.
But Daisy wasn’t done.
“And just so you know, you take a swing at a hot guy at a Rock Chick wedding then disappear—completely—we know you’re off doin’ the nasty, as in the angry nasty, which is some of the best nasty you can get,” she declared.
She was not wrong. I knew this because Ren and I had existed almost entirely on the angry nasty for going on a year.
She was also still not done.
“And you know, when you’re doin’ the nasty, we know all about that nasty!”
She wasn’t wrong about that either.
She kept going. “But you’re zipped tight for months, like you totally forget you make everyone else spill. Well, sugar,” she leaned in and her eyes narrowed, “the time has come for you to spill. Comprende?”
I’d already comprende’d.
Before I could explain this to Daisy, Tex started up again.
“Don’t give a shit about that. Her apartment exploded,” he said to Daisy then looked on me. “I’m in on whatever that shit is. Starting now.”
I opened my mouth to say something to Tex or Daisy or all the Rock Chicks, but I ended up looking at Indy and just calling, “Indy?”
Everyone looked at Indy.
Indy just looked at me.
Then she opened her mouth to speak as the door flew open.
Ren was there and he didn’t delay in cutting a swathe through the Rock Chicks, gay guys, Tex, Duke and Smithie.
He grabbed my hand and turned to the group. Everyone’s eyes dropped to our hands. Some of them widened, some mouths fell open.
They looked back at Ren when he commenced in giving a Macho Alpha Speech.
“Ally and I have been together a year,” he declared.
He also ignored the gasps, big eyes and Sadie whispering, “A year?”, and kept talking.
“She had her reasons for keepin’ that from you. She also had her reasons for doin’ other things and keepin’ that from you. Now it’s all out and you want answers. But you’ll wait until she’s ready to give them to you, which will be sometime after I take my woman out to dinner. So you’ll hold your shit until Ally’s ready. Is that understood?”
Apparently it wasn’t, and this was proved when Roxie asked, “Do you actually think that’s going to work?”
Ren said nothing, but he leveled his gaze on Roxie.
Roxie pressed her lips together and gave big eyes to Stella. Stella bit her bottom lip, but that didn’t mean both her lips weren’t curled up in a big way.
So maybe I was wrong. It was going to work because no one else said a word.
Maybe that macho alpha gig wasn’t such a bad thing. At least it was good to know it had its uses.
Or it had its uses until Smithie spoke up.
Smithie, by the way, owned a strip club. Jet worked there as a waitress during her drama. Jet’s sister was currently the headliner there as a stripper. He was a big black guy gone slightly soft. And strip club owner or not, there was nothing “slightly” about his soft heart.
He was also a nut. Then again, the Rock Chicks, as a collection of nuts, collected their own.
“Are you sayin’ her apartment just exploded not two hours ago and you two are goin’ on a date?” he asked, brows raised, eyes big.
“That’s what I’m saying,” Ren confirmed, then muttered, “We’re done here.” And he made that statement true by dragging me through the Rock Chicks and out the door.
But as I went, I locked eyes with Indy and mouthed, Are we cool?
She just watched me go and gave me nothing.
*
In Ren’s bathroom, I spritzed with perfume, set it aside and looked at myself in the mirror.
After the Rock Chick Confrontation, I’d spoken with the police in reception at Lee’s office for five minutes, giving them my semi-statement, which was only semi seeing as I had no involvement in the activities, outside my apartment exploding, so I had nothing to give them that The Kevster hadn’t already provided.
Then Ren had guided me to his Jag and we left.
He took me straight to Cherry Creek Mall, valet parked (total class) then dragged me to Nordstrom’s. There, he found a comfortable chair, pulled out his credit card and handed it to me.