That said it all.
“What’s happening?” Sadie asked, pulling Hector into the group.
Jules looked at Hector, whose black eyes were still burning, then at Sadie, who totally had sex hair (like me), before she wisely stated, “We’ll tell you later.”
“Okay,” Sadie replied and leaned into her man as he slid his arm around her shoulders.
Her eyes were bright and happy.
A shrill whistle pierced the air and we all looked in its direction.
When we did, we saw it came from Luke (also in a tux, obviously; black with black shirt and a long black tie, unlike his groomsmen who all had white shirts and ties to match the women’s dresses).
He was standing on the dance floor.
He was also crooking his finger at something.
Our heads swung in unison to the direction he was crooking, and we watched Ava wending her way through tables, her face soft, her eyes locked on her new husband.
She was wearing an ivory, chiffon column dress with a ruched strapless bodice and rows of soft, wispy, vertical ruffles falling down the skirt. The whole thing was covered with a sheen of what looked like glitter. The sides of her hair were pulled back with teacup ivory roses behind her ears, the back falling in curls.
Her dewy, peachy makeup was applied by Jet.
Her hair was done by Indy.
She made it to Luke on the dance floor. The minute she did, he grabbed her hand, turned his head to the DJ and jerked up his chin.
His intent could not be missed.
And none of us missed it.
“Holy crap,” Indy breathed.
“Oh my God,” Jet murmured.
“Holy cow,” Roxie whispered.
“Damn,” Jules sighed.
“Lordy be,” Stella husked.
“Aces,” Sadie mumbled.
“Oowee,” Shirleen chortled.
“Well, all right,” Daisy chimed.
“Righteous,” I muttered.
Luke pulled Ava into his arms.
Ava shoved her face in his neck.
Tom Petty’s “Alright for Now” started playing.
My insides melted.
Luke swayed to the music, his neck bent, cheek pressed to Ava’s hair, his new wife held close in his arms.
I curled into Ren’s front and both his arms closed around me.
Hank approached and claimed Roxie.
We all watched.
Silently.
The song lasted two minutes.
And those two minutes were two of the best minutes of my life.
Because in a function room in a kickass hotel in Denver, Colorado, watching two people I loved, two people in love, dancing to a simple beautiful song, was two minutes of experiencing sheer beauty.
Chapter Nineteen
We’re a Fuckin’ Pair
The morning after Luke and Ava’s wedding, I walked into Ren’s bedroom carrying a tray.
That morning, for the first time since our first night together, I woke up before Ren.
And I decided that this time was going to go a whole lot better.
So I walked in seeing Ren still asleep on his stomach, the bedclothes down to his waist, the smooth olive skin and defined muscles of his back bared to me.
I smiled at the sight, set the tray aside and put a knee in the bed. Then I put a hand between his shoulder blades and leaned in to kiss the indent of his spine at the small of his back.
He shifted and turned.
I lifted and looked toward his face.
“You sleep any longer, Zano, breakfast is gonna get cold,” I said as my good morning.
The brows over his sleepy eyes went up (hot) before his gaze slid to the nightstand.
I’d made French toast Roxie’s way. That was to say, with powdered sugar sweetened cream cheese sandwiched in the middle (we could just say it was good Ren cooked—he had everything in his kitchen). I’d also fried up some smoky links and cut up some strawberries with the stem still on so I could fan them on the plates, two of which, with mugs of steaming coffee, were on the tray.
It looked and smelled awesome.
His eyes came back to me. “You cook?”
I felt my brows knit. “Sure I cook.”
“You’ve never cooked for me.”
This was true. I hadn’t. I’d made toast, but that didn’t count as cooking.
I smiled, leaned in and whispered, “Lucky boy, you have a plethora of delights awaiting you.”
His eyes got hot, his arms closed around me and I found myself back to the bed, Ren on me and his tongue in my mouth.
Nice.
When his lips slid to my neck, I noted, “Baby, this gets any hotter, breakfast is gonna suck.”
He kissed my neck, lifted up, looked at me and mumbled, “Right.”
Then he touched his lips to mine, rolled off and away. I turned to my side and got up on an elbow to watch his ass as he went to the dresser and pulled out a pair of gray drawstring pajama bottoms. He tugged them on (hot) and I then watched the muscles in his back move as he walked to the bathroom (also hot).
I was in a new satin nightie the color of lemon chiffon with light blue lace (which was also hot; Roxie, Tod and Stevie set me up) as well panties. I was sitting cross-legged on the bed and had a coffee mug in my hand when Ren returned.
He joined me, back to the headboard, legs stretched out, ankles crossed, one of his thighs touching my knee. He grabbed some coffee, sucked it back then handed me a plate. I stowed my mug snug in the bed beside my hip as he nabbed his own plate, picked up the fork resting on it and looked at me.
His brown eyes were still slightly sleepy. They were also still totally hot.
“Breakfast in bed on a Sunday, baby. I like it,” he said quietly before he commenced eating.
“I’m buttering you up,” I admitted, and that was when his eyes narrowed on me.
“For what?” he asked.
“Twenty questions,” I answered.
His eyes unnarrowed, he looked back at his plate and forked into the French toast, saying, “Fire away.”
That was it. Fire away. Nothing to hide. Not with that reaction. He didn’t tense. He didn’t evade. He just said, Fire away.
I liked that.
“Actually, it’s just three questions, not twenty,” I amended, and he looked at me, chewing.
When I said no more, mouth still full, he prompted, “Yeah?”
“Why do you park in front?”
His head jerked and he swallowed. “What?”
“You have a perfectly fine garage out back. Why do you park in front?”
“Because it’s half a football field away from the house,” he answered the answer I’d guessed.
I grinned at my plate because I liked being right, and I liked it more when Ren was witty, then I forked into French toast.
“Do you wanna park in back?” Ren asked, and I looked at him. “Got remotes for the opener. You should have one anyway, and when you do you can park where you want.”
“Okay. But I’m fine in the front. I just didn’t know why you didn’t park there,” I shared.
“And this is important?” he asked.
“No,” I answered.
He stared at me then he grinned. “You always wanted to know.”
I said nothing.
“And badass Ally Nightingale, holdin’ me at arm’s length, wouldn’t let herself ask.”
I rolled my eyes even though he was right.
“I was so totally in there,” he declared.
“I think we established that, Zano,” I replied.
“Just good to know how in there I was,” he murmured, still grinning even as he bit off half a sausage link. Bite in his mouth, he asked, “What else you always wanna know, honey?”
“Do you have a gardener?”
“Yes.”
Ren Zano didn’t mulch.
Why did having that confirmed make me feel melty inside?
I didn’t ponder that.
r /> I kept going.
“You seem to have an aversion to the mall.”
His answer to that was, “Do I have a dick?”
I felt my lips curl up and I replied, “Yes, baby. You have a dick.”
“Then, yeah. I got an aversion to the mall.”
“Okay. Then how do you dress so well?” I asked.
He went back to his plate and answered, “Personal shopper.” He dug into French toast, lifted it to his mouth, chewed, swallowed and looked at me as I tried to process this surprising information. “Gotta have clothes. Don’t like shoppin’ for them. There you go.”
Interesting.
And an excellent solution to every badass’s problem of having to be clothed and being allergic to the mall.
“And, we gotta talk about this, so might as well do it now,” he started. I bit off part of my own smoky link and focused on him. “My woman’s her own woman, so I get that it’s likely gonna be important for you to feel you’re contributing. I’ll say now I’m good with covering everything until you get on your feet. I’m also cool with you making a contribution, just as long as it isn’t you making a statement that overextends what you can actually afford.”
I got what he was saying, so I told him, “I wouldn’t be good with living here without doing something, honey.”
“Right,” he replied. “Then come up with something you think you can afford, and we’ll talk about it. Yeah?”
Clearly, we were back to the easy part of this together togetherness.
Thank God.
“Yeah, Ren,” I said softly.
He grinned and went back to his plate.
I did the same and kept doing it until I heard him say, “This is delicious, baby.”
I looked at him. “It’s Roxie’s recipe for the French toast.”
“Your hand that made it.”
Again I felt melty.
God, I was totally becoming a Rock Chick.
Nevertheless, I decided breakfast in bed every Sunday until that day long in the future when Ren and I were both in a nursing home where we didn’t have kitchen privileges.
“You done with your questions?” he asked, and I nodded. When I did, he stated, “Right. Then we got something else we gotta talk about.”
I hoped whatever it was stuck with the easy vibe of our together togetherness because I was still riding the high of Ava and Luke’s wedding, the fact that I introduced Ren to Mom and Dad (eventually, between Ava and Luke’s dance and cake cutting) and they’d both acted genuinely nice instead of stiffly polite, and breakfast in bed with Ren was the bomb. I was digging easy. We hadn’t had a lot of that. And, with our personalities, this was as easy as I suspected it would get.
“What do we have to talk about?” I asked.
“What I’ve been needin’ to get down to talkin’ to you about since we got back from the mountains, just haven’t had the time.” He sucked back some coffee and finished, “Now we have the time.”
Okay.
Good.
I was happy we were getting to this. So much had been going on I hadn’t thought about it that much. That didn’t mean I wasn’t curious. Then again, I was always curious.
“Shoot,” I invited, grabbing my mug and leaning over him to deposit my plate on the bedside table.
Ren followed suit, lifted one knee and twisted partially to me.
“Shit’s goin’ down at work,” he announced.
Oh man.
This was sure to take us out of easy.
Denying what Ren and I were, having my apartment explode and the rest of all that went down, it didn’t hit me in our together togetherness that an official Ren and Ally would not only include us sharing mundane things like why he parked out front, but also non-mundane things, like how his day was at the office where he was in charge of the legitimate side of a crime empire.
Fuck.
“Okay,” I said slowly.
“And you gotta know what it is,” he went on.
“Okay,” I repeated.
“You also gotta know why it is what it is,” he continued.
I didn’t repeat an “okay.” I just nodded.
He looked away and took a sip of coffee, but something changed in his face that I did not like.
Then he looked back at me and I saw whatever it was I really didn’t like.
But it was familiar. I’d seen it before whenever he mentioned his dad.
“My mother wasn’t in the life,” he shared. “She came here from Chicago after college for a job and met my pop.”
Yep. This was going to be about his dad.
I took in a breath and nodded.
“The way Aunt Angela told it to my sister Jeannie, Ma didn’t know shit. Not until Pop took over the business from my grandfather and two weeks later got whacked.”
Holy shit!
“Then she knew,” he said.
“Wow, I, uh… honey,” I stammered, reaching out and curling a hand around his thigh. “I hadn’t heard about that. That’s terrible. Awful. I don’t know what to say.”
“Yeah. It was awful and there’s nothin’ to say. I was three. Jeannie was five. My younger sister Connie was barely a year old. Ma was fucked. She didn’t have a job. Gave it up to be a wife and mother. Young. Three kids. Then she sorted it out, why Pop was dead from a bullet to the head, and it set her reeling. She packed us up and went back to Chicago to be with her family.”
Now it was becoming clear why he wanted me to be a stay-at-home mom. That was what he knew, and I knew he loved his mother; she’d done a good job with him, so that was what he wanted for his kids.
“That’s understandable,” I murmured, squeezing his thigh.
“She made a mistake though. She took family money.”
Uh-oh.
Not good.
“In the meantime,” Ren kept going, “Vito and Angela, they couldn’t have kids. Dom was around, but he’s a fuckup and he didn’t start fuckin’ up when he started usin’ his dick for more than jerkin’ off. Vito’s all about family, in good ways as well as not so good, so he looked after Ma. He also came to visit. And he had his eye on me. Time came when he had to start to think about who’ll take over when he’s ready to retire. Me and Dom the only males, Vito old school, he decided it would be me.”
As much as this sucked, I didn’t blame Vito. I knew Ren’s cousin Dominic. He was a fuckup.
I also knew his wife Sissy. Dom had fucked around on her and treated her like garbage. Ava’s Rock Chick Ride dragged Sissy along with it and Dom woke up, saw he was screwing over a good woman and got his head out of his ass. Now they had a baby and were happy.
I wasn’t Sissy. He didn’t cheat on me, so it wasn’t up to me to judge.
Still, I wasn’t his biggest fan, even if he now seemed a devoted husband and family man.
Ren brought my attention back to his story.
“Uncle Vito leaned on Ma to come back to Denver. She didn’t like it, but since she was still mostly a stay-at-home mom with only a part-time job—but a nice house and nice car all paid for by Zano family money—she was in a tight place. She couldn’t say no. She also had a lot of misplaced gratitude. So we came back.”
At this juncture, it must be noted, as whacked as it was, I’d always liked Vito. He was outspoken and funny, and he’d stepped up for two of the Rock Chicks.
But I didn’t like this.
“And Vito started grooming you to take over,” I guessed.
“Not right away, but yeah,” Ren confirmed. “So, in one ear, I got Vito. In the other, I got Ma, who wants me to have nothin’ to do with that shit.”
It was all coming clear.
“That’s why you’re the legitimate side,” I said quietly and his focus intensified on me.
“Yeah,” he replied just as quietly.
“And now Vito wants to retire?” Again, I was guessing.
“No. Now, I got a mom I love and respect who had to be both parents to me for as long as I can remember. And I don’t re
member my dad, Ally. Not what he looked like. Not a touch. Not a smell. Not even a feeling. He’s gone. The only thing I got is pictures, and they mean shit to me. He’s a phantom that haunts my mother to this day. So we’ll also say, I don’t remember him, but I don’t like him either.”
With a dad like my dad and thinking everyone should have a dad like my dad, his words made my heart bleed. I’d hate that. And obviously Ren hated it, too.
I leaned closer, squeezed his thigh harder, and whispered, “Ren, honey.”
His jaw got tight before he said, “He lied to her. Brought her into the life and didn’t say dick. You don’t do that to a woman. Not with that life. Not with any fuckin’ life. You don’t hold shit back. Ever.”
I sure was glad he thought like that.
I nodded. “I get it.”
“What I also got is hooked to a woman whose father and brother are cops.”
This surprised me so much I leaned back and took in a sharp breath.
“Yeah,” he stated, still watching me intently. “So Vito’s mutterin’ about me makin’ inroads into the other side of the business, my ma will lose her mind if I take over and the woman I was fallin’ in love with is tangled up in blue.”
“Tangled up in blue?” I asked.
“Cop blue,” he answered.
“Right,” I mumbled.
“So what do I do?” he queried.
“I don’t know, honey. What do you do?”
“It’s not what do I do. It’s what I did do. And what I did was told Vito we’re movin’ the whole thing to legit. He eventually bows out, Dom tows my line or he gets another job, and we’re done with the business.”
Holy shit!
I knew my mouth had dropped open, and I knew Ren didn’t miss it because he was still watching me closely, but he ignored my reaction and kept going.
“That didn’t go over too well.”
Oh man.
I bet it didn’t.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Vito lost his shit is what happened,” he answered.
I pressed my lips together.
“The good news is, he loves me. I get out of the life, he won’t order a hit on me.”
Oh my God!
A hit?
“The bad news is, he’s all over me to change my mind, and if I don’t, I’m excommunicated.”
Okay, that was bad news. But a hit was a whole lot worse.