Chapter 6 Gambit #2
You are so totally freaking lying to yourself and it’s getting to be all kinds of exasperating, Dreamer scolded.
Someone needs a vibrator session to take the edge off, Logic suggested.
I sighed and went to the door.
I peeped through the peephole, and at the look I saw on Shanti’s face, I hurriedly unlocked and opened the door.
She burst in, crossed the room in a rush, threw herself dramatically on her back on my velvet couch and pressed one of my Home-Goods-on-sale toss pillows to her face.
Oh boy.
I closed the door and went to sit on my armchair.
My bestie was lean, but stacked, with booty, all of this somehow hiding she was average height and making her seem taller.
She usually let her hair go natural in soft, loose, kinky curls that framed her face in a beautiful, thick, lush, drifting halo, but sometimes she’d be in the mood for braids or extensions, though that wasn’t often.
She had delicate features, big eyes, and skin a couple of shades up from mocha.
It was her mom, Miss Tandi, who’d semi-introduced us.
See, they’d been at a farmer’s market (I used to do those on the weekends before my server gig with SC, and I was glad I didn’t do them anymore because for one person, that was a ton of work, oh, and, no shock here, I was with Kev for part of the time and he was always “too busy” to help).
Miss Tandi had bought a couple petits fours from my booth. Shanti was with her. As they were walking away, they ate them.
At that point, Miss Tandi stopped dead, turned, came right back, and bought me out of petits fours, saying to her daughter, “I’ll serve these to my ladies tomorrow when we have tea at my place after church.”
Miss Tandi, who could go for the gold in the Olympics when it came to chatting, kindliness and sociability, chatted kindly and sociably with me, and somehow that morphed to Shanti and me making a coffee date (“somehow” meaning Miss Tandi suggested we do that in the way moms had that was more a veiled order).
And the rest was history.
That was seven years ago, and at the time, I’d still been smarting at the loss of Jen, and ripe pickin’s for a savvy, sweet, edgy, together girlfriend, and Shanti fit the bill.
I still count that day at the farmer’s market as one of the luckiest of my life.
So now, with years under my belt with this woman being the sister of my heart, I knew what was going on.
“Let me guess. Titus,” I said gently.
“Krish and bun,” she mumbled from under the pillow.
Oh no.
“Crash and burn?” I asked, hoping I didn’t translate self-suffocation speak right.
She took the pillow from her face and slammed it into her belly.
“I asked him out for a drink,” she told the ceiling. “And the worst part about it was how cool he was in letting me down.”
I got up and headed to the kitchen, inviting, “Tell me.”
While I pulled out the Tito’s vodka, Fever Tree tonic water, and a lime (see? totally prepared for whoever would knock at my door), she spoke.
“He told me I was beautiful. He told me he thought I, and all the Angels were the shit. He told me he would totally go there, except he’s in the middle of reading the Rock Chick books.”
Oh no.
An aside: the romantic shenanigans of the first-gen crew up in Denver were such that they’d been written into books.
The only one of us Angels who’d read them was Harlow.
The rest of us avoided them because, from what we heard, including car bombs, grenades, businesses burning down, high-speed chases and assaults at haunted houses, we were terrified of them.
So, yeah, the Angels were covered so closely by the Nightingale Men because the original crew were dealing with HEA PTSD, and that might sound crazy, but it was true.
Though, now I kinda wanted to read Luke and Ava’s story.
I kept mixing Shanti’s drink as she went on.
“He says he sees the writing on the wall. He’s not the guy for me, and he doesn’t want to get his heart involved when he’s a side character or he has to wait for a spin-off or a next-gen, or worse, being wedged in some random other series.”
Okay, that might sound crazy too, but I totally got where Titus was coming from.
I squirted the wedge of lime into her drink then took it to her.
She was now sitting cross-legged in the lounge extension corner of my couch with the pillow still held to her belly.
Shanti accepted the drink with a mumbled, “Thanks,” took a sip and then kept at her tale of woe. “Now, due to sheer embarrassment, I can’t go back to the man cave.”
I gasped in shock and horror for two reasons.
First, this surprised me. Shanti Winston didn’t tend to get embarrassed. She was Shanti, you took her as she came, the end.
Then again, Titus was a god among men, and to be turned down by him would remind you eloquently of your mere mortal status, so I understood.
Second, I couldn’t imagine never being able to go back to the man cave.
“I have to put a moratorium on man-cave visits until I’m over it,” she continued.
“How long is that going to last?” I asked.
“At least a whole week.”
I almost laughed, because there was my Shanti.
She kept going.
“He says I’m supposed to be with Liam, or Roam, or Brady. Like I’d ever go there with Brady.”
“Brady’s gorgeous.”
“Every time we go out into the world, Brady either picks someone up, or gets someone’s digits, or simply sits there while napkins and receipts with phone numbers written on them rain down on his head.”
This was fact.
“That doesn’t make him less gorgeous and nice. He’s also funny.”
“Brady’s a white boy.”
“He’s a gorgeous, nice, funny white boy.”
“He’s still a white boy.”
He was that.
Even so…
Brady was Shanti’s bodyguard during the Kev/Trev thing, and they seemed to get tight during it. Not tight tight, but tight.
“So you got nothing when he was your bodyguard?” I asked.
Her face took on a faraway look that gave me hope.
Then she spoke. “Oh, for sure I got some fun Whitney Houston/Kevin Costner-themed fantasies during that time. But fantasy is fantasy, Will. This is real life.”
It certainly was.
However, I was undeterred.
“Okay then, Liam and—”
I was going to finish…Roam are also gorgeous and nice, but when I mentioned Liam, her eyes slid to the side, and she put her drink back to her lips not to sip, but to hide.
Oh my God.
“Liam?” I whispered.
“He’s not my type,” she said quickly, then actually took a sip.
“What do you mean he’s not your type?” I returned. “He’s totally your type.”
“He’s together. He’s adjusted. He’s confident. What’s the fun in that?” she asked.
“Are you high?” I asked back.
“When we go out, he also usually picks someone up, gets someone’s digits or is showered in those napkins and receipts,” she said.
Also fact.
“But when that happens, he’s sitting at a table with you,” I reminded her.
She thinned her big, beautiful brown eyes at me. “Okay, Ms. Sworn Off Men, I just got turned down, and Liam treats me like a friend. Have a heart.”
So, I was determined to be a spinster, looking forward to it, actually (Liar! Dreamer screamed in frustration) and was definitely adopting seven cats when I had a good six months of living expenses in checking, a minor medical emergency covered in savings and a beach vacation under my belt.
But that didn’t mean I didn’t want my friends to find partnered-up happiness.
So I didn’t let up.
“Liam is your friend,” I pointed out.
“Will, the way he treats me, a girl knows, that’s all I’ll ever be,” she said softly, hurt in her tone.
Ouch.
Yeah, a girl knew.
And if she was into him, that was killer.
How I thought I’d be able to live with Gabe in my friend posse after I convinced him to retreat, I didn’t know. But Shanti, mercifully, didn’t have a Kev in her history, a Kev who was haunting her present.
“Okay, backing off,” I told her.
“Thanks,” she said then took another sip.
I changed the subject. “So do you know what’s happening with Mr. Shithead?”
She focused on me. “Nice pivot, bitch, but don’t think you’re getting around talking about Gabe with that gambit. Alexis told Rhea who told Sally who told Raye that she saw Gabe with you and your cakes last night. And Raye told me.”
I loved living here.
But, as you could see, it also had its drawbacks.
“Though, just to say, Raye wants us at headquarters tomorrow at eleven so we can have a briefing,” Shanti continued. “Clarice got some deets, and Jinx too.”
“Do we know what’s going on?”
She shook her head. “No. Titus says he hasn’t heard anything about a woman being taken by anyone, though, he’s going to ask around. So we need to know what we can know and make a plan so we can find out what’s going on.”
I wasn’t thrilled at having my day of doing nothing interrupted by having to do something, but I was worried about Mr. Shithead, so I’d be there.
“Now, Gabe,” Shanti prompted.
I blew out a breath.
But this was my girl, so I also gave it up.
“He thinks I’m his latest challenge,” I stated.
“Sis, you are his latest challenge,” she replied.
“I’m not a challenge,” I said forcefully.
“That’s not a bad thing,” she returned. “For anything to be worth it, you should have to work for it, and I’m not just talking about a man on the chase. In this case, the work for you would be to dig deep and recover from Kev’s assholery so you can find some happiness.”
“I can be happy without a man.”
“Mm-hmm,” she hummed to the rim of her glass, took a drink then said, “Bet a bruiser like Gabe could make you more happy.”
I’d take that bet, Dreamer said.
You’d lose, Logic retorted.
“I mean, that boy has even a hint of talent, with that body, he’d wreck a woman in bed,” Shanti mused.
I trembled delectably.
So did Dreamer.
And she tried to hide it, but Logic did too.
“I’m not ready,” I declared.
Lame! Dreamer cried.
True, Logic stated.
“I’m not saying get ready,” Shanti said. “I’m just saying you’re twenty-eight. You’ve got a lot of life ahead of you. You don’t know what could happen. But nothing will happen if you close yourself off to it.”
This was wise.
“Okay, I’ll try to open myself up more,” I lied, and it sucked lying to my best girl, but I just didn’t have the energy for this.
She studied me cannily but decided not to say anything.
Hence the reason why she was my best girl.
“Just so you know, he spent the night again last night,” I announced. “Platonically, though not strictly platonically, if you get me. Just no hanky-panky. And don’t start. I was tired and I couldn’t fight it anymore.”
Shanti remained silent.
“But he woke up weird,” I shared. “Like, he jolted awake, and it was pretty violent, like he was having a bad nightmare, and when I looked at his face…” I shook my head like I could shake the memory away. “God, Shanti, I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.”
“What did he look like?” she asked quietly.
“Hazy, like he was still asleep, still in that dream, and…and…I can’t put my finger on it. It was like, this is horrible, but do you remember that picture of Christa McAuliffe’s parents when they realized the Challenger had exploded?”
“Holy shit,” she whispered.
“Yeah,” I whispered in return. “It reminded me of Christa’s dad after he’d turned to support his wife. Like this frozen shock.”
Shanti’s eyes got bright.
Mine did too.
“Do you, I mean, has anyone said anything about Gabe having some big bad happen in his past?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“He talked to me last night, about his folks, his sister, his family, including Luke and Ava,” I told her.
“And it all sounded good. Healthy. Lots of love and respect, except for Luke’s dad, but he was an anomaly.
Though, he also said he used to be a cop, and perhaps something happened when he was, but he didn’t communicate even a hint of there being a trauma he witnessed or something. So him waking up like that threw me.”
“Gabe talked to you about all of that?”
Proof.
He wasn’t a talker.
But he talked to me.
A lot.
“Yeah,” I admitted.
She gave me another look but put no words behind it, this time, because she didn’t have to.
Gabe sharing so fully was not Gabe.
Gabe sharing with me said many things.
Argh.
Instead, she suggested, “If he’s opening up to you, maybe…ask?”
I shut my mouth.
“I see,” she said. “So, you don’t wanna go there, therefore you don’t think that’s your business.”
“I still want us to be friends,” I replied.
“And if you worry about a friend, you ask.”
She was right again.
I was going to ask.
During our big blow up after our first kiss, he’d intimated he’d been played by a woman.
But that look on his face wasn’t about being played.
It was about something uglier, wounding.
Unhealable.
A hammering sounded on the door, and I got no thrill from it because only one person knocked that way.
Mouthy Martha.
Thus, Shanti and I looked at each other and said at the same time, “Martha.”
I got up to open the door.
And yep.
Martha.
She looked to me, then Shanti, then said, “Ad hoc Oasis Square Residents Association Meeting T-minus two minutes. Get your asses into the courtyard. Pronto.”
She then stormed away.
“Oh God, what now?” Shanti asked from behind me.
I didn’t know.
What I did know was, whatever it was, good or bad, it was the Oasis.
So I needed a cocktail.