Chapter 13
Zephyr
”Seriously, Angela, you gotta go to the cops. This John popped you. You got a bruise the size of fuckin” Texas on your jaw.” I was mad as hell when Angela came by Jazz Sessions an hour before it opened, her face looking like…well, like some asshole rammed a fist into it.
”He was drunk and high. And the last thing I need, sha, is to have my Johns in jail cause I got bills to pay.”
I removed the ice wrapped in a napkin against her jaw to assess the damage. It was going to take at least a couple of weeks before it faded.
Angela was a gorgeous petite blonde with the bluest eyes I”d ever seen. She was fucking beautiful and had a smile that could launch a thousand ships and a soul that was kind. She epitomized the hooker-with-a-golden-heart cliché.
I bit my tongue from saying, ”I”ll pay your fuckin” bills,” because then she”d pop me. The number of times I”d offered to just put money in the bank for her so she could leave this line of work over the years was way too many. I kept asking at least once a week, and she kept turning me down. She”d once asked why I didn”t just stop offering her money, and I told her because I hoped someday she”d say yes.
My sister, Gaia, was like that. She was the one who disabused me of the notion that Angela was too proud to take my money. Everyone thinks you”re with her cause she”s using you for money, and you”re using her for sex. She doesn”t want you to ever think that about her.
I loved Angela. She wasn”t like a sister to me or any such shit. I loved her as a person…loved her as much as I loved Gaia, Blaze, and Rome. She was one of my closest friends. But I never wanted to fuck her. We”d never crossed the line, never even tried to. She could walk naked in front of me…and had, and my dick didn”t even twitch. I”d asked her once if all my muscles and pretty face did anything for her, and she laughed, ”Sorry, babe, you”re not even sexy enough for my spank bank.”
Apparently, I was no Charlie Hunman, and according to her, ”I like sex, Z. If I had it with you, I think it might ruin it for me for life.”
”I hate this,” I muttered. ”Can”t you see how much this fucks me up? I don”t understand….” I trailed away. She knew how I felt, and she wasn”t going to budge.
”Baby, don”t fight with me,” she mumbled, her eyes bright with tears.
”I want you to use me for my money, Angela. For fuck”s sake. Use me.”
She put a hand on my cheek. ”When the time comes…you can give me a job at the bar, okay?”
”When? Not if?”
She nodded. ”When.”
I kissed her nose and continued to hold the napkin to her jaw. ”I”ve got to tell you something, and I need you not to freak out.”
I felt her stiffen.
”Ang, I just said I don”t want you to—”
”Just tell me quickly, whatever it is.”
I told her what I was going to be doing with the cops.
”Fuck no.” She yanked my hand off her jaw. ”Fuck no, baby. You”ll get hurt, and if you do, what the fuck am I going to do? Are Gaia and Blaze okay with this? Rome okay with this?”
I swallowed. I knew she”d be the one who”d worry the most. Well, she and Gaia could form the ”Worry About Zephyr Committee” and be chairpersons.
”I”ll be fine.”
”This is the Russian mob. Do you know how much it sucked for me to know Blaze got hurt? Rome and Gaia got hurt? What is wrong with you? What is….” She pulled out her phone.
”Ang,” I groaned.
She didn”t listen and dialed, putting the phone on speaker on the bar counter. As soon as she heard a hello, she was off to the races. ”Blaze, you motherfucker, what the fuck is wrong with you?”
”Hi, Ang. How you doin”, sweetheart?”
”Don”t you ”hi, Ang” me, you son of a bitch. You got shot. Do you want your brother to get shot, too? What is wrong with your fine ass?”
”You noticed my fine ass?”
”Blaze,” she growled.
”He wants to do it. And he”s a grown-ass man. I don”t want him to do it. Gaia doesn”t want him to do it. That ADA Grace, whose pussy he wants to get into, she”s the one you need to go after and—”
”Blaze, shut the fuck up,” I interrupted. ”This has nothing to do with Grace.”
”Oh my God, are you doing this lawyer?” Angela screeched.
”Thanks for nothing, asshole,” I yelled at my brother, who was laughing hysterically on the other end of the phone line.
”Be good, Z. See you soon, Ang.” Blaze hung up.
Before Angela could get to her phone again, I pocketed it. ”You”re not calling the ADA and cursing her out. They”ll lock you up next time they arrest your fine ass.”
”No, Z. I can”t let you do this.”
There were tears in her eyes. Fucking hell! I got up and held her as she sat on the barstool. Her arms slid around me, and she leaned into my chest. ”Ang, don”t cry, sweetheart. I promise I”m going to be fine. And it”s kinda fun to play cops and robbers.”
She bit my stomach through my t-shirt.
”That hurt,” I mock complained.
”I”m going to kill you, Zephyr, if you get hurt. I swear to God, I”ll kill you.”
I held her close, stroking her hair and her back. ”I know, darlin”. But you won”t have to. I promise.”
I convinced Angela to have dinner at Jazz Sessions by emotionally blackmailing her to stay to hear me play with Blaze. It had been a while since she”d come down to the bar. Part of it was that she was in AA, which was taking up a whole hell of a lot of her time, and the other reason I knew was because she was embarrassed that she”d been arrested recently and had needed me to bail her out.
She was fine with Blaze—but that was because he didn’t have a judgmental bone in his body. Also, he”d say to your face what he”d say behind your back, so there wasn”t much to worry about.
She was concerned about Gaia. I tried to tell Angela that my sister was not in the business of judging people, but my friend had her hang-ups. It got worse when Gaia and Rome got together. She and Rome had not gotten along, even when he and I were in high school, and Angela had dropped out to work at a strip club that didn”t care that she was a minor and paid her under the table.
I tried to explain to her that Rome was not a stupid teenager anymore, but she didn”t want to cause a rift between Rome and me. She knew that if Rome as much indicated in any small way that he didn”t approve of Ang, I”d break it off with him. That was true…but what was also true was that Rome would never ever do that. He hadn”t approved of Angela then because she was doing drugs, and I was cleaning up her mess. We were all older now.
I called Rome from the office after the bar opened, and people started to stream in. Gaia wasn’t working the bar tonight as she had class every Wednesday and Thursday at the community college. But she”d be in later in the evening.
”Decuir,” I heard Rome”s voice. He”d probably answered his phone without looking at the caller ID.
”It”s Z.”
”Sorry, man. I”m knee-deep in…what”s up?”
”I can call later if you”re busy.”
”It”s fine. I”m busy all the time, so…all okay?”
”Ang is here and stayin” for dinner.”
”I”ll get out of here in thirty minutes,” Rome immediately said. I”d told him once how Angela felt about Rome and Gaia, which was why she didn”t socialize with them. He and my sister had been contrite and had promised to make her feel at ease. They knew she was one of my closest friends and didn”t give a shit that she was a prostitute—they wanted her to be part of the family circle because she was important to me.
”Thanks, man. How”s Gaia?”
”Merdé! Emotional and hormonal. Cries at the drop of a fuckin” hat. I can”t stand it when she cries, so…it”s been rough.”
”What is she crying” about?”
”Every fuckin” thing you can imagine. Last night, it was because she saw a girl carrying a puppy. The day before, it was because a crushed rose was on the sidewalk. And this morning, it was because I asked her if we should think about setting up a nursery.”
”Christ.”
”Yeah, so you should warn Angela that Gaia is a bit of a basket case.”
”You happy as fuck, aren”t you, Rome?”
I heard his laugh; it was clean and honest. ”I don”t think I”ve ever been happier.”