3. “Shake It Out” #2
Javi stared at me, something working behind his golden eyes I did not want to see, because even with the little I let in, it was divine , so I blocked it out.
“Okay, I don’t know what’s going on here, and I’ll go on record right now stating that I really, really wanna know,” Shanti butted into our staring contest. “But Willow got an early morning call from Kev.”
That got both Javi’s and my attention.
“Trev was murdered last night,” Shanti announced.
“Holy—” I began.
“ Shit ,” Javi bit off.
“I’m calling an Angels confab,” Shanti said. “Can you come to work early so we can discuss this latest development?” she asked me.
“What are you women into?” Javi demanded to know, sounding a hundred shades of unhappy, which was ninety-nine-point-nine shades too much when it came to Javi.
“Not murdered dudes,” Shanti told him. “That’s a huge-ass curveball.”
“You bitches need to pull back,” Javi decreed.
Shanti’s eyes flashed, and I suspected mine did too, because as all the world knew, we could call each other bitches because we were each other’s bitches.
Some guy couldn’t call us bitches.
(Though, I tried not to cuss on the whole. I just couldn’t pull it off like other people could. Cursing made me sound like I was trying to be a hard-A at the same time failing spectacularly.)
Javi seemed impervious to our eye flashes, demonstrating this by asking, “How’d this asshole get murdered?”
“Throat slit,” Shanti answered.
I gasped. “Oh my God!”
Even if I’d sat down briefly with the man last night and I was stunned and sickened that he was now dead, even more so since he got dead by those means, that was the only reaction I was able to have because I had to have a new reaction seeing as I was suddenly backing up double time.
I did this until I hit wall, and Javi, who’d been stalking me into that position, got deep in my space, including his face in mine.
I didn’t have good memories of his face being that close to mine, no matter how beautiful he was.
We weren’t going to make any either, I knew, when he ordered, “You are so far out of whatever this shit is, it’s not even a memory for you.”
Man, he was making me mad.
“Do I have to remind you that you can’t tell me what to do?” I asked angrily.
He ignored me, and instead told me more stuff to do, “And I’m not makin’ a fuckin’ appointment to work our shit out. We’re hooking up tonight. Get Jess to take you to work. I’ll pick you up, and we’re having dinner.”
I really wanted to tell him what he just said was kinda like making an appointment.
I did not, because I was stuck on the fact that I was absolutely not sitting with this man at a dinner, which would feel like a date, in order to make him feel better for spouting off at me and sharing in a not-nice way the kind of woman he thought I was, no matter how much he regretted doing it.
“That’s not possible. We have plans tonight with Jinx,” I told him.
His eyes glittered with golden fire.
Holy shmoly, it was fascinating.
My fascination dimmed when he declared, “You’re not doing dick with Jinx.”
I poked him in the chest and ignored the fact it was so hard, I stubbed my finger.
“She’s our only way in after you blew my cover last night.” Before he could say anything, I went on, “And by the way, I have to ask Jess to take me to work because you made me leave my car in Scottsdale last night.”
“Your car is in its spot,” he replied, dug into his jeans pocket and tossed my fob on my beanbag.
“Well then,” I muttered, staring at the fob.
“You’re welcome,” Javi said.
I went back to glaring at him. “I’m not going to thank you for anything that went on last night.”
Annnnnnnnd…
Yeah.
That was when it happened.
The look hit his face, and it got in before I could steel myself to keep it out.
Regret. Tenderness. Unease.
And something else. Something I couldn’t name. I couldn’t even define it.
But dang, it sure was pretty.
“We’ll talk tonight,” he said, his deep, rough voice going soft in a way I’d never heard, and kill me dead, that was pretty too.
I decided to stop talking.
Javi’s gaze swept over my face, then his finger, in the lightest touch imaginable, swept up the inside of my arm, from wrist to inner elbow.
Dang it.
That didn’t feel pretty.
It felt beautiful, and other things besides.
I shivered.
“Yeah,” he whispered.
I shivered again.
His perfect lips quirked, and if I was not mistaken, relief hit his gaze.
I screwed up my eyes to squint irritably at him.
He smiled.
My private parts wept in a happy way.
Fortunately, at this point, he moved out of my space and toward the door, saying to Shanti as he used it, “This convo at SC better be about you women backing off whatever this shit is.”
“Wouldn’t count on that, hoss,” she replied.
Javi gave her a look, which, if it was anyone but Shanti, who was sweet as sugar but didn’t take any stuff, might melt the flesh off their bones, then he slammed the door behind him.
“He’s a slammer,” I said.
Shanti turned to me.
“You know, I always had a feeling there was something bigger with Kev,” I remarked. “With the whole Trev thing last night, and then his sad demise, I’m thinking this proves it.”
“Really?” she asked.
“Yes. Don’t you think so?” I asked back.
“No, sis, really ?” she semi-repeated. “I’m here before the crack of dawn, Javi opens the door, you wander down the hall looking like every woman who wakes up in a movie looks when they wake up, which is how nobody looks when they wake up.
You two have verbal angry sex, which by the way, was hot as hell, and you do that more than once.
He leaves, and you aren’t sharing what’s going down with you two? ”
“Nothing is,” I replied, though her “verbal angry sex” note gave me another shiver.
She inspected me for several long seconds before she stated, “I think you’re telling yourself that, in other words, lying to yourself.”
Maybe so, but the lying-to-myself zone was a safe zone for me to be in.
And since I didn’t feel safe at all, not since Javi laid his truth on me last night and it made me feel weirdly like I was the odd woman out.
Like I didn’t belong. This, a feeling I hadn’t had in a long time—unless I was with my family, where I’d lived with it my whole life—and it wasn’t much fun having it back.
Therefore, the lying-to-myself zone was where I was going to stay.
“Is Willow okay with this Trev thing?” I asked to change the subject.
Another several long seconds elapsed before Shanti did what Shanti was always so cool about doing.
Giving you space when you needed it.
“She thought he was an ass.”
Well, there you go.
“But she’s tweaked,” Shanti continued.
I didn’t doubt it.
“I can come to work early,” I told her.
“Great,” she replied, turning to go.
“And by the way, you look like women look in the movies when you get up too,” I said, following her to the door.
She gave me a smile. “You’re boss, babe.”
“You’re more boss.”
“I can’t deny that.”
We laughed. I closed the door on her after I promised to see her at work. I put superhuman effort into tamping down any thought of Javi last night, this morning, or at all.
I made coffee. I made myself a smoothie. I did some Pilates moves in my living room.
And when I hit the shower, I changed gears to psych myself up for whatever was going to happen.
Therefore, I queued up Florence in order to “Shake It Out.”
Florence gave me strength.
But even so, when I selected my outfit for that day, even though I was oh so NOT going to dinner with Javi that night…
I made sure it was a cute one.