4. “Don’t Start Now”
FOUR
“DON’T START NOW”
(DUA LIPA)
W hile I idled in the suicide lane, Dua Lipa stating my case of “Don’t Start Now” loudly from the car speakers of my pea-green Kia Soul (I didn’t really have a choice of car or color, since it was the cheapest on the lot when I went car shopping, and the only one I could afford).
Still, the speakers worked great.
I looked to The Surf Club and saw that Tex, our boss, our top barista and part owner of SC, had, as usual, used white shoe polish on the front window to communicate his coffee special of the day.
He wasn’t that great of an illustrator, so I wasn’t sure what I was seeing. It could be a coconut. It could be an orange.
I’d have to find out when I went to the coffee counter at the front of the club and ordered one.
I got an opening—and singing at the top of my lungs with Dua about not caring about me now—I turned left and found a primo parking spot under one of the paloverdes my other boss, Tito, planted in the parking lot. I shut down the Soul along with Dua, grabbed my purse and headed in.
I wasn’t on for another two hours, so I just stowed my purse in my locker in the staff room, ignored the server aprons hanging in there and wandered into The Surf Club proper.
It must be said, I loved working there. It was colorful, especially with the big mural in the back.
Funky with all the different lamps, tables and chairs and plants.
Lucia’s cooking was the best. Willow’s baked goods were amazing.
Tips weren’t all that great because it wasn’t like a fancy steak place or something, but Tex and Tito paid well over minimum wage.
And I got to see all my friends every day.
These were my thoughts when I walked behind the bar where Luna, Raye, Willow and Shanti were hanging.
Shanti took one look at my cute blue dress that showed chest (but no cleavage) from a square neckline, had a short skirt with a ruffle, cap sleeves (with more ruffles) and a smocked waist, and she busted out laughing.
I frowned and rethought how great it was to work with my friends.
Honestly, this was the kind of thing I wore every day to work (ish). Though, this one was a little more flirty, frilly and girlie.
However, her laughter might be about my hair, which was in big bouncy curls, or my makeup, which was sheer daytime-to-evening, pink, highlighted perfection.
I usually didn’t leave the house without being totally put together.
But I had to confess, I was way more put together than I usually was.
Ulk.
“Well, you’ve bounced back from last night,” Luna noted, giving me a once-over.
I said nothing.
Fortunately, Shanti said nothing too.
Once I realized Shanti wasn’t going to spill my beans, I replied, “Thanks.” Then, “What’s Tex’s special? I’m gonna grab one before Jess gets here.” I then added, “Please tell me it’s not coconut. I don’t like coconut.”
“Sorry, sister, it’s coconut,” Raye shared.
I frowned again.
“Do not start the confab without me!” Tex’s disembodied voice boomed from around the corner where the front coffee counter was.
“We’re not starting!” Raye shouted back. “Jess isn’t here.”
“And Harlow wants a coffee, but not your special!” Luna tacked on. “She doesn’t like coconut!”
“Who doesn’t like coconut?” Tex bellowed.
“I don’t!” I yelled.
“How can you not like coconut?” Tex hollered.
“Don’t ask me, ask my taste buds!” I shouted.
I knew this sounded strange, employees yelling at each other at a place of business, and it might be relatively new, because Tex being a fixture at SC was relatively new.
But considering not a single soul at any of our tables, and there were many of them, blinked an eye, evidence suggested they’d gotten used to it quickly.
Tito, sitting at his station at the far back by the wall of windows that had a view to the parking lot, didn’t even look up from his book.
This was the power of Tex. He was a huge man with a long beard and lots of graying, blond hair. He had an enormous personality, which centered mostly around being crotchety. And he was very loud. He didn’t boom to be heard. He boomed naturally. That was how he talked.
But his coffees were so good, we’d learned people would put up with a lot to get their fix.
And we girls had learned under all that bluster and bad mood, he had a heart of pure gold.
Though, I knew it more, since I’d read the Rock Chick books, and he figured in them prominently.
“How are you doing?” I asked Willow.
“I didn’t like Trev, but I’m flipped out,” she replied.
“Understandable,” I murmured.
“Kev is totally flipped out,” she went on. “He’s the one who found him.”
Yikes.
I never thought I’d think “poor Kev,” but I was thinking, Poor Kev!
“I sense you’re starting the confab!” Tex shouted.
We all grinned at each other, and Raye, Willow and Luna took off to their tables with pitchers of water in their grips to make sure people were good so we could have our confab without pesky customers expecting us to serve because we were their servers while we had other things we were doing.
Shanti and I moved around the bar and sat at it, and we were gabbing when Jess showed.
She didn’t look happy.
“Everything okay?” I asked when she slid on a stool beside me.
“I’ve just discovered that Eric’s hunky dory with us doing our Angels gig, but he has one caveat. When people start getting their throats slit, he’s not so hip about it, and even less hip with me being anywhere near it.”
There was an age gap between Jessie and Eric, not super significant, but it was there. As such, Eric was more of a Hot Bunch, first gen guy, rather than a Hottie Squad member. He had a foot in both camps, really. He definitely seemed more evolved than most of the men did in the Rock Chick books.
Though, considering the situation, I wasn’t surprised he had his limits.
“He’s not the only one,” Shanti said under her breath, referring to Javi.
I let out a huge sigh, and thankfully, Jessie was shouting so she didn’t hear Shanti.
“I need a special, Tex!”
“It’s coconut,” I told her.
“I need something other than the special, Tex!” she amended, again in a shout.
“What are you girls’ problems with coconut?” Tex boomed.
Since we knew he didn’t really want an answer, because he didn’t really care, we didn’t answer.
Raye, Luna and Willow got done making sure their tables were cool, and like he could see through walls, Tex lumbered into view about the time they took their stations across from Shanti, Jessie and me.
He went behind the bar and plopped down two coffees, one in front of Jess, the other, me.
Silently, Tito crept up beside him.
Interesting.
That was new. Usually, Tito left us to our crazy, and left Tex to his too.
BTW: Tito was the antithesis of Tex. Where Tex was loud, Tito barely spoke at all.
Where Tex was tall, imposing and mostly wore flannels and jeans (even in the Phoenician heat), Tito was short and looked like a surfer-dude Santa Claus (and he always, but always wore sunglasses, when he was inside or out).
They both had beards, longish hair, more than a hint of a belly and were close to the same age.
But that was where the similarities ended.
“No lip,” Tex ordered Jessie and me after he put down our mugs. “You get what you get.”
I lifted my cup to my lips, took a sip and smiled.
Delicious .
His signature, the Textual, cherry almond mocha.
My favorite.
“You’re the best,” I said to Tex.
“Shut it, Peewee,” he replied (see what I mean about the crotchety?). “What’s this I hear about some guy you had dinner with last night getting a necklace no one wants?”
Another bit of intel about our gang.
News traveled fast.
Also, Peewee was my nickname from Tex. I wasn’t actually short. I was five six. But since Tex was around six four, that made me seem small to him (I guessed).
And Javi was at least a full foot taller than me.
Hmm.
Tex snapped his fingers in my face, calling, “Hello?”
“I didn’t have dinner with him,” I shared. “I tried to have dinner with him because he and his friend are ripping off women they meet on dating apps. But Javi muscled in and blew my cover, of a sort.”
Tex’s heavy brows formed a heavier line. “You two still circling each other?”
“No, we’re done with that,” I said.
His brows darted up. “You two got together?”
“No. We’re just not ever going to get together.”
Shanti made a noise.
Luna did too.
Raye studied her fingernails.
“I thought you didn’t do girl talk,” Jess remarked to Tex.
“Just to say, I got experience with this shit too,” Tex began, then he homed in on me. “And I’ll say to you what I said to my girls in Denver. I don’t know why you women fight it. These are good men. Javier Montoya is as solid as they come.”
He so was, solid in his opinions and his ability to share them.
Yuck.
Whatever.
“Okay, today, I don’t do girl talk,” I declared.
Shanti made a noise.
Luna did too.
Raye studied her shoes.
Jessie said, “Moving on.”
“That’s it? These men are robbing their dates?” Tex asked.
“That was it, until Trev got that necklace,” Raye answered.
Tex blew out a breath, and it was so big, my hair wafted back. “Things have been chill with you girls. I haven’t had to build a bomb or pull out my grenades. Not once. That’s the sweet spot. Men turning up dead a few hours after your fake date goes south isn’t close to that sweet spot.”
He could say that again.
“Have we contacted Clarice or Arthur?” I asked.
“Yes, both,” Raye answered. “No word from either, yet.”
“Titus?” Jessie queried.
“I didn’t think about Titus,” Raye said.
Luna pulled her phone out of her apron. “I’ll drop a line to Titus.”
We met Titus on our last mission. He was the bomb. Super sweet. Very handsome. I wasn’t sure what his occupation was, but on the streets, he was known as a fixer. Not like a Quentin Tarantino one. Like the kind who got people who were shooting each other to stop shooting each other.
And he had the best man cave in history.
I hoped we got to go back.
“I hate to say this, but it’d probably be good if Willow had a meet with Kevin,” Raye said carefully.
“We need to get as much information out of him as we can so we can make sure none of this leaks into Willow’s life.
” Raye turned to Willow. “I know that sounds strange, asking you to meet him when we don’t want his shit screwing with you, but right now, you’re our best bet to find out what’s going on. ”
“That isn’t happening unless I’m there,” Shanti decreed.
“We can make that work,” Jessie said.
“He did ask to come over tonight,” Willow told us.
Willow had recently moved into the Oasis.
Since the waiting list was huge to get a unit there, and she’d only put her name on it a couple of months ago, the mysterious forces that owned the building obviously bumped her up the list (and whoever they were, they were like Arthur: awesome, but no one knew who was behind Dreamweaver, Inc.
, the only name we knew that was attached to ownership of the complex).
Now she lived a couple of doors from Shanti.
I couldn’t help but think that Arthur was somehow behind that, seeing as all the Angels now lived in one place.
And continuing my thoughts, I couldn’t help but think he did so in order that the Hottie Squad could keep tabs on us easier.
Which made me think Arthur had some link to the Hottie Squad.
But Cap had looked into it, and then Eric did too, and even with their estimable resources, including some computer hacker whiz they had on staff in Denver, they couldn’t figure out who Dreamweaver Inc. or Arthur were either.
“Invite him,” Raye said to Willow. “We’ll be close, without Harlow, obviously. But do it for later, so we can meet Jinx at seven thirty like planned.”
Willow nodded and got out her own phone.
“We need to cultivate some contacts in the police,” Raye noted.
“This might necessitate us hanging in cop bars,” Luna suggested.
“I’d be down,” Jess said.
“Me too,” Raye said.
“You could also, I don’t know, ask one or another of the badass motherfuckers you two girls are sleeping with every night,” Tex remarked, glancing between Raye and Jessie. “Seein’ as they know pretty much everything that goes down in this town, now that they recruited the Shadow Soldiers.”
That was probably a better idea.
“Eric isn’t feeling super helpful on this one,” Jess shared.
“Cap put his hand in front of my face when I started talking about it after I gave him the initial lowdown, kissed me, and walked out this morning, so I’m not sure he’s in to help either,” Raye said.
“We should have a cop or two to hit up anyway,” Luna declared. “It’s a missing link in our network.”
“You girls got a lot of missing links,” Tex muttered (it was still a kinda boom).
Since Tex bought us our penknives and had grenades (I hoped we never needed them, but again, I’d read the Rock Chick books, I wasn’t leaving anything to chance), we all studiously avoided replying to him so we didn’t tick him off.
But for what we were talking about, he wasn’t wrong.
“Anybody know a cop bar?” Luna asked.
“I don’t know a cop bar, but I know a cop,” Shanti put in. “He’s my cousin.”
“Awesome!” Raye cried.
“I try to stay away from him,” Shanti shared.
“Why?” I asked.
“He got married a year ago. His bitch is extra,” Shanti told me.
Shanti was hugely laid back. She didn’t let a lot bother her. So this note that his cousin’s wife was extra meant she was extra .
“I’ll hit him up,” Shanti offered. “Though, warning, he’s going to be about as happy as your men are I’m asking about some joker who got his throat slit.”
“I don’t think any of us are very thrilled with the way this one turned,” Raye replied.
“But Kevin isn’t backing off Willow. She blocks him, he gets another phone or shows up at the Oasis.
He’s doing fucked-up shit. His bestie got dead.
And she’s still in his sights. We gotta figure out what he’s into and make sure Willow is well clear of it. ”
We all nodded our agreement with this statement.
“I’ll dust off the grenades,” Tex muttered and trudged away.
Behind his ever-present shades (Tito had a style, it was a weird style that included different varieties of hats, flip-flops or kicks, Hawaiian shirts, sunglasses and shorts), Tito gazed among us all, his eyes hidden and therefore his thoughts the same, then he shuffled back to his table.
“I think Tito is about as big of a fan as all the other guys with this one,” Luna noted in a low tone.
I wasn’t that far behind them.
This just got really scary.
But I agreed with Raye.
We needed to make sure Willow was safe.
And once we did that, we could be done with Kevin and whatever he was into.
It would take some time, but I’d learn that it wasn’t going to be that easy.
Not by a long shot.