19. “Royals”
NINETEEN
“ROYALS”
(LORDE)
T he next day, after our before-work make out session in his truck, I wandered dazedly to the back door of The Surf Club, waving hazily at Javi.
He watched me, smirking supremely smugly.
God, he was hot.
I got inside, did my stowing-purse, putting-on-my-apron thing, and wandered into the kitchen, saying to Lucia, “Hey, Lucia.”
She was arranging some greens fastidiously on a plate, so, as per protocol, she ignored me.
I hit The Surf Club proper.
When I did, Willow, behind the bar, gasped.
Standing at the bar, Byron’s eyes got big when they landed on me.
“Holy shit.” I heard Raye say.
I rounded my front in a huge wave and called, “Hey, everybody.”
I then went to the espresso machine because I needed my own dirty chai, STAT.
I’d barely packed the portafilter when I was in an Angels huddle.
I gazed around and repeated, “Hey.”
“You have sex hair,” Jessie said.
“And sex eyes,” Raye said.
“And sex face,” Luna added.
“That’s because Javi and I had sex.” I leaned into them and said dreamily, “Lots and lots and lots of really, really, really phenomenal sex.”
“Buzz off, Byron,” Shanti ordered. “It’s time for girl talk.”
“Happy for you, Harlow,” Byron called as he made his way to his table.
I watched him, mumbling, “He’s so sweet.”
“Earth to sex kitten Harlow, come in sex kitten Harlow,” Jessie called.
She sounded like she was trying not to laugh.
This was good, everyone should be laughing!
I tried to focus on her, failed, but even so, shared, “He took me to Geordie’s. We had a window table. We watched the sun set. And he made me laugh a lot.”
“Oh my God, I love that,” Willow breathed.
I looked to her. “He carried me up his stairs when we got home, like a groom carries a bride.”
Willow gasped.
I wasn’t sure, but I thought Raye and Luna did too.
“We’ve had sex…” I lifted my hand and tried to count, failed at counting, dropped my hand, and said, “Umpteen times. Including twice this morning.”
“You don’t say,” Jessie drawled, but she sounded happy.
She should be happy.
The whole world should be happy!
“I didn’t have time to do much with my hair and makeup,” I shared.
“Yeah, we can see,” Shanti replied (she sounded happy too).
“Though, we took a break from having sex yesterday to have brunch and go shopping,” I told them. “Javi now has a killer lamp and a fabulous throw blanket, and in six to eight weeks, he’ll have the perfect armchair. And get this!”
They all leaned closer.
“He bought stemmed wineglasses and stemless ones for me to drink wine because, as he said, ‘My Lolita isn’t gonna drink her wine from a regular-ass glass.’ Isn’t he amazing ?”
I sighed.
“He calls you Lolita?” Raye asked.
I nodded exuberantly. “He does. Isn’t that the best ?”
“It’s adorable,” Luna muttered, but she sounded happy too.
“And he held me the whole time I cried after I told Mom I wasn’t going to Easton’s birthday dinner on Saturday because she treats me like dirt.”
There were gasps all around at that one.
“Wait. Hold up. Seriously?” Jessie queried.
I nodded, my lips turning down. “It was unfun.”
“Babe,” she said softly, taking my hand. “Did you really finally lay it out for her?”
Another nod from me.
“I had no choice,” I admitted. “Javi told me either he was going to dinner with us, and then he’d rip them a new A-hole when they acted like A-holes to me, or I could tell them to kiss off until they could treat me with respect. I chose door number two.”
The haze was clearing, so I focused more fully on Jessie and Raye.
“I need my How to Deal with An Alpha training, because, even though Javi and I discussed it further when I wasn’t in danger of losing it, and we both agree that no time would be right but the law needed to be laid down, since then, Dad has called about ten times, Easton has called four.
So I think I’m facing O’Neill Family Armageddon, and it was me who hit the red button. ”
And yes, Javi and I did discuss this, after we returned home from brunch and shopping (and after we had sex again).
“Well, you weren’t there when Dad sprung Debbie on me at Lon’s,” Raye said. “Cap totally lost his shit. It was Inner Caveman time ten thousand. I was lucky he led me out rather than dragging me by my hair. So I think you picked the right way to go with that one.”
I’d sensed this, but it was good to know I was correct.
“What are you going to do about your dad and Easton?” Willow asked.
I grimaced, all this talk about my family was killing my Javi buzz.
“I don’t know. I don’t want to think about it.
I don’t want to deal with it.” I was fully focused now, as dealing with my family mess made me wont to be.
“Although I feel like I picked the lesser of two evils, I wish this wasn’t happening now, because I’m happy.
” I looked between all of them. “Like, really, really happy. And you know why I’m happy? ”
“Because you and Javi are together and have had lots of phenomenal sex?” Willow guessed.
“Yes, that, but mostly because I can tell Javi is really, really happy.” I put my hand to my chest. “Because I make him that way. Can you believe that?”
“Of course we can,” Jessie said tartly.
She was just the greatest .
I looked at my bestie. “I’m the real me when I’m with him, Jess.”
“I’m glad about that, even if I’m not sure I understand it,” she replied.
“I’m pretty,” I said.
“Uh…yeah. You’ve seen yourself in the mirror,” Raye said.
“No. I mean,”—I leaned into them again—“I’m pretty .”
They didn’t appear to understand.
I leaned back. “I’m okay. No. I’m great. Being a server, or say I decided to study rocket science, and then I was a rocket scientist. Either way, I’m great just as I am.”
“Your fucking mother,” Jessie groused, hitting the nail on the head.
“I should have known, because of the way you guys are with me,” I noted. “But I don’t know…walking into Geordie’s with Javi…no, before that, just the way he looked at me when I came down the stairs at his place and he saw me all done up. It just… clicked . I was good, just me.”
“Right or wrong, good or bad, a man who looks like a Greek god squires you into the most romantic restaurant in Phoenix, it’s gonna put a pep in your step,” Luna remarked.
Totally .
“He fucks you so senseless you go to work with sex hair, stamped official,” Raye added.
She was so right .
Willow grabbed my other hand. “I love that you and Javi had all that this weekend.”
“I love it too,” I whispered.
We all sat with that for long moments, all of us loving it (though none of them more than me).
However, since it wasn’t all about me, I looked to Raye. “Are you and Cap okay?”
“Well, I did manage to retain my snit while fucking him stupid because he’s such a kickass badass, but I couldn’t sustain it after he made me Nutella and toasted almond crepes for breakfast and brought them to me in bed yesterday morning. So, yeah, we’re good.”
“Awesome play on his part,” Shanti remarked.
“Word,” Raye agreed.
“Javi and I decided to avoid any talk around Trev, Kev and what happened on Saturday,” I informed them. “It’d kill the vibe. So does anyone know if anything is happening with that?”
“Well, first, a bit of SC news,” Jessie declared.
I looked at her, but Raye spoke.
“Tito took Luna aside this morning and told her they hired Dream.”
Uh-oh.
I turned my attention to Luna. “You okay with that?”
She shrugged. “Tito said she’s going to do half shifts both Saturday and Sunday. He also said Tex only agreed to this if she had a probation period.”
I wasn’t sure what I was getting from her, but whatever it was, I was more confused by it than just not knowing what it was.
“That doesn’t seem out of hand,” I noted carefully.
“Her probation period lasts four hours, on Saturday,” Luna explained. “Tex is coming in, and if she doesn’t pass muster in those four hours, she’s gone.”
I gawked, because, I mean, even Dream couldn’t learn the ropes in four hours.
“Everyone needs a training period,” I said. “Even Dream.”
“Tex says that no one needs to be trained in how to be nice,” Jessie shared through a snicker.
“Not sure how he’d know, since he’s such a grump,” Willow mumbled.
That was the truth.
“Okay, so if you’re okay with that,” I aimed this at Luna, who gave me a reassuring nod, and then to the rest at the whole group, I asked, “What about the bad guys the boys took in on Saturday, or word about Kev?”
“Unsurprisingly, nothing from the guys. They’re zipped up tight. Though, they haven’t stopped the bodyguard thing, so we figure that means they haven’t solved the case. And Luna got an interesting text from Ally yesterday,” Jessie said.
Ally?
“Ally Nightingale?” I asked.
Ally was book eight of the Rock Chicks. The name Nightingale gives part of it away, but she didn’t work for NI&S, the firm her brother started that eventually expanded to Phoenix. She had her own private investigation firm in Denver.
“One in the same,” Luna confirmed.
“What’d she text?” I inquired.
Luna fished out her phone, found the text, and read it verbatim. “ If you can, find his phone, or his laptop. Better, both. Also, look at bank records. When you run out of leads, you have to find them, and as much as it’s a pain in the ass, you can usually find them by immersing yourself in data .”
Oh my God!
She was helping us!
And oh my God.
That was impossible.
“Any chance we can get our hands on either Kev or Trev’s phones or laptops?” I asked.
Raye shook her head. “Probably no chance. We would have grabbed them if they were left at their places, but they weren’t.
Though, we do have a request in to Arthur to see what he can do about either of those, if he can possibly get his hands on any police reports, and if he can give us any bank stuff. ”