Chapter Three #2
He already knew this one was different. But the feeling he
was feeling right then knowing he did something to spike her fear, he now knew
this one was going to be even more of a challenge than he thought.
“Hawk needed to talk to me,” he told her. “Jorge was on you.
Other side of the stage.”
“Could Hawk maybe talk to you after you tell me you
have to take off so Hawk can talk to you?” she asked.
“Next time, we’ll do that,” he muttered.
“Jesus!” she yelled.
Then she did it.
Fuck him, his worst fear (for now).
She turned stiltedly, raked a hand through her hair, looked
at the floor, started pacing with agitation, and chanted in a whisper, “Jesus,
Jesus, Jesus.”
“Lottie.”
She had her back to him, but she lifted an arm his way,
straight out, palm up, and ordered, “Give me a sec. I’ll get it together.”
She should come apart. Sometimes people needed to do that so
they could put it back together stronger.
But fuck him, his hands actually itched to reach
out and pull her to him so she could feel he was a big guy, strong, solid, and
he had her.
He couldn’t do that, so he did the only thing he could.
“You know it’s okay to be freaked by this guy,” he educated
her. “He’s a freak.”
“I don’t get freaked easily,” she returned.
He could sense that about her.
But this was new territory for her.
Not for him. For Hawk. Jorge. Probably even Smithie.
Fanatics were the worst. It didn’t matter if they were that
about the Broncos or their God who would not be down in any way with their
behavior, they’d just convinced themselves they were doing righteous work.
If there wasn’t more meaning to your life than football or
acting out your twisted version of what you thought God wanted you to do, you
had a serious problem.
She turned to him, hands now to the belt on her robe,
tugging it tighter.
But Mo wasn’t watching her hands.
He was staring at her face.
And he arrested.
Nope.
This was his worst fear.
For always.
Terror was stark in her expression, big hazel eyes filled
with tears.
“My sister covered me with her body,” she said.
That wasn’t what he expected to hear.
“What?” he asked.
“Jet, when we were shot at, or in the room where people were
shooting at each other, my sister was there too. And when the bullets were
flying, she covered me with her body,” she explained.
Mo needed a minute.
She was in a room with people shooting at each other
and her sister had to cover her with her body?
“Jet and Mom…Jet and Mom…” A fat tear fell from her eye.
“Jet and Mom would lose their minds if they knew this was happening. And Mom
barely survived her first stroke.”
“When were you shot at?”
It was him that asked the question, but he didn’t recognize
his own voice. It sounded low and gritty and like it crawled up his throat
straight from the acid in his gut.
“My dad was a gambler. He’s recovering. And my sister had
made some dude unhappy by jumping him at an Einstein’s. We went to confront Dad
gambling and…”
She kept talking but it was then Mo remembered her sister
was a Rock Chick.
He needed to hear no more.
“They don’t need to know,” he said over her story.
Her eyes got big. “Of course they don’t need to know! They
can never know! Jet’ll tell Eddie. Eddie
will tell Lee. Then that whole crew will lay waste to Denver.”
In that moment, Mo was feeling the need to lay waste to
something.
The woman was standing in front of him terrified and crying.
“I don’t even want to think about what Tex’ll
do,” she went on.
Well, hell.
He forgot Tex MacMillan was part of that posse.
Not only part of that posse but married to a woman named
Nancy.
Lottie’s mother.
Fuck.
“They won’t know,” he assured her. “Hawk’s all over it.
It’ll be done before MacMillan can get his duffle bag of grenades out.”
“I hope so,” she muttered, turning her head away.
Mo noted she didn’t deny her stepfather had a duffle bag of
grenades.
Mistake number one.
He watched her dance.
Mistake number two.
He left her sightline when she was exposed and needed to
know he had her.
Mistake number three.
He let it slip his mind she was tangled up with the Rock
Chicks.
Mistake number four.
He also forgot her stepfather was a lunatic.
He usually didn’t even make it to mistake number one.
It was time to get his shit together.
“I need to get ready for my next set,” she mumbled,
beginning to walk to the mirror she’d used both the other times he was in this
room with her.
“Lottie,” he called.
She turned back.
“Nothing’s gonna hurt you,” he
promised.
She looked him head to toe.
Mo knew what she saw.
Nothing she wanted to see.
He knew he was one ugly motherfucker and she could get any
guy she wanted. Didn’t even have to crook a finger. Just give a man a look and
he’d follow her like a hungry stray.
But she also saw what she needed to see.
It’d take something to get through him to get to her.
And they both knew the man behind that letter didn’t have
dick (maybe literally).
Then she surprised him again.
She showed him vulnerability.
Oh yeah.
This was going to be a challenge.
“Don’t leave me again, Mo,” she said softly. “Please.”
And oh yeah.
That letter had freaked her.
Fuck yeah.
Mo wanted to lay waste to something.
“I won’t…” he trailed off because it was on the tip of his
tongue to call her baby. He finished with, “I promise.”
She stared into his eyes a beat.
After she did that, she nodded and moved to her mirror.
“So what do you do the other four hours?”
Mo was fully clothed on his back on her couch that was a
decent-sized couch, but it wasn’t long enough for him.
No surprise. Most couches weren’t.
His eyes were on the dark ceiling.
It was nearing on two.
Lottie went on at nine thirty, eleven and one.
She danced for ten to twelve minutes each set. Customers
weren’t allowed to touch her to tip, but even if they could, they wouldn’t be
able to reach her with the way she worked the stage. The other girls ran out
and gathered the bills that drifted onto the stage for her.
The rest of the time, she sipped watermelon Perrier out of
little cans from a pink paper straw with white chevrons on it, got ready for
her next set and gabbed with whatever dancer was in the room with her.
And if there weren’t any, she gabbed with Mo.
She was a talker.
This was Mo’s lot in life. Being surrounded by women who
were talkers.
“What?” he asked.
“You said you sleep for four hours a night. What do you do
for the other four?”
He wanted her to go to sleep.
He wanted her to go to sleep so maybe he could go to sleep
(though he didn’t hold a ton of hope for that) and therefore stop thinking
about her in that tiny, green satin nightie with all the cream lace she’d come
out of her bathroom wearing.
Or the fact she wasn’t ten feet away from him, that hot
little body alone in that big bed.
He did not want to talk about what he did with the extra
four hours he had that others didn’t.
In fact, Mo wasn’t a big fan of talking at all.
“I work out,” he said.
“For four hours?” she asked.
“Havin’ a job with Hawk isn’t nine to five. I also work
missions.”
“Missions?”
“Yeah.”
“You call them ‘missions,’ not ‘cases?’”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
Lord save him from chatty women.
“Because we’re all former soldiers, not ex-cops,” he shared.
“All of you?”
“Yeah.”
“How many of you are there?”
Good Christ.
“Lottie, go to sleep.”
He heard her loud sigh and then, “I can’t. I’m always jazzed
after a night on.”
She should be exhausted.
She only worked at most thirty-six minutes in the four and a
half hours she was at Smithie’s (not counting the hour and a half she needed to
be there before her first set to get ready), but when she was dancing she gave
it her all.
Not to mention, she did new full makeup and changed her hair
for each set, not just the outfit she took off. It was an all-new Lottie every
time she appeared on stage.
No one could say she didn’t work for her percentage of the
cover, if she got one. But no one bought a house like this on Gaylord a block
from City Park who didn’t make some cake.
Mo wanted her to be exhausted. Needed her to be. Not only so
she’d shut up, but because he didn’t need to be thinking she was “jazzed” which
would only make him consider the varied ways he’d help her work that off, how
much he’d enjoy them and how much more he’d enjoy making her enjoy
them.
“Count sheep,” he advised.
“Does that work?”
Fuck if he knew.
“Put your body to sleep inch by inch,” he said.
That always worked for Trine, Sister #4. She was always on
the move. Constantly busy. Found it hard to shut down. Even as a kid.
When they were little, Mo would sit with her and whisper,
“Start with your toes, Treenz. Point. Flex. Then put
’em to sleep.”
Always, by the time he got to her belly, Trine was out.
“Say what?” Lottie asked.
“Start with your toes,” Mo said. “Point ’em.
Flex ’em. Then put ’em to
sleep.”
He gave it a sec.
“You doin’ that?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she told him.
“Now your feet,” he ordered into the dark. “Point, flex,
then feel ’em get heavy and let them go.”
Another second and he let that go to two.
“Now your calves,” he continued. “Tighten ’em. Let them go. Feel ’em relax.
Then put ’em to sleep.”
Mo gave it another sec.
And another.
And one more.
“They asleep?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she answered. “I think so.”
“Now your knees.”
“Is this what you do?” she asked.
“It doesn’t work if you talk through it,” he told her.
“Right,” she muttered.
“Knees, Lottie.”
“’Kay,” she mumbled.
It took to her shoulders, Mo making his voice quieter and
quieter, giving it more time in between, before he started on the neck and she
didn’t answer.
Good.
She was asleep.
Mo stared at the ceiling but could see nothing but Lottie in
that nightie.
The nightie morphed into her dancing.
Fuck.
Torture.
He rolled to his side and closed his eyes.
And saw her face, terrified, eyes filled with tears.
He opened his, moved his hand, found his gun under the toss
pillow right where he put it.
Mo drew in a big breath and released it.
He tried that again.
After that, he started with his toes.
They were still in boots.
He gave up after getting all the way to his scalp and fell
asleep two hours later with his hand curled around the butt of his gun.