"Then it's settled," Carlos announced, folding his arms over his chest and looking at Damali hard. "Pack some--"
"It's not settled until I say it is," Damali said very quietly, very firmly, and never blinking as she stared at Carlos. When was this man going to learn that she was grown and not his property? She could feel the old resentment from earlier that day creeping back into her and firing up defiance. If she'd just flowed with her emotions, she would have laid the entity in her bathroom and this conversation wouldn't be taking place!
"Damali is grown," Juanita said, coolly entering the fray. "If she feels comfortable here, so be it."
Damali stared at Juanita. Of all people, Juanita was the last person she'd expect to have her back--albeit for her own selfish reasons. But Juanita didn't need to say a word to her. Fight adrenaline brimmed within Damali as her gaze narrowed by a hair. Yeah, that heifer didn't want her anywhere near the group house. There wasn't enough room in the mansion for the both of them; that was a fact. And Juanita would be sweating her and Jose while they were trying to work. Jose knew it, too.
New tension riddled the group, keeping everyone quiet for a moment. Before she could form a snappy comeback, a slow awareness dawned within Damali.
How many times had Juanita or Carlos broken up the groove on a jam session? How many .times when she and Jose were fusing, rockin', creating the most awesome sounds, did one or the other of those two nonartistic types have an issue, or try to sabotage the connection by creating drama, and pulling them away from what they were doing? And, perhaps more importantly, how often did she and Jose allow it?^Suddenly her muse's complaint began to make a whole lotta sense.
"You might have a point, Jose," Damali said, ignoring Juanita and giving crisp credit to the only person in the room who'd asked her without commanding her. She held Jose's line of vision, totally cutting Carlos out of her gaze as though he wasn't in the room. It grated her the way Carlos came at her, demanding. Fuck all that, she was her own woman. "A week, jamming, having some free mental space to create, get my head back into my music, might not be a half-bad idea."
Jose smiled. "Take it a day at a time, D. No pressure. You get back into the studio, start working again, soon you'll get caught up in that, focused, and your nerves will calm out. That's probably all that's wrong with you... I know I need to do that, too. Been away from my music for too long."
"Yeah," Damali murmured. "Me, too. Thanks, Jose."
Nervous glances passed around the group. Rider pushed off the wall, his gaze sweeping between Carlos, Damali, and Jose. "We'll get a room together for you. It's already set up, actually. All you have to do is bring some clothes, and we can wait here while you throw some stuff in a bag."
Shabazz exchanged a look with Rider and Big Mike. "Carlos, man, you might wanna consider crashing with us, too, for a coupla days. If something untoward went after one Neteru, it might come for the other one--you. Not that anybody is saying you can't handle your business, but like Father Pat said, better safe than sorry."
She watched Carlos bristle at the suggestion. Yeah, she thought, so how do you like feeling boxed in? Ain't fun, is it? "There's three extra suites in there," Damali said, now looking at Carlos. "One in each wing, plus a guest room on the third floor for when the clerics roll through. You can have your space; I can have mine. You take whichever one you want."
For a moment, he just stared at her. She didn't care; she wanted it on record that she wasn't living with him. She wasn't cohabitating in his suite. He wasn't running her under any roof, especially not within the compound. He needed to know that just because she was taking a few clothes home to recharge her batteries, that wasn't a green card to invade her space, get in the way of her creative process, or to otherwise be a pain in her ass.
"I think that is a wise suggestion," Father Patrick said over the speakerphone. "That way, at the very least, we'll all sleep better at night."
"I'll go with you on this one, Father Pat, only because you said