Then, I moaned.
I couldn’t help myself, they were that good.
When I opened them, the Handsome Troop, including Lee, Eddie, Mace, Vance and Hank were al staring at me and Lee and Eddie had lost their scary looks.
Hank was looking at me like he wanted to take a bite out of me.
My heart skipped a beat and my head went dizzy.
I covered quickly.
“What?” I asked after I swal owed. “They’re good.” Uncle Tex’s hand went to the top of my head. “You can tel she’s family.”
Al y came up as Indy whisked empty martini glass number three out of my hand and exchanged it with ful martini glass number four, better known to al as Naughty Girl Martini.
“Heard you bought Tex a cel phone,” Al y said.
“Yeah!” I replied, maybe a bit more excitedly than a new cel phone warranted, and I pul ed it out of my pocket. “I’m getting everyone’s numbers for him. What’s your number?” I flipped it open, bent my head and hit the buttons that would add numbers to the phone book.
“I’m not gonna use it,” Uncle Tex said.
“Trust me, you’l use it,” I told him.
“Waste of good f**kin’ money,” Uncle Tex said.
I looked up and scowled at him.
“I’m tel ing you, Uncle Tex, you’l use it!” It wasn’t so much tel ing him he’d use it as ordering him to use it.
He grinned. “Darlin’ girl, you’re cute when you’re riled.”
“And you’re annoying when you’re stubborn,” I shot back and took a sip of martini (okay, maybe it was a gulp) thus catapulting myself into Naughty Girl Martini Land.
He just shook his head at me like I was funny.
My scowl darkened.
“What happens when Nancy wants to get hold of you when you’re out in the El Camino? Hunh? What then?” Uncle Tex’s face got red, and it wasn’t from anger, or maybe, I should say, it wasn’t entirely from anger.
If I’d been paying attention (which I was not, I was too drunk to pay attention), I’d have noticed that al the women in my vicinity (including Indy, Al y, Jet, Daisy and Trixie) smiled and al the men (including Hank, Lee, Vance, Mace and Eddie) tensed.
“Roxie,” I heard a deep voice say from behind me.
It wasn’t a voice that was total y familiar to me but I knew it anyway.
It was Hank.
“Wel ?” I asked Uncle Tex, ignoring Hank and putting the hand with the cel to my hip.
“Roxanne Gisel e, you’re cruisin’ for a bruisin’,” Uncle Tex said in a low boom.
“Ha!” I replied. It wasn’t much of a comeback but I felt Hank behind me and it was al I could come up with.
Tex leaned in, Hank’s hand wrapped around my arm and he pul ed me away from Uncle Tex’s threatening pose and back into his body. I was too drunk for an evasive maneuver and anyway, I liked the feel of his body against me.
Tex’s eyes went beyond me.
“Nightingale, maybe you should take her out back and program your number into my new f**kin’ phone.”