“Deal,” I agreed.
She shook her head but muttered, “Deal.”
I sucked back some coffee and asked, “How much shit am I facing with the Rock Chicks?”
“They’ve had a whole night to rip it to shreds so they’ve mostly burned it out. They’ll get over it,” she answered. “Tex is beside himself, though. He’s going stir crazy without anything exploding or anyone getting kidnapped. He likes to be a sidekick and he’s got grenades and tear gas that are going unused. He doesn’t need to use them, but he prefers living a life where that might be a possibility.”
She was not wrong.
She kept going.
“Duke’s being quiet so, heads up on that. I think he’s hurt. And Smithie’s pissed because he knows no way he’s ever gonna get you to dance for him if you’ve hooked up with a Zano. And you were his last hope.”
There was no way Smithie was ever going to get me to dance for him anyway, even though he asked—frequently—so that last was a relief.
I summed up. “So, not bad. Except Duke.”
“You need to find your time to connect with him,” she advised.
I could do that. Duke had been so much of a fixture in my life, I didn’t remember a time when he wasn’t in it. He also cared about me a lot, showed it, and I returned the favor (in my way).
I nodded then declared, “Brother’s also let me go so we gotta get to Fortnum’s. The tip jar just became my livelihood.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “You were fired?”
“How I lasted this long was a miracle.”
She didn’t agree verbally, but her smile did it for her.
Then it faded and she asked, “You gonna be okay?”
“Right now, all my belongings would fit in a carryall and I’d have room to spare. Still, I’ve got everything a girl needs. So yeah, I’ll be okay.”
“Yeah, you will,” she said softly.
She was one of the reasons I’d be okay, so she should know.
“That doesn’t mean I don’t need to hit Fortnum’s, but before, we gotta dash through the mall. I have two changes of clothes. I need to stock up and then we gotta bounce.”
She nodded again as she rose, taking her coffee. I went up with her, doing the same. We left our cars where they were and moved down the sidewalk heading out of Cherry Creek North toward the mall.
“You know, it would go a long way to smoothing things over with those three if you sent Roxie, Tod and Stevie to the mall to deal with your wardrobe emergency,” Indy noted.
I stopped dead on the sidewalk and turned to her.
She was so right. And I was a Rock Chick, which meant I was a shopper. But I had shit to deal with, and as much as it killed, the time suckage of buying new jeans and tees was suckage I didn’t need.
“Why didn’t I think of that?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she answered, grinning. “Maybe because you were worried about me, your apartment exploded and you got fired.”
I grinned back. “Oh yeah. That took some headspace.”
“I see that,” she replied as we made to turn back.
But as we did, my eyes caught on something through a shop window and I again stopped dead.
Then I stared.