My eyes slid to Lee, who was not smiling. Then to Indy, who was glaring at Tod.
But my mind went to Girls Night Out two years ago when Indy got in a catfight with Lee’s ex, Cherry.
Her outfit was lush (Indy’s, not Cherry’s; I hated Cherry, she was a lying, bitchy skank, though it was kinda harsh she nearly exploded in a car bomb—karma, totally a bitch).
Indy’s outfit did get covered in soup.
That had been a good night.
The best.
Or, as it was with the Rock Chicks, one of many bests.
And now it was laid out on pages for all the world to read.
And I couldn’t stop that small part of me thinking that wasn’t such a bad thing.
Because it wasn’t perfect, none of it.
But it was a fairytale.
And people needed to believe in fairytales. Even flawed ones.
Maybe especially flawed ones.
And they needed to believe always.
Chapter Thirteen
Lotus, Cowgirl, Scissor and Doggie
I put the plates on the dining room table and adjusted the cutlery.
I’d called Ren ten minutes earlier and lied to him that I was heading home with food. This was a lie since I called when I was already at his place.
It’s important to point out it was a little white lie. One I forgave myself for because I needed time to do all I needed to do (not that I didn’t forgive myself for all of them). And all I needed to do was get the champagne and the chocolate candles I bought from Pasquini’s in the fridge, set the table and arrange the bouquet of flowers and candles there and wash the champagne flutes I also bought.
I’d timed it so all would be ready, but the food would not be cold and I hoped he could wrap things up at work and get home in time to fit in with my plan.
It was a bummer that I didn’t have a fabulous dress and heels he hadn’t already seen to change into. But after leaving the Rock Chick Powwow, I only had enough time to deal with my plans for dinner and not enough time to do some shopping.
The good news was, I’d taxed Roxie, Tod and Stevie with the mission to kit me out with clothes and other items any girl needed to exist and they were all over it. So I suspected I’d have way more than two pairs of jeans tomorrow.
The bad news was, although my insurance company was on top of working through the process of getting me a check, when I’d called my landlord, he’d communicated to me he was not a big fan of keeping me as a tenant.
He communicated this by saying, “Ally, darlin’, you pay your rent on time. You got a lot of visitors, but you’re quiet.” (This, by the by, was only partially true, and indicated to me that none of my neighbors had complained when I played my rock ‘n’ roll.) “And once that stuff hit the papers about your friends, gotta admit, I was expecting this to happen. But, gotta say, I wasn’t expecting it to be this bad.”
I couldn’t argue that. There had been a lot of kidnappings and stun gun usage was not unheard of, but only Stella and me shared our pads getting blown sky high.
“For the safety of my other tenants, maybe we can make arrangements for you to be let out of your lease,” he went on. “Full security deposit back and you don’t have to pay this month’s rent, seeing as there’s no apartment to rent.”
I translated this to mean: It would be a good idea that you let me let you out of your lease so I don’t have to be an ass**le and evict you.
It must be said, I didn’t like it when ass**les were ass**les normally (who did?). Forcing someone who was trying not to be one into one was not my gig. So I agreed to vacate the premises. Figuratively, of course, since currently there were no premises to vacate and I had no possessions actually to vacate.
But this sucked. I couldn’t say I was emotionally attached to my apartment, but I didn’t need to be looking for one at this juncture. I had tons of other shit to do.
I also couldn’t argue with his reasoning. If the unknown jerkoff from New Mexico was a little more gung ho, something already bad could have gone way worse, and I didn’t need that on my conscience or to force the issue and put it on someone else’s.