“Loopy Loo”.

Then Duke showed. I knew Duke; he worked for Indy at the used bookstore-slash-coffee house she owned cal ed Fortnum’s. I hadn’t been there in ages. Tex apparently worked there now too, by al accounts (and there were many of them), he was the best barista in the Rocky Mountains.

Duke was a Harley guy, long gray hair in a braid, thick gray beard, always wearing a black leather vest over a Harley shirt and a rol ed, red bandana around his forehead.

He was gruff with a velvet and stone Sam El iott voice but he was a good guy. He walked in, counted heads, muttered, “Shee-it, we’re al f**ked,” and walked out again, not to return.

Then a big black man strol ed in. He scanned the room and his eyes hit me. Then he looked at Shirleen and stated,

“You owe me fifty bucks. I told you it would be the Hawaiian.”

My eyes went to Ava.

“They had a bet to see which Hot Bunch Boy would get picked off next by a Rock Chick,” Ava explained.

A bet?

These people bet on this shit?

Effing hel .

“His name is Mace, you jackass,” Shirleen shot back.

“I try not to learn their names. If I know their names, means I know them and if I know them, I gotta go to their funerals when they get themselves blown to shit,” Smithie returned.

I stopped breathing.

“That’s Smithie,” Jet whispered to me. “He seems tough but he’s actual y a very caring person.”

Right.

“Smithie! A little sensitivity, if you don’t mind,” Roxie warned, her gaze sliding to me.

Smithie’s eyes came back to me. “Yeah, heard you got shot. Flesh wound. Big deal. These bitches seen worse.” Oh my God! Were these people insane?

“Stop cal ing us bitches!” Al y snapped.

“Crazy white bitches, the lot of you. ‘Cept you.” He nodded at Shirleen. “You’re a crazy black bitch. Fuck,” Smithie finished then walked out before Shirleen could lose her mind like she looked like she was about to do.

“He was just here to see if we were al right,” Indy assured me.

I was beginning to think the whole bunch of them were beyond insane, they were certifiable.

Then Annette showed. She was Roxie’s best friend, just moved to Denver from Chicago and about to open her new head shop cal ed “Head West”. She already had one in Chicago, now re-christened “Head East”.

“Yo bitches!” she shouted when she arrived.

Yep, these people were certifiable.

“Okay, let me get this straight.” Annette stood in the doorway staring at us. “First, you al meet Roxie, now that’s after Indy got kidnapped a couple times, shot at and car bombs were exploding. And after Jet got shot at, kidnapped a couple of times and almost raped. Then came Roxie and I was around when Roxie was assaulted at a haunted house and held hostage at a society party after, of course, she got kidnapped. I leave and new girl Jules starts a vigilante war against drug dealers and ends up in ICU

with two bul et holes in her. Then new, new girl Ava survives a drive-by, gets kidnapped repeatedly and ends up on a wild ride, exiting a wrecked car right before it explodes.

Now all of you are getting shot at… at the same time?”

“That about sums it up,” Al y told her.

“Denver is cah-ray-zee,” Annette announced. “I love this f**kin’ place!”

Total y certifiable.

“Oh my God!” Annette screamed making me jump and scaring the beejeezus out of me. Her eyes were locked on something across the room. “You got a PlayStation 3? I’m going out right now and getting Guitar Hero!” Off she went to get Guitar Hero and when she came back we al stood around playing Guitar Hero, sometimes two of us at a time.

Now I could stand in front of a heaving crowd of hundreds of people playing Ram Jam’s “Black Betty”. What I could not do was stand in Daisy’s living room with a toy guitar in my hands and get through the length of Boston’s

“More Than a Feeling” on beginner level, which meant I only had to master three buttons, without getting “booed off the stage”.

What was up with that?

Later, Daisy sent one of the be-suited members of the big gun toting army out to get the items on a grocery list I wrote. Jules’s uncle Nick came over after he finished work and he helped me as I made herb-buttered salmon wrapped in puff pastry, potatoes dauphenois with cheese and steamed asparagus. None of the Rock Chicks offered culinary assistance, which was cool because it meant Nick and I could get to know each other and he thought everyone was certifiable too.

“They may al be kooks,” Nick said, “but they’re lovable.” Sheesh.

Most everyone loved the food (Annette: “You might be shit at Guitar Hero but your cooking is phat.”). Tex declared Nick and my meal “fancy-ass nonsense” and went out and got himself takeout chicken burritos (smothered, with lettuce and cheese) from El Tejado.

When Tex got back, we al played more Guitar Hero.

By that time, my hip hurt, like, a lot.

Indy saw the pain pinching at my mouth and leaned into me. “Lee cal ed and said if I didn’t hear from him, we’d be staying here tonight.”

This was not good news. I real y wanted to go home.

However, I also wanted my heart to be beating, my lungs to be working, my blood to be flowing through my veins and my brain to be functioning a lot more than I wanted to go home. Therefore I decided against throwing a hissy fit, going home and likely getting murdered on my way there.

I took the last two pain kil ers the doctor gave me and Juno and I crashed.

For your information, none of the Rock Chicks asked me about my tête-à-tête with Mace, mainly because they heard my side of it as I’d been shouting and they’d been eavesdropping.

This brought me up to now.

In bed. Again. With Mace.

I moved cautiously forward hoping he wouldn’t notice.

His arm got tight.

Yep, he noticed.

“Mace, let me go.”

He didn’t let me go.

He buried his face in my hair and murmured in a rough, tired, deep voice, “Christ, I feel like I’ve had ten minutes of sleep.”

This was a toughie. Back in the day (as in, the day before yesterday), if I heard that, I would have barred the door and taken down anyone who dared to disturb Mace’s rest (unless, of course, they were a member of my band).

But that was the day before yesterday.

“Mace, let me go,” I repeated.

His chin moved my hair.