“No, no, no. I’m gonna rip his dick off and shove it up his nose and parade him through the streets na**d and dickless and then cut his head off.”

The entire store was silent.

“Annette, honey, I thought you were a pacifist,” I reminded her in a placating voice.

“Have you seen your face?”

“Um… yeah. It’s already a lot better.”

At my words, her eyes bugged out.

Holy cow.

Wrong thing to say.

Quickly, I said, “Let me introduce you to everybody.” I did the introductions. Annette gave Uncle Tex a big, old hug and when I finished with Hank, she looked him up and down, turned to me and nodded while she said, “Nice.” Hank’s arm slid along my shoulders and he pul ed me into his side.

Annette and Jason took this in and Annette smiled huge.

Then she said, “Very nice.”

I looked up at Hank and his lips were twitching.

Shit.

Then, Jason came forward, took my hand and said, “Do you mind?” to Hank. He pul ed me away from Hank’s arm and into both of his own. Then he gave me a tight hug, shoving his face in my neck.

The room, having recovered from Annette’s outburst, went silent again.

I felt the tears hit the backs of my eyes and slid my arms around him.

“Jason, I’m okay,” I whispered. “I’m fine, I’m here. It’s over.”

He didn’t let me go. I heard Annette give a loud, hiccoughing sob (Annette was a crier, just like me) then her arms came around both of us.

We stood like that for a while and then I heard Hank say softly, “Jason, Roxie’s got three cracked ribs.” Jason’s arms loosened and he and Annette stepped away. Immediately, Hank slid his arm across my shoulders again and pul ed me tight to his side.

“Annette tel s me you’re a cop,” Jason said, looking at Hank.

Hank nodded.

“You’l get him?” Jason asked.

Hank nodded again.

Jason looked at him for a few beats, then he nodded too and I watched the tension ebb from his body.

Everyone was quiet after that.

“Al righty then!” Indy said into the ensuing silence, “Why don’t we al get lunch?”

“That sounds great, I could eat a horse but gotta unload the car first. We got a boatload of your shit,” Annette said to me. “The old Subaru is draggin’.”

“You can take it to my place,” Hank told her.

I froze.

No. No way in hell. I thought.

“No,” I said out loud.

“Cool,” Annette ignored me. “Should we fol ow you

“Cool,” Annette ignored me. “Should we fol ow you there?”

“We’l al go,” Al y, al of a sudden, was there. “Many hands make light work.”

“No,” I repeated, slightly louder this time.

“Let’s go, I’m starved. The sooner we get this done, the sooner I can eat,” Eddie said as he and Jet walked up to us. He had Jet in a hold much like the one Hank was using on me.

“No,” I said again, even louder.

“Where are we going to lunch? I vote Las Delicias,” Indy put in.

“We had that yesterday,” Lee said.

“Every day is Las Delicias day,” Indy smiled to him.

“No!” I said for the fourth time and it was nearly a shout.

Daisy linked her arm in mine, pul ing me away from Hank. “You can ride with me, Sugar. We got shit we haven’t talked about yet.”

It was Hank’s turn to freeze.

“Don’t worry, Hunkalicious, we’l be right on your tail,” Daisy told him and guided me to the door.

“Don’t mind Tex, Jane and me, we’l just stay here and work!” Duke shouted to us as we walked out the door.

“Thanks, you’re a dol ,” Indy shouted back.

I looked back in dread at Uncle Tex but he was grinning.

Daisy took me to her Mercedes, which was parked in the back while everyone scattered to their own vehicles.

I sat in the car, staring unseeing out the window while she started the car.

“Sugar, you look scared as a jackrabbit,” Daisy said.

“Sugar, you look scared as a jackrabbit,” Daisy said.

“I am scared. My car has been impounded and I can’t get home. I can’t get anywhere. Now my friends are essential y moving my shit into the house of a man I’ve known for a week. It’s official. As of today, I met him a week ago.”

“Seems longer,” Daisy muttered.

She wasn’t wrong.

“Relax,” Daisy said. “One thing I learned, this life is a wild ride and you got to just go with it.”

I turned to her. “I need a moment to think. I need a moment to plan. I need a moment to myself.”

“That’s just when it al goes wrong, when you have time to think. And you got an eternity of lyin’ alone in your coffin.

Now you best be spendin’ your time with good folk and a handsome man. Come when you’re eighty and wonderin’

where your life went, you won’t thank yourself for cuttin’

loose and leavin’ a good thing behind, comprende?” I opened my mouth to say something but Daisy didn’t let me.

“Trust me Sugar, I –” then she stopped talking, her eyes got big and she looked beyond me, out the side window.

I turned to see what she was looking at and in my window was a man, bent over and looking in.

Not just any man, one of the men who took Bil y.

He tapped on the window with a gun.

“Get out of the car,” he said, looking at me.

“Please tel me that’s a flashback,” I whispered.

“That ain’t no f**kin’ flashback,” Daisy replied. Then she slammed the car in reverse and sped backwards on a vicious tug of the wheel, curling sideways. The bad guy jumped out of the way of the bumper and Daisy nearly rammed into Eddie’s truck, which was pul ing down the al ey behind us.

The man with the gun ran to a car on Bayaud and got in as Daisy took the turn onto Bayaud. The other man who’d come to take Bil y, the one who tied me to the sink, was driving the car. They shot away from the curb after us.

“Oh no. No, no, no. Shit! ” I shouted.

I looked behind and saw that they fol owed and Eddie turned in behind them.

“You know these boys?” Daisy asked.

“They’re the ones who took Bil y.”

“Mm hmm,” she mumbled, shifting up and staring in the rearview mirror as she ran the red and turned onto Broadway.