I trudged back inside and made myself a pallet on the floor using one of my new blankets and pillow. I tucked my stun gun under said pillow, pulled another blanket over me, and leaving the light on, instantly fell asleep.
A loud knock at the door woke me. The blankets tangled around my legs as I scrambled up. I was groggy and shaky, but still I grabbed the stun gun, my finger on the trigger.
The knock sounded again. “Who is it?” I yelled.
“Open the door, Rose.”
Sullivan.
I pulled on the catering pants and the sweatshirt I’d worn earlier, and with stun gun in hand I unhooked the chain, unlocked the door, and opened it. Sullivan leaned one shoulder against the doorjamb. He slowly appraised me from head to toe, casting a glance at the weapon pointed at his face.
“Are you going to use that on me?”
“I’m definitely thinking about it. If you threaten me or my family one more time, you can count on it.”
He thrust his hand into his pocket. “You called me, remember? Something about your panties? I found it intriguing.”
I glared. “Why didn’t you just break down the door again?”
“Because we’re friends now and breaking in would be rude.” He gave me a charming smile.
I wasn’t charmed.
“You going to invite me inside?”
“Oh yes, by all means.” I stood back, opened the door wider, my right hand tightening around the stun gun. Sullivan walked in and I shut the door behind him, never taking my eyes off him, never turning my back on him.
He glanced around the apartment. “Redecorating?” He looked at the futon shell with a frown and then pointed to the corner where I stood. “Where’s your table?”
“You and your evil minions wrecked it, remember? You know, along with my underwear, my food, my clothes, etc.”
His gold eyes darkened. “You think I did this?”
I actually laughed. “Oh, you are priceless. ‘You think I did this?’” I imitated his deep voice.
“You think I destroyed your things?”
“Oh God, no.” I waved him off with my hand. “You would never.”
He looked me dead in the eye. “I did not do this.”
“Well, not you personally. I wouldn’t expect Thomas Malcolm Sullivan to get his hands dirty. But Henry, on the other hand…”
He narrowed his eyes. “How do you know my name?”
“Well, Rumpelstiltskin, I could tell you…but then I’d have to stun the hell out of you.” I pushed the trigger. A blue current of electricity sizzled, filling the air with the metallic scent of ozone. “Oh, wait, I might enjoy that.”
“You’re welcome to try.” The way he said it was mildly pleasant, but the way his nostrils flared slightly, his jaw clenched and unclenched, told me he was getting pissed.
“I may take you up on that.”
He studied me and I could almost see the wheels turn. “You got my number from Packard Graystone. You called my cell and blocked your ID the other day.”
“And you broke into my apartment and trashed all my possessions. This game of state the obvious is so not fun.”
“I. Did not. Do. This.” He spoke slowly as he advanced toward me.
“So you ordered Henry to do it. It’s still on you.”
“Not true.”
Seemed we were at a stalemate. I wasn’t going to get into an argument of ‘did not’ ‘did too.’ “Why should I believe you?”
Standing in front of me, his chest touching mine, he gave me a wolfish smile and flashed his teeth, completely unconcerned I could zap the crap out of him. “Because if I did it, Rose, I would take credit for it.”
I blinked. Of course he would. He would rub my nose in it and tell me it was another warning, and something worse would happen if I didn’t shape up. Oh my God, I actually believed him.
“What about Henry? He’s capable of this.”
“Henry wouldn’t take a piss unless I told him to.”
“Nice imagery.”
“Who else have you ticked off besides me?”
This could take all night. “I have an ex who’s not happy with me.”
Sullivan walked around the room until he realized there was no place to sit. “Yes, Kevin Wilkins. Your taste in men is terrible.”
“It is beyond creepy that you know so much about my ex-boyfriend.” I tossed the stun gun onto my pallet. It seemed stupid to keep clutching it. I wasn’t going to use it on Sullivan and he knew it. “And what do you know about my taste in men?”
“You’ve been dating Dane Harker.” He made it sound like an accusation.
“That’s none of your business. My life is none of your business.”
“Right now, everything you do is my business. You’re a wild card. Unpredictable. Anyway, Dane Harker is another mistake.” He flicked his hand like he was shooing a fly.
“You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
He walked toward me, stopping just six inches away. “Dane Harker follows the rules. He likes things nice and neat. He plays golf on Saturdays, has Chinese takeout every Wednesday. Orders the same thing every time, by the way.”
“He’s nice.”
“He’s boring.”
“Well, Kevin’s not boring. Kevin’s not predictable.”
“Kevin is a moron. He legally changed his name to Spaz.”
Yeah, okay, there was that. Kevin was a moron. But if Sullivan thought I was going to agree with him, he was cuckoo in the cabeza. Wait. Why was I arguing about my love life with this crime boss, in the middle of the night no less?
“Why are you here? To apologize for wrecking my apartment?”
His lips thinned. “I told you. I didn’t do it.”
I lifted my palms up, my fingertips brushing his chest. “Let’s pretend that’s true.” I echoed his words from the first night he broke into my apartment. “You still have Axton.”
“Yes, and I’m keeping him.” Clasping my hands in his, he looked around the room. “You can’t stay here. If whoever did this comes back—”
“I can take care of myself, thank you.” I tried to pull my hands out of his grasp, but he tightened his hold on me. A little shiver zinged through me. Sullivan was the bad guy. Not the guy I should be zinging for.
“Yes, you’ve done an amazing job so far,” he said, as his thumbs made little circles on my palms.
I glared at him, trying again to pull away. This time he let me go. I clenched my fists against the tingles.
“You don’t even have a bed to sleep in, Rose.” He nodded his head toward my pallet.
I raised a brow. “And that’s your concern, why?”
His face, so full of emotion a moment before, became expressionless. “You’re right. It’s not.”
He slammed the door when he left.
Ma looked me over. “Rose, you don’t look too good.”
What else was new? I had dark purple splotches under my eyes and no amount of cheap makeup could hide them. “I can’t seem to get enough sleep.”
Roxy walked out of the kitchen and tied an apron around her waist. She wore a short pink and white dress that looked like a flouncy birthday cake. “I swear, Rose, you look worse every day.”
I glared at her and bared my teeth. I may have growled.
“Jeez, just saying.”
“Sullivan came by last night. He says he didn’t trash my apartment.”
Ma slapped her hands on the counter. “What is wrong with that man? He’s got a lot of gall, I’ll tell you that for free.”
“Or maybe he has the hots for Rose,” Roxy said. “So, do we believe him?”
I nodded and refilled my coffee cup. “Yep. I do. But I also believed Dane and Kevin when they denied it. I’m too tired to think about it anymore. All I want is to rescue Axton and get a good night’s sleep.”
“Come and stay with me, Rose,” Ma said. “You can have the spare bedroom.”
Someone vandalized my car and my apartment. No way I’d put her in that kind of danger. “Thanks Ma, but my futon mattress is coming today. I’m hoping I can get to bed early tonight, with no uninvited guests.”
We got to work and the morning passed quickly. Until ten-thirty when my mother walked in the diner.
She was awash in beige. Beige coat, beige slacks, beige sweater. Her hair was perfect, her brown leather handbag expensive, and her shoes probably cost more than I made in a month.
“Hello, Rosalyn.” She looked around the diner, her lips puckered in contempt. “Is there somewhere we can speak privately?”
Ma came out from behind the counter. “You must be Rose’s mother. I can see the resemblance.”
Barbara tilted her lips into a fake smile. “Yes.”
“Mom, this is Ma. Ma this is my mother, Barbara Strickland.”
Ma wiped her hand on a dish towel and extended it to my mother. “Nice to meet you, Barbara.”
My mother had that half handshake, where she just gave you her fingertips as if she were Queen Elizabeth greeting the little people. “It’s nice to meet you. Ma.”
Roxy finished refilling a cup of coffee at the table in the far corner. She walked up to us. “Hello,” she said, chomping her gum.
Barbara quickly scanned Roxy’s blue hair and pink confection of a dress. “Rosalyn, somewhere private?”
“You can use my office,” Ma said.
Ma’s office consisted of a small desk covered in fake wood and a rolling chair with yellow foam spilling out of its ripped seat. Metal shelves filled with cleaning supplies, toilet paper, and liquid soap in gallon bottles lined the walls.
“Make yourself at home,” Ma said, closing the door behind her.
“With every advantage we gave you, this is where you ended up.”
I was so tired and the stress of the past several days started catching up with me. My nerves were jumpy and jittery from too much coffee and the last thing I needed was my mother dispensing lectures.
“Why are you here, Mom?”
Her disgusted gaze turned from the shelves to me. Too bad the expression on her face never changed. I guess I ranked up there with the single ply.
“I have heard from several sources that you were seen in front of the police station making a spectacle of yourself.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
She took a deep breath through her nose. Good, she was having a hard time with the whole patience thing, too.
“What exactly were you doing with Dane Harker?”
I gave her my wide-eyed, confused look. “Making a spectacle of myself?”
“You know,” she said through thinned lips, “we have put up with your nonsense for a long time. We’ve had to defend you to all of our friends. You work in a diner. As a waitress.” She practically hissed the last word. “You befriend people like Axton Graystone and that blue-haired freak out there.” She pointed toward the dining area. “And now I hear that you were getting ‘physical’,” she used air quotes, “with Dane Harker.
“Well I’m tired of having to tell people you’re ‘trying to find yourself’.” She did the air quote thing again. “It’s high time you grow up and act like a responsible adult. Really. Groping the man in the middle of the street. It’s humiliating.”
“I wasn’t groping him, Mother. He hugged me. It wasn’t a big deal.”
She threw back her head. “Nothing is a big deal to you. Drop of out of college, waste your life in this dump, bring that boy with the big holes in his ears to your cousin’s wedding, never caring about how mortified your father and I would be. You still haven’t apologized to Tatum Hopkins. She was distraught. But no, nothing’s ever a big deal for Rosalyn.”
For years I’d been trying desperately to keep the peace with my mother for Jacks’ sake. I wanted to see Scotty, and I didn’t want to put Jacks in the middle of it, so I sucked up whatever my mother had dished out, telling myself that between the two of us, I was the bigger, better person. But today, I’d had enough. Jacks was going to have to make her own decisions, because I had made mine.
“Sorry I’m such an embarrassment. But I am a responsible adult, Mom. I pay my own way because you cut me off five years ago. I was barely nineteen and you threw me out like a sack of trash.”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be dramatic.”
“What would you call it? All I wanted to do was go to a different college. Why was that such a terrible thing?”
“You’ve never appreciated anything we did for you. We spent a fortune on that school, but of course, that wasn’t good enough.” She stood a little straighter. “And now you’re paying us back. That’s what all this ‘acting out’ is about, isn’t it? Punishing your father and me?”
“You got me. It’s all about you.” I put my hands on my hips. “You may not like what I do or who my friends are. But that is just too damn bad. If I want to dry hump Dane Harker in the middle of the Apple Tree Boulevard, that’s none of your business.” I had lifted the lid off the pot of my boiling emotions and now they were bubbling over.
“Guess what? I don’t care that you don’t approve of me. And I could care even less about your snotty tight-assed friends. My life is just that. Mine. I’ve made it on my own, no thanks to you. And I will not have you waltz into my place of employment again with your little tirades and lectures, treating me like I am a child. Is that clear?”
She stared at me through slitted eyes. “Crystal.” She flung open the door and walked out of the office, her head held high.
“And by the way,” I called after her, “air quotes are pretentious.”
I sagged against the desk and gulped down the stale air. I felt a little dizzy and relieved and sick to my stomach all at the same time.
I didn’t know what the fallout would be, but it wouldn’t be good. Jacks might have to sneak around to see me. As far as my dad went, he just tried to keep my mom happy. It still stung that I didn’t have her love and support, but it was time I got over it.
I walked back into the dining area. Ma looked concerned. Jorge looked curious. And Roxy looked at me with mixture of both.
“Your mom was really pissed,” Roxy said.
“Yeah,” said Jorge, wiping his hands on his apron. “She almost knocked me down as she left. Like she didn’t even see me.”
“Are you okay, toots?” asked Ma.
“I am,” I said, nodding. “I just got some things off my chest.”
“Do you need anything?” Jorge asked.
I smiled and shook my head.
“Okay, I’m going to help Ray with the kitchen, then.” He turned and left.
“Start talking,” Roxy said. “I want to know every detail.”
Just then my phone vibrated. It was Sheila Graystone, so I answered.
“Rose! Some guy just towed my effing car.”