Kitty Sue breathed a sigh of relief, sent us a dazzling smile and put sugar in her coffee.
Ally wandered into the living room.
Lee brushed my hair aside with his chin and softly kissed the spot where my shoulder met my neck.
I guessed that was his way of saying thank you.
It was a good way.
“Hey, where’s Rosie?” Ally asked.
I froze.
So did Lee.
We’d completely forgotten about Rosie.
“Fuck,” Lee said, moved me forward and jumped off the counter, prowling into the living room. I caught a good look both of his muscled back and his ass in his jeans and went a little weak in the knees.
“Liam Nightingale, that mouth!” Kitty Sue admonished.
I followed Lee, but he was already moving out of the living room and through the kitchen.
I looked at the quilt and pillow on the couch.
No Rosie.
“Fuck!” Lee said from somewhere else in the condo.
I ran to him.
The second bedroom door was closed, the bathroom door was open, with the bathroom empty. I walked into Lee’s room and he stalked out of his bathroom.
“That f**king twat,” Lee muttered.
“Mouth!” Super-power-Mom-eared Kitty Sue called from the kitchen.
Lee could always swear really, really well. He’d been doing it since I could remember.
Lee walked to the dresser and slid a drawer open. He pulled on a navy, long-sleeved t-shirt that fit super-snug to his chest and arms and grabbed a pair of socks. I watched as he sat on the bed to pull on the socks and a pair of black motorcycle boots with square toes and silver hoops at the sides.
Seriously kickass boots.
I shook my head to clear thoughts of Lee’s boots and started to worry about Rosie and why he would leave, what he was doing, where he was going and what was in that pot-addled brain of his.
Then something occurred to me as Lee got off the bed.
And for the first time that morning, I smiled.
If I found Rosie first, and got the diamonds back to their owner, then I wouldn’t owe Lee a thing.
Hee hee.
I was so happy with my thought, I had to share it.
“I guess this puts a crimp in your sex extortion plans.”
I’d timed my “nanny nanny foo foo” very poorly. Lee was close enough to hook me around the back of the neck with enough force to send me slamming into him. He gave my hair an erotically rough yank, tilting my head back.
Then he kissed me.
It was a hard, deep and serious kiss with a liberal dose of tongue.
My toes curled into the thick carpet.
When he lifted his head, he said, “I have plans for you. Don’t leave this apartment.”
I nodded.
I had every intention of leaving his apartment.
He watched me.
“Indy, you leave this apartment, I’ll come lookin’ for you.”
“Jeez, we haven’t even slept together and already you don’t trust me.”
“I’ve known you all your life not to mention the fact that my idiot sister is in the next room and when you two get together it’s like Laurel and Hardy do Denver.”
“It is not!”
“What about that time you bought scalped tickets to a Garth Brooks concert from Carmine Alfonzo?”
Carmine Alfonzo, better known as Uncle Carmine. We’d known him since we were seven, he used to ride the squad car with Dad.
“He was in disguise!” I defended myself.
“He was wearing a baseball hat,” Lee returned.
“Yes, but he’s a Cubs fan, he was wearing a Sox hat. His head should have been on fire.”
The sides of Lee’s eyes crinkled in a grin that didn’t involve his mouth but was nevertheless ultra-effective and let go of my hair.
“We aren’t finished yet,” he told me.
“Yes we are,” I retorted.
Lee’s crinkles disappeared and his face got serious.
“This is happening between you and me,” he threatened.
I wasn’t entirely sure what “this” meant since he announced to his mother and sister that we were “together”. Considering what I did know was that a goodly part of it involved us being naked, in his bed, participating in activities which required my avid participation, I wasn’t going to have any part of it.
“No, it isn’t,” I snapped back.
“We’ll talk about it later.”
“No, we won’t.”
His eyes narrowed. “Do I need to kiss you again?”
I took a hasty step back and watched my toe draw a pattern in the carpet.
“No,” I muttered.
“Christ, I need to get my head examined.”
My head snapped up.
“What does that mean?” I asked angrily.
“Nothin’. Be here when I get back.”
“Sure.”
Not on his life.
* * * * *
Ally Nightingale had yet to decide on a career. Currently, she was on her one hundred and eleventh bartending job. She already had a Bachelor’s degree (majored in political science and squeaked by), was a certified radiology technician (a tough gig but she saw it through and worked the MRI machine at Swedish Medical Center for two months before quitting, Malcolm’s head nearly exploded after that one) as well as a certified nail technician.
Of all those things, Ally gave good nails but she found sitting in a chair all day filing, polishing and forming plastic glop into nail shapes was not compatible with her energetic personality.
Luckily, bartending left most of her days free and whenever she needed a bit of cash (which was often), she worked part-time for me at Fortnum’s.
Before coming over with Kitty Sue, Ally had gone to my house and chosen an Ally-outfit for me. If I was to choose a search-for-Rosie outfit or a night-after-Liam outfit it would have included Levi’s. But then most of my outfits included Levi’s unless I had a backstage pass.
Ally had chosen a denim skirt that was mini in the sense that it hit five inches above my knees (not mini in the way Ally wore them, which was five centimeters below her ass), my vintage Rolling Stones t-shirt (I wasn’t a Stones fan but the shirt was way cool), a wide, red belt with a big silver buckle with a delicate filigree-and-braided design and my red cowboy boots.
After Lee and Kitty Sue left, I filled Ally in on the whole Rosie Debacle and my plan to find him. She (not surprisingly) immediately volunteered her assistance and I (equally not surprisingly) took her up on it.
I showered and dressed while Ally tried (and failed) to call Duke.
Then we went to the bookstore to help Jane. With Duke and Rosie out, Jane was alone at the store and was in a tizzy because she was handling the espresso machine by herself and thus, actually had to speak to people. Jane was not good at speaking to people, she could shelve a mean book and was really good at tidying, vacuuming, updating our computer book inventory but customer relations was not her strong suit.