“Been waitin’ a long time, Roxie, to give you a hug. A long, f**kin’ time.”
My arms spasmed around him and I held on tight.
“Me too,” I whispered, his arms pul ed me deeper into him and he squeezed the breath out of my lungs.
I opened my eyes and looked straight into Whisky’s (I couldn’t think of him as Hank, not yet, right then he had to be just Whisky to me). He was stil watching me, leaned back in the couch, the sole of one of his booted feet resting on the edge of a table. But now his expression was different, the laziness was long gone and his eyes were total y alert.
“Uncle Tex,” I started, stil looking at Whisky, in fact, entirely unable to tear my eyes from his, “I… can’t…
breathe.”
That’s when Whisky smiled.
If I thought I couldn’t breathe before, I was wrong.
Whisky’s smile was so damn good, it made me forget how to breathe entirely.
“Sorry, Darlin’.” Tex let me go, grabbed onto my arms and shook me so hard, my head bobbed back and forth.
“Yee ha!” he boomed and looked around the room and then he slung an arm around my shoulders. “This is my niece, Roxie!” he announced to al and sundry (like they didn’t already know).
He jerked me around and my head snapped back.
“Nance, meet my niece.”
I let my brain juices calm down and then smiled dazedly at the pretty woman who walked in with Uncle Tex.
“Hi Roxie, I’m Nancy, Jet’s mother.” She shook my hand and then sat down on the arm of a chair in a way that made me think that if she hadn’t, she would have fal en over. I glanced worriedly at her and her dangling arm, which appeared to be useless. I was about to move toward her to ask if she was al right, when Tex jerked me around toward the espresso counter and my head snapped back again, then again as he yanked me forward.
“Indy, woman, Al y, Loopy Loo, get your asses over here and meet my niece,” he ordered and they came forward.
I was right about al of them. Al y was Whisky’s sister.
Loopy Loo was obviously (for some reason) Tex’s nickname for Jet.
Then I was introduced to Lee; I learned the latest news, that Lee was now Indy’s fiancé and I noticed he had dark brown eyes, Vance; the Native American, Mace; who I guessed had some native Hawaiian or Polynesian in him, was almost as tal as Tex and had fantastic jade green eyes, Matt; a good-looking blond guy that was my height and Eddie; I’d already figured that out but didn’t tel Tex and, luckily, the announcement of blood relation to Tex made Eddie’s coolness toward me melt a bit.
And final y, Whisky, or as Tex introduced him, Hank Nightingale.
Hank Nightingale.
Jesus.
Be stil my heart.
That was a great, f**king name.
Hank’s hand came out and I put mine in his and immediately pul ed my bottom lip between my teeth when our skin made contact.
Shit, Roxie, pull yourself together, I thought and took a breath, forced my teeth to let go of my lip and tried to smile (and failed miserably). Luckily, he didn’t notice as his eyes were doing a ful body scan and then they came up and locked on mine just as Tex jerked me in another direction.
Hank’s hand let mine go but instead of moving away, as the others had, his fingers wrapped around my upper arm and he pul ed me gently, but firmly, away from Uncle Tex, toward him. Then more toward him, his hand sliding down my arm. Then more, his fingers circling my wrist. Then more, his hand finding and wrapping around mine. And final y, I was at his side, our shoulders nearly touching.
Uncle Tex looked around, his eyes narrowing on Hank but before he could speak, Hank did. “I know you’re excited Roxie’s here,” he said in a low, soft voice that was meant only for Tex (and, due to my proximity, me). “But maybe you can get a little control so she doesn’t get whiplash.” My heart fluttered and I leaned into him a bit. I didn’t mean to, I didn’t even want to, my body just did it like it had a mind of its own (it did, of course, have a mind of its own, it just wasn’t working at that moment).
My shoulder hit Hank’s bicep. The second it did, his hand squeezed mine and my throat closed with fear that he might drop my hand and move away.
He didn’t.
This was good for two reasons. One, if he did, I’d have toppled over like a tree, and two, I liked that he was holding my hand.
Uncle Tex looked at me, then he looked at Hank, then he looked back at me. Then, he took a step back and looked at the both of us. We were standing close, I could feel the heat from Hank’s arm burning through my sweater, his hand tight on mine and I was beginning to feel faint again. My eyes weakly flitted to Uncle Tex’s and when he saw it, he grinned.
“Fuckin’ A, Roxie. Right on!” Uncle Tex boomed and I stared, not knowing what in the hell he was talking about.
“What?” I asked.
Uncle Tex didn’t answer me, he looked to Mace and Vance and declared, “You boys gotta learn to move faster or al the good ones’l be gone.”
To this, I heard Hank laugh softly next to me. I looked at him and his eyes were back to lazy, but now they were also amused and, I could swear, behind them, there was an intensity that made my heart start to race.
I tore my eyes away and looked back at Uncle Tex.
“What?” I repeated.
Again, Uncle Tex ignored me as Nancy moved careful y toward us and then grabbed on to his arm. She leaned into him and he took her weight natural y, as if this had happened many times before. She smiled at me. “Why don’t you and Tex come over to my place for dinner?
Maybe we can talk Jet into cooking for us.” Without hesitation, Tex turned toward Jet and boomed,
“Make those f**kin’ brownies with the caramel, Loopy Loo.
It’s a special f**kin’ occasion!”
I jumped at this latest boom and Hank let go of my hand and moved away. I felt his loss like a physical blow and I closed my eyes tight to push it away.
The last time this had happened to me, I’d lost seven years of my life to Bil y.
It wasn’t going to happen to me again, no way.
No… fucking… way.
I hadn’t even gotten rid of Bil y, I certainly didn’t need the trouble that Hank Nightingale had written al over him.
This trouble was worse. This trouble said loud and clear that Hank would eventual y find out about Bil y and realize what a f**king moron I was and Hank would never hold my hand again. Don’t ask me how I knew this, I just knew this like I knew that Manolo Blahnik made the best shoes in history.