Rock Chick Redemption
Page 4

The front of the store was made up of the book counter to the left, on the right was a big espresso counter and al through the middle were tables and chairs, armchairs and comfy couches with low tables on which to set coffees.
I’d stopped when I’d entered and then my breath left me when I scanned the couches.
Sitting on the couches, al drinking coffee, were a bunch of men. Not just any men. It looked like GQ was having a convention and al the best looking guys had decided to have a coffee at Fortnum’s before going to seminars on how to cope with being real y, unbelievably, f**king gorgeous.
There were five of them; two looked a lot alike, like they were brothers. But, of the lot, it was only the one with the whisky-colored eyes that got my attention. They were al looking at me, but the minute my eyes hit Whisky, I felt light-headed and had to stand stock stil or I’d have fal en over in a dead faint.
I knew what it was, it had happened before when I saw Bil y, that fatal attraction. But either it had been a long time or I didn’t remember how huge the feeling was because it hit me like a freight train and I was thrown for a loop.
To cover this, I looked away and tried to walk calmly up to the espresso counter where a female version of Whisky was serving and was her own, feminine brand of gorgeous.
She was watching the guys then she looked at me, grinning like something was deeply amusing.
“Can I help?” she asked.
I’d forgotten why I was there, looking for my Uncle Tex, so I did what anyone would do when confronted with an espresso machine, I ordered a skinny latte with caramel syrup.
“Gotcha,” she said then went to work on my drink and I realized I was holding on to the counter for dear life and utilizing al the powers I had not to look back toward the couches to see if Whisky was stil checking me out.
Please, God, let Whisky still be checking me out, I thought.
Then I gave my head a firm shake to get rid of my idiot thoughts. I needed Whisky to be checking me out like I needed someone to dril a hole in my head, which was to say, not at al .
A fantastic redheaded woman, who I knew from Uncle Tex’s descriptions had to be Indy, walked behind the counter.
She smiled at me.
I smiled back, and, as Whisky was no longer in my line of sight (although I could actual y feel him in the room), I remembered why I was there. I opened my mouth to say something to her when the bel over the door went.
“I’m not speaking to you,” a woman said in a voice that was both angry and obviously ful of shit and I turned to see who had come in.
It was like Fortnum’s was For Gorgeous People Only.
They needed a sign so normal people wouldn’t wander in unwittingly and develop immediate inferiority complexes.
A tremendously handsome, tal Mexican man with a very A tremendously handsome, tal Mexican man with a very pretty blonde woman was entering, obviously in the middle of a light-hearted tiff. I knew this because I’d watched my parents have mil ions of them.
“You’re so ful of shit,” he said what I had thought and grinned at her like this was a lovable trait.
“What’s shakin’?” the brunette behind the counter asked the couple.
“I’l tel you what’s not shakin’, I’m not moving in with Eddie,” the blonde said, glaring at the man at her side.
Holy cow!
I stared.
Tex had told me about Jet, and how Jet had a crush on Eddie and how Eddie was trying to capture Jet’s attention but, even though she had a crush on him, Jet was having none of it. That was in one of my last letters, I’d received it only a few weeks ago.
Now they were talking about moving in together.
Boy, Eddie was a fast one.
“You are,” Eddie retorted, stil looking down at Jet.
“Eddie won’t let me work at Smithie’s. Or I should say, Eddie thinks he won’t let me work at Smithie’s,” Jet said.
“I think you should let her work at Smithie’s.” This came from the couches. I braved a look at them, wondering what Smithie’s was. The comment came from a Native American guy with shiny black hair pul ed into a ponytail at the base of his neck, cheekbones and eyelashes to die for and a shit-eating grin on his face.
I also noticed Whisky was no longer looking at me but smiling and winking at Jet.
I felt my heart contract.
I tore my eyes away and saw Eddie was raising his brows to Jet like some point had been made.
It was a weird feeling, knowing these people and not knowing them at the same time.
“I thought you were moved in with Eddie?” Indy asked and I turned around to look at her.
“It was temporary,” Jet said. She caught my gaze swinging back to her and she gave me a smal smile before she stomped behind the counter (the stomping was obviously al show, stil , I could appreciate that she was good at it, my Mom would have given her a high five for form and execution).
This left me looking at Eddie. He noticed me and his black gaze shifted the length of me. I immediately got the strange sense that he did not like what he saw. Not that every guy who looked at me, especial y guys who were obviously very with pretty girls, had the instant hots for me, but stil , it was strange. It made me feel wrong, like I was invading, not wanted and not welcome.
I got this sense because his eyes, which were liquid with warmth and tenderness when he looked at Jet, turned completely blank when they locked on me and Eddie didn’t strike me as a blank kind of guy.
Then he turned, completely dismissing me and walked to the couches.
I also turned, feeling funny about his reaction. I shook it off, put my back to the couches (because I needed to focus and another glance at Whisky would make me lose that focus, I knew this like I knew my favorite designer was Armani) and I faced the espresso counter
The redhead, brunette and blonde were al talking behind the big coffee machine, looking like the Witches of Eastwick, but prettier and scarier. Since the redhead was Indy and the blonde was Jet, that left the brunette as Al y.
Which meant, from what I knew from Uncle Tex’s letters because she was most definitely related to the brothers at the couches, Whisky was either Lee (which would be bad as I knew he was with Indy) or Hank (which would be bad because Tex told me Hank was a cop and thus not likely ever to be interested in the likes of me, a gangster mol or whatever I was).
“I think you should move in with Eddie,” Al y was saying, finishing up my drink.
“I’m trying to break up with him,” Jet said.
I gasped, because even if he dismissed me, who in their right minds would break up with Eddie? He was gorgeous.