The other two murmur in agreement. Dragon Locke, the drummer, looks especially menacing. Of course, Dragon looks menacing when he’s watching a bluebird sing. It’s just his thing.
“I appreciate the sentiment,” I say. “Really, I do, but it’s not going to help things. This man tried to have Callie arrested for spilling coffee on him. What do you think he’s going to do with the four of you if you beat him to a pulp?”
“He’ll think twice about spreading lies,” Jesse says. “Sure, he could have us arrested. He could have us arrested a million times, and when we’re released, we’re going to go back and pummel him a million more times.”
“He’ll get a restraining order.” This from Callie, who somehow made her way into the garage without me noticing.
“Where’d you come from?” Jesse asks.
“Donny just dropped me off.”
Jesse goes rigid. He and Callie’s fiancé still have a stupid high school rivalry going. It’s really time for them to get over it.
“Yeah,” I say. “He’ll get a restraining order.”
“He’s not smart enough to get a restraining order,” Jesse says.
I open my mouth to agree with him, but then I stop myself. Pat Lamone has already proved that he’s not as stupid as we think he is.
“A restraining order costs money,” I say. “Can he afford an attorney?”
“I don’t know,” Callie says. “The first thing he’ll do is go to Hardy Solomon, the sheriff, who’ll arrest you guys. We’ll get you out on bail, and it will probably be a condition of bail that you can’t go near Pat Lamone. So he may not even need to get a restraining order.”
“And who’s going to keep us away from him?” This from Dragon. His menacing gaze hasn’t strayed from mine.
“You’re going to keep yourselves away from him,” I say, locking my gaze with Dragon’s. “Because Callie and I are not going to let this happen. We’ve gone through enough, and we don’t want any more that he can hold against us and our family.”
“Rory’s right,” Callie says. “Please don’t do this, guys.”
Jesse’s hands are curled into fists. So are Cage’s and Jake’s. And Dragon looks like he’s about to commit murder.
This is not good.
“Fine,” Jesse finally says through clenched teeth.
“Thank you.” I squeeze my brother’s forearm.
I’m not completely sure we’ve convinced him. He and the band just finished an awesome rehearsal, and they’re high on the music. They need to release some steam.
“We’ve got a gig next weekend,” Jess says to me. “You in?”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you. The rest of us are already in. We’re the band.”
“You don’t need me.”
“Sure we do.”
“Jess, you know what’s going on. My head may not be in the game.”
“Your head was in the game at the party a week ago.”
“Actually, no it wasn’t. I was semi-dialing in. It was a Steel party. This is an actual gig, right? Where real people will see you? Where agents might be in the audience?”
“Well…yeah. But Rory, you… You’re the selling point.”
I roll my eyes.
“Having that face and body on stage with us is a good thing,” Dragon says, his voice low.
Damn. Dragon is pretty sexy, but I’m all in with Brock at the moment. Besides, he’s never given me a look before.
“Sure. I guess. I mean… I’ve got some stuff going on.” I glance at Jesse.
Jesse nods. “We get it. We’ll make do without you if we have to.”
“It depends on what this week brings,” I say. “Right, Callie?”
She nods. “Yep.”
“You want to come with us for lunch, Callie?” Jesse says. “We’re heading to that new Taco Bell.”
“You know? A taco sounds pretty good. Count me in.” Callie smiles.
“Callie and I will drive separately,” I say.
“We will?”
“Yeah. There’s six of us, so it will be difficult to pile into one car.”
“My van’s empty,” Cage says. “We can all fit in there.”
Cage’s van. It’s a different van, of course, than the one we “borrowed” ten years ago, but still… Makes me remember things I don’t really want to remember. Not that they’re far from my mind anyway, with Jesse threatening to fight Pat mere moments ago.
“Callie and I will drive separately,” I say again.
This time no one tries to talk me out of it.
After a quick lunch of tacos, which weren’t bad at all, Jesse and the guys head back to the ranch.
I was looking over my shoulder the whole time at Taco Bell, wondering if Lamone would saunter in. If he had, Callie and I wouldn’t have been able to stop Jesse and the others from doing whatever they pleased.
“That was close,” Callie says, echoing my thoughts.
“I guess Pat isn’t the taco type,” I say. “It’ll be interesting to see if this place survives on Sundays or ends up closing like every other place in town.”
“It’s a major chain. It will do all right. And honestly, it’ll be nice to have somewhere to get some food on Sundays.”
“Agreed.” I rise, go to the soda fountain, and refill my Diet Coke.
“Rory,” Callie says when I sit back down.
“What?”
“Spill it.”
“Spill what?” I say, feigning innocence.
“I know you went out with Brock again last night. I also know you didn’t get home until this morning.”
“How the hell did you find out? You were with Donny.”
“Gotcha.”
“You bitch.”
Callie laughs. “You fall for that every time.”
She’s right. I open my mouth before I think things through. Callie and I are so different in so many ways. She thinks about everything before she speaks. In fact, she overthinks.
“So how was it?” she asks.
“None of your business.”
“Since when?”
She’s got me there. We’ve always told each other everything. Mostly everything, anyway. “Since today.”
She takes a sip of her drink. “But this is Brock Steel.”
She’s going to play that card? “How is that any different from Donny Steel?”
“I guess it’s not. Except he’s so young. I wish he had stayed away from you.”
“Why? Am I not allowed to have some fun?”
“Sure, you are. But you just got out of a relationship, and we all know how Brock is.”
“Just like we all knew how Donny was.”
She stops talking then. Until— “Are you ready for this?”
I think for a moment about spilling the beans. About telling Callie that I asked Brock to be the father of my child. About how things went after that.
But I don’t. It’s new. New and wonderful, and I don’t want to spoil it. Not that telling my sister would spoil it, but with everything else going on, I just want something that’s mine. Mine to enjoy. I feel like if I start talking about it, it will go away.