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  “It wasn’t then,” I replied. “When he was pressed up against me after kissing me and being all… I don’t know… intense and growly and manly and saying nice thing after nice thing all, well… intense, growly and manly which made him sound like he really, really meant them. At the same time acting like the alpha male who just beat the rest of the world’s alpha males in hand to hand combat and after had climbed up a mountain of their carcasses and was thumping his chest and grunting, ‘Faye, my woman!’ It’s hard to say no then. Now, when he’s not around, I’m remembering all the times he didn’t say nice things and I’m reconsidering.”

  Lauren burst out laughing.

  I had to admit it was kinda funny.

  At the time, it was also more than kinda hot.

  But, because of the last part, I didn’t laugh because that was more than kinda scary.

  I did wait for her to finish before I whispered, “Laurie, he kinda freaks me out.”

  “Yeah, Faye, honey, I get that,” she whispered back then went on in a gentle voice. “I also get why. I’ll tell you this, a girl is any kind of girl to you, she’ll have your back. She’ll listen and she’ll give advice and she’ll do her best to do well at both. But what you have to get is that the only advice she can give is from experiencing her own dramas or listening to her other girlfriends’ dramas and watching them play out. In the end though, your girl and her friends are not you and the men in their lives are not Chace. So you have to learn something difficult. How to pay attention, think, read signs at the same time listen to your heart. Sometimes, these can be contradictory and that’s where your girls can help. But, in the end, you have to pay attention to all of that, make your decision, do whatever you have to do and if your girl’s any kind of girl, she’ll have your back then too. No matter what happens.”

  “Okay,” I said softly, thinking that was nice and all but not entirely certain that it helped a whole lot.

  Luckily, Lauren wasn’t done.

  “That said, I’ll tell you about Tate and me. The part that coincides with what might be happening with Chace is that a long time ago, Tate’s life was derailed. Totally. It was unexpected and he didn’t handle it well. Not because he isn’t smart, strong or a good man, just because life can sock you in the gut, wind you and before you get your breath back, it can turn to shit and then two decades later, you find you’re still stuck in it. He got stuck. He pulled it partly together but he didn’t pull it totally together until he found me.”

  I drew in breath and Lauren must have heard it because she went on quickly.

  “This is not to say I believe only a woman can heal a man or at this early stage with things with Chace you need to take on the burden of healing his wounds. The man, or woman, has got to want a better life for themselves. They have to want to get past their issues. They also have to be willing to share that load. If they don’t, a woman can work and slave and she’ll never get anywhere. But if they want that better life and are willing to work at it, finding someone who genuinely cares, who wants to help, who is honest and thoughtful and generous and, Faye, the hardest but sometimes the most important of all, forgiving, can do wonders to assist along this journey. What I will say is that along the way that care, honesty, generosity and forgiveness can grow into love and love, honey, real, nourishing love, I truly believe, can heal anything. Because if you love someone, you’ll want a good life for them and for yourself and you’ll do anything to make that happen. That’s what Tate and I found. It wasn’t easy, we both had our issues, but we finally recognized it and I know he’d fight and die to keep it and I’d do the same.”

  Wow. That was so awesome for her.

  “I love that you have that, Laurie,” I whispered.

  “I love it too, Faye,” she whispered back. “But I’m not done.”

  “Okay,” I replied, pleased because all that was good too and I was glad she had that with Tate. I felt it kinda had something to do with Chace but I still was unsure.

  I heard her take a breath then she said, “What happened to Tate was an accident. A fluke. What happened to Ty was not. He was purposefully targeted, had his power stripped and some men, that isn’t good. Some men, they don’t bounce back. Lexie has told me a bit, Tate is tight with Ty and he’s told me a bit too. I don’t know all that went down with that so I don’t know if what I’m guessing happened is what happened. But Lexie and Ty had some issues and this had to do with Ty struggling with having his power taken away. He’s a man and men think they have to do what they have to do even if it’s not the right thing to do. Some men lose sight of the fact that their women are there to support and protect them too. Ty lost sight of that and he nearly lost Lexie. I think what happened with Chace is more like what happened to Ty.”

  I felt goose bumps rise on my skin and I asked, “How?”

  She didn’t hesitate to answer.

  “It isn’t a secret that he didn’t marry Misty for love. I don’t know what happened with that either. I just know it seems he was forced to do something he did not want to do. I don’t know Chace Keaton except in passing. But I live with a man like him and am surrounded by them. That could not have gone down very well. He had his power stripped too.”

  “Oh God,” I breathed because I hadn’t thought of it like that but now, thinking of it, and kinda knowing him, I knew it could be true.

  “Yeah but worse for him, he’s that kind of man and he’s also a cop. He’s taken an oath to serve and protect a bunch of people he knows and an even bigger bunch of people he doesn’t know. I think he’s established with what he’s done at the CPD that he takes that oath seriously. So I think we can take it as read that his protective instinct is finely honed. I think we can move on from that that regardless if Misty was his wife because she or someone forced that on him, she was still his wife. His. If a man like Chace Keaton puts his ass on the line to protect an entire town, I cannot imagine it sits well with him that, right under his nose, his wife was shot to death, he liked her or not.”

  “Oh God,” I breathed again even though I already guessed this. Laurie saying it out loud made it clearer, harsher and far more sad.

  “And the way he treated her, on top of his power being stripped as well as her being killed, I figure all of that is tied up with him feeling not a small amount of guilt that he didn’t look after her. When Dalton McIntyre was hunting women in our area and Neeta went down, Bubba lost it because he’d been partying so much, he wasn’t seeing to Krystal. Out of that came a reconciliation and marriage. You know Jim-Billy who comes into the bar?”

  Everyone knew Jim-Billy. Everyone loved Jim-Billy. He was a sweet, old coot who lost his wife in a sad way, he never got over that so he spent nearly all his time at Bubba’s. He also almost lost his life saving Lauren from a psycho. Everyone loved him because he was a sweet guy but when he saved Laurie, everyone started to adore him.

  “Yeah, I know Jim-Billy,” I told her.

  “Well,” she went on, “Jim-Billy’s wife died in a house fire when he was on the road and he blames himself because he didn’t change the batteries in the smoke detector when no one knows if that would have helped, if she could even have been saved. I got over what happened to me easily because I had Tate but he beat himself up for a while because he felt he didn’t protect me. Men take this shit personally. They think they can stop it when they can’t. It’s likely what happened to Misty was going to happen no matter what Chace did. But Chace won’t see it that way. He liked her or not, he’s probably taking it personally.”

  “So what you’re saying is, Chace has a lot of demons,” I surmised.

  “Yeah, honey, that’s what I’m saying,” she replied. “But I’ll tell you more. First, a man like that is worth care, honesty, generosity and forgiveness. Second and most important for you right now, a man like that does not have a woman kiss him and he doesn’t like it and he kisses her back. If he doesn’t like it, he’ll set her away. If he likes it, he’ll kiss her back. He liked it when you kissed him, Fay
e. Maybe too much to deal with when he’s dealing with demons the size he’s got. But he most definitely liked it.”

  I liked that.

  A lot.

  So much something mortifying and painful became not so much of either.

  I didn’t tell Laurie this.

  I just whispered, “Okay.”

  “I’ll also tell you that if a man like that wants a woman to leave him the fuck alone, he does not go after her in the dark in order to walk her home. He does not chase a kid for her. He does not dance in her apartment with her at midnight. He does not bring her coffee. He does not kiss her. He does not enumerate all the things he likes about her including the kiss he insinuated he didn’t like. And he especially does not make a date for pizza.”

  Her voice dipped quiet.

  “Bottom line, baby, he likes you. Not a little, a lot. He’s struggling with shit and he’s taken that out on you. I know the insults he hurled at you stung, boy do I know. I also know some men, or at least men like that, are not real good with exploring their feelings. So stuff comes out of their mouths they can’t control and don’t mean. With Chace, I don’t know, it could be even more. It could be his head is such a mess, he wanted to protect you from that and was trying to push you away by being deliberately cruel when he didn’t mean a word of it. Now, what you need to do is read the signs, listen to your heart and decide if you want to offer this man care, honesty, generosity and forgiveness and have pizza with him.”

  She hesitated, let that sink in then went on, still talking quietly but now gently and giving me the honesty.

  “It could all turn bad, Faye, it could, no doubt about it. But it could all end up being better than you ever dreamed. That’s your decision. That’s your risk. Straight up, if I was in your shoes, I’d take your risk. I’d do it again and again and again. I’m not lying. I’d relive every minute I’ve shared with Tate, even the ones when things were insane or they hurt or they were confusing, and I’d jump for joy if I was offered the opportunity to do it on a continual loop for eternity.”

  “Wow,” I whispered.

  “Exactly, honey, wow,” she whispered back.

  “I think I’ll have pizza with him,” I decided and heard Lauren laugh softly.

  Through it, she said, “I think in a couple of weeks or months or however long it takes for you to break through, I’ll bake you a cake to celebrate. Just you, me, cake, champagne and both of us smug in the knowledge that we set the world to rights while your world was tilting crazily.”

  I hoped I got the chance to eat Lauren’s cake.

  I really, really did.

  “I’ll take you up on that and bring the champagne,” I told her.

  “It’s a deal,” she replied.

  I took in another breath and stated, “Now I have another problem.”

  She hesitated before she asked, “And that would be?”

  “Well, what do I wear for pizza at my place?”

  At that, Lauren again burst out laughing.

  This brought me to now, after work, in my apartment, at two to seven wearing what Lauren suggested I wear. Something comfortable but not something that said I didn’t care enough to make an effort. A nice pair of jeans. My most kickass dark brown leather belt. The plum scoop-necked, long-sleeved top I wore to work. The three-tiered necklace with the tiny spiky bits that hung down and the silver hoop earrings that I also wore to work.

  I’d taken out the bobby pin and brushed my hair. I’d sprayed perfume in the air and ran through it because I wanted to refresh the scent but I didn’t want it obvious I refreshed the scent and I had no clue how to do that. So I tried the spray in the air and run through it route and I was hoping it worked.

  I’d done my breakfast dishes and wiped down the counters. I’d made my bed that morning but I still made sure the pillows were extra fluffed, the comforter was on the bed perfectly right and smoothed out. I’d tidied away my packs of gum. I’d stacked books. I’d lit candles. And I’d adjusted my unwind playlist (temporarily) to take out “Holding Out for a Hero”, attached my iPod to the stereo and pressed play.

  I’d also typed out a new note for the boy and printed it.

  I was pretty certain I’d made the right decision to be in my tidied house in nice jeans, with a subtle refresh of scent, soft music playing and candles burning instead of being in Wyoming by the time Chace got there.

  This did not mean, considering this was only the fourth date in my life, my first date with Chace, the man I convinced myself I was in love with thirteen years ago and it was happening in my apartment where my bed was an open part of the décor, I wasn’t a nervous wreck.

  I was.

  Totally.

  And completely.

  Being thus, I dashed to the kitchen, nabbed a piece of gum and started chewing it.

  Then I spied my Firefly Serenity model and my Xena chakram and I wondered if Chace watched geek TV shows. I couldn’t envision Chace watching TV at all. Even when he was having lunch at the diner, he brought work with him and worked while he ate. Even when Lexie sat with him, they talked, he smiled, she laughed and he still worked through it. Maybe he didn’t watch TV at all. Maybe he did and he only watched gritty shows like re-runs of The Wire and Homicide: Life on the Streets and never missed an episode of Southland watching the whole time, nodding his head thinking they got it spot on.

  My eyes went to the clock on my nightstand and I saw it was two after seven.

  Frak! He was late.

  “Okay, all right, just two minutes. Maybe my clock is fast,” I muttered to myself coming to the realization I was chewing gum.

  Chace had thoroughly, deeply, expertly and very, very effectively kissed me while I had gum in my mouth that morning. This didn’t mean, when I sorted out my head, it didn’t mortify me after he was gone that I had gum in my mouth when he kissed me.

  “What am I thinking, chewing gum?” I was again muttering to myself which I was pretty certain was a precursor to insanity.

  I went to the kitchen bin, hit the top, it slid open and I spit out my gum.

  A knock came at the door while I was engaged in this activity therefore I sucked in a breath that was part air, part gum saliva and instantly started choking.

  Oh God! I was going to die of choking while Chace stood outside with food for the boy, a sleeping bag, pizza, beer and wine and I’d never get my first date!

  I rushed to the cabinet, grabbed a glass, filled it with water from the tap and sucked it back, calming the choking when another knock came at the door.

  I slammed the glass down, ran to the door, pulled off the chain, flipped the deadbolt and threw it open to a narrow-eyed Chace who took one look at me and asked, “Heard you choking, are you all right?”

  “You’re beautiful, a good kisser, this is our first date, my bed is in the room, I’m nervous as all heck and I just thought I was going to die choking after spitting out gum so no, I’m not all right.”

  Yes, that’s what I blurted, word for word.

  Chace stared at me.

  I stared back both wondering if I could will myself to melt like the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz and if that was what Laurie meant by honesty or if it was a tad over the top.

  These questions were answered when, first, I didn’t melt. And second, Chace took a step in, dumped a big bag with a sleeping bag in it on the floor, caught me with one arm seeing as the other one was holding up a pizza box and yanked me into his frame.

  I collided with some force so my head tipped back which was advantageous for Chace seeing as his was coming down and suddenly his mouth was on mine.

  Then his tongue was in my mouth.

  In the end, when he lifted his head, my arms were around him his neck, I was plastering myself to his long, hard frame and I didn’t care at all my bed was about ten feet away.

  Swimming through the happy daze his kisses created, I focused on him to see his eyes warm and sexy and moving over my face and I heard him ask quietly, “Still nervous?”

/>   “No,” I whispered.

  “Good,” he muttered. “Now take the pizza, honey. Serve it up. I’m starved but I have to go downstairs to get the rest of the shit.”

  “Okay,” I replied but didn’t move.

  “Baby, you gotta unwrap your arms from my neck to take the pizza,” he prompted, his lips tipped up.

  My eyes fell to his mouth.

  I really, really liked his lips tipped up.

  Those lips said, “Faye,” and his arm gave me a squeeze.

  My eyes darted back to his, my arms slid from around his neck and I muttered, “Pizza, serving it up.”

  He let me go. I took the pizza.

  Then his fingers trailed along my hip as he said, “Be back in a second.”

  I nodded to him feeling his fingers trailing on my hip like they were still there even though he was gone.

  Jeez, I had to get myself together.

  I decided to do that by serving up pizza. I had the placemats on the counter in front of the stools, the plates, red pepper flakes, parmesan cheese, salt and pepper all on the counter and was pulling down a wineglass when he got back.

  I stared.

  Chace walked to me carrying five grocery bags.

  “Uh… not sure buying the entire store for that boy is good, Chace. If he’s living on the street, the rest of the homeless population in Carnal will fall on him like vultures,” I remarked.

  Chace made it to the kitchen, hefted up the bags and they made a loud, multi-clattering, cacophony of thumps when they landed.

  Then he turned to me. “Got one homeless guy in town, darlin’. He calls himself Outlaw Al. He celebrated his seven hundredth birthday this year and looks it. You talk to him, he’ll swear he was the one who shot Billy the Kid. Every feral cat in Carnal will claw you soon as look at you but of any day or night, one or a dozen of ‘em will be curled into Al like he’s their Momma. He has two teeth. And I don’t see good things for his dental future since Shambles and Sunny built a small lean-to behind La-La Land so he’ll have some protection from exposure. He was much obliged for this effort. Moved in while Shambles was still hammering in the nails. He mostly stays there except when it’s his time to howl at the moon. And Shambles gives him baked goods he doesn’t sell. I think our kid’ll be good.”