“Yes, we do,” I told her. At least I wanted to step on it. I wanted to stomp all over it.

She laughed in my ear, loud and happy. “This is gonna be fun. First one of these I been in on, on the ground floor.” I could almost hear her rubbing her hands together.

“That means you’re mine,” she declared I thought bizarrely. “See, Ally got Indy ‘cause no one knew them then. Daisy got Jet. Everyone took care of Roxie ‘cause that was some serious shit that went down. May got Jules because they knew each other beforehand but we all kicked in, seein’ as she was a virgin and all. Though, I wasn’t in on the cherry poppin’ discussion, I’ve seen the tape.”

The tape?

“Anyhoots,” she went on. “See you at The Hornet tonight. I can’t wait.”

Then she hung up.

I put down the phone kind of in a daze and picked it up immediately and called Sissy.

* * * * *

I got about an hour of work done before I started my preparation for the next nightmare of the day.

I decided to go heavy on the makeup and the silver. I spent ages on my hair, pulling it back away from my face smooth in parts, other parts in twists and even other parts in braids and clipped it at the back of my head with a huge silver barrette leaving the back long. I also decided to wear my kickass, rock ‘n’ roll, deep-green, fitted, long-sleeved tee that had such a wide neckline, it fell off my shoulder. This meant, since I didn’t have a strapless bra (and no way I’d go braless sporting c-cup boobs), I had to wear my baby pink, satin bustier-slash-teddy-like contraption with snaps at the crotch. It fit like a glove, had beige triangles of lace at the hipbones and cups at the brassiere area and some soft boning that moved with my body. I’d bought it to wear with a strapless dress I wore to the New Year’s Eve party Dom, Sissy, Noah and I went to the year before last and it was the only time I wore it. Noah loved it, thought it was hot. For my evening at The Hornet (and the rest of forever), it had only a utilitarian purpose. I kept on my faded jeans, ran a long, silver scarf through my belt loops, buckled on a pair of matte-silver strappy sandals and called a taxi.

By the time I got there, I was ten minutes late.

I walked into The Hornet and it was packed. It was a warm Friday in late March, so Denverites were ready to roll to summer. The bar area was shoulder to shoulder, the seating area was entirely filled and neither area had a seat with Indy’s and Ally’s asses sitting on them.

I went to the back room where the pool tables were and immediately to my left I saw them. Indy, Ally and eight other people, including Tod and Stevie, Indy’s neighbors who I’d met several times before (gay, partners, totally f**king cool), Shirleen and the other black lady from the offices yesterday, not to mention the black-haired, violet-eyed Glamour Girl.

Holy cramoly.

“Ava!” Indy called and everyone’s gaze swung to me.

“Hey,” I said weakly, deciding that, yes, this was the next nightmare of my day.

I was introduced to the rest, a honey-blonde with green eyes and a fantastic smile (Jet); a dark blonde with blue eyes and a great outfit (Roxie); a platinum blonde that looked so much like Dolly Parton I thought she was Dolly for a minute (including the cle**age and a denim jacket with so many silver studs and rhinestones she lit up the dim room, her name was Daisy); the other black lady, older than the girls, with a Jacqueline Kennedy hairdo (May); and Glamour Girl (Jules).

Indy, by the way, was a tall, built, fantastic redhead and Ally was tall, lean and gorgeous with shiny, dark brown hair.

“Sit down, sit down. Let’s get to it. Someone get this girl a drink.” Shirleen had a seat saved for me, right next to her, right smack in the center of the long table. She was patting it and grinning at me huge.

“I’ll get you a drink,” Stevie mumbled getting up. “What’ll you have?”

“Cranberry juice and vodka. Let me give you some money,” I told him.

“Girlie, sit! Gay men don’t get to buy women drinks very often. Live it up,” Tod shouted.

Stevie moved off, I sat and Shirleen yelled after Stevie. “Hurry with that drink, you don’t want to miss anything.” Then her eyes moved back to me. “All right, girl, tell us all about it.”

“Maybe we should tell our stories first,” Jet suggested.

“I’m thinking that’s a good idea,” Indy put in.

I was happy to be off the hot seat even if it was for five minutes so I nodded.

It wasn’t for five minutes. It was for a helluva lot longer (two full drinks longer).

Indy told me her story. As she did, I was glad when Stevie brought my drink because Indy’s story included the car bombs (yes, bombs, plural).

Even though Luke gave me the scary-ass flavor of Jet, Roxie and Jules’s stories, he didn’t get into the half of it (not even a quarter of it). What he missed out was the part that included Eddie making Jet move in with him during her drama (and she never moved out). Hank and her uncle conspiring to move Roxie in with Hank after her drama (and she did). And lastly, Jules doubling up on toiletries in about ten days between her place and Vance’s place (she was still doubled up as they had her place in the city and his cabin in the mountains).

Every single one of them had been nailed and then nailed within a week.

“I need another drink,” I whispered when Jules was done.

May patted my arm and Stevie disappeared for more drinks.

“Now, your turn,” Shirleen said.

Instead of launching into my story, I turned to Jules who’d been the last one to share and said, “I know you got shot and I’m sorry about that but I think what you did was brave.”

Jules stared at me.

Indy, Ally, Tod and Stevie were already my friends and Shirleen had claimed me (whatever that meant). I could tell right off that Jet, Roxie, Daisy and May were cool. Jules I hadn’t cracked. Jules wasn’t looking at me with kind eyes. She was looking at me with assessing ones. I didn’t know what to make of her.

When she didn’t speak, I looked away. “Sorry, not my place to say.”

“What I did was stupid,” she said to me and my eyes moved back to her.

“Maybe, but it was brave too and you saved someone’s life. So even if it was stupid, he’s still here and so are you. I think brave outweighs stupid in the end, don’t you?”

May was smiling at me with a warmth I felt from across the table and, on a quick glance, I noticed everyone else was too. My eyes settled on Jules and I was pleased to note she was smiling too.