Rock Chick Bonus Tracks

Track 7

Rock Chick Regret

One One

* * *

Hector

* * *

Hector sat next to Sadie at the table in the visitation room.

Seth sat opposite them.

Sadie had her head bent and she was talking a mile a minute while sliding photos across the table toward her father.

“Her name is Gretl. She’s everything. Hector gave her to me for Christmas.”

Seth spared Hector a quick glance, then looked to the photo and murmured, “Adorable.”

“She totally is!”

Sadie gushed. “I’m going to be sad when her ears stop being floppy, but she’s such a good girl. Hector got her for my protection, but she’s so friendly. I’m not sure she’ll be good at protection, unless the bad guy is allergic to dogs or being licked to death.”

The glance Seth gave him that time lasted longer, but not too long, Sadie was sliding another photo across the table.

“That’s me with the girls at Roxie’s wedding. Roxie is obviously the bride.”

She pointed the rest out. “That’s Indy, and that’s Ally. There’s Ava. And there’s Stella. And Jet and Jules. And that’s Annette, she’s a hoot! And Daisy, you know. Also, Shirleen.”

“That’s a large wedding party,”

Seth noted.

“I know! Isn’t it aces?”

She asked a question, but she didn’t wait for an answer. She slid another photo to him. “That’s Tex. He’s crazy. And very loud. But he’s a total sweetheart and he makes the best coffee.”

Seth frowned down at the picture that showed Sadie glued to Tex’s side at Roxie’s wedding, his arm around her shoulders crushing her there.

He was smiling at the camera.

If you were trying to be kind, you’d describe the smile as awkward. If you were telling it like it was, you’d describe it differently.

“He looks like a serial killer,”

Seth said.

Yup.

That’s how you’d describe it.

Sadie dissolved in peals of laughter, laughter that Hector paid very close attention to in order to assess if it was fake, stressed, forced or other.

But it was real.

What unnerved him was, when he returned his attention to Seth, he knew with her father’s sharp attention on his daughter, he was making the same assessment.

When she quit laughing, she assured, “He really is a sweetheart.”

“I’ll take your word for it,”

Seth drawled.

Sadie smiled at him.

And fuck him, Seth Townsend transformed when the man smiled back.

Because that was genuine too.

The bell rang, and that meant time was up.

Seth beat back his look of disappointment in record time (something else that shocked the shit out of Hector, the fact he’d let it show at all).

He then leveled his eyes on Sadie and said, “I’m glad you came, darling. I loved looking at your pictures. And please tell your friend, Jet, I appreciate the cookies. But if you don’t mind, I’d like a quick word with Hector.”

She paled a bit, looked between Hector and her dad, and settled on her dad.

“I do mind, Dad.”

“It’s not going to be bad,”

Seth told her.

“Then why can’t you talk about it with me here?”

she pushed.

Seth looked slightly sick when he replied, “Because it’s up to Hector if he wants to share with you what we talk about.”

“It’s okay, mamita,”

he said quietly.

Sadie gave her dad a hard look before she hit Hector with the same thing.

Then she got up and warned them both, “Be nice.”

She reached and grabbed her pictures, smiled at her dad, then walked around the table and gave him a quick peck on his cheek. She did this before she shot an adorable warning look to Hector, and both men watched as she walked away.

When she was out of earshot, Seth clipped. “A puppy?”

Hector turned his attention to Seth. “She loves animals.”

“That’s hardly enough protection, Chavez,”

Seth retorted. “And it’ll take at least a year to train it to do what it should be doing.”

“Then it’s good Vance Crowe installed a security system in my place that’s so much better than the one you had at your house, it’s laughable. And yours was top of the line. And that Sadie agreed to keep the tracker on her car and continue to carry one in her bag. Also, to have her location monitored through her phone.”

Seth puffed up his chest and huffed out a breath, which was the only way he’d share that he found that acceptable.

But Hector wasn’t feeling good about this.

“There a reason I need to keep her covered?”

“No. Except she’s my daughter and the worst happened to her, so I would hope you’d stay on target.”

“Since that’s always on both of our minds when it comes to Sadie’s safety, maybe don’t waste what little time we got left, and instead, ask me what you really wanna ask me,”

Hector ordered.

Their eyes clashed.

Then, through clenched teeth, Seth asked, “How is she coping?”

He meant about the rape, because, yeah, that was always on both their minds when it came to Sadie’s safety.

It sucked the man was all in to be a good dad. It was a whole lot easier when he was a cold, heartless asshole.

“She’s fine,”

he gritted in return. “She has good friends, two of whom know what she’s been through, two others got her into counselling. She likes her counsellor. Trusts her and connects with her when needed. My mom’s teaching her how to cook. She goes in next week to get fitted for another bridesmaid dress, this time, for Ava’s wedding. And if we don’t kill each other fighting over paint colors and shit, I’ll be putting a ring on her finger soon, so she’ll be getting fitted for another type of dress.”

Seth’s face turned to stone.

“You know it’s going to happen,”

Hector warned low.

“There’s movement on my appeal,”

Seth forced out.

Their case had been tight, so he muttered, “Good luck with that.”

“We’re appealing the sentencing, not the verdict.”

Hector sat still and studied him.

“Seems the judge may have acted improperly.”

“Fucking shit,”

Hector muttered.

He’d been concerned about this.

“You want your future fiancée’s father incarcerated?”

“I want a criminal to pay for his crimes. After that’s over, I’ll worry about you being my father-in-law.”

“Well, you’ll get that. Both, it would seem. It’s simply that the maximum should have been five years, not fifteen. So I’ll be eligible for parole next year.”

“And you didn’t want to tell Sadie this because…?”

Hector prompted.

Again, he looked sick when he said, “Because I don’t know whether she’ll be glad to hear it, or won’t want to know until it happens, so she can figure out how she feels then. And you do know where she stands on that.”

He suspected he looked sick when he replied, “She’ll want to know.”

Seth smiled slow. “Then you have good news to give her.”

Even if Seth wasn’t done, they were done.

Hector stood.

Seth waylaid him by calling his name.

He looked down at the man, and surprisingly, Seth didn’t move, even if he wasn’t at an equal or advantageous position.

Uncharacteristic.

“Is she giving Lizzie her gardenias?”

“Every Sunday,”

Hector informed him.

Seth nodded.

Right. Now they were done.

Hector weaved his way through the tables of family and friends saying good-bye to inmates to get to Sadie.

When he got to her, she didn’t delay. “What was that about?”

“In the truck, preciosa.”

She rolled her eyes.

He slung an arm around her shoulders and guided her to his truck.

When they were in his new vehicle, the one she gave him for Christmas, the heater blasting to force out the cold (and it didn’t take ten minutes for the heater to do this, like it did in his Bronco), and they were on their way home, she snapped impatiently, “Well?”

“I see I got Attitude Sadie,”

he teased.

“Oh my God. This is the worst. We’re close to a prison when I need to murder someone.”

He burst out laughing.

“Hector Chavez! What did my dad say to you?”

she demanded.

“Calm down, mamita. He just wanted to make sure I got more security on you than a three-month-old puppy. And he wanted to share the state of his appeal, which might be looking good for him.”

“What?”

she breathed.

He glanced at her and saw he was right.

She was digging building this slightly-less-fucked-up-but-still-fucked-up new relationship with her father. And it would be easier to do if she didn’t have to wait a month between visits.

“He’s appealing the sentence, not the verdict, and he might have been handed too strict of one.”

“Is that even possible?”

Hector blew out a breath.

Once he’d done that, he shared, “Yeah. It’s possible. Judges aren’t infallible. In this case, the judge was new. Only appointed six months before Seth’s trial. Federal appointment, that’s about politics, not ability or experience, or even understanding of the law. Our team was worried we got him, because he seemed like a cowboy jackass who was aiming to make a name for himself, and that could swing both ways. Seth wasn’t found guilty on all counts, and gotta admit, we were shocked he got hammered with that big of a sentence. The judge pulled some shit with not allowing evidence during the sentencing phase, and I knew our prosecutor wasn’t feeling good about it. Now I know why.”

“So what does this mean?”

“His sentence can be reduced to five years, which means he’s eligible for parole next year.”

“Blooming heck,”

she mumbled. But more clearly, she asked, “Why wouldn’t he want me around when he talked about that?”

“Because he didn’t know if you’d take it as good news or bad, and he didn’t want to be there if you took it as bad.”

“Oh,”

she whispered, the sadness not lost on him, even with that single syllable.

He held out his hand to her, demanding, “Hand.”

She put hers in his.

He curled his fingers around and rested both on his thigh.

“Write to him,”

he encouraged. “Let him know you’re feelin’ good about this possible change.”

“Okay.”

He brought her fingers to his lips and brushed them there.

“Do you still hate him?”

she asked quietly.

“I won’t, if he gets out and considers his term in prison as indication he should retire. And then he retires. I will, if he causes you any worry, upset, or puts you in danger.”

“It’ll be interesting to see how that goes,”

she murmured.

Maybe interesting to her.

Hector was dreading it.

He knew she’d pick him and her new life over her father if it came down to it. Regrettably for Seth, he might have spent years smothering her with his brand of protection to keep her safer than he did her mother, but he hadn’t spent those years being a good dad.

But even if she’d been dead for years, for Sadie, she’d essentially just lost her mother.

He didn’t want her to lose the last blood family she had left.

Nope.

That wasn’t right.

He never wanted her to lose anything she didn’t want lost ever again.

In other words, whatever happened, he’d suck it up.

For Sadie.

He came in the back door with Eddie. Jet was there, and Sadie was cooking dinner for all of them.

Eddie barely cleared the door after Hector when they heard shouted, “Are you high, Claree?”

Hector stopped and looked to Eddie.

Eddie grinned at Hector.

A five-month-old German shepherd crashed into his shins.

He bent down to give his girl a head rub, agreeing with Sadie.

He missed her floppy ears.

But she was still their gorgeous girl.

“Hola, mi perrita tan hermosa,”

he murmured.

Gretl licked his wrist.

“Ralphie, calm down,”

they heard Sadie demand.

“Midnight blue and ice?”

Ralphie asked. “Ice isn’t even a color.”

“Yes, it is!”

Tod declared irately. “Look, right there.”

They heard some pounding, likely on the dining room table. “I only have seventeen swatches of it.”

“Hermano,”

Eddie said low, still grinning. “I told you, put her in a plane, marry her in Vegas, and skip the wedding planning.”

Sadie had her ring.

Sadie also had her last induction ceremony into the Rock Chicks.

Tod started a wedding planner book for her approximately a nanosecond after they announced they were engaged. And he could do this because he’d already bought a blank one for them. Not only that, but Sadie told him Tod had already added some “preliminary concepts” in it.

Apparently, he and Eddie had walked in while they were engaged in a Rock Chick Gathering, nailing down those concepts.

Hector and Eddie, with Gretl circling around Hector’s legs, walked into the kitchen, and Hector saw through the doorway that led to the front of the house that the gang was all there, crowded around the dining room table. So many of them, they’d had to take the stools from the kitchen and still, some asses were sharing seats.

But only Ralphie and Tod were facing off.

“Sadie veritably screams pink,”

Ralphie proclaimed as Hector and his brother made the room and took the only positions they could since the room was so crowded.

They leaned against a wall.

“We already did pink for Indy,”

Tod sniffed.

“Indy doesn’t own the color pink,”

Ralphie returned. “There’s ballet pink. And bubblegum pink. And watermelon. And blush. Rose. Mulberry. Carnation. Powder puff. Seashell. Flamingo. Fuchsia. Oh my God!”

Ralphie shouted, turning to Sadie. “Fuchsia and cobalt blue!”

“Jumpin’ Jehoshsphats, hot pink would be just plain hawt,”

Annette put in.

“There’s also Barbie pink,”

Roxie said, and Hector hoped like fuck she was joking.

“Wait, isn’t Barbie and hot pink the same?”

Stella asked.

“Nuances, girl,”

Indy answered.

“Strawberry!”

Daisy shouted out like it was a game to name all the shades of pink. “You could do one of those chocolate fountains, sugar, and have lots and lots of strawberries.”

“Whatever it is, it’s gotta go with my ’fro,”

Shirleen decreed. “By that I mean, have a glitter spray that complements it. Though fortunately, with my skin, all shades of pink deliver.”

“Hot pink and Prince purple rain. Done. And sofa-king phat!”

Annette threw up the devil’s horns. “Totally rock ’n’ roll!”

“Kill me, love of my life,”

Tod begged Stevie. “Plunge a knife in my heart and end my misery.”

“Oh please. Can anyone say drama?”

Ralphie asked.

“Cobalt blue and fuchsia?”

Tod shot back.

“I think it’s probably best not to remind Tod at this point he suggested chocolate and mustard for Indy,”

Ally stage-whispered, and Tod’s head snapped around.

“It wasn’t chocolate and mustard. It was tangerine and chocolate.”

“Orange and poo, same thing,”

Ally, ever the shit-stirrer, stirred.

Tod’s face got red.

“Hi, babe,”

Sadie called his way, and the minute she did, Gretl left her place sitting on his feet, panting to go to her mama.

He lifted his chin to her.

Her ice-blue eyes sparkled.

He felt that flare in his gut, spreading warmth.

She was happy. In her element. Surrounded by friends.

Thank fuck he didn’t take her to Vegas to get hitched, she would have missed this.

She then turned to Tod. “I like the idea of seashell, Tod. It’s opalescent. You can work with that, you know, instead of ice? Right?”

Tod considered it a second, then he chanted, “I’m seeing it, I’m seeing it.”

He lifted his hands and spread them out like he was envisioning a marquee. “The most delicate iridescent seashell and the fire of…wait for it…opal!”

“Oh…my…gawd!”

Ralphie exclaimed. “It’s perfect!”

“Isn’t it?”

Tod asked.

Ralphie threw his chair back. “Is the fabric store still open?”

“They know me. Even if they’re closing, they’ll let us nip some swatches while they sweep the floors.”

Tod snatched up the planner lying spread out on the table, and he and Ralphie bumped into each other on the way to the front door, but even so, they didn’t miss a step.

“Guess I’m going. Love you, girlies,”

Stevie said, getting up and blowing kisses without using his hand.

“Me too,”

Buddy put in. He gave Hector a chin lift, one to Eddie, a smile around the table, then as he walked with Stevie to the door, he suggested, “We drop them, make sure they can get in. Then we’ll take my truck, go get a beer, and they can meet us for dinner?”

“Works for me,”

Stevie replied.

Clearly, Tod and Ralphie exiting the room and taking the wedding binder with them meant the Gathering was over.

He knew this when Sadie came to Hector and rested her weight into him where he stood leaning against the wall, arms crossed on his chest.

Gretl, as ever at her mama’s side, came with.

“I’m making tacos. Jet says it’s easy. Just brown ground beef, throw some water and seasoning in, and voilà.”

“The food of my people,”

he teased.

She giggled.

When she was done doing that, she shared, “Ava and Stella already popped out to get more beef and cheese and tortillas. And, um…sour cream and jalape?os and lettuce and other stuff.”

His eyes swept the table. “Good call.”

Her voice dipped when she asked, “You’re not mad it’s not just you and your brother, Jet and me?”

“You happy to cook for thirteen people?

“Lee, Hank, Vance, with Max, Mace, Luke, Marcus and Jason are all on their way over.”

He started laughing.

She smiled at him while he did.

He circled her with his arms. “What? Not Tex?”

“He said he’s setting fire to any wedding planner in his sight from now until Ally gets hitched. So when Jet asked him to pop over tonight, he said he’s not coming within five miles of our house if the wedding planner is in it.”

“Is Ally getting hitched?”

he asked curiously, considering her situation with Ren Zano hadn’t yet been outed, at least, not that he knew.

“I don’t know, is she?”

Sadie asked back, watching him closely.

He shrugged a single shoulder.

She stuck her tongue out at him.

It was an offer he couldn’t refuse.

So he kissed her.

Hector stood back.

Sadie moved forward.

And at the base of the pink marble tomb, she rested a spray of gardenias.

She then sat on the step and said, “It’s official, mama. Our wedding colors are seashell and opal.”

Hector leaned against a tree.

Gretl found her spot and urinated next to a tombstone.

When she was done, she loped to Hector, and they waited as Sadie visited with her mother.

“C’mere,”

Hector muttered.

Sadie fought the bubbles and drifted across the hot tub toward him.

Even though she’d seen them in it dozens of times, Gretl prowled the deck like she feared them drowning and sporadically barked at the foaming water.

Sadie straddled Hector and wrapped her arms around his neck.

Under the water, he did the same around her back.

“You good?” he asked.

She nodded, trying not to let it show. How happy she was. But it burst from her like a beacon.

“We can wait,”

he offered.

“What?”

“We can wait,”

he repeated. “To get married. So your dad can give you away.”

Her eyes gleamed, but she bit her lip.

She let it go to ask, “Do you want to wait?”

“I want you to have what you want.”

“It’s your wedding too.”

“Both Malcolm and Tom will come to blows to walk you down the aisle, so to avoid that, Seth filling that spot because it’s his wouldn’t suck.”

It was official.

The appeal had been upheld.

The sentence reduced.

In less than a year, her father would more than likely get parole. He was a model prisoner, and when he wanted to, he could charm a snake. A parole board would be eating out of his hands.

“It’s not set in stone he’ll get early release. We could be waiting years,”

Sadie noted.

“You’re in my bed, mi cielo, your clothes in my closet. Not mine. Ours. This house has been ours since the first time you walked in the door. Fuck knows it is now, since you talked me into yellow cabinets in the kitchen.”

“They’re butter,”

she mumbled irritably, the irritation probably coming from remembering the throwdown they’d had about it.

“Whatever,”

he said on a grin.

“It’s clean and sunny and cheerful, and fits the age of the house.”

“Right,”

he muttered.

“Ugh,”

she grumbled.

He gave her a squeeze. “What I’m saying is, you got my ring on your finger. You got my ink in your skin. You got my commitment. I’ve got yours. Who cares when we get married? If it’s next year or three years from now, you’re mine, I’m yours, that’s it. A wedding just makes it official.”

“I’m not sure I can keep Ralphie and Tod getting along for that length of time. There was a heated discussion about champagne fountains in Art yesterday that nearly caught the place on fire…again.”

Hector smiled at her.

But…fuck.

He had to do it.

Since it was for her (mostly), he did it.

“It would kill him to miss your wedding.”

She pressed her lips together.

Then she ducked her head and moved in, putting them to his ear.

“I love you loads and loads, Hector Chavez.”

Yeah.

She knew he did it for her.

Worth it.

He gave her a squeeze, “Love you too, mi corazón.”

He turned his head and returned her gesture, putting his lips to her ear. “Now, lose the bottoms.”

Her head went back, and he liked that glitter in the ice of her eyes most of all.

She shifted away just enough to shimmy out of her bottoms.

And then she came right back.

He wanted to leave that room like he wanted someone to drill holes in his head.

But he had to.

He kissed the tops of two heads before he went, heading to the waiting room.

He walked in and all eyes came to him.

“It’s a girl. All systems go. Sadie is a fucking warrior,”

he announced.

Cheers rang up.

Tex boomed, “Fuckin’ A, bubba!”

Buddy cracked open a box of cigars.

Ralphie and Tod hugged.

Eddie clapped him on the back then came in for a hug.

He got the same from several dozen more people before he found two sets of eyes.

Those two followed him back to Sadie’s room.

The instant she saw them, his mother babbled in Spanish until the tears overtook her, and Hector had to pull her in his arms.

Once su madre got her shit together, she got her first.

It was hard to get her away from her grandmother, but he did, then he took her to her grandfather.

Carefully, Hector eased his daughter into Seth’s arms.

The man stared down at her like he’d never seen anything so beautiful.

Obviously, he was right.

Nothing in history was as beautiful as the baby Hector and Sadie made.

Seth moved that look to his daughter.

“Lola?”

he asked to confirm the name Hector already told them.

“Lola Elizabeth,”

Sadie whispered the whole thing for the first time.

Hector heard his mother’s soft sob.

But he watched the tear slide out of Seth’s eye.

“She’s perfect,”

he said gruffly, not taking his gaze from his own girl, and Hector suspected he wasn’t the only one in the room who wasn’t sure which “she”

Seth was referring to.

Hector walked out, eyes to white sand that melted into sparkling turquoise, then azure, then Mediterranean blue.

But mostly they were on the three females playing on the beach.

One, a little black-haired toddler wearing a red and pink polka dot one-piece. One, a curvy strawberry-blonde fairy princess beauty. And the last, his mother.

He handed a bottle of Mythos to the man rocking in the rocker on the porch.

Seth took it and Hector folded into the other rocking chair next to him.

“He good?”

Hector asked.

Seth gently patted the diapered bottom of Gus where he lay, on his belly on his granddad’s chest, head turned Hector’s way, his little pink lips pursed, eyes closed, the wispy black hairs on his head swaying in the breeze.

“He’d sleep through a hurricane,”

Seth replied.

“Thank fuck,”

Hector muttered.

Seth chuckled.

They sat in the shade sipping beer in comfortable silence, while the women messed around under a Cretan sun.

Seth broke it.

“I never thanked you. High time I did.”

“For what?”

“You know what.”

He did.

“I loved her,”

Hector explained simply.

“Even then?”

Hector took a sip.

When he was done, he replied, “From the minute I laid eyes on her.”

“I know that feeling.”

Finally, Hector looked to his father-in-law. “I know you do.”

He gave it a beat, taking in the man beside him, who was no less fit and vital than he’d been the first time Hector met him, and he advised, “You should find someone, man.”

Another pat on Gus’s diaper and, “I’m an old granddad now.”

Not even close.

“You’re not even sixty.”

Seth’s focus sharpened on him. “I think you know, there’s only one one.”

Hector turned to look at Sadie in her ice-blue bikini, swinging Lola around, both of their laughter mingling and drifting up to the villa.

“Yeah,”

he agreed. “There’s only one one.”

Hector took another sip of his beer and stretched out his legs.

Seth kept rocking so Gus would keep sleeping.

And the Cretan sun gleamed off the sea.