G-Men: The Series (69 page)

“That blows,” I said, getting into the driver’s side and fastening my seat belt.

“So? Wanna go out clubbing later?”

“Taz is supposed to call me when he gets back from Quantico this afternoon. He wanted to spend some time together. He’s leaving on some mission Tuesday, so it will be our last chance to hang out.”

“It’s like after two now. You haven’t heard from him yet?”

“Nope,” I replied, feeling a hint of irritation myself.

“So how long do you intend to wait for his booty call before you decide to salvage the rest of the day?”

“It’s not a booty call,” I halfway snapped.

“Really?” she said, drawing the word out as if she found it hard to believe.

“I’m on my period,” I retorted, getting a tad short with her.

“Oh, then perhaps booty call was the wrong terminology. Maybe I should have referred to it as his ‘blow job’ call, under the circumstances.”

If I hadn’t already felt a bit irritated about it anyway, I would’ve laughed at Darcy’s banter. The fact was, it shouldn’t have taken all of this time for Taz to drop some freaking key off at the lab and get back to Falls Church. This would be my last opportunity to get out for an evening in a while anyway.

“Tell you what, If I don’t hear from him in the next couple of hours, let’s make plans.”

“Sounds good,” she said. “Call me one way or the other?”

“Sure will,” I said, starting the car and heading home.

When I got back to the house, I changed Bryce’s diaper. He’d managed a shit explosion of major proportions. I ran out of baby wipes after using the last in the container. This was going to require a wet wash cloth.

I was changing him in his crib so I raised the rail up, putting a blanket over his wee-wee so he wouldn’t pee all over himself while I went to the bathroom to get one. I’d learned that lesson the hard way.

“Don’t move,” I said to him, tickling his chubby little chin.
God he’s cute!

The bathroom was off of his nursery. It was the same bathroom shared by the master suite. I opened the door from the nursery, breezing in to fetch a wash cloth, not realizing that Slate was occupying it. He was standing at the toilet, dick in hand taking a leak.

Oh my God!

I stopped in my tracks, my face turning crimson, my hand flying up to cover my mouth. He looked over at me mid-stream unable to do anything but finish peeing.

I backed out, eyes widened, stuttering an apology as I felt for the doorway, whirling around and beating a fast exist.

I slammed the door behind me leaning against it. I was horrified at what I’d done. It hadn’t occurred to me that someone using the bathroom wouldn’t have locked the access door from the nursery. I suppose he hadn’t figured Bryce would be barging in any time soon.

I went over to the crib. Bryce’s eyelids were heavy. I checked his bottom. It definitely needed more cleaning. I went out the other door from the nursery, heading to the kitchen. I wet a paper towel, scurrying back to the nursery to avoid any risk of running into Slate.

I wiped his bottom clean and fastened a fresh diaper on him. I pulled his blanket to his waist and watched as he drifted off to sleep, clutching his new toy gun instead of his turtle, which made me smile. I left the nursery and quietly slipped upstairs to my room. How in the hell would I ever face Slate again? I didn’t want to think about it.

I slipped into the shower, taking my time washing my hair, shaving my legs and waiting for my cell phone to ring. After I emerged from the bathroom thoroughly clean, conditioned and blown-dry I checked my phone. Nothing. My clock said it was 4:16 p.m. Screw this. I phoned Darcy.

“What up?” she asked, putting on her ‘gangsta’ tone. God, she must be bored.

“I haven’t heard a thing. What do you want to do?”

“Listen to this, Linds. I ran into Jess and Sonya, remember them from Dazzle?”

“Not the lesbians?” I asked.

“No, they’re the bartenders that hooked up and got married.

“Oh yeah, so what about them?”

“Well, they told me that Dazzle has booked a previously famous alternative metal group for tonight in a surprise concert to launch their major comeback tour.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Hot Addiction,” she all but screamed. “You have to remember them.”

“Vaguely,” I replied, not nearly as stoked as she was.

“So, here’s the deal,” she continued. “Their surprise appearance will be to open for the regularly scheduled pop rock band they have starting to play at nine. We need to get there no later than 7:30 p.m. to get an up close table so we can see them.”

“So, what time are you picking me up?”

“Here’s the thing. I have no problem picking you up, but I plan to party. Can you just plan on sleeping over here and I’ll bring you back in the morning?”

“Oh, I don’t know. You understand the situation with my Mom. The whole reason I’m here is to help out with Bryce.”

“Well, isn’t Slate there still?”

“Well, yeah.”

“So, just see if he has an issue with it? I can have you back by like nine tomorrow morning. I promise I’ll be sober by then.”

I couldn’t deal with having to approach Slate on anything right now. If it was possible to avoid him until he took off for Baltimore on Tuesday, that would have been my preference. I knew that was unrealistic.

Okay,” I sighed. “I’ll be ready at seven.”

“Wear something that totally rocks. We’re going to party,” she replied, bubbling over with enthusiasm.

Mom was napping, as I discovered when I peeked in on her to search out Slate.

I was still in my long, terrycloth robe. I traipsed into the kitchen looking for Slate. He was kicked back in the family room, his cell phone up to his ear.

As he saw me approach, he held his finger up as if to signal me to hang on, he’d be right with me. His demeanor seemed no different than usual.

“So, how’d you shoot?” he asked whoever was on the other end.

“That good, huh? I thought you might be a little rusty being as you haven’t been on the range for a while.”

He paused, waiting for a response at the other end. “Yeah, yeah, don’t give me that shit. You only did as well as you did because you were trying to impress ‘Dirty Diana,’ you horny bastard.”

Slate was chuckling over some private joke. “What do you mean, how did I know she was even at the range? It’s called Intel, Taz. I have the pulse of everything that goes on at Quantico, no matter what or where.”

Slate looked over at me winking. He was totally enjoying fucking with Taz. I was totally starting a slow burn.

“Naw, I talked to Hatfield earlier. He told me you did a double stint at the range this afternoon after Dee Dee got there. He figured you were working on some best laid plans before we take off for Baltimore. Hey, enjoy brother. I gotta run.”

All thoughts of being embarrassed in front of Slate evaporated. Who the hell was ‘Dirty Diana’ or ‘D.D’ for short? Obviously, she was the reason I hadn’t heard from Taz all afternoon.

Slate looked over at me. “Sorry about that. Did you want to speak to me?”

“Oh, yeah,” I stammered, trying to focus on the purpose of my visit. “Darcy called and a great band is playing at Dazzle tonight. She’s going to pick me up at seven. The thing is that Darcy’s planning on partying and lives really close to Dazzle, so she said she could run me back here in the morning. Can you handle Bryce until I get home?”

“Are you
really
going to be with Darcy?” Slate teased. I was in no mood for this crap.

“Slate,” I said, my voice not masking my irritation, “stop treating me as if I’m a teenager. I’m not asking your permission to stay out all night. I’m simply trying to ascertain if this will create a problem for you…handling Bryce until I get home. That’s why I dropped out of school and came home, remember?”

“Oh, yeah, I was just teasing. Sure, it’s all good. Have a good time and be careful.”

“Good,” I said turning to leave. I stopped then and turned back to look at him.

“Oh, there’s one more thing—”

“Sure, what is it?”

“Start locking the bathroom door on the nursery side when you’re in there.”

I turned back around and left the room.

Once I got back upstairs, I was fuming. I switched my television on and got my nail polish out. I put a towel down on my bed and started painting my toenails.

When I was sure they weren’t tacky any longer, I got up and went through my closet to find an appropriate dress for this evening. I decided on a short, form fitting red dress that had a matching red bolero jacket trimmed with black embroidered scrollwork. I would accessorize with black four-inch heels, and black jewelry.

I’d hung my dress out on the door of the closet when my phone rang. It was Taz.

Go figure. I mean, it’s only a quarter till six!

“Hello,” I answered, frostily.

“Hey, baby girl,” he greeted as if it were the most natural thing in the world for him to diss me all day long then give me a last minute shout out.

“Taz,” I said.

“Are you busy?” he asked.

I could picture his brows arching up the way they do when he is puzzled.

“Just getting ready,” I replied, going into the bathroom to plug in my flat iron.

“For what?”

“Darcy’s picking me up around seven. We’re going clubbing.”

That was met with a moment of silence. “I see,” he replied, tersely. “I thought we had plans.”

“Yeah, I thought so too, but when I didn’t hear from you for the better part of the day, I figured that we didn’t. I made some of my own.”

“So, we’re playing games now?”

“I’m not interested in playing games, Taz.”

“What do you call this?”

“I call this having a life of my own. Yes, I would have preferred spending time with you today or this evening, but I didn’t presume that it was going to happen when I didn’t hear from you until just now.”

“Shit, you could have called me if you need that much fucking lead time to plan your daily social activities. I had things to do in Quantico today. I explained that to you yesterday.”

I was now thoroughly steamed. Was he clueless? “You never mentioned it was going to take you all day to drop a key off at the forensic lab.”

“I had other things I needed to take care of while I was there. I needed to get some shooting practice done. It’s been a while.”

“I’ll bet,” I said in my menstrual, snotty tone.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What it means, is that common courtesy would’ve been to touch base before it got this late if we were to have plans for this
afternoon!”

“Hey,” he snapped back, “I never said a thing about this afternoon being when we’d get together.”

“True, but you did say you’d get in touch with me this afternoon. Here’s a
bulletin:
Afternoon. Has
. Ended.”

“Jesus Christ! You see? That’s
exactly
why I avoid cultivating anything other than sexual relationships. It’s too fucking complicated.”

His words stung me like a thousand bees. I’d had friends over the years, both in high school and now college that had been in their fair share of relationships. I’d watched on the sidelines, witnessing how some of them had been very high-maintenance. That wasn’t my style, yet somehow Taz was making me feel like it was.

“Look, this isn’t worth arguing about. You committed to something and you didn’t follow through. It wasn’t my responsibility to hunt you down to confirm our plans.”

“Oh, I see,” he said. “It’s the
man’s
job to perform to your expectations, to understand the rules of female-protocol with high-maintenance chicks. Well, that’s not my style. I’m nobody’s lap dog. So, if you think I’m going to be out there chasing your ass all over D.C. tonight like some freaking, alpha control freak, think again.”

“Why don’t you go fuck yourself? Or better yet, go fuck Dirty Diana,” I hissed. “That’s probably more your style.”

I ended the call, tossing my phone on the bed and went to finish my hair and make-up.

^{chapter 31}

I was sitting at our ringside table at Dazzle, sucking down my third (possibly fourth) ‘Big Titty Ho on a Motorcycle.’ Darcy insisted that I’d love it. It was tequila, Pepsi, amaretto, and whiskey-sour mix. I had to admit, they were growing on me.

I was decked out, feeling the fuzzy effect of the alcohol and watching Darcy dancing with different guys on the floor. I’d been asked to dance about a half dozen times, politely declining. I was content to sit back and watch while getting hammered.

The band took a break and Darcy returned to the table, fanning her face to cool off. She was dressed in a tiny little tight purple skirt with a black sparkly top that was drawing a lot of attention.

She flopped down in the chair across from me, taking a big swallow of her Orgasm #8: tequila and Bailey’s Irish Cream. I didn’t do drinks with Bailey’s.

“Hey,” she said, “I literally bumped into Sonya on the dance floor. She’s going to stop over in a bit to join us for the evening.”

“That’s cool,” I replied.

“So,” she said, brushing the damp hair off of her forehead. “Are you going to stay in that freaking ‘buzz kill’ mood all evening, Lindsey?”