Uh-oh, times about five hundred.
It was clear that wasn’t the way to roll with this crowd.
I knew this because at his words Lottie looked even more pissed, and I did not think it boded well that now the ZZ Top guy also looked ticked and all the women, who’d seemed settled in for the show, now looked ready to become a part of it.
I didn’t know who I was most scared of.
And although ZZ Top Guy seemed the logical choice just from sheer size and what it might say of his state of mind that he hadn’t shaved in at least two decades, Lottie was the frontrunner.
“Okay, let’s just all calm down here,” I began, moving out from behind Mag, only to have him curl an arm around my hips and yank me hard to his side.
My head bounced.
My hair swayed.
And for a split second, I was stuck on the thought that no one had ever done that to me before.
I didn’t like it.
But after all he’d done for me, that kiss, and in our current situation, I didn’t dislike it either.
What I did, after all he’d done for me, that kiss, and in our current situation, was understand it.
But my attention shifted to the multitude of women and one wild man whose collective gazes had sharpened on Mag’s arm around my hips, and not in good ways.
Right, maybe Lottie’s friends didn’t know he was an alpha-man commando who did stuff like that.
I never in my life thought I’d be in this place, but in order to handle a sudden and unexpected volatile situation, I was in this place.
That place being in a position to have to explain how an alpha-man commando operates.
“He’s protective,” I said. “He was there when I first saw all the damage. And you’ve invaded his space. It’s a commando thing.”
“Say what?” Lottie asked.
In answer, I curled my fingers around Mag’s wrist (which, incidentally, didn’t move) and shared, “You’ve invaded his territory. He’s claiming his territory and nonverbally sharing what he intends to protect. It’s not bad, as such. It’s instinctive.”
No one looked angry anymore, I was pleased to see.
Though how they’d morphed straight to highly amused, I didn’t get.
“She’s…” one of the blondes started. “She’s…” Her voice was trembling. “Giving us alpha lessons,” she finally got out.
When she did, promptly, all of them burst out laughing. And another of the blondes, hers platinum, had a giggle that sounded like tinkling bells (she also had very large breasts and was wearing a suede jacket top that had some lace at the waist, some glitter at the shoulder-padded shoulders, a ragged hem that fell to her stone-washed–jegging-covered hips, enough cleavage for seven women and looked like Calamity Jane met Wynonna Judd, but a Wynonna with platinum-blonde hair).
The lone African American lady, who, incidentally, had an enormous and highly attractive Afro, moved forward, tearing my attention away from the platinum blonde.
“This here, girl,” she began, “is the Rock Chicks.”
Oh…
Lottie’s friends.
Denver’s famed Rock Chicks.
In Mag’s living room.
Whoa.
“It’s a wonder I haven’t grown a beard, I’ve been inhaling so much testosterone for the last however many years,” the only brunette noted.
“Their men reinvented the idea of alpha,” the African American lady said. “Hers,” she pointed at another blonde, “took the book, doused it with gasoline, set it on fire, melted steel over the flame, fashioned a knife out of it and wrote the new definition by dipping the tip of that knife in ink then drawing a picture of himself.”
“That’s an, erm, colorful description,” I noted.
“I think the only time I’ve seen Luke hold a pen was when he signed our marriage certificate,” the blonde who had been indicated said. “Though, if he knew he could write with a knife dipped in ink, he’d probably do it more often. Including when he signed our marriage certificate.”
Everyone burst out laughing again.
Except Lottie.
She started speaking.
“Mag, Mo told me what went down and I not only did not call you a manwhore, I cannot believe you’d think I said that about you.”
Everyone stopped laughing and stared at Mag.
Oh boy.
I turned my head to look up at him to see he was still angry and still focused on Lottie.
“Yeah, then where did she get that shit?” he asked.
“It wasn’t Lottie, Danny,” I told him, and felt like an absolute heel when his eyes came down to me and I had to say what I had to say next. “Some of the girls at Smithie’s talked, and it was, well…me who used that term. Lottie just said you had a bad breakup and, and…you needed a woman in your life who would let you be you.”
He didn’t look any less angry, though it was a mixed bag that he didn’t seem angry at me.
“She came in here making assumptions,” he explained his continuing anger at Lottie.