He passed Connie and saw that she’d set up her equipment. He felt kind of honored. Connie was an extremely well-‐known DJ. She worked at some of the hottest clubs in the city when she wasn’t out killing someone stupid. The fact that she was gearing up to do what she did best in his house was kind of cool.
The geek in him was duly impressed.
Walking through the kitchen door, Yager froze on the threshold. Why the hell was Neecy surrounded by six Ravens? He didn’t like it. He didn’t like it one goddamn bit.
Moving slowly, he walked over to them as they leaned against the island in the middle of his kitchen. Neecy glanced at him and frowned. Well, what the hell did that mean?
“Yager, are you sure about this?”
“About what?”
“About Connie breaking out the music? I mean…she starts playing and there will be a party here. Whether you want one or not.”
Tye smiled. “You Crows do love a good party, don’t ya?”
Mike stretched and ran his hands through his hair. “I’ve gone to a few raves Connie DJ’d at. She’s not bad.”
“Wow, Mike. Is that like…a compliment?”
Mike smiled as he bumped Neecy with his hip. “I have my moments, ya know.”
“Yeah. Sure you do.” Neecy took a sip of her beer as Tye passed her a bowl of pretzels.
The first beats of the music started and Yager heard all the Crows in the living room give a cheer.
Neecy shook her head. “My girls.”
“How long has she been DJ-‐ing?” Mike asked as he grabbed another beer from the frig.
“Since she was seventeen I think.”
“Was it tough for her to get in?”
“Surprisingly no. What’s really funny is that she really didn’t give a shit. She only did it cause she loves to watch her girlfriend dance.”
All the Ravens froze; beers halfway to their lips, pretzels clenched in big fists and hovering near open mouths.
Mike cleared his throat. “That’s Fran, right? With the long legs?”
“Yeah. They’ve been together since they were fifteen or sixteen. They’re the sweetest couple.”
Tye glanced at Neecy from the corner of his eye. “Does she still dance when Connie DJs?”
“Oh, yeah. If Connie’s DJ-‐ing, Fran’s dancing.”
Yager reached over and yanked Neecy out of the way as the six men dived over the island and slammed out of the room heading for the living room and the party.
Neecy laughed as she held onto Yager’s arm. “What the fuck was that?”
“You tell six horny guys there are hot lesbians dancing in my living room…what did you expect?”
“God, you guys are pathetic.”
“Your point being?” Neecy shook her head as she stepped away, but Yager grabbed her around the waist and pulled her into his body. “Where are you going?”
Instead of pulling away as she usually did, she wrapped her arms around his hips, slipping her hands under the waistband of his loose-‐fitting jeans.
“Got something in mind, Yager?” she asked as she grabbed his ass and squeezed.
“Maybe the question is what do you have in mind?”
“You. Me. Your bedroom. And a locked freakin’ door.”
Smiling, as he pulled her closer, “I like that idea, Lawrence.” She tilted her face up, wanting him to kiss her. And now that Morgan had given her a clean bill of health, Neecy and her amazing body were all his.
Yager leaned down, his eyes locked on her lips, when she suddenly jerked up.
“Uh-‐oh.”
“Uh-‐oh what?”
“Shit. We gotta get out of here.”
He didn’t need to hear that twice, but for once he was too slow. He’d just grabbed her hand to drag her out of the house and fly her up to his window if necessary when the kitchen door banged open. “C’mon N’ Ride It,” one of his favorite party songs from the nineties, blasted in from the other room accompanied by a line of dancing and singing Crows. Apparently they wanted everyone to ride that goddamn train, so they grabbed Neecy and yanked her away from him.
They were so happy to see Neecy healthy they were completely unaware of what they just interrupted. Or they could care less. With the Crows, you just never know.
Neecy tried to pull away from Patty, one of the younger Crows, but the girl had a grip on her like a rodeo rider on a steer. They danced through the house until they got back to the living room. By then Connie changed out the music to some much harder tech, which meant Fran and Janelle would take over the dance floor.
Again Neecy tried to sneak away, but several older Crows she hadn’t seen in some time, grabbed her. They hugged her and told her how happy they were to see her doing well. That’s when Neecy realized this party wasn’t just to blow off some steam. It was for her. To celebrate her being well. As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t walk away from the party just yet.
With a small sigh of resignation, Neecy took the beer Arri handed her and counted the minutes until she could get away and back to Yager.
Chapter Eighteen
That was exactly the fifth time they’d done it. Every time Yager tried to make his way over to Neecy, one or more of the goddamn Crows jumped in front of him to
“chat.”
In the last two hours he’d discussed the world economy, the future of rain forests, whether natural gas was truly necessary to the nation’s survival, and the differences between narcissists and sociopaths. A conversation he just found disturbing.
Now little Arri stood in front of him, an uncharacteristically sunny grin on her pretty face.
“I was wondering Yager, what’s your opinion on the national debt and its impact on the United States’ dominance among the other world powers?”
Yager glared down at her. “Et tu, Arri?”
Her impossible grin grew impossibly wider. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Tye watched Janelle’s ass move on the makeshift dance floor. It wasn’t a small ass and he liked that. A lot. Add in that the girl could dance that ass off and Tye was feeling pretty good about things. He’d stopped watching the dancing lesbian as soon as Janelle stomped past him. She wasn’t angry, it just seemed like she stomped everywhere. She was not exactly light of foot.
Still, seeing her dance couldn’t quite beat seeing that gorgeous ass naked. True, he literally kicked the hell out of Mike to remind him that Crows were not his little sisters to torment. Yet, as much as he hated admitting it, he loved the man for giving him a good look at Janelle. A really, really good look.
Connie put on an old sixties song. He loved when she played the weirder, eclectic stuff. Inevitably, Janelle and Neecy did some hilarious dance move, like when they got everyone to do The Bump. Now they were all singing to “Rockin’ Robin.”
He could see where this was going. The song mentioned Crows and Ravens…there’d be much yelling at key points. But Tye loved it. He hated how they got here—Neecy getting hurt—but he loved where they ended up. The Crows and Ravens working together as one team. One family of annoying siblings. Loud, competitive, demanding Vikings always looking for a good fight or a good fuck.
And right there, right in front of him—Janelle McKenna. Daughter of a former Westie who left the Life and ended up getting gunned down for it.
It no longer mattered, though. Because she’d become one of the Skuld Daughters. And, next to Neecy, one of her best warriors. Funny, he often forgot Janelle was his age. She looked more like a girl in her twenties. But she knew the words to every Depeche Mode and Adam and the Ants song Connie played…and the sexy Latin lesbian played a lot of those.
Janelle and Neecy were now back to back, singing or, more like screaming, the words to “Rockin’ Robin.” The whole time the girls were laughing, especially when the rest of the Crows joined in. That’s what the Crows seemed to do a lot of. Laugh. They found more reasons to explode into peels of laughter and Tye with his big science brain couldn’t help but find them all fascinating. They didn’t seem to need much to amuse them. Anything was fair game.