Sabina met up with Vader on Grove Street outside their favorite bar, Firefly. Vader was waiting, hands shoved in his pockets. He wore his usual uniform—jeans, muscle shirt, jaw stubble, and a goofy grin.
“Hey, superstar,” he greeted her.
“Shut up.” She followed that up with a big hug, remembering how he’d stood up for her at the firehouse. As she felt the bulge of his muscles swell against her chest, she wondered at the mystery of attraction. If Roman’s body was this close to hers, her heart would be stuttering and her blood would be sizzling. She’d never experienced so much as a tingle in a single fingertip over Vader.
She pulled out of his embrace. “Ready for this?”
“Beer and a chick from TV? Hell yeah.” He headed for the entrance of Firefly. She snagged his beefy wrist.
“We’re not going to Firefly.”
“Why not?”
“That won’t prove anything to Cherie. I have a plan.”
Vader looked uneasy, his warm brown eyes narrowing under his bony brow. “All I want is a beer.”
“What happened to proving you’re not a homophobe?”
“I think I’m good.”
“Oh no, you’re not backing out now. You asked for my help and now you’re going to get it.” She tucked his hand under her elbow and they headed down the street. “We’re going to Lush. The gay bar.”
He stopped short. “Oh shit, Sabina—”
“Think how impressed Cherie will be. A real homophobe would never go in a bar like that.”
Uneasiness rippled across Vader’s jutting brow. “I have a bad feeling about this.”
“It’ll be good for you. And I’ll be right there with you the whole time.”
He gave in and let her lead the way down Grove Street, in the heart of San Gabriel’s shopping district. Ropes of silver tinsel draped the lampposts, along with the occasional harp-playing angel. Around Christmastime, San Gabriel city leaders remembered the town was named after a saint, and angels suddenly began appearing everywhere. A string of lights traced out the shape of an angel on the façade of the new, temporary City Hall, a converted office supply warehouse. The storefronts had all acquired Christmas decorations and little knots of window shoppers.
Sabina’s childhood Christmases had been just as Hollywood-weird as her Thanksgivings. Annabelle had been a Christmas-brunch-at-the-Polo-Lounge type of mother, but she’d spent lavishly on presents once they were making money. One year she’d given Sabina diamond earrings. Sabina had been eleven at the time and had really wanted a snowboard.
Why did it seem like the crew at the firehouse understood her more than her mother ever had?
Sabina squeezed Vader’s arm to her side. “I really appreciate what you guys did yesterday. Never got a chance to tell you.”
Vader shrugged as if it was no big deal. “Do it for anyone. Turns out Roman had your back anyway.”
“Does that mean you like him now?”
“No fucking way.” His muscles clenched under her arm. “Jury’s still out. But I’ll give him some time before I kick his arrogant ass.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Where’s your loyalty, Two? Me versus Roman, who would you put your money on?”
“Oh for God’s sake.” They turned down the side street where Lush was located. “I don’t bet on cockfights.”
“Funny. Real funny.”
“But I’d give you some money not to fight him. You’re both on my thumbs-up list at the moment.”
Up ahead, the retro neon Lush sign lit the street with an orange glow. The pumping beat of electronica filtered from the vine-covered building.
“You like the dude.”
“He’s okay. He stood up for me.”
“No, you like him. As in, you wouldn’t kick him out of bed.”
Roman in her bed. For a moment, she couldn’t answer. She summoned a whiff of composure. “Oh please,” she said weakly.
Vader spun her around with one hand on her shoulder. “For real? You like him? I was just messing with you.”
She tried to drag him toward the club, but that amount of sheer male muscle didn’t budge unless it wanted to. “This isn’t about me. This is about you and your alleged homophobia.”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“Don’t distract us from our mission.” She marched toward the club. “Maybe I’ll see if I can find a gay best friend in there. Since my own best friend is being an idiot.”
Vader caught up with her in two steps. “I bet if I was gay, I’d already know all about you and Roman. I’d pick up on your feelings more. They’re more sensitive, right?”
“More than you?” She snorted. “That lamppost is more sensitive than you.”
“Hey. I do have feelings, you know. I’m not just a hunk of meat.”
She yanked open the door of Lush, unleashing a blast of electronic sound. A bouncer in a black leather jacket perched on a stool just inside the door. “Something wrong with meat?” he asked in a voice of deepest gravel. “ID, please.”
Vader snapped his mouth shut. Sabina thought he turned a bit pale, though it could have been reflected orange neon. She showed the bouncer her driver’s license. “Busy night?”
“Always.”
Vader nervously took out his ID. The man aimed a flashlight at it. “Derek Brown. You work out?”
“Yes,” he said in a squeaky voice.
“Have a good time, meat.”
“I’m not—”
“Thanks, we will,” said Sabina, dragging Vader behind her. She’d never been to Lush, but she’d been to plenty of gay bars in Los Angeles. Ear-splitting trance music made the place thump like the inside of a drum. Flashing colored lights glistened off bare male chests as several men writhed on the dance floor. She wasn’t the only woman here, but most of the customers were men, some hunky, some not.
Vader, in keeping with the meat theme, seemed to have turned into a hunk of lamb. He clung to her, crowding close behind her as she threaded a path to the bar. At Firefly, he strutted in as if he owned the place, which he could probably do if instead of buying drinks he’d been saving for a down payment. Here he looked completely out of his element. She had to keep a tight grip on his wrist to keep him from fleeing.
“I’ll get drinks,” she yelled to him, unable to hear herself over the music. Vader nodded jerkily. She wormed her way between two burly biker-type guys and held up two fingers to the bartender, then pointed to a beer bottle. She planned to give both to Vader. It would take at least two beers to make a dent in his first-time nerves.
The bartender brought her two bottles of dark ale and mouthed an amount she couldn’t make out. Digging in her pocket, she pulled out a twenty. Hopefully that would cover it. The bartender seemed happy, anyway. She picked up a bottle in each hand and squeezed back the way she’d come, looking around for Vader.
He was talking to three men. He didn’t seem to be saying much, just looking from one to the other, eyes growing wider and wider.
She eyed the three men. They looked decent enough, like guys she might see at the gym. They looked much like Vader, in fact, all wearing some variation of a muscle shirt. She’d peg their age at late twenties, same as Vader. All three were in great shape. Maybe they were talking about muscle fiber and the best brands of energy drinks.
She dawdled, trying to decide if she should leave Vader alone so he could get to know the men. Her job was done—she’d gotten him in here. She’d encouraged an actual conversation with a gay man. He could tell Cherie all about it, and maybe learn something from the whole experience. Maybe she could go home now and snuggle under the covers with a book. Some kind of serial killer thriller that would give her nightmares about something other than the reunion show.
She was about to donate the two bottles of beer to the guys at the bar when Vader shook his head violently and said something she couldn’t hear. Something was wrong. With a crazed light in his eyes, he swung around in a circle. When he spotted Sabina, he went after her like a bull after a red cape. Before she could back away more than half a shocked step, he snatched her into an embrace and mashed his mouth against hers.
“Vader!” Her angry protest didn’t make it past the mouth that was grinding against hers. With her hands full of beer bottles, she couldn’t even push him away. Had he gone nuts? She tried to knee him in the groin, but her leg was trapped between his thick thigh muscles. She dropped the beer bottles onto the floor. One of them rolled away, but she heard the other shatter. Ignoring it, she pounded her fists against his chest in a rapid-fire beat.
Then she felt his hand on her ass.
“Stop it!” she shrieked into his mouth. This was going too far. They were friends, they had no spark, neither wanted the other sexually, so what the hell was he doing? At least it wasn’t a full-on, tongue-entwining kiss . . . more of a fake Hollywood-movie lip-lock. But it didn’t matter. She didn’t want to be kissing Vader.
Suddenly, she wasn’t. Someone was lifting him away from her as if he were an extra-buff G.I. Joe doll.
Behind him stood an even bigger version of G.I. Joe. One with night-black hair, a black leather jacket, smoldering eyes, and flexing muscles. Roman.
Roman had spotted Sabina and Vader by sheer chance. He’d gone home, eaten a little pasta e fagioli, watched a little ESPN, then decided it was a fine night for a drink at one of the little outdoor patios he’d spotted downtown. He’d cruised into town with the windows rolled down, enjoying the warm desert breeze. He’d picked out a nice, civilized wine bar where he could find a glass of Chianti and maybe a pleasant conversation or two. But before he’d even parked the Jeep, he’d spotted Sabina and Vader as they turned off Grove Street and headed into a dark alley.
His own personal alert system, the little hairs on the backs of his hands, had prickled in warning. If two of his firefighters were walking into trouble, he ought to provide backup. He parked and hurried after them.
The dark alley turned out to be a respectable side street. And the bar they slipped into, Lush, didn’t look like the sort of place that would harbor roofie-wielding rapists. But the backs of his hands were still prickling, and he still wanted a glass of wine, so he followed them in.
What he saw—when his eyes had adjusted to the flashing lights—made him nearly lose his mind.
Someone was attacking Sabina. The bastard was mauling her; he even had his hand on her ass. Sabina beat her fists against his chest but no one helped her. No one was doing a damn thing. Through the roar of blood in his ears, he vaulted across the room with the speed of a superhero. Pouncing on the man attached to her lips, he wrestled him away from her, no easy task because the man weighed more than a block of cement.
When he finally got every part of the despicable bastard away from Sabina, Roman stood, arms akimbo, legs braced, panting like an angry bear, ready for all comers. For all he knew, the man had friends with him. Didn’t matter. He could take them, whoever they were. And where the hell was Vader? Why wasn’t he helping Sabina?
Through the din of pounding music and shouting voices, he heard Sabina yelling, “Roman, Roman.”
“Are you okay?” he yelled back.
“Yes.” She pointed behind him. “Help him.”
What? Help the guy who’d been manhandling her? Incredulous, he looked around at the man he’d just ripped off her body. Vader glared back at him, face red, muscles quivering, like a dog about to pounce. Two guys were going after him, trying to hold him back, but he kept shaking them off.
“Vader?”
Vader snarled and lifted his fists. Roman sidestepped a hard punch, then readied himself for attack. Had he misunderstood what he’d seen? Had Sabina wanted that kiss? But it didn’t matter. If Vader wanted to fight, he’d fight. He jackhammered a left hook into the fireman’s jaw. Vader fell back for a moment, then raised his fists and came after him with a ferocious snarl.
Sabina threw her body between them before either could throw another punch. “Stop it! Take it outside, you idiots.”
“Go,” Roman growled at Vader. Vader’s eyes glittered in the flashing lights, red, green, yellow. Then he whirled around and stalked toward the exit. Sabina followed, kicking aside some broken glass.
The bouncer glared at them as they passed. “What the fuck are you guys doing?”
“Stay out of it,” Roman growled. He had a feeling Vader was teetering on the edge; he might be too.
“Stay out of my bar from now on, and I will.”
“No problem.”
Roman shepherded his two firefighters out the exit, and the bouncer slammed the door behind them. Immediately Vader took a martial arts kind of stance, feet wide apart, hands raised into some sort of claw shape. Roman braced himself for the attack.
“Vader, would you knock it off?” Again Sabina put herself between the two of them and addressed him. “You shouldn’t be mad at Roman. You had no right to kiss me like that. I was trying to make you stop.”
Roman experienced a moment of grim satisfaction. So he hadn’t misread the situation. Sabina hadn’t been kissing Vader by choice. But that meant Vader had been forcing himself on her, which called for a serious ass-kicking.
Vader relaxed his posture. The rabid, crazed look turned into something more like confusion. “Oh, fuck me. Sorry, Sabina. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Excuse me?” She put both hands on her hips.
“Those guys were coming on to me.”
“You couldn’t just tell them no?”
Roman shot Vader a puzzled look. “I’m a little confused here. Men were coming on to you, so you kissed Sabina?”
Vader roared. “They were talking to me! I had to make them stop.”
“The whole point of going there was so you could talk to them. Are you insane?” Sabina shoved her disheveled hair behind her ears. Two spots of pink rode high on her cheekbones. “And that’s not a good reason to kiss me without my permission.”
“It was all I could think of.”
“Vader,” Roman said in a warning tone. “I still need something to make sense here. So far nothing does.”
The big guy ducked his head. “I’m trying to prove I’m not a homophobe. So Sabina brought me here. She was trying to help.”
“Yes, but making out with you was not part of the deal.” She swiped her hand across her mouth with a disgusted expression that made Roman’s heart sing.
“I said I’m sorry.”
Sabina’s level gaze showed what she thought of that apology. “If Cherie could see you right now, she’d be through with you for good. I’m starting to think you are a homophobe.”
“It was too much, too fast,” argued Vader. “I had flashbacks to my rookie year. I need baby steps. Let’s go somewhere else, somewhere easier. Like a . . . a . . . I don’t know, an antiques shop.”
“Vader! Total stereotype. You’re hopeless.”
“Forget it,” said Roman. “Sabina’s not going antiquing. She’s coming with me.”
“Excuse me?” She wheeled on him, her hair flying behind her like a neon-lit fan.
Implacably, he repeated, “You’re coming with me. Vader, get lost. No more bar brawls. And make sure whoever you kiss wants it.”
“They’ll want it.” Vader puffed out his chest with some of his former bravado. “I’m a good kisser, right, Sabina?”
Roman didn’t need to hear the answer to that, although judging from Sabina’s flared nostrils, it wasn’t likely to be kind.
“We’re done here. Good night, Vader. I expect you back in top form next week.”
Roman took Sabina’s hand, which settled into his lion-size paw as if it belonged there. He drew her down the street.
“Chief Roman,” Vader called after them.
“Yeah?”
“No one needs to know shit about this, right? I mean, that we went to a . . . place like this?”
Roman ignored him and kept stalking down the street. Firehouse gossip wasn’t his style, and if Vader didn’t know that by now, he really ought to slash his steroid intake.
Sabina didn’t say much as they walked toward Grove, where he’d left his Jeep. But neither did she pull her hand from his grasp. She did mutter something about her car but he ignored that. He had no intention of letting her go until he got a few things straight.
When they reached his Jeep, she finally reclaimed her hand and folded her arms across her chest. “What’s this all about?”
“You and Vader. Nothing to it?”
“We’re friends. He was my best friend but he might be on temporary suspension after tonight.” She drew in a shaky breath.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just . . . I feel stupid. I shouldn’t have taken him in there. I should have known he couldn’t handle it. But I never thought he’d react like that.”
“You’re blaming yourself now?”
“I mean, it’s not the end of the world. I know he was rattled. He didn’t mean anything by it, he just freaked out. We kissed before, back when we didn’t know any better. But once you’re friends with someone for a few years, kissing them isn’t really on the agenda.”
Roman sorted through the buzz of kissing-related statements and latched on to one fascinating comment. “What do you mean, when you didn’t know any better?”
“We didn’t know if there were any sparks between us. So we tried a kiss to find out if we had chemistry.”
“And?”
“And there wasn’t. Not like . . .”
She trailed off, biting her lower lip. Roman clenched his fists. That lip shouldn’t be pinched between her teeth. It ought to be pressed up against his mouth, that tender flesh responding to his hot kiss.
“Like what?” he asked in a low growl, demanding she finish her sentence.
“Like . . . um . . . like there ought to be.” She dropped her gaze, so he knew she’d censored herself.
“That’s not what you were going to say.”
“You don’t know what I was going to say.”
“Yes, I do.” He stepped close to her and took her head in both his hands, tilting it until her eyes caught dancing sparkles from the streetlights. “You meant, there wasn’t any chemistry like this.”
And he claimed her mouth like a lion claiming its prey.