“Tex tel you about Jet’s troubles?” she asked.

I sucked down the pil s with another gulp of latte. “You mean the ra**st and the loan shark and her Dad being in the hospital after being thrown from a moving car?” The eyes of the customer next to me bugged out of his head.

I ignored him and Indy did too.

She said, “Wel , that al finished up on Friday. You came in on Sunday. Seein’ as you and Hank, um… seem to be, um—”

I interrupted her, “Yeah, and…?”

“Wel , I think Duke’s a little gun shy.”

“Gun shy, hel . Hank is f**ked,” he looked at me. “No offense but you’re gonna run him through the mil , I can tel .

And no doubt, we’l al get ground up with him.” I blinked.

“I’m only in town for a couple of days,” I said.

“I can see it comin’,” Duke said.

“Hal elujah!” Uncle Tex boomed. “No lag this time, keep

‘im hoppin’, darlin’ girl, that’s what I say.” I looked to Indy.

“I think I might throw up,” I told her.

“Hungover?” she asked.

“That too.”

She laughed again but I couldn’t figure out what was so funny.

At that point, Daisy powered in the door wearing a hot pink, velour, skintight, Juicy Couture track suit with the top’s zipper unzipped to what could only be cal ed the Cleavage Danger Zone and a braided terry cloth bandana around her forehead, looking like Dol y Parton halfway morphed into Jackie Stal one, but younger.

“Hey Roxie! Popped by to see if you wanted to do a power walk with me while Tex is working,” she said.

My stomach roiled. “I’m going to get a cheeseburger,” I replied.

Cheeseburgers (with fries) were the only hangover cure I knew that worked. It only lasted fifteen minutes after the last fry was chewed and swal owed, but it was fifteen minutes of nirvana.

Daisy frowned. “Sugar bunch, cheeseburgers kinda defeat the purpose of a power walk.”

How did these people avoid hangovers? They’d al been right with me, drink for drink. It was unreal.

I figured it had to be the altitude.

“Maybe you can power walk to the burger place and back,” Indy suggested.

“Maybe you can power walk to Siberia and stay there,” Duke put in.

I turned and scowled at Duke.

“Shee-it,” he said when he caught my scowl. “Hank is f**ked.”

“Hank’s gonna be f**ked, you ask me,” Daisy giggled and it sounded like tinkling bel s.

“I’ve entered a loony bin,” I told another unwitting customer, this one a female.

“It’s always like that around here,” the customer replied.

“That’s why I come, it’s like walking into a sitcom that could only air on HBO.”

I wasn’t getting a good feeling about this.

Daisy grabbed my arm and power-walked me the few blocks to a fast-food burger joint on the corner of Broadway and Alameda.

While we were standing in line waiting for my order which consisted of an ultra-sized cheeseburger meal and four extra orders of ultra-sized fries, she said to me, “Al right, tel Daisy all about it.”

“About what?” I asked.

“About whatever’s making your eyes sad.”

Holy cow. Was I that obvious?

“Nothing’s making me sad,” I lied.

She looked at me for a while. The counter guy passed me my bag and then she said, “When you’re ready to talk, I’m here, comprende?”

I nodded.

She let it go. Left it at that and I liked her al the more.

Though not enough to share, but I did feel badly about it.

We walked back a lot slower, mainly because I was consuming my ultra-sized cheeseburger meal and Daisy was programming phone numbers into my cel phone (just in case).

When we got to Fortnum’s I handed out the fries, sucked down my diet cola (because even if I’d just hoovered through an ultra-sized meal, there was a girlie law that said you had to have it with a diet drink) and ordered another caramel latte.

The customer crush was mostly gone, Daisy and Indy were talking at the book counter, Duke had disappeared and Uncle Tex was alone behind the espresso machine.

“I’m takin’ it that your loser boyfriend is your loser f**kin’

ex-boyfriend since you were holdin’ hands with Hank last night.”

I sighed. “Can we talk about it later?”

“Got a lot of respect for Hank, he’s good people. Tel me you’re done with that weasely motherfucker.”

“I’m done with Bil y, I’ve been done with him for a long time. He’s just not done with me. I’m having dinner with Hank but only because he’s persuasive—”

“I bet,” Uncle Tex broke in.

“It’s just dinner. Nothing more, not until I can finish up with Bil y.”

“Dinner may be just dinner in Chicago but it ain’t in Denver. These boys don’t f**k around, you know what I’m sayin’?” Tex asked.

I’d already learned that.

He went on anyway. “Indy was livin’ with Lee after ‘bout a day. Jet was with Eddie from my count, after less than a week. The way Hank’s lookin’ at you, I’m guessin’ less than forty eight hours.”

Good God.

He continued. “I’m your f**kin’ uncle and I like that boy enough to say I’d be doin’ cartwheels, you end up with him.” Boy was I in trouble.

“We’l talk about it later, okay?”

He stared at me awhile then he said, “Hang out in here for a few hours then we’l go someplace and talk. I don’t want you wanderin’ off and gettin’ abducted or car bombed.”

My eyes bugged out and he shrugged. “It’s been known to happen.”

Good grief.

I settled into the couch, chose Springsteen and made it through “Candy’s Room”, “Incident on 57th Street” and was enjoying “Thunder Road” even though my hangover had come back with a vengeance when I felt movement beside me on the couch and something pressed against my hip.

My eyes opened.

Hank was sitting next to me, his hip against mine.

Shit.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

For some reason, this made him smile and my stomach clutched.

He plucked the MP3 player out of my hand and turned it to look at the display. His eyes went lazy at what he saw but he touched it with his thumb and the mega-blast of music powered down to seriously un-rock ‘n’ rol levels.