Rocket awoke to Joan Jett's vocals for I Love Rock n' Roll. Her hand went to the nightstand in search of her phone, groping for the answer button on the screen that was eluding her at the moment.
Success was achieved before the call went to voice mail. Brining the phone to her ear, Rocket mumbled, "What's up Rosita?"
A very irritated female voice came flowing through the phone. "I don't know Boss-lady. How about you tell me? You call to tell me you're taking off to Chicago, interrupting a great bar-b-que by the way, and I don't hear nuthin' from you since."
"I rode for eighteen hours Rosita. I'm alive and tired, sorry if my silence worried you." Rocket sat up, stretched, and then let out a yawn.
"Well, you put me in charge, thanks so much for that by the way, I get calls from Chris and Hound Dog saying this dude is having kittens over his bike not being ready three weeks earlier than the date he was quoted. So these jackasses are at the shop trying to finish it, then they go on to tell me that this dude wants another bike delivered at the same time. And they are yelling about Joel's designs not working or something. Oh, one more thing, it's freaking Sunday!"
Rocket sighed, rubbing her left hand over her face. She would swear that when Rosita went off on a rant, she didn't stop to take a breath until she was damn sure her point had gotten across. Too bad she couldn't hold a note to save her life, with that lung capacity; she would have made a great Prima Donna.
"You don't pay me enough for this, chica," was Rosita's response to the pause.
"Yeah, I know. I don't pay myself enough for this grief. Let me get my pants on." Rocket switched the phone to the speaker function and sat it on the bedside table, before reaching for her jeans.
"Pants on? You having that much fun already?" Rosita quipped.
"You wish. After hitting home, I took a nap." Rocket glanced at the bedside clock. "A five hour nap."
"All caught up on your beauty sleep?"
Rocket let out a bark of laughter at that and reached for her boots."Got your pants on yet?" Rosita would never be remarked on her patience. Lack of, sure.
"Okay, I'm grabbing my laptop and going downstairs. Just hold your horses." Rocket stepped out into the hallway and headed downstairs.
The wonderful smell of Charley's cooking met her nose. As she hit the last stair, she could see Charley in the kitchen while the mice were watching a football game by the sound of it.
"Hey Charley, mind if I use the garage office to deal with customer crap?" Rocket asked. Sleep was
still trying to cling to her.
"Oh hey, you're up. Sure, go ahead. Dinner will be ready in a little bit, if you're hungry."
Before Rocket could reply, Rosita's voice rang out from the phone. "Oh sure, don't tell her I'm on hold here. Hi, Charley!"
"Hi Rosita, how are you?" Charley asked, grinning.
"Oh. I'm just fine. Up to my ass in alligators, because Boss Lady here decided she was worried about you. How are you doing?"
Rocket rolled her eyes at the sarcasm dripping in Rosita's voice.
"I'm good, the garage is good and things are great," Charley said with a smile to her sister that said, This is what you get.
"Okay. So what was so horrible that she decided to drive all the way to Chicago to save you from?"
"My boyfriend," Charley answered.
"Oh. Do we need to take someone fishing?" Rosita asked carefully.
"No. It's not like that. Rocket here, just over-reacted instead of just asking a few direct questions."
Rocket opened her mouth to say something, but Charley cut her off.
"He's really sweet, the best guy I could've asked for," Charley's voice lost that teasing edge as she spoke of Vinnie.
And a giant mouse from Mars. Rocket thought to herself.
"Ooooh. Does he have a brother?" Of course this being Rosita's next question didn't surprise Rocket in the least.
"Not your type Rose. Not big and stupid with way more money than brain cells," Rocket quipped.
"Oh well, girl has to have her standards," Rosita sighed.
Rocket was there for the bad breakup that had Rosita set the bar so high. She wasn't looking for Mr. Right, not any more. Now it was Mr. Right now with money to spend.
"Alright, I'm taking this in the office to put out a few fires in Austin." Rocket was ending that line of discussion before it got weird.
"Bye Rosita," Charley called.
"Bye Sweetie!" Rosita replied.
As Rocket headed for the garage door, she paused to pick up her mints from the table and passed the guys in the living room. Modo was the first to see her.
"Hi. Did you have a nice nap?" he asked.
And of course, Rosita heard that. "Oh, is that the boyfriend? He sounds hawwt!"
Rocket sighed and rolled her eyes, because of course, Rosita's voice got the other mice's attention.
"No Rose, that's his friend, Modo."
"I'm Charley's hot boyfriend!" Vinnie piped up as Throttle muted the TV and laughed.
"Is that another friend?" Rosita purred.
"Keep it in your pants Rosita!" Rocket beat a hasty retreat into the garage. A moment later she was settling into the old office chair and starting her laptop.
"Crap. Hang on, I need the Wi-Fi password, " she huffed.
"I'll wait. Just put on one of those stud muffins and I'll wait for however long you want."
"Geez girl, need a cold shower?"
Rocket didn't wait for the answer. she walked to the door and stuck her head in the living room. "Any of you mouseketeers know the Wi-Fi password?"
"I can help you Rocket Ma'am," Modo said as he got up from the overstuffed recliner and strode to her. Rocket stepped back from the door and held it open for him to join her.
The grey mouse walked into the office and pulled from the desks middle drawer, a small note book, he then offered it to her.
"Thanks Modo," she said taking the notebook and rewarding him with a crooked grin.
His red eye met her blue ones."You're welcome Ma'am." His bass voice rumbled in his chest but came out smooth as honey, sending a shiver down to some interesting places.
Then the spell was broken with Rosita's two verbal cents. "Ma'am? Yeah, I've definitely got to find me one of those!"
Rocket again rolled her eyes and let out a breath she hadn't realized that she was holding. She moved past Modo to sit at the desk. As he turned to leave, she watched him go. Her gaze traveling down from his broad shoulders to his backside, a thought drifted across her mind, I can clearly spot what Charley sees in the Martians. Meow!
"Earth to Rocket? Hey, you there Boss-lady?" Rosita's voice derailed that train of thought.
"Yep, still here."
"He must be a real triple tier beefcake if he's got you so distracted."
"You know Rosita, I can fire you," Rocket said with a sigh.
"Yeah, do it. Who else will put up with this crap?" she retorted. It was an old tit- for- tat between them. To be perfectly honest, Rosita was so much more to Rocket than a valued employee. She was a dear friend.
Rocket flipped open the notebook and found the password she was looking for, popped a mint in her mouth and typed it in.
"You've already emailed the design this guy is yelling about, right?" Rocket asked, bringing her email inbox up on the screen.
"Of course, I'm not an amateur."
"Well, I can tell you right now that Chris and Hounddog are there today so they can have Friday off to go duck hunting. Why they are answering the phones for once is beyond me. First Problem solved." Rocket clicked on the latest email. "This is the dude from Dubai?"
"Yeah, he's an asshole," Rosita clipped the words with irritation.
"Yeah he is. Well, somehow he was sent the wrong finals. The new bike is just waiting for the tank and paint. These designs are Joel's chopper job for that Jersey guy, who's an even bigger jerk than Dubai. There. Problems solved."
"That clears a lot up," Rosita said with a sigh.
"If the guy calls back, just tell him the problem has been fi
xed and everything is on schedule. If he insists, I'll call him tomorrow," Rocket instructed.
"So Charley is all good, nothing horrible happened, she wasn't abducted by aliens." Rocket let out a small snicker at that. "She's dating a nice guy, who thinks he's hot. All is good in Chicago. When are you coming back chica?"
Rocket chewed her bottom lip for a moment before giving her answer. "I'm going to hang up here for a few weeks."
"You're what, a few weeks, huh? You do remember that you have a business to run down here?"
"I'm well aware of that Rosie, but I need some time away. Some time to spend with Charley. Besides, I have nothing going on in Austin or that shop that needs my hands on it this very minute. And you practically run the actual business side of it. I just make the pretty bikes. Before you say anything, the other guys can handle any custom design jobs that come in."
Rosita let out an exasperated sigh. "You so don't pay me enough for this Rocket."
"I'll make it up to ya girlie, promise."
"You better," Rosita growled. "Are you staying with Charley?"
"Nah, I'll be at the loft. Call me there, at the garage or on my cell if you need me."
"Oh you bet I will. Don't cause too much trouble, and be nice to the boyfriend. Charley sounds happy. Don't be the scary big sister. Bring me back something neat and shiny. And carve yourself off a piece of that beefcake, he sounds yummy!"
"I'll talk to ya later." Rocket hit the end call button on the phone's screen and sat back. Rosita really did run most of the business side of their shop and was paid handsomely for it, freeing up Rocket to design and build bikes, which is all she ever wanted to do.
She let out a sigh and looked out into the garage bays, her eyes immediately going to the Martian bikes. Her world (for that matter, her universal) view had just been blown to smithereens this morning, and she thought she was handling it very well, but so many questions buzzed about her brain.
How could three motorcycle riding, alien mice go around a major city blowing crap up and not be on the news twenty four seven? Rocket could completely understand the need for secrecy, but these guys didn't sound like they were the definition of discreet.
This is the age of the Internet, how can this not be all over every conspiracy nut's blog? Not that she read stuff like that. All the weirdness she had been hearing about could just have well been the furry lummoxes currently sitting in her sister's living room. She glanced at her laptop. Why not find out what's out there? She thought.
Pulling up trusty old Google, she typed in the words ' Biker', 'Alien', 'Chicago', 'Limburger' and clicked the magnifying glass search button. What she got was several links to blogs, local news sites and YouTube videos.
"Ooookaaay," she said as she clicked on the first link that looked promising. It brought her to a blog entitled 'Chi-Town Mysteries' and the headlining mystery were the mice. Grainy photos and blurry cell phone videos showed Charley's fuzzy buddies fighting monsters, thugs in tricked out dune buggies, blowing up and tearing down an office tower, and the accompanying eyewitness accounts confirmed that this happened a lot.
A half hour had gone by and Rocket was reading an article on the Tribune's site about a Lawrence Limburger suing the city over building codes when a knock came on the door frame of the office. Rocket looked up to see Throttle standing in the doorway.
"Charley-girl says dinner will be ready in five."
"Thanks. Hey Throttle, come here for a sec?" Rocket turned back to her laptop as the tan mouse leaned over her shoulder.
"Reading about some of the tower thrashings' we did, huh?" he said in that husky voice that would have weaker women on their knees.
"Yeah. Why do you call her 'Charley-girl'?"
At this distance, she noticed that he smelled kinda good. Almost like apples, cinnamon and oranges. Then his voice had her attention again.
"It's a term of endearment. Kinda like when the Japanese say 'san' after a name."
"You speak Japanese?" she asked a little disbelief in her voice.
"Not really. I watch a lot of anime though."
Rocket cocked her right eyebrow at that. He returned her look and said, "Yeah, you got a problem with that?"
"Not at all. In fact you just went up a few points on my scoreboard." she turned back to her screen with a slight grin, "Is this the Plutarkian fishy?" Rocket asked nodding to a photo of a morbidly obese man smiling and looking like a crocodile who just ate somebody particularly yummy.
"That's him. Quite the looker, huh?" Throttle teased.
"Yeah, a real GQ cover boy." She turned to look the mouse in the eyes, or shades, since his eyes were masked by the glasses. "Seriously, how much danger is my sister in? Charley is all I've got in this world. I don't even want to think about anything happening to her."
Throttle sighed and pulled the wooden chair over so he could sit. "Rocket, I..." he began only to have her cut him off mid-sentence.
"Do not feed me a bunch of bullshit about how you can protect her and nothing's going to happen while you guys are around, or I swear, I'll punch you straight in that handsome snout of yours."
He looked at her with a mix of amusement and caution. "You really lay the cards on the table, don'tcha?"
"When it matters, I don't like to dance around. I know she can take care of herself, we both can. What I want to know is, exactly how much danger is she in?" I'm not going to do anything stupid, I just want to know."
Throttle rubbed the back of his neck then looked up at Rocket. "I'm not going to lie to you, there's been a few pretty bad fights that we nearly didn't make it out of in one piece. A few left Charley-girl with some scars, but nothing we couldn't handle. All three of us are pretty damn good field medics, human and mouse physiology ain't that far apart."
"Watch her back for me. I'm pretty sure you've found out how much she doesn't like to be treated like a china doll, but just watch her back." Rocket knew it was unfair to ever solicit a promise like this, but if it put her mind at ease, even just a little bit, fairness be damned.
"I give you my word as a Freedom Fighter, but she actually watches our backs for the most part. Charley is one tough cookie." There was a hint of pride and admiration in his voice that made Rocket smile.
"I know she is. Sam Davidson didn't raise pink pretty princesses," Rocket quipped.
"I would have never pegged you as girly," Throttle said with a grin.
"Nope, Charley and I played with tool kits instead of dolls and tea sets. I've decided to stay up here for a couple of weeks and I would love a ride on one of your bikes before I leave, maybe a peek at the engine?" Rocket gave her best 'Pretty please with sugar on top' smile.
Throttle chuckled. "I don't see a problem with that. Lady and me would be happy to give you a ride," his voice held a teasing edge to it. Being flirted with was just one of those things that came with being a woman biker.
"Lady? You name your bikes too? I know a guy out in California who would never admit that he named his bike, but he did and it's the girliest name ever." Rocket pointed to her Harley. "That's Ruby. Out of all the bikes I own, she's my favorite." Her voice held a tone of adoration and reverence that only a true dyed-in-the-leather-biker would have. Throttle could relate to that, he felt the same way about his bike as well.
"Well, we better get in there before Charley sends out a search party," Rocket said as she started the shut down on her laptop.
Throttle stood with her and gestured to the door. "Ladies first."
"I see that chivalry isn't dead on Mars. But if you call me 'Ma'am', we'll have a problem."
They both laughed as they walked into the apartment.
The remains of a great dinner covered the dining table as everyone laughed over the latest topic of discussion.
"So, yeah. Here's this big, tattooed, death metal rocker god picking up this bike that I busted my ass on for three months; and he spills it less than two blocks from the shop! Turns out that was only the third time he had ever ridden a motorcycle, and it was not the charm for him," Rocket finished and everyone erupted in more laughter.
"Nuthin' sadder than a wannabe showoff," Modo remarked, still chuckling.
"Amen to that," Rocket agreed.
She stood with her plate in hand, reaching for Charley's with the other hand. "You should have been a chef Charley. That was awesome."
"It's just roast chicken, Rocket," Charley responded picking up Vinnie's plate and reaching for Throttle's.
Modo had already started gathering the other dishes.
"Whatever. Tastes like home to me," Rocket said heading to the kitchen.
Vinnie and Throttle brought in the rest of the dishes as Rocket began to scrape the food bits into the trash bin.
"Hey, you got a new dishwasher," Rocket remarked.
"Yeah, I had to. The old one had an unfortunate accident," Charley said with a glare aimed at the mice.
"Do I want to know?" Rocket asked with one raised eyebrow.
All three bros answered in unison, "No."
She chuckled at that and then asked, "How much crap do you guys break?"
That was met with silence from the mice and an exasperated sigh from Charley.
"Forget I asked," Rocket said with a shake of her head.
Modo had begun to rinse the dishes and placed them in dishwasher racks. A conversation between the three started as Vinnie and Throttle made way into the living room.
"So what's the usual Sunday night routine around here?"
Charley answered, "A movie or two and then bed."
"Still opening at nine on Monday mornings?"
"You know it."
"Then I think I'll run over to the loft to air the place out, unless you need an extra pair of hands," Rocket said, packing the left over green beans into a plastic container.
"If you need help Rocket Ma'am, I can go with you, "Modo offered.
"It's nothing but cleaning the dust out, turning on the water main and letting some fresh air in," Rocket tried to politely turn him down.
"Oh let him help. He's the only mouse around here that will offer. Besides, you aren't going to get me anywhere near that basement," Charley shuddered at the last.
"I ain't afraid of no ghosts," Rocket quipped.
"Wait. What basement and ghosts?" Modo looked from one sister to the other.
"You know that old five story warehouse on Pike Street? That's Rocket's "loft". She bought it a year before you guys got here," Charley explained.
"I got it for a song too," Rocket added.
"That's because it's haunted," Charley said.
"I've never had a problem. Besides, it was owned by Al Capone and was used as a storehouse and speakeasy during Prohibition. It's neat and historical and no one ever asked you to go into the basement anyway, Short-Round."
"Well, that's just great because I'm never going down there."
Modo chuckled at the exchange. "Al Capone, he was that gangster, right?"
"Yep, and he was a really nasty character. So everyone assumes that any building with his name on it must be haunted by victims of his hit men. Oooooo! Boooo!" Rocket made menacing movements with her hands. Charley then flicked water in Rocket's face. This brought on a mock battle with Modo in the middle laughing.
Rocket ducked under Modo's metal arm to take a shot with the dishtowel at Charley, when she realized she was apparently trapped by the mouse's arms. And with such a lovely view of his chest.
"Uh, Cowboy, I'm a bit stuck," she said leaning as far back as the edge of the sink would allow her to go. She craned her head back, as his chin touched his chest to look at her. At five foot ten, she was used to looking guys in the eye, if only to look up a few inches, but this was new.
"Yep," he said, a blush starting to make its way visible under his gray fur, especially in the ears. "Sorry about that."
"No worries, Hoss," she said as she ducked under his flesh arm.
Charley watched the exchange with a bemused smile. "What?"Rocket asked.
"I don't think I've ever seen you blush like that," she laughed.
Rocket threw the dishtowel at Charley's face as Modo did his best to hide the goofy grin spread across his face.
The rest of the night played out in front of the television, watching a few movies. The mice happy with Rocket's pick of 'Aliens', despite of some immediate reservations induced by the title. She even had them wanting to see the first film the next night.
At a quarter past twelve, goodnights were exchanged and the mice, minus Vinnie, rode for the scoreboard and Rocket headed for the spare room.