Chapter Ten: Forward Movement
Delphia
Staying with Bear was a whole other life. I was still in awe of him. His body merging with mine was incredible, the way he touched me and brought out the sensual side of me was something I’d never experienced with a man ever. I kept drifting off into a dreamy haze at work and when I goofily stepped behind the counter to change shifts with Brendan even his penetrating scowl didn’t faze me.
“Why are you looking like that” he asked. “You look like you just ate a bunch of cupcakes or something.”
“Nothing. I’m good today. I’m feeling good,” I responded quickly.
Brendan tapped me on the shoulder with an enquiring gaze. “That’s not the reason. You have to have a reason for feeling good. This is Holbeck, this stinky ass town with its hot weather and the same lame merry-go-round of people is not a place to make you ‘feel good,’” he said, finger quoting for emphasis.
I rolled my eyes at him. “Then why are you still living here and not somewhere else?”
“When I save enough then I’ll get the hell out of here. Trust me. What about you? Are you going to stay?”
“I’m going to see what happens.” A little giggle sprung from my lips as a flash of me moaning in the heat of the moment with Bear came alive like a movie through my mind.
“Who is he? I know it’s a man. Is it that guy that’s built like a Mack truck?” Brendan asked curiously.
“Might be. How do you know that?” Most likely, my cheeks were on fire, I could feel the heat flooding to them. When I thought of Bear, I thought of a man who was out of my league. I was thinking this even though we’d just had sex. I wondered if it was good for him, I rubbed my shoulders as the glaring light of my insecurities showed up. I wanted to be good enough for him.
Brendan’s gaze did not let up on me. “Puh-lease. He’s in here all the time, and I’m pretty sure I saw him on the camera.” His voice was full to the brim with suspicion.
“That doesn’t mean anything, but yes he’s been around a lot more lately.” Justifying what was so obvious externally was hard to do. Bear and I waking up together wasn’t something I thought would ever happen in my wildest dreams.
Brendan gathered up his belongings and waved goodbye as he walked out, leaving me in my powder puff of dreams.
The shift started out slow. Then even the afterglow of sex still wasn’t enough to stop me from looking down at the phone with sickening dread. In a guilty way, I felt like I’d slept with Bear to escape for a while. Not the only reason, but a small part of it.
Everything was quiet inside. I could hear every noise including the second hand on the clock ticking away. The constant tick made it feel like doomsday. So pushing boxes back and forth on the shelves distracted me from feeling the agitation inside.
“Call me if it gets too much.” Bear’s comforting voice was ringing around in my head but I felt stupid ringing him every time I felt scared. The magazine I’d grabbed wasn’t so appealing now. I didn’t even want to look at it.
Peering into the dark field of the night I couldn’t see any shadows of bikes or anything disturbing. Even if Rocky wasn’t here, he’d done enough to cause me mental damage for sure. I wished for my brother more than ever. The pain of not having him in my life was unbearable sometimes.
The golden beams of headlights stopped my head from spinning as they pulled into the gas station. My finger edged towards the emergency button until I saw it was Angie.
Her warm bubbly figure bouncing in, her hair flowing like Rapunzel’s behind her. “Hey, Delphia! I thought I would pop in and check on you, and say hi. I figured this would be the best place to find you.”
Seeing Angie stirred up unresolved grief and pain, but with Bear guiding me, I felt like I was strong enough to handle it. “Hi Angie. How are you?” I didn’t quite know how to start a conversation with her, but I’d opened the door and given her the voice recording, so she could make a copy. It felt like I was releasing mummies from the dead. It was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do, besides burying my brother.
“I’m digging more into this case for you.” She looked outside and saw there were no cars around and then back at me with a grin. “Are you having a slow shift right now?”
“Yeah, it happens sometimes, but in another hour, there will probably be some people coming through.”
“Hmm. I had a few more questions for you is all. I wanted to know if you kept a time log of the calls from Rocky?”
“I have them written down, yes. Why? Is that going to be part of the article?” I was starting to feel as if the whole thing was getting out of hand? I didn’t want Angie writing this article and it turning out like it did for her before this, with Rocky ramping up the chasing of me.
“It all adds up, honey. If you can give me the details then I can add all that information in.”
“Okay. If you think it will help.” I reached under the counter where I kept my little notepad with its squiggly writing, the times and dates that Rocky had called, and handed it to her.
Angie smiled as she plopped her notepad on the counter and took out her phone to capture my barely legible mess. “It will for sure. I was thinking about your brother Deon too. You said he owed Rocky a cut from a side deal. Do you think he had the money all along? What happened to the cut that he was supposed to have? Is the money still missing?” Angie’s emerald eyes fired up as she looked at me as if we were going on some wild adventure.
Now, I could understand the ambitious part Bear warned me about. My stomach started to bubble. “I don’t know where the cartel money is. All I know is he was involved with them and he shouldn’t have been. He was bragging about being involved and I told him to get out of it,” I snapped.
A faint memory eclipsed my mind as I thought back to getting into a fight with my brother about it. I remembered yelling in the kitchen at him. “You have to stop! The cartel are killers, don't you understand that? Why are you involved?”