2. Amina Sinclair #4
The sound of the driver’s door opening caused me to let go of the curtain, and I quickly turned around in my seat.
Gemini was able to skip the first step. Instead, he walked up to the second step, and he quickly got in the seat.
I watched him as he removed a gun from his waistband, and the compartment that was above his head, he slid the gun in there.
Like it was nothing, he reached over for his seatbelt and placed it on.
“Why do you have a gun?” I asked, just out of curiosity.
“I’m a truck driver. You cool with your purse being right there, or you want to put it in the back?” he asked, quickly changing the subject.
“What does that mean? You’re a truck driver equates to you having to have a gun?” I really wanted to know, so I didn’t bother answering the last part of his question.
“As a truck driver, I’m always in different kind of settings, Amina.
Rest areas. Truck stops. I take back roads sometimes.
Sometimes, I have deliveries and pick-ups in the wee hours of the morning.
I’m around people sometimes that I don’t know enough to trust them, but I still have to do business with them.
You keeping your purse there, or you taking it in the back?
” he asked me again. He’d pretty much answered my question, so I didn’t have to continue lingering on it.
I decided to grab my purse, pull out one of my romance novels, so that I could start reading while he took off.
I took the purse to the back, choosing to sit it down inside one of the cubbies that he had.
Once it was secured, I made my way back up front, picked the book up, so that I could place it in my lap, and I put my seatbelt on.
“Whenever you want to adjust your seat, the buttons are on the side of the chair. You can move it forward, backwards, or even raise it higher, or lower it. It’s a massage setting over there too.
The seats are heated. If it gets too cold, you can warm the chair up to your liking.
If you ever get tired, you can go in the back and sleep in the bottom bunk.
If that’s not what you want to do, then you can just recline the chair, and sleep up here,” he let me know, and I nodded.
The way he talked, you could tell that he knew this truck by heart.
After that, he started the truck up, and I swear it came to life.
The truck growled when it started. It was a deep growl.
Vibrating the entire cabin. I could feel the vibration in my feet.
I watched him as his hands went for one of the screens that were on the dashboard.
I really had no idea how he was able to understand all this stuff.
One screen showcased the navigation, but he didn’t have a route in yet.
I truly had no idea where we were headed. I was just riding.
Gemini didn’t go for the navigation screen. Instead, he went for the screen in the middle, and it looked to be some kind of trucking software. Hell, I don’t know.
His fingers danced around the screen, checking off different things.
It’s almost like he had to check these things off before starting off his route.
He checked that his pre-trip inspection was complete, fuel, the load was secured, and that he was in transit.
After he did all those things, I watched him as he placed a phone call using that same screen.
The phone rang about two times until it connected.
“G, what’s good?” the caller asked Gemini.
“I’m getting on the road now. I should be on the turnpike in about five minutes,” he let the caller know.
“Cool. What’s your ETA?” the caller wanted to know.
“I haven’t plugged the route in yet. I’ll get it started as soon as I pull off. If I don’t run into any traffic, I should be there a little after eleven,” Gemini responded.
“I got you. I’ll go ahead and let the receiver know now. Safe travels,” he said.
“I appreciate that,” and just like that, Gemini hung the phone up.
True to his word, I watched him as he keyed in an address, and just like he told the caller, the arrival time said 11:12 A.M. Not going to lie, in just these past ten minutes of being in the truck with him, watching the way he navigated through the screens, went onto a app to finish with his checklist, communicate with dispatch, I was impressed.
It felt like I had quickly tapped into his world.
It was obvious that Gemini had been doing this for a long time, and that he knew exactly what he was doing.
Within a matter of seconds, he pulled off, and just like that…
we were off. This newfound person that Gianna said that I would be when I came back, I could only hope that she was right about that.
I didn’t want to come back broken. God, I hoped this open road healed me.
I wanted to stop mourning something that was no longer for me.
This misery that I was living in…I wanted to shake my way out of it.
Gemini said that the road had a way of making people forget about their problems that they had back at home. I hoped that was true.