Chapter Thirteen – Unexpected Deliveries
Luckily, there were no other interruptions to the night. No surprise visitors, no more calls from ex-girlfriends or anything from Likosa. Even though, keeping it real, I kind of hoped I would hear from her. I wanted to know what happened and didn’t want to wait to find out.
I thought about calling her, but I immediately tossed that idea out, because Tayvion would never let me hear the end of it if I did.
And then I scolded myself for the thought, because what the hell was wrong with me?
I was never the type to ruminate over things like that.
I never needed closure. If shit went left, I went right and kept on enjoying my life.
What was the difference?
After another hour of dissecting my night and stuffing our faces (thank God, because the liquor was doing a number on my stomach), we found a silly little romantic comedy to watch. It wasn’t long before we were all knocked out.
I woke up about an hour after the movie went off and pulled myself from the floor. My head was banging, and the energy coming at me was loud. That was why I didn't like to drink. Every time I did, I lost the ability to keep my powers in check.
As I tiptoed over Tay, I felt a wave of arousal. Whatever she was dreaming about, it was getting good, and she wasn’t the only one.
The neighbors on the opposite side of Lyra were having a grand old time. I mean, I could hear and feel them, and after everything that I had been through, that was the last thing I wanted. Tay and Cadence would understand my absence if they woke up before I did.
Before I climbed into the pod, I shot a message to the team, letting them know I would be late coming in the next day, and then sent a note to our reserve team member to cover classes. Luckily, she was out for the night and answered right away, confirming she would take my place.
Shontae: Hey, Mel, I know it’s late but wondering if you can cover the morning session tomorrow.
Mel: Of course! If you need, I can cover the full day. I don’t have much going on.
Shontae: I’ll let you know, but one class should be enough.
Mel: Got it!
Once things were confirmed, I stripped down and climbed inside the pod, locking the world out. I could only hope I wouldn’t wake up the next day with a massive headache.
The pod was supposed to make life so much easier for me.
When I woke up, I was supposed to feel better, healthier, happier, carefree.
That was not what happened. As I carried myself from the basement upstairs to my bedroom in the morning, my head spun, and my chest burned with a threatening acidic rush.
That’s what you get for eating pizza after one in the morning.
Emotions pushed at me from outside the walls of my home and knocked on my head, my heart, my body.
My guard was down, and the only way to get back up again would be several cups of coffee and a long, grueling cardio workout.
I found that cardio provided a unique sense of tiredness that quieted my mind while simultaneously building up my resilience.
That was why I got into fitness. It helped me just as much as it did my clients.
In the bathroom, I turned on the shower to warm up the water and did some light stretching while I waited, hoping it would make my body feel a bit better. The ache that crept through my limbs wasn’t something I was used to.
The shower did nothing to help. The water didn’t drown out the sounds or feelings of the outside world.
I still felt waves of emotions that didn’t belong to me.
Anger, sadness, happiness, lust—they all slammed against me repeatedly, and there was no amount of active breathing to stop it. Meditation worked, but not this time.
Annoyed with the process, I wrapped up the shower, still praying for any semblance of peace as I dressed.
I blow-dried and fluffed out my pixie and headed back downstairs, where the bird waited for me.
She sang a low song that normally would have been a welcome sound, but in that moment, when my head was already banging, I just wanted her to shut up.
“Girl, please, not today.” I waved Sire off. “Can I get some quiet?”
She snapped her beak and hopped across the floor, tapping her talons like a tap dancer. Yeah, that was so much better.
I put out her food and ignored the way she continued to snap at me. It was her way of telling me to watch myself, a silent threat that she would burn the house down if I didn't act right. I made myself a cup of coffee and blended a fresh protein shake, groaning at the sound of the machine.
The drink wasn’t a total fix, because as I drove, I still felt outside emotions pushing against my faulty barrier.
Next to me, a woman cried, and my own eyes welled with tears.
A few blocks later, a bunch of kids giggled in the back seat, and their joy overwhelmed me until I laughed so hard, my side ached.
I kept trying to turn it off, pull the blanket back around myself, but it didn’t work.
“Once I work out, I'll be fine,” I muttered as I pulled into my designated spot on the side of the gym. “That’s all I need. I’ll sweat this out of my system; everything will be okay.”
The lies we tell ourselves! I barely made it through my first class! The moment I walked into the gym, everyone’s emotions immediately overwhelmed me.
As I tried to calm myself, pulling that energy blanket as tightly around myself as I could, there was resistance, pulling it away from me. The invisible force made a loud screeching sound only I could hear. Soon, my heart was racing, my palms felt damp, and sweat formed on my brow.
Girl, are you afraid? Why? There’s nothing here to be so afraid of.
Twenty minutes later, I realized that though I couldn’t stop everyone else’s emotions from affecting me, I somehow could still make them feel what I felt.
And all I felt was agitation. Those nervous new students made me feel shaky.
I stumbled through movements and became so tongue-tied, I stopped talking for five minutes, allowing them to repeat the same moves for twice as long as normal.
By the end of the class, I’d made everyone around me frustrated and upset, even those who were usually confident and needed no energetic push to get through.
“What is going on?” Meka pulled me to the side when I left the first class. “Everyone looks so irritated, including you. I know some classes can be tough, but it looks like you’re walking out of a war zone!”
“Is it really that obvious? I woke up in a mood today. Thought I could push through it, but it looks like I just rubbed off on everyone else.”
“I think you should do that at home.” She sucked her teeth. “I’m up there feeling like day two of the worst period of my life. Either you call Mel back up here, or I’m going to end up cursing someone out. I know that’s not what you want when we just got all this fresh buzz, but…”
Meka rarely mentioned my abilities because she knew I never used them on her. It was a promise I made early in our friendship, so for her to be so blatant about it, I knew I had messed up.
“No, you’re right.” I sighed. “I’ll go. We can get Mel to cover.”
“I’ll tell her we’ll need her for the next few days.” Meka was already dialing the phone. “Whatever is going on with you is going to take longer than one night to fix. Get out of here. Please!”
After the way she looked at me, I skipped the shower, grabbed my stuff, and headed home.
I couldn’t argue with her. Me being there with my powers out of whack was bad for business.
On the way out, I asked her to confirm Mel could cover me for the rest of the week.
Something told me I would need more than a day to figure things out.
I made it to my house in record time, and as I left the garage and headed for my back door, a blend of attraction, trepidation, and embarrassment slammed against me. I wished more than ever that I had opted for a connected garage layout.
“Shontae, how are you?”
I looked up to find Lyra standing on her back porch, holding a cup. She took a sip and walked down the stairs to the chain-link fence between our houses, this time wearing the same boho style she had on when we first met.
“Oh, hey, how are you?” I waved at her. I wanted to dash for my door, but after making eye contact, I couldn’t just ignore her.
“I’m great. You know, now that I have some coffee in me, I wanted to apologize again for barging in like that. I didn’t realize you weren’t alone.” She smiled softly.
“It’s fine, really.” I nodded, hoping she didn’t ask me about the gift. I did not want to address what was inside it.
“Maybe we can have coffee together sometime. I still would love to thank you.” BAM! The layers of sexual aggression underneath that comment smacked me upside the head. She wanted more than coffee.
Of course she does! She gave you edible panties! She wants to sit on your face!
“Looks like you have some.” I pointed at her cup, trying to play it off, hoping she would laugh with me.
Nope. She flicked her wrist, emptying the coffee onto the grass.
“Oops, silly me. Looks like I’ll need more.” Lyra shrugged. “So, how about it? You have some free time?”
“Oh, well, I—uh.”
“Ms. Carter?” My head snapped to the front gate, where a delivery driver stood. “Sorry to interrupt, but this package needs a signature. Are you Shontae Carter?”
“Yes, I am. One moment.” I turned back to the eager woman. “I really should get this.”
“Yeah, no worries, go ahead.” She waved me forward, and I thought for a moment I had escaped her until I heard her footsteps behind me. On the other side of the fence, she trailed me to the front of the house.
“Hi,” I greeted the delivery man. “I’m not usually home at this time of day, so this is real luck.”
“Yeah, I’ve tried to deliver it twice. I left a note on the door.” He pointed at the door, which now had stickers on it I hadn’t noticed before.
“Oh, wow. I guess I should look out here more often.” I chuckled in the way you do when participating in awkward small talk. “Wasn’t expecting anything this time around.”
“I hadn’t seen them either,” Lyra chimed in.
“Right…” He looked at her and then back at me. “I just need a signature.”
“Of course.” I nodded.
“You two friends?” he asked as he handed me the tablet to sign.
“New neighbors,” Lyra chimed in. “She saved my cat, and I’m trying to convince her to let me give her a proper thank you.”
BAM!
There it was again: her arousal, her attraction, slamming into me like a freight train. It wasn’t something I actively did. In fact, if I hadn’t already felt exhausted, it would have been the last thing I would have ever considered. But desperate times, right?
Her emotions slammed into me, and I took hold of them, pulling them into me and then mentally forcing them away from both of us.
I didn’t want them, and I didn’t want her to have them either.
Unfortunately, my aim was way off, and instead of just shooting them off into the distance, I pushed them right into the delivery driver.
And he lost it!
I mean, one moment, he was handing me my package after accepting my signature, and the next, he was staring at me with wide eyes as his pants tightened in front of him.
He dropped the tablet to his lap, hiding the unexpected arousal as sweat formed on his brow.
“Oh,” I gasped, not sure what to do as he stumbled back from me.
“Are you okay?” I reached out to him, and he tried to avoid my touch but couldn’t. The second my hand touched his arm, he crumbled to his knees!
“Arruggh,” he grunted as shame covered him and he…came. Right there in his work uniform, shielded by a dirty tablet with a cracked screen. “I, uh, I—”
I stepped back and looked away. “Thank you for your timely delivery.”
“Yeah, you’re welcome.” He stood and rushed to his truck.
“You should report him. What was that?” Lyra scoffed. “Men!”
“No, it’s fine. Really. Shit happens.” I brushed it off, because what kind of bitch would I be to report him for something I knew wasn’t his fault?
“You are way more understanding than I am.” Lyra crossed her hands over her chest. “You barely touched the man!”
“I try.” I nodded and ran into the house, not allowing her to say anything else to me. Her arousal would be subdued, but I knew it was only a matter of time before it resurfaced.