6. Chapter Six
Chapter Six
Cal Truitt
M y heart feels like it has been split open and I’m slowly bleeding out.
The way that Wilder strolled around the hospital calmly acting like he had any right to be there, made my blood boil. He should be rotting in a prison cell. Somewhere deep down inside of me, I didn’t think I’d be faced with him again. All it took was seeing him holding Remi’s hand and that bitter anger grabbed hold of me again.
He doesn’t get to take another person away from me.
It’s bad enough that all the ugly suppressed feelings are resurfacing inside me, now Remington has been pulled into the middle of it all. The bastard just couldn’t slink back out of town after he did his damage, he had to keep at it. Charlie has been trying to reason with me, reminding me that with us watching him-he won’t be able to get away with anything.
But he already has.
Rolling to a stop in the James’ Flicks n’ Fun lot, it’s clear the rain showers earlier didn’t keep anyone away from this place. It’s still packed. Skip is staffing the ticket area, looking frazzled when I enter the main building. Spotting me he waves me over. “Where’s Remi at?”
I’ve lost a degree of respect for him after watching the way he treats her. Like the hired help and not his niece. It was clear they’d been fighting when she left earlier. But I was raised to be respectful, so I temper my response, “She was with me at the hospital. I think she went to change.” I don’t know that at all, but I doubt he’s about to challenge what I’m saying. “Did you call her?” Of course he didn’t. Just like he called me instead of her when she left in the middle of the night.
Fuck… did she go to Wilder’s that night?
I can’t think about that right now. Every cell in my body wants to hunt him down and beat his face in.
Skip turns to answer a customer’s question, before looking back at me. His voice tired, “She never has her phone on her. We need her to get back to work.”
All I can do is nod at him, keeping my mouth shut as I squint at him. I won’t win any awards for emotional intelligence, but he’s coming in dead last. Since Remi doesn’t share much, I don’t know the details that led her to be raised by her uncle during her teenage years, but I’ve picked up on the strange dynamic enough since they moved here. She’s either the workhorse he’s leaning on or the mild irritation to deal with. He’s not overtly affectionate. Preferring to get excited about his ideas, his new toys, and the business doing well, over Natalie or Remi.
I don’t get it, but he’s not paying me to understand him.
It’s the way Remi comes across lost and the fact he doesn’t seem to care, that makes me dislike him more each day. “I can go pick her up.”
Perfect. I’ve been worried since she left with Ceily and Keenan about her state of mind. Charlie warned me to give her space, but that’s easier said than done. Much easier.
Sharing her with my best friend took some getting used to. Now it makes sense to me. Charlie and I, even with the years of drifting apart, have a shorthand with one another. We’re family. Jealousy doesn’t just disappear though, I still have moments of envy when they’re laughing about an inside joke, or they’re intimate in front of me.
Wilder? Grady?
How do I talk her out of it?
She’s the type of person that sees broken or damaged and wants to fix it.
Some people don’t deserve redemption.
The drive back towards downtown only takes minutes, and doesn’t give me enough time to formulate what I’m going to say. How to frame my showing up at Ceily’s.
Ceily’s ‘closed’ sign at Hidden Treasures makes me groan. Of course, she’d close up shop with Carlotta passing away, they were good friends. I’m turning to walk around the block to the alley, when I spot Ceily and Remi standing in Carlotta’s office door across the street.
Shading my eyes from the sun, I call out to them. My steps slow when both turn with perturbed looks on their faces. “Cal? What are you doing here?” Remi whispers to Ceily before she walks my way. “How long have you been here?”
“Your uncle is looking for you.”
Not especially. Why can’t I just level with her and tell her that I don’t want to be around anyone but her right now?
Ceily struggles with her fist full of keys to lock the door back up. “We should call someone,” she says looking at Remi. “Unbelievable. The woman just passed away and now her office has been ransacked.”
What the fuck? “What?”
Remi steers me away to the other side of the street while Ceily leans against the big glass storefront on her cellphone. “Do you know who might have keys to Carlotta’s office?”
Half the town, probably. She handled the majority of the business properties in the area. Then there were her friends and family. The better question would be who doesn’t? That’s a small town for you.
“Why? What did Ceily mean about it being ransacked?” Still steering me by the arm, we continue into Talley’s where she pulls me into the corner booth.
“Do you have a key?”
I nod. “Yeah, she gave me two sets of keys, one for the Funpark, and the other for both her office and the park. One I handed over to your uncle the day you all arrived, and she’d been in the hospital, so I still have the other set.”
She nods and swallows a couple of times.
“Uh, um… okay, okay.” She glances around the ice cream shop at the other customers before looking back at me. “And how about Grady or Charlie… do they have keys?”
Why is she asking me this?
“Cal?” She snaps her fingers in my face. “Do they?”
Oh. Fuck, she thinks I may have been the one responsible. “Yeah, they probably do. Grady’s her nephew, and with Mitchell staying with her that would give his brother access… why are you asking me this?”
But Remi clams up.
She sticks a knuckle in her mouth and closes her eyes, her feet tapping. I notice she’s drawn three new birds on her forearm, the wings are a series of hearts. Another frog with a funny face is sketched out on her other wrist. Birds and frogs. One takes flight for better climates and the other adapts to changing environments to survive. She gives me pieces of herself, unlocking bits that she thinks won’t tell me what’s happening in her mind. But she hasn’t figured out that I pay attention.
Remington James may try hiding herself, but I recognize the real pieces.
I want to pull her hand into mine, but she’s obviously weighing my words right now.
A loud group of kids tromp inside the ice cream shop. Making our talk next to impossible. I suggest that we talk on the way back to work, telling her that Skip needs us both to help. “... he was worried? He said that?” My mind does a dive to the gutter as I follow behind her, up the stairs to Ceily’s apartment. God, she’s got legs for days and a perfectly shaped ass. I almost trip and faceplant trying to read the words she wrote up her inner thigh. “He didn’t seem too concerned about where I was going this morning.”
Against my better judgement, I fib, “Yeah, he was worried.” Maybe about being a couple employees short, or over customers getting irritated. But I don’t want to share that with her. Charlie and I care more than enough about her wellbeing to make up for her uncle’s disregard. Hopefully.
I’ve never been inside Ceily’s apartment, there’s never been any reason to be. It’s eclectic like she is. Mismatched furniture, walls cluttered with religious pictures, random landscapes, and decorative plates, throw rugs randomly placed on the parquet flooring. A mix of sweet air freshener and onions permeates the air. Keenan barely acknowledges me as he shuts the television off and follows Remi into a room down the short hall. We’ve never had an issue, but I’ve sensed he thinks little of me.
Still stunned over Carlotta’s untimely passing, one of the last memories I had of her keeps popping up. I’d met with her at Lakeside Park to get the keys for the old Gibson Funpark. She wasn’t going to be able to meet the James family until later that week (that was before her accident).
Lala was no nonsense, and that day was no exception. She slammed the door of her aging Jeep shut, put her hands on her hips and declared, “I don’t like what I’m hearing, Cal.”
She could always be counted on to deliver parent-like speeches to any of the kids in town she’d watched over. “I’m afraid to even ask.” I let out a breath rolling my eyes.
“I don’t believe most of the gossip that I hear about a revolving bedroom door, but I understand that you said no to the minor league baseball team scout and took the assistant coaching job for Lake Regional.” Damnit. How did that make the rounds so quickly? It was just the week prior that I declined the offer to move to Texas, a steppingstone to the major league. “Just call me a nosy old bag, but the Cal Truitt I know… he doesn’t make those kinds of mistakes.”
She was simply spitting facts.
I hung my head while shaking it. “It wasn’t realistic. I just…” But I couldn’t finish the thought. Since we lost Sara, I’d just done what I had to do day to day. Moved through the motions. The passion I once had to play, the drive… gone. She pushed me to be better.
Now both Sara and Carlotta are gone.
That patch over my heart that Remi was smoothing over the ever-present pain is slipping loose.
It may be the memories of Sara or Lala, the unexpected love I have for Remi… whatever it is… Due to personal reasons I’ll be turning it up a fucking notch. No more sitting back letting life jerk me around.
Remi comes back down the hallway pulling her hair into a ponytail, her work shirt on. I’m tempted to say ‘fuck it’ about returning, steal her away somewhere private. I want her so fucking badly. “The Gibson’s usually closed down when there were storms moving through the area, but Skip just keeps plugging along, huh?” She grabs my hand, pulling me close to kiss my neck. The soft floral scent of her shampoo and the mint from her lip gloss making me inhale a calming breath of her.
My dick appreciates that immensely.
She laughs lightly. “Does he seem like the type to let some rain and light shows stop him? Maybe if one of the customers is struck by lightning on the mini putt course, he’ll rethink it.”
I explain that the stormfront may have passed us by now and just what a stormfront is, and her reply is, “You’re an unstable air mass… pffft.” No lie there.