Chapter Seven
Brichelle “Brick” Walker
I woke up at five in the morning and my feet hit the floor before my brain caught up.
I went downstairs to my in-home gym, ran two miles on the treadmill, did a thirty-minute arm workout and thirty-minute leg work out before stopping into the kitchen to make me a muscle recovery smoothie.
After mixing up kale, spinach, egg whites, pineapple, and some chia seeds, I poured the concoction into a to-go cup and sat it inside of the refrigerator.
I then went upstairs to shower and prepare for the day.
When I got out of the shower, I grabbed a pair of slacks, a button down top, and slipped into a pair of Moschino loafers.
Grabbing my purse, I walked downstairs and collected my car keys and my smoothie from the refrigerator.
I didn’t remember that my gym was closed until I got inside of the car and hit the push start to fire the engine up.
Like a teacher who was on summer vacation after a full school year, I sat in the car not knowing what to do with myself.
For once in eight years, there were no clients to check on, no payroll to run, no staff meetings to conduct, no broken machines, no membership complaints, no invoices, no inspections, and no schedule changes.
This morning there was nothing but a closed gym and a boarded up-front window.
The contractors were scheduled to start work later this evening, the members had been notified via email, two-day refunds had been calculated and were just waiting for me to hit the button and send them to the bank accounts and credit cards on file.
Zumo had taken care of everything like he said he would do and I showed him the purses and shoes I purchased.
For the first time in almost a decade, Brick & Co didn’t need me.
I felt like Shelly, I had no idea what to do on my day off.
I turned off the car, walked back inside of my house, and went back upstairs to get into bed.
I laid there staring at the ceiling fan spinning slowly.
Is this what people did on their days off?
They just laid in bed and looked at the ceiling?
I shrugged and tried to make myself comfortable wrapping up in my blankets and rubbing my feet together.
Eventually I was looking at the back of my eyelids as I dozed off into a deep restful nap.
The feeling of my phone buzzing against my thigh woke me up.
I picked it up and it was a picture message from Trallis.
I opened the message and it was selfie of her in a red two-piece bathing suit, sitting at a bar, with a beautiful beach behind her.
A dirty martini sat next to her, and underneath the picture she said, hope you are enjoying your vacation days as much as I am.
I laughed and hearted the picture before taking a selfie of me in the bed surrounded by pillows.
I sent her the picture and underneath it I typed, yeah.
I’m having a blast. The time read 12:30pm.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept in until noon.
It was definitely before I had taken over running the gym.
Without thinking, I scrolled over to the call log so I could call Kaliyah.
Before I hit the green button, I locked the phone and placed it next to me.
A few minutes later, I picked up the phone to text Co.
I drafted a long message to him about how Kaliyah was wrong for showing up and causing a scene and he shouldn’t feel bad for making a mistake.
Before I hit send on the message, I deleted it and locked my phone.
The last time I picked up my phone, it was because I wanted to make sure the contractors remembered the code to disarm the alarm.
The code was on the paperwork, and I had no reason to call them eight hours before they were set to start working. I was the problem and I knew it.
I heard Zumo’s voice ring out loudly in my ear.
“No, they don’t.”
I decided that just because I was off that didn’t mean I had to rot in bed bored.
I finally had some free time to do something outside of work.
So, I climbed out of bed, showered, put on some leggings, an oversized sweatshirt, and a pair of sneakers.
I grabbed my keys and went back out to my car.
This time, instead of heading to the gym, I drove aimlessly with no direction in mind.
Forty-five minutes later I pulled into the driveway of my childhood home.
The house was five bedrooms and three bathrooms in Dahlonega, Georgia.
It sat nestled on six acres. It was beautiful outside the city of Atlanta.
The roads were smaller, the trees were taller, and the air was cleaner.
Daddy had purchased this house for my mother as a wedding gift before me and my brother were born.
It was a three-story home with columns, and a wraparound porch my mother had decorated with rocking chairs and flowerpots.
Her garden was still flourishing. Fresh cucumbers, tomatoes, and strawberries hung from plants that my daddy had been taking care of in her absence.
My favorite part of the house had always been the beautiful lake behind the house.
It was so peaceful and it shimmered beneath the morning sun.
We spent our childhood swimming in it, fishing in it, falling into it, and getting fussed at for tracking mud through the house afterward.
I parked my expensive car right next to my daddy’s old pickup truck and walked around back.
It was 2pm, and beautiful weather, I didn’t have to call him to know where he was.
Some things changed and some things didn’t.
Bernard Walker sat in his favorite folding chair with a fishing pole in his hand and an old navy blue and red Braves hat on his head.
“Hey Princess, it’s been so long I thought you forgot where your old man lived,” Daddy said as he turned and looked at me.
He still looked like the man that had taught me how to ride a bike, how to fish, put a band aid on my knee when I busted it, and wiped my tears the first time a boy broke my heart.
“I could never forget where my favorite person in the word lives. The gym and your son keep me pretty busy these days.” I told him as I grabbed a chair and walked over to where he was sitting. I opened the chair and sat it next to him, then plopped down beside him.
“You caught anything?” I asked him as I grabbed a fishing rod and began to put bait on the end.
“Just plenty of peace and quiet before you stomped out here with your big feet, scaring away all the fish,” daddy retorted.
I began to laugh loudly as I rolled my eyes at him.
My daddy had an amazing sense of humor, and I knew one of the things my mother loved about him was his ability to find the joke in any situation.
For several minutes afterwards, neither of us spoke.
The silence felt nice, there was no need to fill it with words.
The water rustled slowly with low ripples as a gentle breeze floated on top of it.
Birds chirped loudly and it was so much easier to hear them out here away from the hustle and bustle of the city.
The breeze caused the branches on the trees to gently sway.
The entire scene looked like a beautiful painting that would be sitting inside of a doctor’s office.
“I talked to your brother,” my father said quietly breaking through our beautiful silence making me think about someone I didn’t want to think about at the moment.
Of course he had called daddy. I bet he thought he was beating me to it by tattling on himself, but I never planned to tell daddy what happened.
My father was already annoyed by Cozart’s behavior, so I didn’t want to further aggravate an already fragile father-son relationship.
“That fool called you?” I questioned as I rolled my eyes.
“He did,” my father smirked.
“Daddy it’s not funny, I’m sick of Cozart Walker.
Did he tell you the drama he caused? He forgot to pick up your grandkids from that girl’s job.
Let’s start with the fact that she just got the job.
She was so excited, you know nursing is her passion.
She shouldn’t have had to take the kids to work with her like some single mother working at McDonald’s.
She has a husband that should be helping her coparent! ” I exclaimed.
“I know,” my father said sadly.
“The kids sat with her at the job for hours then she had to leave work to take them home and sit with them all because he was sleepy and he forgot. Then some girl sent her a sex video of her and Cozart. The whole thing was a mess. Kaliyah went off and busted the window. I probably would have done the same thing,” I ranted.
“I know,” my father said again.
“They made a huge scene in front of all the gym members. The gym is closed for days, and I have to refund people for two days because they pay their gym membership to have access to a gym for thirty days. I have to pay for this window, and he offered to pay for it trying to make me feel guilty,” I said angrily.
“I know,” my father repeated.
This was his third “I know” and I was expecting him to trash my brother way more than that. I looked over at him, and he looked like he was trying his best to contain his laughter. I didn’t find a damn thing funny.
“Well daddy since you got your degree and you know everything, do you know what I need to do about your son?” I asked him.
He chuckled and reeled his line in slowly.
“You remember when you got suspended from school?” he looked over at me and laughed.
“I swear you sound exactly like you did that day. You were ten years old, and your mama had her belt ready because she was about to tear your ass up, but I stopped her and told her we needed to let you explain yourself first,” he laughed.