Chapter 29
June
“What. The. Hell!” I clamp my pillow against my ears to muffle the banging in the hallway. It doesn’t muffle shit.
I’ve spent the last two days barely sleeping, so on edge that Oscar/Wilkes will hurt me, that the one time I actually get a decent night’s sleep, someone drilling into a damn wall wakes me early on my day off.
Dragging myself out of bed, I blink blearily around me and head into the bathroom to wash up. I’m mid-shower when someone bangs on my door. I consider ignoring it.
The banging persists.
“Why on my day off?” I mutter, turning off the water and wrapping a towel around myself. After slipping on my bathrobe, I hurry to the front door.
I peer through the peephole and frown. “Huh?”
Still frowning, I unlatch my door, swing it open, and stare down at the grocery bags at my feet.
“I got two more for ya.”
I jump, whirling toward the unfamiliar male voice.
A grocery delivery guy is carrying two large paper bags toward me. He must have set those down near the top of the stairs and brought the first load to my door, banged on it, and gone back to get the rest.
I hold the front of my robe closed, shuddering when water from my wet hair drips down the back of my neck. “I didn’t order this.”
He sets the bags down and turns to leave. “Well, someone did. See you in two weeks.”
My gaze, having drifted to the bags at my feet, snaps back to him. “Wait, two weeks?”
“It’s a paid-for recurring order, lady. I just deliver. Don’t want it, toss it.”
He walks away, and I study the bags at my feet.
Who would order groceries for me?
More drilling starts up a few doors down. I don’t know everyone who lives on my floor, but whoever is drilling has barely let up since they woke me up.
I carry the groceries inside and search through the bags in case they came with a note.
No note. No answers in the bag. Just a whole load of groceries I did not order.
My mind is declaring that there are only three people who could and would do something like this. Time to confirm it. After hunting down my cell phone, I hit redial. It rings twice as I stand there, my stomach grumbling when I spot a packet of chocolate chip cookies.
I turn my back on it.
“Is something wrong?” Callum asks, sounding distracted.
“You ordered me groceries,” I accuse.
“Is something wrong with them? It’s hot. Did the ice cream melt?”
Ice cream? My stomach grumbles. I clamp my hand over it and pray Callum didn’t hear it.
“You don’t deny it.”
“No, I don’t deny it,” he says.
I was expecting an argument. Possible denial. Potentially something else. “Oh.”
“I have to go.” Rustling paper and the soft clicks from a keyboard drift down the phone. “Something is pulling at my attention. The food is yours. No strings attached. If there’s anything you don’t want, pass it out to anyone who might need it. Call if you have questions.” He hangs up.
I look at the phone in my hand, then I turn around to take in all the food I laid out on my kitchen counters.
I spy ice cream, and not just any ice cream.
Chocolate chip cookie dough. The expensive kind I have wheeled my shopping cart past in the grocery store, not daring to stop in case it found its way into my cart when I knew I couldn’t afford it.
It’s morning, and I need to get back to my shower and then tidy up my apartment. But I continue to stand there, my mouth filling with drool.
Damn Callum, and damn my stupid weakness for chocolate.
I pick up the ice cream and dig out a spoon from my drawer. “I’ll just eat the ice cream so it won’t melt, then I’ll give out the rest of the food.”
Thirty minutes later, I’ve demolished the ice cream and gone back for the cookies.
The next day, I’m leaving for work when I pass a man patching up a hole in a wall on the staircase. I don’t recognize him. He’s wearing khaki overalls, black steel-toe boots, and has a bunch of tools sticking out of the tool belt wrapped around his waist.
“Morning,” he says with a nod.
“Morning.”
Curious, but conscious I’m going to be late for work, I keep going, my container with my salad for lunch bumping against my leg. The sounds of banging and drilling come from everywhere. On the first floor, I spy another man in identical overalls plastering another hole in the wall.
What is going on?
He calls out, “Good morning,” when he spots me; I do the same and continue out.
I push open the front door of my apartment and slam to a halt. Archer is sitting on the top step, two paper cups in a coffee holder beside him.
“I haven’t forgiven you,” I tell him when he stands up and turns to face me.
He nods. “I know. I’m not here asking you to. Just here with a coffee if you want it, and an offer to walk you to work.”
Alarm spikes in my gut, and I sweep my gaze up and down the quiet street. Licking my dry lips, I edge back half a step, ready to run depending on Archer’s response to my question. “Why do you need to walk me to work?”
An expression passes across his face too fast to read. He lowers his gaze, releases a sigh, and refocuses on me. “I said something that scared you. I’m trying to make things right.”
“But it’s true, isn’t it? Oscar—Wilkes—is a threat to me; otherwise, you wouldn’t be here offering to walk me to work.”
“Wilkes was looking to strike out at us. You are not the target. We are.”
I chew my lip as I study him, unsure if I can believe him.
“Has he called or texted you since?” he asks.
I shake my head. I’d been surprised, but relieved, that he hadn’t called or texted since I canceled our date. There’s been no sign of the silver car parked near my apartment, and I’ve stood with my nose to my window enough over the last two days to have seen it.
“Then he knows you’re aware he was pretending to be someone he wasn’t. He wanted to use you to hurt Torin and us. Not you.” He picks up the coffee holder and holds it toward me. “I got two coffees at random. One will only go in the trash if you don’t want it.”
The drinks are from the fancy coffee shop down the street, but that isn’t the only reason I hesitate. “If it weren’t safe, then you wouldn’t be here.”
“I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to you because of me,” he says quietly.
“I don’t believe Wilkes will hurt you, but I’d like to walk you to work for at least the next couple of days just for my peace of mind.
That’s all. I can walk behind you if you don’t want to talk to me, but I do need to know you’re safe. ”
I study him for a beat longer. Then, I take the vanilla latte. It smells too good to ignore it, and if he’s just going to throw it away, it seems criminal to waste a $15 coffee. “You don’t have to walk behind me. Someone will think you’re stalking me and arrest you.”
“I would prefer not to get arrested.” He tosses the paper cup holder into a trash can, keeping the mocha for himself.
“But you’d still do it?” I say, walking down the stairs beside him.
“I would.”
“I don’t walk to work. I get the bus.”
He nods. “Then the bus it is.”
We walk in silence for the next few minutes.
I glance up at him. “I thought you’d push me to quit my job or convince me to go in your car by saying it isn’t safe.”
“This is your life and your routine; I’m just here for the ride.”
We stop at the bus stop. “My bus will be here soon.”
“Okay.”
“It’ll be packed,” I warn him.
One corner of his mouth lifts in a crooked smile. “I know.”
“Because you saw me get on the bus?” And I’d run away from him, spilling most of my groceries on the street in desperate panic.
“Because I’ve ridden a bus in the morning. It’s always packed in the morning.”
I jerk my head toward him, surprised. He’s wearing all black, but his clothes are expensive, and he’s a member of Pack Wells. They have more money than my parents.
“You’ve ridden a bus?” I ask, disbelieving.
He sticks his hand out, and the bus slows as it approaches. “I didn’t come from money like Torin and Callum. Callum’s dad paid me to watch him.”
I’ll have to stay curious for a little longer as we push ourselves onto the bus.
It’s standing room only, and having someone’s armpit two inches from my face is never pleasant, but it’s part of my new life, so I put up with it for the reward of getting paid from the job I’m going to, and the food I can buy with it. Not everyone is as fortunate.
But I can’t say I don’t derive some sick pleasure from someone sticking their armpit in Archer’s face. From the way his nostrils flare and he leans away, he’s having serious regrets about walking me to work.
Two days. Maybe three, and he’ll stop coming with me to work or subtly suggest we ride in his car. Definitely no longer.