Page 2 of Creepy
“It’s Monday.”
I rolled my eyes.“So it is.”I thought of the Garfield mug from this morning, thinking I should’ve remembered, but the days ran together anymore.Turning away from him, I squatted, scooping up the frozen food.
“Have you forgotten?”
“How can I when you’re always here to remind me,” I said, on my knees, knowing darn well I had.Sticking my arm under the center island, I stretched to retrieve every frozen fry.They were still good.Hot grease beat any five-second rule.
Dillon tapped his pointy, snake-skinned boot, waiting for me to get up.
I stood to face him, cradling my supper.“Are you alone today?”
“No.Karl is waiting.”
Dillon’s personal bodyguard and dumb as a rock, Karl was lethal and loyal to Dillon and his crew.
“You’re supposed to come alone,” I whined.
“Things change.I tried to give you a heads up.”He slammed his walkie-talkie down on the stainless-steel island.“Where’s your radio?”
“Want some grub?”I asked, smiling and batting my eyes, trying to change the subject.
“You even left your radio...”he scolded me in a disappointed tone.
Fuck that walkie-talkie, I thought.Still, I held my nice southern grin, hoping he’d at least let me eat before I headed back to the house to get his shit.
“I leave you be, leave you here and you keep the goddamn radio on.”Dillon let his anger show.
His moods never scared me.My eyes widened.“Oh.Is that all?”If only it were.
“And you deliver the goods.”He added a goddamn wink.
That wink on top of our ridiculous deal turned my fake smile into an all too real scowl.I blew out through my nose like a raging bull.Raising my chin, I sweetened my tone.“But, Dillon, we’re practically family, you and I.”
His nostrils flared this time.He hated the reminder.Night black hair and pale blue-grey eyes, tall enough and fit enough too, Dillon Hebert’s looks weren’t the most attractive thing about him, but they came damn close.If those hot actors who played Thor and Loki in the comic book movies had a baby, you’d get Dillon.The best of dark and light rolled into one hunk.Some would call him cocky, but to me, that word was reserved for men who had nothing to back up their confidence.Seven years my senior, he was the son of the late Dennis Hebert, a US Senator from Louisiana, back when that sort of thing mattered.He still held himself like the well-educated, privileged man he’d been before.After all, he’d been on his way to being essentially as influential as his father.Problem was, not only was his dad a famous Senator, but his dad was also my Papa’s closeted lover.Something Dillon had never been keen on, hence my stab at him.
I turned the knife, “Hell, we could’ve been step-brother and sister, if...”I stopped briefly when I noticed his hands turn to fists.Fuck that.I went on.“You can’t seriously come here and take what’s mine on a weekly basis, like some kind of post-apocalyptic tax collector.”I envisioned him as a much sexier Sheriff of Nottingham.I could picture him in a black ruffled pirate shirt, billowing open.With his new beard and his old stuffy attitude, he could pull it off.
“Protection is the new currency.Just making groceries,Sha.”He stepped in close, way too close for as angry as I was.Pee-yew.He stunk like he used to when he was out golfing all day.He didn’t golf anymore.“You smell like gasoline.You drinking the stuff?All out of wine?”
“You know good and well why...”
His deep-set eyes met mine and for a moment, my body relaxed.Memories of cuddling on the couch at his apartment flooded me like they weren’t a world away.
“Creepy...”he started.
The word broke my stupor.I lowered my eyes.“Don’t call me Creepy.”I started to turn away from him.
He snatched my upper arm, stopping me.“Sissy.”Dillon ditched the name he used to tease me with for one I, in fact, went by.“You wouldn’t have to do all this if you’d come with me.”
Having refused his offer to move to the next parish over, live with him, many a time, I huffed and turned hard, breaking away from him to drop my food in the fryer.Dillon’s drama or not, I couldn’t wait anymore and waste the power.I told him, “I’ve got to eat.”
“What happened to you being a vegan?”He spoke to my back.
“That was years ago, and I can be when the time comes.”
“And what about my payment?”He cut to the chase.
Without turning around to look at him, I slid my toast onto the grill, and said, “I left it back at the house.”
