by A. C. Arthur
“Did you say this was Del’s screen name? As in Delano Greer, the serious and stoic one of the brothers?” Rylan asked.
“Yeah,” Rock said and laughed. “He hates social media, but Noah insisted that as the manager Del get online and start helping to bring in customers. And you know what’s funny? The past few weeks we’ve been seeing him with the phone in his hand a lot. And customers have been pouring in all the way from D.C. for the special events he’s been posting.”
Rylan couldn’t continue typing the screen name. Her fingers were shaking.
“Del is GCSports18,” she whispered.
Of course, he was, Game Changers Sports Bar and Del’s number on his football jersey in high school was 18.
It was a joke. It had to be. A very cruel and horrifying one.
Every message, from the very first one had to be a joke. Del and Lance used to play them on her and Camy all the time when they were younger. Rylan could recall numerous occasions when she’d slept over at Camy’s and the guys had done things like put a box of frogs in Camy’s closet so when they opened it, the frogs all jumped out scaring them half to death. Or the time when the twins had actually dared the then eight-year-old girls to watch Scream alone and then dressed in that dreadful costume for Halloween to continue scaring the crap out of them. It had been an ongoing and hilarious effort on the twins’ part to torture Camy and Rylan, until Mr. Greer passed away and Mrs. Greer began crying instead of inviting Rylan over and setting up cute little tea parties for her and Camy.
Dammit!
What if Del really was playing a joke on her now? What if he knew exactly who she was all along and just continued this little prank for…for what? What would he get out of it now, except for some dirty conversation and a picture of her bare leg? An orgasm. That’s what Rylan had gotten out of it? But what about Del? Had he been jerking off while she’d been playing with herself this morning?
Her face felt flushed and she couldn’t stop her hands from shaking.
“I gotta go,” she mumbled and then turned to slip off the stool.
“You okay?” Rock called behind her. “I can step out for a few and drive you home.”
Rylan shook her head hard enough to exacerbate the headache she’d been nursing.
“I’m fine,” she lied and headed for the steps.
She was anything but fine. She was mortified and pissed off.
And she couldn’t wait to get out of this bar and to get home where she could…what? What was she going to do when she went home? Yell? Scream? Hate herself for falling for another one of the Greer Twins’ stupid stunts?
Rylan had no idea. She just needed to get out of there. She walked fast, not really seeing anyone and pushing past the people who did end up in her path. When she pushed against a particularly hard chest and felt the slight grip of hands on her shoulders in response, she snapped out of the red haze of fury in time to look up into Del’s dark brown eyes.
“Hey, kiddo. You okay?” he asked.
Was that concern in his tone or laughter in his eyes?
Rylan yanked out of his grasp. “I’m fine!” she shouted for what seemed like the billionth time and circled around him to get to the door.
The cool air immediately smacked her in the face as she pushed through the doors and started toward the spot where she’d parked her car.
“Rylan!”
He was right behind her. Shouting her name as if she didn’t know it. But she knew her name and she knew his…GCSports18.
Del caught up to her just as she put her hand on the car door handle.
“Hey. Did something happen in there? Talk to me,” Del said and something shifted in her chest.
No. He wasn’t concerned about her. It was all a joke.
She took a deep, steadying breath and then found the courage to look him in the eye. But even that was different. She’d known Del forever and had thought he was a good-looking guy. That was it. Now, staring up at him after learning that he was the one she’d been waiting up every night to chat with, she saw someone totally different. His jaw seemed stronger. The dark hair of his lightly trimmed beard and mustache appeared more pronounced, giving him an edgy and sexy appeal. Even his eyes were darker, masked with desire. Oh no, she sounded just like Camy, being fanciful.
Correction, she was being an idiot!
“It’s nothing. Work stuff,” she mumbled and shifted from one foot to the other.
He nodded but didn’t look as if he totally believed her.
“Yeah, your dad was in a couple nights ago and he talked a bit about the body shop. I’m sorry things aren’t going too well,” he said.
“Really? You’re sorry. Because I seem to recall you frowning and judging me each time you brought your old clunker into the shop and realized I would be the one working on it,” she snapped and hated how petty she sounded for bringing up something so far in the past.
Del had upgraded substantially since driving that old Chevy Impala. These days he rode through town in a shiny smoke gray Escalade with Greer18 on the tags.
Damn, she should’ve known GCSports18 was him.
“You know what, don’t answer that. You don’t have to say anything else. I’m okay, really. I just need to get home and sleep this mad off,” she told him.
He nodded slowly. “Sure. But if somebody inside pissed you off. If anybody said something to irritate you, Rylan, you can tell me. I’ll take care of it.”
A bit of the steam she’d worked up sifted away at those words. As much of a tomboy as Rylan knew she’d been growing up, there’d never been a shortage of big brothers in town who were all willing to stand up for her. It was one of the things that had kept her from feeling so low whenever Naomi won a beauty pageant or found another boyfriend. Rylan had boy friends who cared a great deal about her.
Somehow, tonight, that wasn’t as much of a consolation as it had been all those years ago.
“I’m fine, Del. I really am,” she said around the lump that had formed in her throat.
Rylan pulled the door open and hurried inside the car. She started the engine and backed out of the spot as quickly as she could and drove away. The fact that distance did absolutely nothing to stop the furious embarrassment she felt meant nothing, compared to the undeniable arousal that swirled in her stomach as she’d stood close to her best friend’s brother.
5
She wasn’t going to show.
Del felt like an idiot sitting in the booth at Margie’s for the past half hour waiting for MercedesGirl926.
The booth in the back by the window was “his spot” as all of the waitresses and the owner, Margaret Madison and her daughter Kay, knew. It was done through no request of his, but since Del and the guys had started coming to Margie’s as one of their few weekly excursions while staying at the House, the table held special memories for them. Margie’s had also been one of the first places Del had come upon his return to Providence. The beef stew tasted so much like his mother’s that he ordered it at least twice a month. And Del ordered dinner from Margie’s a lot. So much that Ms. Margie had begun calling the bar every evening around five to check for his dinner order. As Del usually kept extremely late hours and the diner was open twenty-four hours a day, his order would be ready at whatever time he told them. He loved Ms. Margie and her staff for affording him this convenience and always paid more on his tab than was necessary.
Tonight, Del didn’t have much of an appetite. He’d been abnormally nervous about meeting a woman. As it turns out, that feeling was wasted since the woman was a no-show.
Del finished the slice of apple pie he’d ordered out of guilt for sitting there so long and emptied the glass of water. He was just about to stand and leave but hesitated to check his watch one more time. Maybe he was wrong. It could’ve just felt like he’d been sitting here forever. Nope. It had been forty-five minutes. With a frown he stood and was prepared to walk out of the diner, but he hadn’t moved fast enough.
“Delano. You don’t like
the food at your own place?”
Mal Penning stood in front of Del, his tall, slim body and slouched posture the same as it had been since they were teenagers. They were sixteen when they’d had their first confrontation. On the basketball court behind the elementary school, Del’s team from the House had been playing there first, but Mal thought he had more privilege than ten wayward teens. He told them to get lost. Rock, with his quick temper and powerful fists, had stepped in Mal’s face first, demanding that he make them move.
Del, seeing how the scenario would play out—Rock would beat the crap out of Mal and Mal would call his father who was the District Attorney at the time, send the cops and put Rock in jail for a good portion of his yet to come adult life—stepped between them. Del’s level-headed suggestion had been for them to play for the right to stay. Mal had laughed. He’d called them a bunch of delinquents and acted as if his group of more affluent friends didn’t have the time to be bothered and attempted to walk away. Del had stepped forward, tapping Mal on the shoulder. When Mal turned Del thrust the ball into Mal’s chest and stated his terms again. Mal, still needing to save face in front of his friends, had looked Del in the eye with pure contempt before saying, “You’re still a broke nobody with a whore for a mother who can barely pay the rent, that’s why you and your brother have to live in a house using my dad’s tax dollars to take care of you and the rest of your delinquent crew.”
Before Del could blink he’d punched Mal in the face, breaking the racist bastard’s nose. That act had earned Del another six months at the House and made him and Mal sworn enemies. Fifteen years later and the animosity between them was still as thick as the summer air in Providence.
“Good evening, Mal,” Del said and attempted to walk around the man.
They had nothing to say to each other. Too many years and too many events had happened between them for any sort of truce to ever be discussed. And Del didn’t want to discuss one, especially not since Mal had been lurking around the bar for the past couple of weeks, no doubt looking for something to harass them about. Mal still thought he was better than Del for basic and idiotic reasons like race, financial position and social status. Age-old issues, that some thought were in the past. Del and his friends knew differently.
“Don’t walk away from me,” Mal said as he moved to block Del’s path.
Del glared at him, staring into the coldest green eyes he’d seen in a very long time.
“You waltz back into my town after screwing up with the DEA and think you own things here. Well, you’re wrong,” Mal said.
Del shrugged. “You’d be the one who’s wrong. I own two houses and part of a remarkably successful bar and grill. I’d say that’s a few things that I own.”
“You’re still trash!” Mal insisted.
“And you’re still a jealous little prick. Good to know we’re clear on that.”
Del once again tried to leave. This time Mal poked a finger into his shoulder. All the rage that had bubbled in the fifteen-year-old Del bubbled in his gut and his fists clenched at his side.
“I’m gonna get you and your convict buddies out of my town if it’s the last thing I do.”
Del still stared at the spot where Mal’s finger had touched him. Realizing that he was a grown man now, with responsibilities and people who depended on him to walk a straight line, he lifted his gaze slowly to meet Mal’s and spoke with lethal clarity, “That lump in your nose should be a daily reminder of what happened the last time you tried to step to me, Mal. . So, I’m gonna advise you back the hell up and let me leave without having to break my foot off in your ass this time.”
Mal flushed but just like years ago, he didn’t back down. “You can’t talk to me like that.”
“Too late,” Ms. Margie said as she joined them. “Now you know I don’t take kindly to no foolishness in my place. And it would be an awful shame if I call Cannon from the newspaper and have him come down here to write the story of our esteemed City Council President harassing one of our respected business owners.”
Mal ignored Margie’s threat and shook his head. “You think your charm works on everybody,” he told Del. “But we both know how that turns out in the end. You weren’t charming enough to save her life, were you?”
Del remained silent, his teeth clenching so hard he thought he might cause some serious damage. But he wouldn’t respond. He wouldn’t give Mal the satisfaction of seeing him get emotional about a situation that had long since been reconciled.
“Sit down and order some food or walk out of here right now, Mal. I mean what I say,” Ms. Margie insisted.
She was a short woman, with a stout posture, her thick hands planted on her hips, face fixed in a frown.
“I know what you did,” Mal said. “I know and everybody else is gonna know the minute you take the stand and testify. Your time here is almost up.”
Del still didn’t speak. He watched Mal walk away, tamping down on the urge to run after him and beat the hell out of him, as he started to do fifteen years ago.
“I don’t have that nonsense in here,” Ms. Margie was saying.
“I’m sorry,” Del told her. “It wasn’t my intention.”
“Oh no,” Ms. Margie continued with a shake of her head, her silver curls moving with the motion. “Not your fault. That boy’s been a pain in the ass all his life. Parents spoiled him rotten so he thinks his shit don’t stink. But I’m not afraid of him or his parents.”
Del looked at her and had to smile. Margaret Madison wasn’t afraid of anyone. Del really liked her.
“I’ll just head out. Don’t want your other customers to be uncomfortable,” he told her.
“Nonsense. Sit down and eat some food. I know you had that pie, but I also know you’re probably hungry. I’ll get you that turkey sandwich you like and you can take it home with you.”
Del wanted to tell her no, but he knew better. There was no turning down food when Ms. Margie was offering.
He sat down and scrubbed his hands over his face. This night wasn’t turning out the way he’d planned.
What the hell was she doing?
It would’ve been more beneficial if Rylan had asked that question three weeks ago when she first began the private chats with Del. The entire situation had been ridiculous. She was too old to engage in dirty talk with a stranger over the internet. And she should’ve been smarter. But truth be told, she was lonely.
Sure, she had Camy and they still hung out a lot since neither of them were involved in a committed relationship. And her mother loved for her to come over for dinner or just a visit because it gave her more time to complain about what Rylan wasn’t doing to be more like Naomi. And Rylan spent time with her father for sometimes more than twelve hours a day at the body shop. So it wasn’t that she was totally alone in the world. She was just lonely.
And that had never occurred to her before the chatting with Del began.
Delano Greer. She despised him right about now. Half an hour ago she’d deleted his number from her phone and unconnected with him on the social networking app. She didn’t want anything to do with him on the anonymous personal level. Did that mean she wanted to deal with him on a real personal level instead?
Hell no! He was Camy’s brother.
But his naked chest had made her mouth water. The things he’d written to her and the way she imagined he would sound saying them, had made her panties damp with desire. It was all surreal and it was making the already stressful situation she was dealing with worse because she really needed to focus on saving the body shop. Not on daydreaming about Del Greer’s body!
Rylan walked into Margie’s determined to let Del know exactly how she felt about his little prank. Her conscience wouldn’t let her walk away quietly. It was a curse Rylan was certain she’d inherited from her mother. If she felt she’d been wronged, she wasn’t going to be satisfied until the person who wronged her either paid for what they did, or at the very least was confronted. That was her formula for closure. But t
he first thing she saw as she walked in the direction where the waitress had told her Del was sitting, was Del and Mal toe-to-toe. On instinct she’d begun walking in their direction, fully prepared to break up whatever was going down between the two. Ms. Margie beat her to the punch.
Rylan watched as the older woman handled both men with the stern finesse she was known for and had felt a bit in awe at the process. Margie Madison was not one to be played with, and everyone in Providence knew this. She was a strong Black woman who’d been dealt some tough blows in life, including the beating death of her parents who were attending a Civil Rights march when she was twelve, losing her firefighter husband in a warehouse fire, and then having her family home in Richmond destroyed by a random tornado a few years ago. She’d survived it all and never stopped going or teaching the next generation of Black women. Rylan was more than a little impressed with her.
That could be why she’d hung back as Ms. Margie spoke to Del privately. He’d looked like he was ready to explode with rage as Mal had stood so close—no doubt antagonizing him the way he always did. Whatever Ms. Margie said to Del had him relaxing a bit and sitting back on the red nylon covered booth seat. All while Rylan stood in the middle of a group of tables where customers were eating or wondering what the hell was going on with her.
Margie’s was never empty. No matter what time of day or night Rylan came into this place, or the time of year, there were always customers sitting in the retro-themed diner, listening to the sounds of Motown and other old school R&B songs while they dined on delicious southern cooking. The Temptations’ Ain’t Too Proud to Beg was playing at the moment and Rylan used the familiar upbeat song to reinforce her courage.
“Hey,” she said when she finally approached the booth where Del sat.
He was folding a straw into tiny pieces and then pulling it apart with enough force to snap it in half. But at the sound of her voice he looked up and let out a sigh.