Diaries of an Urban Panther (14 page)

Chapter Fourteen

O
f all the places in all the world, Chaz Garrett decided to go grocery shopping at my Kroger. Nearly fifteen miles from where he lived, he decided to pick up milk and eggs and bread? Right.

I was staring at the canned vegetables, trying to make the most depressing decision, as if grocery shopping isn’t depressing enough on a Friday night: Do I give in and buy the single-serving size or do I buy the regular size and end up throwing over half of it out? An age-old dilemma.

“Hello,” came softly over my shoulder.

I turned quickly, too quickly, my heart racing in my throat. Chaz was standing right there, very close. So close, I could feel the warmth off his flannelled chest.

“You’re following me to the grocery store now?” I said, pulling a small can of peas off the shelf. “Is no place sacred?”

He thumbed over his shoulder to a cart that was a third filled with a random amalgamation of bags of chips, frozen dinners for one, twelve packs of soda. It too closely resembled my own. “I need to eat, too,” he shrugged. “Nice shields by the way, took me a few minutes to get a fix on you.”

“Is that how yours works? Finding a person’s energy trail.”

“Sometimes. With you, it is even easier than that.”

“Why? Because I’m so boringly predictable?”

Chaz laughed. “You are anything but boring, Violet.”

“Well, just be careful. This could be considered an outing,” I warned, pushing my cart slowly down the aisles. “Don’t want to be accused of mixing business with pleasure.”

Chaz followed, throwing things, seeming haphazardly into his cart as we wove through the store.

“Is that bad?” he finally asked in the middle of the pasta section. “This being an outing?”

I let the question hang there as I we passed through boxed dinners, and I didn’t answer until we were in front of the meat section. “No.”

“Oh, this should be interesting,” he muttered from behind me.

I shot him a dirty look as I perused the meat section. Made me a little hungry, actually. I had become somewhat of a connoisseur, researching all the cuts and the different types of high protein sources. I picked up two steaks, a package of frozen chicken breasts, and boneless pork chops. I’m not a cook, but frankly, steaks were on the simple side of the culinary world. Cook. Flip. Repeat.

“Gee whiz,” he said as he looked down at my collection.

“Whatever keeps
her
happy,” I shrugged and I pushed on to the household goods with him following.

“What else keeps her happy?” he asked with a low, intimate tone.

I was just about to not justify his question with a response when I ran into Devin. As in ran into him with my cart. I hit him full on in the side of the leg as I was distracted by Chaz’s devious smile.

“Holy . . .” Devin cried out before he saw who it was.

I froze, suddenly aware that I had my two very separate lives crashing together in the household goods aisle.

“Violet,” Devin greeted with a pain-filled smile. He slightly limped around my cart and gave me a hug and a peck on the cheek. “How are you?”

“Great. You? Besides the leg?” I hoped beyond all hope he wouldn’t notice the man behind me. But then again, my life couldn’t be that simple.

Devin did notice the man behind me with a full head to toe once-over, and a raised eyebrow back at me. “And who’s this?” he asked softly to me.

I took in a deep breath. Nothing was going to happen here. We were in public. There would be no fireworks, explosions, or depth charges if my friend met my, uh, other friend.

“Devin, this is Chaz. Chaz, this is my friend Devin.”

The two men shook hands and I was pretty sure the world was not collapsing. But it was still early at this point. There was always calm before the storm.

I distractedly grabbed a box of dish-washing detergent off the shelf behind me to hide behind until the flames died from my face.

“So, what have you been up to lately?” I asked, casually tossing the soap into my basket and turning back to Devin.

“Nothing much, taking a painting class at nights. Trying not to think about . . . anything particular,” he said.

I reached out and squeezed his arm in consolement. Boy problems. Didn’t we all have them.

“And you? How do you like the Jeet Kun Do classes?” Devin asked, trying to keep focused on me, but sneaking looks at Chaz who was reading the back of a Swiffer Dusting wands, like he’d use them.

“I love it. I’m sore half the time, but it really is better than therapy.”

“Wonderful,” he said with a wide smile. “I always thought that you might like a physical sport. I bet it gives you a lot to write about.”

Devin crossed his arms and leaned against my cart, still trying to hide his study of Chaz.

“It does. I’ve worked in quite a bit actually.”

Devin smiled up at Chaz and then back at me. “I’ll let you two continue shopping. Pleasure to finally meet you,” he nodded to Chaz, then headed off to the dairy section.

I stood there and watched him walk off, practically skipping. I was so going to hear about this later. I could write the conversation now.

“Nice guy,” was all Chaz said before he pushed forward to the shampoo section.

I was stunned. “Nothing?” I asked as I scurried behind him. “I was expecting a lecture. The value of a solitary life, the dangers I could put my friends in . . .”

Chaz stopped. “There is one thing,” he said turning to me, that dark golden glint in his eyes. The unhappy glint.

“What?” I asked softly, stopping besides him, still preparing for the “you need to be more careful” rant.

“Why did you tell him about the Jeet Kun Do, but not me? I had to follow you to the dojo.”

I opened my mouth and then shut it again. Why hadn’t I told Chaz? “Devin asked.”

Chaz had to think, review. “Oh,” he said his shoulders dropping.

“It’s what friends do. They ask questions about the other person’s life, even the mundane stuff.”

“I ask you about stuff,” Chaz protested.

“Your questions are more geared towards whether or not I feel like pouncing on anything that day.”

Chaz tried to maintain his straight face. But I was too good. The furrow melted between his brows and he cracked a smile.

“Friends care about the silly stuff and know what you do for a living and . . .”

“And they don’t throw you against walls?” he finished.

I sighed and just arched an eye brow at him. “It was one time.”

Chaz continued down the aisle a bit further as I searched out shampoo.

“So what is this?” he sprang on me as I was picking up a bottle of my orchid and coconut milk shampoo.

“What?” I asked out of shock, more than misinterpretation.

He pushed his cart so that it was next to mine facing the opposite direction. Cart spooning. “If we’re not friends, then what are we?”

I slowly put the shampoo in the cart, sure that I was going to drop it on the ground along with my metaphoric jaw.

“Well, um . . .” I grasped at things. Wasn’t it usually guys who were okay with not defining things? I think at this point I knew Chaz was not a normal guy, but this cemented it. “I thought I was an assignment of some sort.”

That was not the right answer. I read it in his whole body. Not only did his jaw tense up but his whole body turned rock solid and his knuckles grew white as he gripping the blue cart handle.

“It’s a working relationship. You watch my back and I work your nerves,” I said with a weak smile.

He relaxed a little.

“You lead me down the straight and narrow and I drive you completely insane. We’re like Will and Grace, really.”

“You think I’m gay?” he asked, trying to keep up.

“No. But you’re the good one and I’m the mess.”

He lowered his chin and shook his head. “You’re not a mess.”

I whispered. “You haven’t seen my house.”

Chaz just looked at me, like he wanted to say something. He had a look in his eye like he had at Iris’s house that morning before breakfast. Like there was something just on the tip of his tongue that couldn’t quite struggle free. His eyes turned a slightly warmer brown as he looked at me.

“I know what you do, but I don’t know who you are. I don’t know your favorite color. I don’t know if you played sports in high school. I don’t know about your family,” I explained. “I know that you are a guardian. And I know without you, I would have been a meal in my driveway or evil incarnate. But that isn’t everything.”

He finally looked away and I could feel myself breathe again. Didn’t even know that I had been holding my breath.

It was time to tell him. It was time for me to let someone in a little closer. Why not Stalker boy? Why not in the middle of the hair care products? Seemed par for the course these days. “I’m a big girl, Chaz. But I need to learn to take care of myself all over again. New questions to ask myself, new moral lines to draw. It’s been me for so long with no regards to anyone and now I’ve got this prophecy that puts other people in danger and a crazy man possibly after me. I won’t let myself rely on you guys.”

He shook his head. “It’s what I’m here for, what I was sent for.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t like having you around.”

“Why? Can’t talk to your friends about the new you?”

I nodded. It was true. He was the only person who wouldn’t think I was certifiable, not that we did that much talking, but he knew and he still stayed around. “But hello. Kettle black. I’m not the only one shopping on a Friday night all alone. How many other guys do you know who carry shotguns full of silver in the back of their trucks?”

“This is Texas. Everyone has a shotgun.”

I laughed. “Right, still getting used to that.”

I watched his warm brown eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. With the confession of words I’d had building up for a while, I was impressively in one piece. The world wasn’t ending yet, and maybe I wanted to add a handsome guy to my speed dial list. Jessa’s number had been there all by itself for a very long time.

“What’s your favorite color?” he asked as he turned his cart around and we began shopping again.

“Green. Yours?”

“Black.”

“Figures.”

C
urled up in my office chair cradling a cup of coffee, I stared at the blank Word document staring back at me. Three weeks ago, I’d logged into the database to grab a freelance article and, now, I had to turn it in this week or not get paid.

Despite what Jessa thought, I did get out, but it was more in an undercover reporter kind of way. If this article was about the best places to get sushi, I’d go the restaurant, eat a plate, read the menu, and have the entire article done by the time it took to scarf down a California roll.

But this was about dogs. And I hate dogs. Need I replay the scene?

So the Internet was the only way I was going to finish this article. Maybe the Internet had an answer. This article was the only way I was going to make the mortgage this month and still have a little to eat off of. And unfortunately, eating had become less underrated than it had been two months ago.

As I was looking through maps of White Rock Lake, I knew I needed to research something else. Sure I had a prophecy, but it didn’t pay the bills

When an advertisement for Ansestry.com popped up on my screen, I looked at the ceiling. “Seriously? That was subtle.”

Maybe
they
with a capital T had manipulated my search for martial arts training.

If the Internet could bring me enough information about dog parks to make me sound like an expert on canine exercise, maybe, just maybe, it could bring me a little more info about my family. Not that there was anything special about the Jordans that I could remember.

The genealogy websites were flooded with Jordans. It’s not the most unique name ever. As I scrolled through the lists of people who came up in my search, I did find my great grandmother. In 1910, Violette Jordan was registered at Ellis Island with the vast crowds who came over from France. My mother had told me stories of her in her big house in France, running across the fields. Always made me wonder why she had moved halfway across the world to live in a Chicago walk-up. Maybe I had more in common with her than I thought.

I didn’t make it a habit of lugging around stuff when I moved, but there was a silver picture frame from my mother’s side of the family. I brought it to school once for show and tell. It was an heirloom. And now, heirlooms were deadly. Might be good to pinpoint exactly where the only things on the planet that could kill me were.

The chair in my office was left spinning as I darted through the upstairs and slid on the floor next to my bed.

I had a box, a small violet box where I kept everything sacred. The papier-mâché box was in the safest place I could think to stow it. No one ever came into my house, and certainly never ever came into my bedroom, let alone got anywhere near the bed.