Free Like Slow Sweet Molasses by Unknown

arrive and mentioned her as she stood in the window.” His
brother instantly sobered.
    “That’s
not good.”
    “I
know. At least, he doesn’t know who she is. That’s a small comfort.”
    The
brothers sauntered into the garage as the panel rapidly slid to a close behind
them. Each mulled over the required tactics to lessen the implicit threats of
their nemesis’ pop visit.
    “I
have a bad feeling about this,” Trell confided. “He hasn’t, and from his overt
hatred of you—still, will not forget how your travels through the juvenile
court systems differed from his own outcome.”
    Chance
concurred. “I know. I only thought I was a bad-ass, so the promise of jail time
took the crook out of me. Darrell was hardnosed and continued to ask for
trouble.”
    “Bottom-line,”
Trell summarized. “You’d better sprout eyes in the back of your head.” There
was no segueing as he jumped to another subject, bluntly and straight to the
point. “You seemed pretty involved when I entered. How intimate is your
relationship with Angela?”
    “Not
that it’s any of your business, but you know I just met the lady the other
day.”
    “I
could’ve sworn differently. I mean, she wasn’t exactly pushing you away.” Trell
wondered if Chance was ready to leave the past in the past.
    “I
see where you’re going with this. But, my profession is too dangerous, my life
too complicated to add another distraction. I simply don’t have the energy.”
    “That’s
not what I saw.” Chance’s ‘ that’s as far as you go’ glare deterred
Trell’s further questioning. “Guess I better get going.”
    “Guess
you better.”
    Chance
followed him to the door and knew the last discussion was not over by
Quantrell’s knowing expression; just suspended. The rush of running water and
her soft hum treated him to an undesired lurch in his heart as he climbed the
stairs to the upper level for dry clothes. He realized it behooved him to
quicken his pace or risk Angela catching him yearning for her with his hardened
exterior shelled away, exposing his soft side for her to see.
     
    The
warehouse’s smooth concrete floor curled Angela’s toes on the walk from the
bathroom to the bed where he thoughtfully left a plastic bag and laid out a
pair of his thick, white athletic socks. She disposed of the soggy bundle in
her hands by shoving it into the sack, then stashed the sack in a corner out of
the doorway in preparation to slip her feet into the oversized socks. Doing so
was no easy task for her balance was still off-kilter when she leaned. She felt
it prudent not to sit on the side of his bed, in the event he came to monitor
her progress, choosing to take the socks into the living area for propriety’s
sake.
    Chance
was out-of-sight but hardly out-of-mind as she heard him tinkering on the floor
below. She’d already pried and poked into things that were none of her
business, disturbing his privacy as she waited on him, to satisfy a haunting
interest. From her observations, there were no feminine items nonchalantly
lying around. Angela relaxed a bit speculating there’d be no surprise
interruptions or unwarranted accusations of why she occupied not only his home
but also his clothing.
    Making
herself comfortable was as simple as lounging on the primary seating in that
part of the room, a supple leather couch in the most amazing color of what she
would call inferno red. He watched the big screen television anchored on the
brick wall from that focal point. The angle of the furniture let the occupants
snoop in on what happened in the kitchen, around the bank of windows with their
unobstructed view, as well as keep an eye on the circular stairway entry. Not
far from the sofa was an ottoman that if pulled into position actually turned
that section of the seat into a space comparable to a twin bed.
    The
jack-in-the -beanstalk-sized ottoman, alternatively, became her perch. Dry
clothes improved her disposition though no matter how hard she