Page 8 of Moved
For three days, I plotted. I did schoolwork during the day, cleaned more than I needed to, and watched movies. All the while, I listened for Racer’s daily routine. He either didn’t have a job or didn’t need to leave his home for work. Even if he did by some miracle leave, I needed a car to go anywhere fun. I used the internet to scope the nearest town. It wasn’t much of a spec on the map but at least I could jog there. If I could get away from my babysitter.
On the forth morning of my self-imposed seclusion, I didn’t get out of bed at eight like I usually did. Instead, I rolled over. I’d watched my small cache of movies, there wasn’t any more homework to do until the professor provided new assignments, and I didn’t want to be followed like a parolee. So I stayed in bed, dozing until the pounding on my door woke me.
I’d just thrown back my covers when I heard the kitchen door open. Part of me hesitated. What if it was Chuck? I wanted to smack myself for that stupid thought. Chuck wouldn’t knock first. I stood as Racer appeared in my bedroom doorway.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded.
“Funny, I was going to ask the same thing. The house on fire?”
He scowled at me. “Why aren’t you up, yet?”
I stared at him for a moment, completely dumbfounded. “Seriously? Get out.” I pointed toward the door as I turned and pulled back the covers, ready to climb back into bed.
He stepped around me and yanked them from my hand. He continued tugging until he had all of the blankets and the top sheet balled in his arms.
“Meet me in the shed in ten minutes if you want these back for tonight.”
I stared after him, too stunned to speak. He was taking this keep-an-eye-on-her thing too far, and I really didn’t like him. But how I felt didn’t matter at the moment. I wanted my bedding back, so I needed to play nice, for now.
Ten minutes later, dressed in my workout clothes, I stepped inside the shed and looked around. No Racer. I moved to the treadmill and started it up. The program I selected had an automatic warm-up and cool-down cycle. A controller lay on the treadmill console. I picked it up and hit power. Music blasted from the corner. Metal. No thanks. I scanned through the channels and found some party rock. Smiling, I entered it as a preset and cranked it up until it echoed off the tin walls.
The exercise invigorated me. So maybe I’d been a little too lethargic lately. It wouldn’t have gotten to that point if my nanny hadn’t been so annoyingly crabby. After thirty minutes on the treadmill, I look pity on my ears and turned off the radio.
“About time,” Racer said in the quiet. I turned toward the sound of his voice as I stepped off the treadmill. He sat on the weight bench, watching me. My pile of blankets rested on the bench next to him.
“Need something?” I asked, sitting on the floor to stretch again.
“Nope.” He got up and walked out, leaving my blankets behind.
When I carried everything back up to my apartment, my cell was vibrating on the kitchen table. Chuck had called my old phone so many times Dad had insisted I get a new number which only Dad knew. I still checked the number before answering.
“Hey, Dad.” I held the phone with my shoulder and headed toward the bedroom.
“Hey, sweetie. How are things going?”
“Good. Racer has an exercise room he’s letting me use so I don’t go stir-crazy. I just got off the treadmill.” No sense in giving Dad all the details. I tossed the pile of blankets on the floor and started remaking my bed.
“Racer knows some self-defense stuff. Maybe you could—”
“Dad, I’m not asking him. He’s doing enough already.” Way more than enough.
“Okay, okay,” he said, trying to placate me. “It’s just…I want to know you’re not without your own resources if something ever happened.”
Making a face, I sighed. He could bark orders to some of the scariest people I knew, but the thought of me in trouble had him cajoling.
“Fine. I’ll ask. But when he kicks me out in three days, you’ll know it’s because he’s tired of having to babysit me.” If only he’d kick me out.
“Why would you say that? Did he say something?”
“No, Dad. Just forget it. I’m grumpy because I slept too much. Everything’s fine.”
He made a non-committal noise and hurried to end the conversation before I unleashed any feminine wrath.
“I love you, sweetie. Call me if you need anything.”
“I will. Love you, too.”
I hung up the phone and tossed it on the floor, trading it for another layer of blankets. Grr! More Racer time when he obviously didn’t want anything to do with me. Maybe I could just lie about asking him. No. Dad would know. No doubt he spoke to Racer regularly to check up on me, and he’d probably say something to see how it was going. No way around it. I, at least, had to ask.
