Page 14 of Playing for Keeps
“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 the 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 Begwas 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.
“Hey,” he replied.
“I saw Mal.” She eased into the booth seat across from him without invitation.
