“You’re retired, man.”
“Yeah, and being able to retire so early means I have a nice long life to look forward to. So I take care of myself. Besides, I still help with training Team Dragon, so I need to be in tip-top shape.”
“Dude, you look like an action figure. You can take a day off from working out,” I suggested.
He stared at me, and I knew what he was thinking. I was waiting for him to say something or ask what I was really agitated over.
“Chase.”
And here it comes.
“You’re not really this upset over me working out, are you?”
See! There it is! Round two of the game.
“Hollis, I need to get going.”
“Okay.”
I walked around the couch, and he reached out and wrapped his strong hand firmly around my upper arm to stop me. I stopped and glared at him.
“Whatever it is that you’re so nervous and fidgety over, be careful.”
“I’m not seven years old, Hollis.”
“I know you’re not, but don’t make a poor decision. This is already on your doorstep, Chase. Don’t force this.”
“Hollis—”
“I mean it, Chase. Don’t test that man he’s with. You don’t know him, and if you make a wrong move, it could put this completely out of your reach.”
Shit. I closed my eyes for a moment and cleared my head some. He wasn’t the enemy. I nodded and he loosened his grip on my arm. I took a deep breath and looked at the door.
“I’ll be careful. I won’t do anything wrong.”
He seemed satisfied with my response and let go of me. I straightened my shirt and walked toward the door. Patrick was leaning against the wall of the hallway that led to the two guest rooms. It was awkward, and I knew it was putting him in a bad spot to see Hollis and me on the brink of an argument.
“I’ll be back in a bit,” I called out over my shoulder.
“Love you, Chase,” I heard him say as I stepped out into the hallway and closed the door behind me.
On the drive to the Three Brothers Coffee location that was closest to me, my thoughts kept bouncing from Brandon to the small altercation with Hollis this morning. And when I thought about Brandon, I kept going back to what James said yesterday about him being held against his will at some house.
The only thing I kept thinking of in that regard was some sort of human trafficking thing, but I didn’t understand how that could even happen in this county. How did neighbors not notice or see something? Each time I thought about why someone would keep an eighteen-year-old, I nearly got sick to my stomach. While I couldn’t bring myself to think of those kinds of things or about Brandon being hurt like that, things James said made too much sense. James seemed really protective of Brandon and said he’d been through hell. I doubted Brandon was kept in a room and left alone. Which made me feel sick to my stomach, and the whole cycle started again in my head.
I parked in the crowded parking lot and took a few deep breaths. I didn’t know why I was getting all panicked and stressed. There was a very good chance that I wouldn’t even see him. Maybe he didn’t even work at this location. I grabbed my iPad and headed inside.
I was surprised by how busy it was. I didn’t know why I was surprised, especially since the parking lot was so crowded and it was during the work week before normal work times. My head was obviously a wreck right now. I got in line and pulled my phone out to read some news. I read headlines over and over and retained none of it.
“Oh, look!” a woman in front of me said to the other woman she was with.
“It’s the new Socks and Coffee mugs!”
I looked up and watched them pull a couple of mugs off a display that was beside the line. From where I stood, it looked like the white mugs had a sketched cartoon man on them and the only color on the mug were this guy’s socks.
Because of the socks, I was kind of drawn to look closer at them. There appeared to be four different mugs with the cartoon guy doing something different in each of the four designs. The socks were a different colored pattern on each mug. They all had a sketch style font that read “Socks and Coffee” on them.
“Excuse me,” the woman behind me said. I turned to face her, and she pointed to the mug display and smiled. “Sorry, may I grab one of those mugs?”
