on the table, and goes back to his call.
“Yes,” he says into the phone. “I understand. Keep it professional. If anyone asks, you send them to me.”
He ends the call and looks at me fully, eyes sharp and a little weary.
“Rick has gate duty this morning. Do you want to take the day off? It would probably be safer for you. I can get one of the brothers to stand outside your door.”
“I know you and Rick trust all the brothers. So why are you taking turns standing watch?”
Bear shrugs. “The risk is low but not zero. You’re important to us. It makes sense to go the extra mile for you.”
“I don’t want some guy wasting his day standing outside my door. If you don’t mind, I’d rather just go to work with one of you. I passed the police check, right?”
He nods.
“And it’s not like my foster father knows where I am at every minute of the day. I’ll go crazy cooped up here. At least let me help you both.”
Bear looks resigned. I think he’s softening.
I move closer to the table and reach for the clipboard. “We have quite a few deliveries scheduled for today. You actually need my help, right?”
Bear’s shoulders fly up in an easy shrug. “We always need help, but we manage. It’s important that you feel safe.”
“I feel safe. I really do. My foster parents would hardly get off the sofa to answer the door and feed themselves. They aren’t gonna come all the way to Las Salinas to say the exact same things they’re already texting me.”
“You mean Mattie,” he corrects me in a polite tone of voice.
My face creases into a confused frown. “What?”
“Mattie took your phone, so they are technically texting her, thinking it’s you.”
I pick up the coffee cup and down the contents in one long drink. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right.”
We head out, grabbing an egg and bacon sandwich on the way out the door. We don’t talk about our awkward conversation from last night. We keep the discussion to job-related tasks. He explains which routes he’ll adjust, which clients can be pushed back by an hour, and which ones simply cannot wait. I listen, absorbing it all, already slotting pickups and deliveries into place in my mind. This job is my saving grace. Having something productive to do takes my mind off all the things normally pressing in on me from every direction.
The first pharmacy has all their orders ready to go. I’m already familiar with the bell that rings when we open the door. The same woman is behind the same counter, smiling away. Everything about this job feels very run of the mill. I log temperatures, sign their forms, and accept a small correction without embarrassment. If she notices the way Bear positions himself slightly closer to me than yesterday, she doesn’t comment.
At the third stop, our regular run-of-the-mill day shifts into something darker. We’re loading several smaller packages when the pharmacist hesitates with the handoff. “Someone came by yesterday,” he says, casual but curious. “They were asking about your new driver. Whether they’d started yet.”
My pen pauses midline and I freeze. It feels like my whole body goes numb.
Bear doesn’t react. He simply prompts him for more information. “And?”
“It was a middle-aged man with dark hair and round silver metal glasses. His hair was slicked back with hair gel, and he was dressed like a farmer, you know in pinstripe overalls,” the pharmacist continues. “He wanted to know your route information, when you arrived, and what days. I didn’t give him anything, obviously. He was sketchy if you know what I mean.”
Bear nods. “You did the right thing. You never can be too careful about strangers.”
When we’re back in the truck, a long silence spins out between us. I finish the log entry with neat, deliberate strokes and set the clipboard down before I speak. “Do you think they really got off their sofa and came all the way to Las Salinas?”
“Maybe,” he says. “That’s why I’m taking a minute to report it to Siege.”
Waiting quietly for him to finish, I try to imagine my foster dad showing up here. The messages scrawled on my bedroom are pretty much proof he did. Unless he persuaded someone else to do his dirty work for him. That’s more likely, I honestly can’t see him making the journey. I look out the window as he pulls the truck out of the parking lot and heads towards the interstate.
“What happens if they show up here?”
“They won’t,” Bear says. “If they’ve been asking about you, they know your brother is with the Savage Legion. They wouldn’t dare wrangle with the club.”
“And what if they do?” I ask, feeling myself start to spiral.
