Explosive ! (deuxième tranche)

“Hey, get away from that car?”

It was broad daylight, about 2 pm and a crew of guys all dressed in black were breaking into a row of cars in the parking lot below.

Shelby had gone up to the roof to be alone with her thoughts, her mother and little sister were home and had been driving her crazy with their constant questioning. Shelby decided to go to her small nest on the roof just to clear her head before she headed back home.  It wasn’t much but she had a small chair, some binoculars, a little table.  It was a hodge podge of things she’d collected over the years. Whenever she needed a break from the two of them, she’d come up there to think.  She hadn’t been there in a while since she’d moved into her new place about six months ago but today she needed a break from them, it had more to do with all the thoughts in Shelby’s head as opposed to them asking about rumors they heard in the neighborhood about her and Daxton.  Her sister mentioned that one of her friends told her that they’d heard she that Shelby was Daxton’s girl.  Well, that started a debate in which Shelby denied that fact and her mother began getting that worried look on her face.  Shelby’s sister Samantha smiled and Shelby knew that she was only thinking about how her status would change. Ugh.

As Shelby looked down on the ground, she saw a that the crew was dressed in all black and now breaking into her mother’s black car. “There’s nothing in there.” She screamed to them down below, “get away from that car” She just wanted them to get out of here. They looked up at her, one in particular seemed to meet her gaze, she was four stories up but he motioned the team to continue while he made his way for the stairs.

Her mom and sister lived in a pretty small complex, there were four floors with four apartments on each floor and everyone knew one another and their families so she knew that it would not take long for this creep to recognize her, not to mention she was a beacon up on the roof in a yellow shirt.  Instantly, she pulled herself back from the ledge and headed to the third floor to walk across the other side of the building to take that set of stairs and exit the building.

For some reason, the architect of this building designed the public staircases to end on the second floor and then meet into one open grand staircase which led to the first-floor foyer.  This had always been Shelby’s favorite feature of the building since it was accented with a beautiful chandelier that hung from the vaulted ceiling.  The staircase was so dramatic, it allowed her to pretend that she was making grand entrances and exits as she entered and left the building.  It always made her feel like a princess.

Today though, it just sucked because she saw two men dressed in all black waiting for her at the bottom of the staircase and two just unfolded themselves from the both sides of the two entrances to the hidden staircases.

“Dang it” she huffed.

Rather than be a sitting duck, she moved herself down to about the middle of the staircase and met one of the guys who approached her.  She looked him directly in his eyes refusing to put her head down or tuck her body into itself. Shelby was not a coward and it was obvious that she hadn’t much time or anywhere to run.  He stopped in front of her, put his hand up and said, “wait, Ms. Andrews, just wait a moment.”

Shelby nearly fell down the stairs when he addressed her by her name. He actually reached out to help her brace herself on the staircase.  “We are not going to hurt you, we have a job to do however, is this going to a problem?”

Hmm, a problem, what the heck did he think, they can’t just break into people’s cars and take their things. “Yeah, umm I have a bit of a problem with this.  I work hard for what I have and I am not interested in giving it away.  You broke into my mothers’ car, she is taking care of my little sister, we don’t have much but what we have is ours. You can’t just take it.  I can’t let you!”

“So, are you saying that you will stop us?” he chuckled at her and the sides of his lips turned up into a slight smile. His eyes actually lit up, they sparkled and she was upset with herself for noticing.

“Of course not, No…I don’t know” she stammered. “I mean realistically, what am I going to do, there are at least seven of you in here by my count.  I know that there are still guys outside, you are in here speaking to me calmly but really you could give me one good push and I’d be at the bottom of the steps in a heap before you even jogged out of the door.”

Shelby’s skin was flushed and she looked up at him into his eyes. Somewhere during her little speech, he’d moved his body closer to her and was actually protecting her from a fall.  As she looked up to him, she realized that he was tall, like really tall, maybe six and a half feet and also broad.  She placed her hand on the railing to brace herself.

She composed herself, then whispered, “I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“The guys have put everything back into that black car at the end and your mustang was left untouched.”

“My what…. how did you know?”

“I know you Shelby”, he whispered her name and rubbed his finger along the side of her face, before pushing one of her renegade curls behind her ear.

“Go home, Shelby.”

He moved away from her, signaled the guys to exit the building and to meet him out front.

“You’re leaving, just like that?”

Shelby’s eyes followed his form down the steps wondering why all of the bad guys had to be so well formed!  It was like there was a requirement in this town to be her fantasy guy but they just missed the mark on which side of the law they operated on.

“Yeah, I’m leaving.  I’ll have a few guys on you and your family in case you get any ideas, Caramela, but I will see you soon.”

Shelby released a breath she hadn’t realized that she was holding as she watched him while he watched his guys walk past her.  They looked at him, never met her eyes and headed for the door.  When they were all out front, they jumped into a large black SUV and a van, then left.  One SUV remained idling in the front with the passenger door left open, clearly waiting for him to enter it.

“We gonna have a problem?”

Shelby looked up at him again, she didn’t want any problems just peace. “Nothing from me, just stay away from here.” She said it with much more courage than she actually possessed.

“You don’t give me orders, Caramela.  I’ll see you soon.”  He bent down closing the gap between their bodies and kissed her on her cheek.  Shelby recoiled from the kiss, not because she was disgusted by it but truthfully because she felt alive when he kissed her. That slight touch caused her body to pulsate, her heart began to pound and she felt her skin tingle, her hair stands on end.   He looked her in her eyes once again then stepped back.

“Be Good!”

That was his warning to her, “be good”, she rolled her eyes, turning her head away from him at first, of course.

“Right.” Shelby replied.

But he was gone. He’d jumped into the SUV and before he had the front door closed, the driver had taken off.

That was close.  Shelby went back upstairs to get her things, this day was out of control already and since she knew that her mother and sister were fine, she wanted to grab something to eat and head home to have a long bath.  She really should have taken Tina up on her offer to go on a girl’s trip to the spa.  If she had been at the spa instead of planning on getting her tattoo this weekend, none of this would be happening. She hadn’t even heard from Jade yet.  That was a bit by design though as she was ardently attempting to avoid Daxton.  Looks like she just met with his competition though.

What should Shelby do?