By midnight, I was calling Del and trying to get her to answer. I called once and it went straight to voicemail, as if she had seen my call and purposely sent me away. I sent her a text and asked for just one minute of her time. That was it: I needed to hear it in her voice and that was going to be the only way I’d know if she had been involved or not.
Brandon: I’m going to call you in five minutes. Please answer; just give me one minute and you can be rid of me forever.
Delilah: I’m out with Mattie. I need to go outside or I won’t be able to hear you. Call in 10 minutes.
She’d responded! At least she responded to my message. I raced outside and to the alley so I could talk to her in private. I wanted to clearly hear her voice when I confronted her about what was going on. It had to be quiet so I could assess the situation properly.
“Hello,” she said after answering the call on the first ring.
“Hi,” I said as I lost the words for what I wanted to say to her.
There was so much going on. So much unsaid between the two of us, but with her on the phone, I didn’t want to let her go. My body longed to just have her close, and I didn’t even know if she was involved in everything that was happening. My body obviously had its own needs and didn’t care about anything else.
“I’m sorry I’ve been taking some space lately. It doesn’t mean that I never want to talk to you, though. What was up with that message?”
“Are you at Club Night?” I asked as I looked toward the front of the club and thought I saw her standing there.
“Yes, I’m standing out front.”
“Turn around,” I laughed as I walked toward her.
The smile that crossed her face wasn’t something that could have been faked. I knew people. I’d been reading them in the business world for years: that smile of Delilah’s wasn’t fake. She was genuinely happy to see me.
“Fancy seeing you here,” she laughed and gave me a hug. “I really am sorry for keeping you in the dark. That message the other day freaked me out and then there was a guy that visited my office.”
“What guy?”
“Um, well, I don’t know if I should tell you. He said he was an investigator with the SEC.”
“I’m not under investigation; there’s someone out to get me.”
Even as the words left my mouth, I could tell how fake they sounded. I sounded exactly like a guy who was under investigation and didn’t want to admit it. One thing I was certain of: Delilah wasn’t behind what was going on with me. I needed to see her to know for sure, but as I looked her in the eyes, I knew it for a fact.
“Well, that’s why I think I need some space. You should take care of whatever is going on and then we can look at getting together when it’s all figured out.”
“It won’t take long.”
“Okay,” she said and turned toward the building. “I better get back to Mattie.
I gently grabbed her arm so she wouldn’t go back inside. I had to say something, but the right words just weren’t coming to me. This was the moment I needed to say something profound to keep her there with me. The old me would have had plenty of lines I could have pulled out in that very moment, but I couldn’t think of a single thing.
“Josh thought you had something to do with my accounts being frozen,” I blurted out.
“What? Me? Why would I have anything to do with that?”
“I don’t think you did. I mean, I did for a minute when they pointed out that my card used for the Dating the Rich site is where everything started, but I don’t think it was you.”
She raised her eyebrow at me and didn’t say a thing. Her silence made me uncomfortable, and I found myself filling the space with words. More and more words that got me deeper and deeper into a mess of ridiculousness.
“There was this guy who came to my house with a thick neck and a suit; he threatened me. Then, every account got frozen. They said it was someone I know and tried to point to you,” I babbled on.
“Okay, well, this just goes back to my original point. Why don’t you call me when you figure everything out? I hope you don’t get arrested for whatever it is they think you did, but you really didn’t do. Goodbye, Brandon.”
She turned and made her way back into the club before I could protest. That wasn’t at all how I thought it would go when I got to talk to her. I was even more confused than before.
PART 4
Chapter Nineteen