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Taylor leaned back and could see just far enough to glimpse the scene in the other room. Derrick’s hands were gripping both sides of the messenger’s jacket, holding him off the ground, the kid’s feet dangling on the floor.
“If you ever,” Derrick ground out, “hit a buzzer like you have the answer to jeopardy again, I will break all your fingers. Do. You. Understand. Me?”
The messenger said nothing. Derrick shook him a little and then started to rattle off, “I, ah, I just wanted, uh … you ordered it express, and they said.”
“And,” Derrick continued talking over the stuttering kid, “if you don’t straighten up your fucking attitude, I will make sure that you are fired and not hired by any messenger service in the continental and non-contiguous United States. Am I clear?”
“Crystal, sir,” he responded, this time not missing a beat.
Derrick set the kid down, and the messenger scrambled to retrieve the dropped package, handing it to Derrick with shaky hands. Once he’d passed it off, he backed slowly out of the apartment, “Don’t I have to sign?” Derrick asked in sarcastic tone.
“Uh yeah, oh, sorry. Just sign, I mean, please sign right here, sir.” The kid stuttered through it, and Taylor bit her lip as she watched the whole thing unfold. When Derrick thrust the signature device back at him, the kid turned and ran.
Derrick turned around, and Taylor spoke before she could even help herself, “You are mean, Fletcher. That kid is going to piss himself in the elevator now.”
Derrick still looked monumentally aggravated, “Good.”
Taylor rolled her eyes, “When did you get such a mean streak?” she asked and looked back at the TV as a laugh track went off on whatever sitcom Taylor had landed on.
Derrick started laughing as he caught the next line from the show on his way to sit in the living room with Taylor. Taylor looked over at him as he watched the show. His face was relaxed now, the most carefree she had seen it since last night. He looked so much like he did when they would watch movies together as kids, when they had been friends.
He turned and saw her looking at him. “Taylor, I really think we should talk, clear the air—”
Taylor held up one hand to silence him. “No, Derrick. I can’t go there. That is a time filled with all kinds of things I can’t deal with right now.”
“You can’t just sweep it under the rug, Taylor. It happened, and we should talk about it if we are going to move forward with this—”
“Look,” Taylor cut in, looking at him wild-eyed and agitated. “I’m not going there. Period. I have to move away from it so that I can focus on all this,” she said, making a sweeping motion with her hand. “So please—”
“I thought you were going to stop running, Taylor,” Derrick prodded her softly. He was hitting a nerve, and he knew it. Taylor scowled at him, mouth closed, nostrils flaring, and finally Derrick passed the delivered package to her. “Here, I got this for you.”
Taylor raised her brow as she accepted the box that had just been delivered. “What is it?”
“Taylor,” Derrick said in mock annoyance, “you have to open gifts. You don’t just tell the person what it is. Jeez, has it been that long since you’ve gotten one?”
Taylor tried to remember the last time she had gotten a gift.
“It’s a peace offering. Now open it,” Derrick said, sounding really annoyed and tapping his foot.
The box was about four inches wide and six inches long. Taylor flipped it back and forth between her hands, examining it from all sides, but the packaging was blank and gave nothing away. Carefully she ripped the seam of the packaging open and revealed a brand new iPhone. She looked up at Derrick in surprise.
“I’m sorry I broke your phone,” he said sheepishly. “I wanted to replace it and bring you into this century.”
Taylor smiled, but she tried to hide it and looked back down at the box, “I am in this century just having a cell phone, goober,” she retorted softly.
“Well, this year then,” he said.
Taylor looked at him, knowing it was time to move forward. “Will you show me how to use it?”
Derrick looked surprised. “Yeah sure, but its, uh, it’s the new iPhone. It isn’t that different from the other iPhones—”
“Derrick, I have avoided any and all TV, radio, newspapers, and other forms of communication since I left. This,” she said, holding up the box, “is something I avoided. On purpose. I also only worked part time so I could not afford luxuries like this. The track phone you smashed was cheap, and sometimes I had no money to buy minutes for that because I had to pay for heat, so I am completely and truly out of touch.”
Derrick looked back at Taylor like she had slapped him again. “Heat? Jeez, Taylor, what about food? Did you have enough for that? Is that why you are so thin, could you even afford to eat?”
“Yes, I had enough to eat,” she replied, looking intently at her new phone. Though she hated to admit it, her appetite was always a little lacking, and that kept her from eating a whole lot. The stress of being seen, noticed, or found was always looming in the background, and it gave her indigestion.
“Why did you do that to yourself?” he asked in a whisper, still looking at her in disbelief.