He turned to study a box of cereal he wasn’t planning on buying.
“I’ve heard weird things about that area,” the man went on. He stepped closer to Declan, practically reading over his shoulder.
Now he was definitely feeling uncomfortable. He made a non-committal sort of hum.
He reminded himself that he was in a well-lit grocery store in the middle of the day. He could faintly hear the din of voices near the checkout. If anything actually happened, he could scream and Geir would come running.
Still no sign of Geir. He put the cereal back and moved behind his shopping cart, putting it between them. He watched the breakfast bars like his life depended on it. He was right in the middle of the row, so getting out with his cart would be slow and leaving without it would be odd.
He could tell the man was still watching him.
He heard footsteps coming and looked up. Only it wasn’t Geir.
Another man, dressed similarly to the first but with shaggier hair, came up. “Hey,” he greeted the man who’d been harassing him.
“Hey, Marlon. I was just saying hello to... What did you say your name was?”
Marlon looked at him just as closely. Like he knew something about him and didn’t like it.
Now he was trapped between them. Declan’s heart was hammering. He couldn’t decide whether to be rude or de-escalate. “Oh, it’s Mike.” It was the last name he ever wanted to hear again, but it was the first name he could think of. Apparently he just associated it with unpleasant things.
“I’m Jack. This is Marlon.”
“Oh, I just realized I forgot something. Sorry, nice to meet you.” Why hadn’t he thought to say that sooner?
He walked away rapidly, abandoning his cart.
“Sure, maybe we can…” one of them started to say. He could only hear his own footsteps, though, so at least they weren’t following him.
As soon as he reached the corner, he broke into a run.
He looked frantically down each aisle for Geir. When he found him, he had three jars of salsa tucked into his arm and a fourth in his hand. No wonder he’d taken so long.
Declan tugged him deeper into the aisle and pressed in close. The lids of the bottles hit his chest and the one in Geir’s hand dug into his arm when Geir held him tight.
“What’s going on?” Geir’s voice rumbled through his chest.
“Creepy men. Stalking me or something.” He kept his voice low. “They wanted to know about weird things with those Indians.”
Geir set the salsas on a shelf, pushing boxes of rice mix out of the way. “We should leave.”
Declan drew in a shaky breath. Now that Geir was here he felt much safer. He was pretty sure that the men already knew who he was, or at least where he’d been recently. He wasn’t going to give in to bullying.
“No, we should stay and act normal. Maybe we can find out more about them. Get their license plates numbers or something.” That’s what a detective would do. At least on TV.
He felt scared, but also bold. Geir was with him. And maybe he could help.
Geir gave him a look. “If they come close to you again, we’re leaving.”
Declan nodded. “Deal. Let’s check out and see what they do.”
He grabbed one of the salsa jars without looking at it and headed back, Geir’s arm wrapped comfortingly around him. The men were gone.
The cart stood where he’d left it. Only now he was worried that they’d put a listening device on his ice cream bars or something. He snorted. Too many spy movies.
They checked out as quickly as they could with a mountain of groceries, and then loaded everything into the truck.
When he was done, he loitered around the door to his car. When they left the house this morning, he’d been worried about letting Geir pay for things. Now that was the last thing on his mind.
He didn’t want to drive back alone. The homophobic assholes at the garage weren’t a big deal. Geir had been such a badass, and he could try to ruin them with bad reviews on Yelp. Creepy men who seemed to know where he lived were in an entirely different category.
Hell, he didn’t even really know how to get home. “What if I get lost?” he asked, hugging his arms around his chest. “My phone doesn’t work, so I can’t use GPS. What if I can’t find your mailbox and I never see you again?” Alright, maybe he was being a little dramatic. He didn’t want to name any of his bigger fears, so instead this one rose to the surface. He wouldn’t make a very good detective.
Geir raised one eyebrow but didn’t make fun of him. “I’ll drive slowly. We’re going to stay on the highway through three small towns that each have a few stop lights. There are only two turns. And we’ve been over the directions. If you can’t see me, just pull over to the side of the road and I’ll come back for you.”
“Alright,” Declan steeled his shoulders. “I can do this.” He muttered it a few more times under his breath. “I can do this.” It would be an adventure. Nothing could happen on the road that was worse than the day he’d already had.
Well, not all of it was bad, he reminded himself. Waking up next to Geir had been pretty amazing. Going to sleep next to him tonight, now that he didn’t have to worry about leaving, would be pretty nice, too.
He got into his car. It smelled a little musty, but all of his stuff was still in the back. It was illogical, but it made him feel better. Like his crates of books would protect him until he got home.
He pulled out of the driveway, following Geir. As promised, they drove so slowly through the town that someone actually honked at them. Declan felt a little silly, once it was clear that he wasn’t being followed. He even flipped on the radio and started to sing while he was driving. He’d rather be in Geir’s truck, but he liked the idea of driving home together.
As soon as he got home, he left Geir to carry in the groceries with a small apology and took out his sketchbook. He had a plan.
“What are you doing?” Geir looked over his shoulder.
“Drawing the bad guys.”
“The bad guys?”
He nodded. “The villains. Evildoers. There was definitely something wrong about them, I promise.”
He finished up the first sketch, labeled it with Marlon’s name, and moved to the next page to draw him again from the side.
He might have been freaked out at the time, but this part he could totally do. Maybe he could be a police sketch artist or something. That sounded exciting.
Geir put away the groceries while he worked.
He couldn’t remember Marlon’s features as well, since he’d barely seen him, but he could offer rough sketches. Jack’s were pretty detailed.
Then he remembered the woman in the car who kept trying to give him a ride. Was this all connected, or was he just looking for a conspiracy? His mind spun out all kinds of scenarios, each one more convoluted than the next.
He drew her anyway, at least what he could remember.
He could smell something cooking and realized it was a frozen pizza that Geir must have tossed in the oven. He’d planned to save those for a night when he didn’t want to cook, but now was a pretty good time.
Geir popped it in front of him. He reached out to grab a slice, then pulled back because it was too hot.
“Can we bring these over to the tribe tomorrow? I feel like they should see them.”