“Well, Gwen, he thought wrong. You and I, we’ve always been close and now we’re having this conversation. That’s what he did. He might have told you he was doing me a favor but that guy is the kind of guy who pisses in corners. You’re territory and he saw me infringing on that so he drove in that wedge. Don’t think it was anything else.”
“I don’t want to hurt you any more, babe, but I don’t think he thinks of you as competition,” I said gently.
A beat of silence then quietly, “Right.”
“Troy, don’t do this to us.”
“I didn’t, Gwen, Rambo did.”
I opened my mouth to speak but got more dead air.
I flipped the phone shut, stared at it and then, again, hissed, “Shit!”
And again it rang in my hand.
I flipped it open immediately and put it to my ear.
“It’s not nice to hang up on –”
“Babe,” Hawk cut me off.
“Hawk?”
I was surprised. I thought he was incommunicado.
“Give me a good reason why you’re callin’ Ginger.”
I sat frozen then realized he knew everything about me which must include monitoring my calls.
“Hawk –”
“You don’t know her.”
“Hawk –”
“You don’t know someone, you sure as f**k don’t talk to them.”
“Hawk –”
“You talk to her and someone’s monitoring her communication, they hear you, they find you or they make assumptions.”
Okay, something new to add to my list of why Hawk could be annoying and that was when he was right.
“I saw her name on my contact list and got a wild hair,” I admitted.
“No, you saw her name on your contact list, it reminded you you’re worried about your sister and you phoned her,” Hawk laid it out.
“Well, kind of the same thing.”
A sigh, then, “Babe.”
“I thought you were occupied,” I changed the subject.
“I was but base got the ping on your phone, Mo called Jorge, Jorge is at my back and he’s not occupied like me. He gave me the message you’re contacting your f**kin’ sister and I got unoccupied.”
“Oh,” I muttered.
“Gwen, baby, do me a favor. Trust me enough to do what I can for your sister. And trust me enough that I can deal with the emotional fallout we find there’s nothin’ I can do for your sister. Yeah?”