Wait for It

by Mariana Zapata

  She groaned, her hands going up to the sides of her head as she swallowed hard. “Would you listen to me for a minute? That’s all I need.”

  “No. I want you to go. Right now. I’ll give you my e-mail address. Contact me that way. I don’t want to talk to you, and I don’t want to see you, but we can message each other.” You’d figure she’d gotten a clue the last two times she’d called and I’d either hung up on her or ignored it. I wanted to have whatever she said in writing just in case.

  Her mouth—that mouth that had called my beloved nephew a mistake once upon a time—opened, but it wasn’t her voice that came out.

  “Pretty sure she’s telling you to fuck off.”

  Something tickled at the back of my throat. Relief? I turned to look over my shoulder to spot Dallas stepping onto the sidewalk toward my house. And despite the fact that I wanted to yell at her and tell her all the ways she’d hurt my Josh, I couldn’t help but take in the scene called my neighbor.

  And it wasn’t because he was dirty and sweaty and his shirt was clinging to him like a wet T-shirt.

  Mostly.

  Because, Jesus Christ, it was like my brain forgot who was standing next to me for all of the fifteen or thirty seconds that I watched this damn near stranger walk over. Unless Anita was blind, she was taking in the same thing I was. I knew what she saw. That “fuck off” face. The powerful upper body. Old, worn-in jeans with stains all over them, and scuffed, paint-stained, black work boots. The shirt he had on must have shrunk at some point because the sleeves barely covered his shoulders, highlighting the dark ink that covered his biceps, but I made myself look at his face before I got caught.

  “You gonna get going or do I need to walk you to your car?” Dallas asked as he stopped right beside me, his shoulder inches away from my head, completely surprising me. I wasn’t going to deny a gift when it was given to me, even though it was from someone I didn’t know how I could repay.

  “I just want to talk,” the woman, who had given my brother so much hell, said.

  “Pretty sure she doesn’t wanna talk to you. Am I right?”

  I was still looking at Dallas when I said in a distracted voice, “Yes.”

  My neighbor shrugged, his attention laser-focused on the woman a few feet away. “You heard her. Get gone.”

  “I just need a damn minute, Diana—”

  Somehow, the use of my name managed to get me to lift my eyes to meet hers. “Don’t make me call the cops. Please. I told you, get your life together, Anita. Don’t show up to my house unexpected. This isn’t the way to do this.”

  My neighbor had turned his head to look at me for the first time, slow, slow, slowly when I first said the c-o-p-s word. I turned my body so that, out of the corner of my eye, I could see him blink. A muscle in that sharp cheekbone of his twitched. His nostrils flared just enough to be noticeable.

  “The cops?” the man who lived across the street asked in a calm, cool voice. And Dallas—I could have hugged him right then, kissed him even—lifted one of those big, callused hands of his and pointed it along with his head to the side. “Leave.” One word and only one word was necessary. “Now.” One more word cemented that harsh command.

  As if sensing her impending demise at the fact I was about to tell someone bigger than both of us that she was breaking the law, Anita made a short, sharp noise in her throat. “Forget it. I’m leaving.”

  I didn’t watch her hightail it and neither did Dallas; he was too busy staring a hole straight into my eyes. A part of me regretted starting this staring thing with him, but it was too late now. If he wanted to do it, we could do it.

  It was the sound of a car starting nearby that snapped us both out of the world we had built up around us. Dallas turned to look at something over my shoulder, his expression darkening for the first time, lines forming horizontally across his forehead as he glared at what I could only assume was Anita’s car taking off. It was a black Chevy. I wouldn’t forget it.

  Just like that, those murky eyes flicked down to mine, and my neighbor’s expression changed from a disturbed one to a worried one that pinched his facial features together. “You all right?”

  All I could do was nod, too quickly, but there wasn’t a doubt in my head that my anxiety was written all over me. Anita had no legal claim to Josh. I knew that. She wouldn’t be able to just take him. I could share. I really could. But only if there was some way for me to know she wouldn’t hurt him like she had countless times before. And only if he wanted.

  I made myself let out a breath, then another one, and finally nodded. I knew I was good. And if maybe I wasn’t completely all right, I would be eventually. “I’m fine.”

  “Okay.” A small frown framed my neighbor’s mouth. “Lemme take that,” he said, even as his hands went to mine.

  I shook my head. “It’s fine. I got it.”

  The downturned corners of his mouth went flat. Dallas blinked, those eyes of his sliding from one of mine to the other as if he was trying to measure something. Maybe he was. My stubbornness. “I’ll take it,” he finally said slowly, carefully grabbing ahold of the grocery bag handles, wrapping them around his own wrists as his gaze stayed on me.

  I couldn’t even find it in me to keep protesting, to tell him I could take the bags on my own and let him know he’d done enough, that I didn’t need his help. He didn’t need to come into my house and feel all weird or make up some other thing in his head about me stalking him. But I didn’t have the fight. I just followed after him, stiff, stiff, stiff. I unlocked the door and watched as he went in while I grabbed the rest of the bags from the car and followed after him.

  I was fine. She was never coming to my house again, and if she did, it would be years from now. This was how it always worked with her. She’d show up and years would pass before we ever saw her again.

  Dallas was in the kitchen taking things out of the bags when I found him. My heart thudded a little and my stomach was still unsettled. “You really don’t have to do that. I can do it.”

  “Okay,” was his simple reply, even as he kept going.

  I sighed. “Really. You don’t have to. I don’t want you feeling weird being in here. I swear, I’m not trying to do anything.”

  Those big, callused hands paused in their motion. The breath he let out was so deep I could hear it. “I know you’re not.”

  I was so distracted by Josh’s mom, I couldn’t even think of a comeback or focus on the strained silence between us. Shame filled me from my belly button to my chin, but I knew I had to say something to him about what had just happened. “Thank you for that out there.” Yeah, it sounded just as awkward as I was afraid it would.

  He finally glanced up at me through long, spiky eyelashes I’d never noticed before. “She’d been parked outside your house for a while,” he explained casually. “I thought something wasn’t right.”

  His comment only made me feel slightly guilty for eavesdropping on the conversation he’d had with the woman in the red car, his maybe-separated, maybe-almost-divorced wife. I had no business knowing about her, much less thinking about her when I had something genuinely more important to focus on. Fucking Anita.

  She couldn’t take Josh. She couldn’t. There was no way, I reminded the lump that had formed in my stomach.

  Maybe I should call his school tomorrow or talk to his teacher about the situation so they could be more vigilant with who he went home with.

  “Is there something I should know?” he asked quietly, more gently than any other sentence I’d yet to hear come out of his mouth.

  Was there? Palming my forehead, I closed my eyes and willed my heart to beat slower.

  Something metallic clanked against the kitchen countertop. I could picture him taking cans of soup out and setting them there, keeping those big hands busy. “I can help, if you tell me what you need.”

  He was offering to help me after he hadn’t been able to get away from me fast enough. Who would have known? Who would have fucking known?r />
  Tears seemed to fill my closed eyes, but I wiped them away as I dragged my hand down my face. At what point had I turned into such a crybaby? When I opened my eyes again, my attention went to the cabinet in front of my face. The words out of my mouth were the truth. Lies and I weren’t friends. “That was Josh’s biological mom,” I told him steadily.

  He didn’t say anything.

  Turning around to face him, I found him with his hand on one of the cans I must have heard him taking out of a plastic bag. I met his eyes for a moment as I took one of the bags next to him and started pulling things out of it. “He’s not supposed to see her any more. She tried taking him out of daycare when he was three, and we had to put a restraining order against her. She hasn’t done anything like that since then, but she only comes around every few years.” I shrugged and balled up the plastic bag when I was done with it. I squeezed it in my fist and swallowed as I looked up at him over my shoulder, shrugging again. What else was there to say?

  “Okay,” he said, damn near softly. Those hazel eyes locked on mine. There was only a tiny crease between his eyebrows then. “Okay,” he repeated on an exhale that seemed nearly painful. “I’ll keep an eye out.”

  My mouth formed the shape of a smile that wasn’t really one. What a mess. “Well, thank you for that. I can’t—” God, this entire situation made me awkward. A part of me still couldn’t wrap my head around her showing up after so long. Why would she do that? When she’d shown up in the past, it had always been to troll on Rodrigo. I genuinely didn’t think that she had some deep love for Josh. Then again, what did I know? I would probably do the same thing if I were in her shoes. We all made mistakes we regretted. “I really appreciate it.”

  “You don’t need to thank me. I wasn’t gonna leave you to handle her alone.” His hand went up to touch the back of his neck in a gesture that didn’t seem as casual as it should have. He probably didn’t like getting involved in things that didn’t include him. I couldn’t blame him. But the thing he said next explained it. “I owe you.”

  “You don’t owe me anything,” I said to him slowly, meeting his gaze.

  That wary face didn’t move a single muscle. “You’ve been nothing but nice to my family. I owe you,” he repeated himself.

  Figuring he was talking about Dean and Trip, I focused on his other words. What the hell was I going to do with this man? Be ungrateful about what he’d done even if it had mainly just been moral support? I knew I should take what I could get for whatever reason.

  We worked in silence for a few minutes. He’d take things out of the bags and set them on the counter while I put them where they needed to go. A few times I caught him looking around the kitchen, I’m sure taking in the crappy cupboards and the paint that needed to be redone… and the floors that had seen better decades, but he didn’t comment on them. I didn’t let myself get all bent out of shape over him being in my house, this near stranger.

  “If you wanna call the cops, have them come over, I can be your witness she was here,” my neighbor offered in that easy voice that reminded me this was the type of man who didn’t want to talk to women who flirted with him because he was married and who also coached little boy baseball.

  I’d been thinking about it while putting up groceries. The truth was, I didn’t want to involve the police, mostly because I didn’t want this getting back to my parents and stressing them out, and I also didn’t want the boys getting involved in it either. Josh had made me promise him something I would never take lightly that night after the funeral. You don’t ever have to see her again if you don’t want to, J. I won’t let her take you. I promise.

  “I’m not,” I told him. “I really don’t think she’ll come back.”

  The noise that churned in his throat didn’t say whether he approved of my decision or not.

  For a moment, I thought about telling him about Rodrigo, but I didn’t. Seeing Anita had given me enough to deal with. Talking about my brother was a mountain I didn’t want to tackle yet with this man who was slowly becoming friendly with me.

  When we were done a few minutes later, Josh’s coach gave me a serious, solemn look. “I’m gonna get going, but I’ll be home the rest of the day. Holler if you need anything, but I’ll keep a look out and make sure you don’t get any more visitors.”

  “You really don’t have to do that,” I tried to insist.

  Dallas let his head lull to the side a moment, watching me with those eyes. That pink mouth opened just enough so I could see the tip of his tongue tap the corner of his lips. “You’re friends with my family. We’re neighbors.” His eyelids hung low in a way that was almost a glare. “Give me a call if you need anything.”

  The look I gave him must have said “You sure you’re not going to freak out about me calling?” because I would swear he scowled.

  “Holler,” he repeated in that bossy tone.

  I nodded at him, not completely convinced calling him was something I wouldn’t get unfriended for. “Thanks again.”

  Dallas shrugged one rounded, muscular shoulder. “Make sure your doors are locked, all right?”

  The nod I gave him was slow. That prideful part of me wanted to say I could take care of myself. Because I could. I had. I took care of two boys and me. But I kept my trap shut. I knew when to accept help and when not. It wasn’t like I had anyone else.

  “Hey!” I called out to him all of a sudden. “Josh is having a birthday party next weekend. If you have nothing better to do, feel free to drop by. We’ll have food, and I’m inviting some of the other neighbors, too.” I didn’t need him thinking I was trying to reel him in.

  Dallas hesitated for a moment, already walking away. His back was to me. “All right.” He didn’t move for a moment. “Keep an eye out next time you get home.”

  Indignation flared in my chest at being treated like a stupid kid. What was with this man and his bossiness?

  Those golden-brown eyes glanced over his shoulder. That familiar line formed between his eyebrows. “Don’t get pissed off,” he said, turning forward again before tossing out, “I only want to help. See you later.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Louie Chewy,” I said his name calmly.

  He didn’t look up at me. He knew what I was about to ask. I had eyes. So did he, and he was using his to look at the not-so-interesting sky.

  I scratched the tip of my nose. “Where is your shoe, boo?”

  Even after I asked him about the missing sneaker, which I knew for a fact he’d had on when we’d left the house—because why would he leave the house with only one sneaker on?—he still didn’t look down at his sock-covered foot. The same sock-covered foot that suddenly had curled toes inside of the blue and black material as if he was trying to hide. Jesus Christ.

  He tilted his head to the side and shrugged those small shoulders. “I don’t know,” he whispered.

  Not again. With his attention focused on something other than me, I didn’t feel bad about pinching the bridge of my nose. He knew I only did that when it was deserved, and this would count as one of those times. If someone had told me four years ago that little boys randomly lost their shoes for no reason at all, I would have laughed and told them “that sucks.” If Josh had ever misplaced a sneaker at a young age without being in my presence, Rodrigo hadn’t told me about it. Who the hell loses a shoe and isn’t blackout drunk? How the hell does someone lose a shoe to begin with? I wouldn’t walk around bragging about it either.

  But now, two years into this guardian slash parenting gig, I understood how possible it was. Three-times-in-a-year possible. How my little biscuit of love, who was usually more prepared than me, had something go missing was beyond my brain’s capacity to comprehend. The fact was he did. Like him sneaking into my room and scaring me half to death, I should have been used to it. At least, I shouldn’t have been surprised he managed to do it.

  As we stood near the bleachers at the field where Josh practiced, I glanced around, hoping to magically see a
shoe that my gut expected was gone forever.

  Fuck.

  Crouching down, I set my bag on the ground next to us and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I told you to tell me when this stuff happens, Lou.” He still hadn’t made eye contact.

  “I know.” I could barely hear him.

  “Then why didn’t you?”

  “Because.”

  “Because what?”

  “I lost my shoe last week.” He had? “Grandma bought me the same ones, and she made me promise not to lose ‘em again.”

  Motherfucker. And here I went feeling bad when I kept stuff from the Larsens.

  Pressing the tips of my fingers to his jaw, I gently made him look at me. His features were so remorseful I was tempted to tell him it was okay and not to worry about it, but all I had to do was imagine him growing up into a liar and know that was the worst thing I could do. “I’m not going to get really mad at you if you tell me the truth, and I don’t like it when you lie to me. You can lie to me by not telling me anything too, Louie. You really have to be more careful with your stuff.”

  “I know.”

  “I know you know. But now I’m not going to buy you another pair that you like until I know you can take care of them—”

  He gasped. “But—”

  “Nope.”

  “But—”

  “Nuh-uh.”

  “But—”

  “I’m not, Lou. I warned you already. Now show me where the last place you saw it was. Maybe we can find it.”

  He sighed but kept his argument to himself, finally.

  On the other side of the fence, the players were huddled around their coaches as practice came to an end. Keeping an eye on them, I turned around to let Louie jump on my back and stood up. “Where to?”

  He pointed straight forward to the area where he’d been playing for the last hour with other brothers and sisters of the team’s lineup. There were still plenty of kids running around, and as I watched them, I wouldn’t hold it past one of them to have grabbed his sneaker and taken off with it. Kids were little shits sometimes.