by Susan Stoker
Tilting her head to get more of him, Blythe brought her hand up to his face. She rested it on his cheek and took what he gave her. He pulled back a fraction but didn’t take his hands from the sides of her neck where they’d moved when he’d kissed her.
“You okay?”
Licking her lips and tasting the chocolate sauce from the cheesecake they’d eaten, Blythe nodded.
“You up for more or do you want to go home?”
Home. What a wonderful word. Even if Sophie’s house wasn’t exactly home, it was more of a home than she’d had for the last year or so. “I thought you had a surprise for me,” she said.
“I do. But it can wait if you’ve had enough. I’m more than happy to sit on the couch and watch TV with you if you’d prefer.”
Blythe thought about it for a nanosecond. “I want my surprise.”
He smiled at her. “Then that’s what you’ll get. And I have to say…I like seeing you like this.”
“Like what?”
“Excited. Happy.”
“I like feeling like this.”
Sawyer kissed her again, a quick peck that made Blythe long for more. Then he scooted out of the booth and held out his hand for her.
Placing her uninjured hand in his, she let him pull her up and out of the booth. He held her hand as he paid for their meal, and as he pushed the door open for her.
Blythe knew the smile on her face was probably dorky, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been happy. Truly happy.
Chapter Ten
“Sawyer, no.”
Squirrel shut off the engine and turned to face Blythe. He knew this was going to be hard for her, but his sisters had been bugging him constantly for the last couple weeks. They wanted to meet her and wouldn’t take no for an answer. He’d been putting them off, wanting Blythe to settle in a bit more, but they were done waiting and told him in no uncertain terms to bring her by the house, or they’d figure out how to meet her on their own.
“They want to meet you, baby,” he said gently.
Blythe shook her head, her eyes wide with panic.
He reached over and put a hand on either side of her head. “What are you afraid of?”
Her mouth opened, then closed, then opened again.
“Let me guess. You’re afraid they’ll judge you for being homeless. You’re afraid they aren’t going to like you in person. You’re afraid they’ll disapprove of you dating me. Right?”
She nodded.
He smiled at her. “Blythe, they don’t give a shit that you were homeless. To them, it doesn’t mean a whole lot. They’re going to love you—hell, they already love you. Natalie texts you more than she does me. When she was arguing with Mom about something recently, I told her to ask you what you thought. When you told her the same thing Mom did, she accepted it without question. Emma admires you so much, you have no idea. She told me the other day that she’s considering double majoring in pre-med and sociology in college. She wants to be a doctor, but she also wants to make sure she can help when someone’s in a situation like you were.”
Blythe gaped up at him, obviously shocked.
“They know all about your situation, baby. I don’t keep things from my family. I was worried about you and told them you had my phone and that I was concerned about you living on the streets. They encouraged me to find you and take you home, as if you were a stray dog or something.” He chuckled. “They were as happy as I was when you moved into Sophie’s house. Trust them. Trust me,” he said. “This is supposed to be a happy surprise. I thought you’d like to meet them.”
“I do…I would…I just… I’m nervous.”
“I get that. But you have absolutely no reason to be. How about this? If things become too much, just let me know. I’ll get you out of there and I’ll take you home immediately. Okay?”
She took a deep breath. “Okay. I trust you.”
Her words made a warm feeling flow out from his heart to the rest of his body. Her trust meant the world. He leaned over and kissed her forehead tenderly before climbing out of the vehicle and meeting her at the front. They walked hand in hand up to the door.
Before they arrived, it swung open and his youngest sister was running toward them. Natalie threw herself into his arms, forcing him to let go of Blythe. He twirled her around in a circle and smiled as she laughed. The second he put her back on her feet, she turned to Blythe. Throwing her arms around her as well, Natalie started babbling.
“It’s so good to meet you! I’ve been wanting to meet you for soooo long! Your advice about that boy was spot on. I think he was just talking to me to try to make this other girl jealous, which wasn’t cool.” She pulled back but didn’t stop talking. “How are you? You look good. Sawyer told me what happened. Well, some of it. He said you were hurt. That sucks. Does your hand hurt? Can I see it? I heard you walloped the other guy big time. That’s awesome!”
“Take a breath, Nat,” Squirrel admonished. “And give her some breathing room.”
“Whatever,” the teenager said, rolling her eyes at her brother. Then she grabbed Blythe’s unbandaged hand and dragged her toward the door. “Come on. Em and Charlotte are inside and they can’t wait to meet you too. Did you eat? Mom made a buttload of food even though Sawyer told her you guys were going out before you came over here. Don’t feel bad if you can’t eat it, although my mom’s chocolate chip peanut butter Butterfinger cookies are awesome.”
Squirrel trailed along behind his sister and Blythe with a huge smile on his face. Leave it to his youngest sister to steamroll over everything and take charge. He loved that about her.
When he caught up to them, he put his hand on the small of Blythe’s back. She looked over her shoulder and gave him a wobbly smile. He wasn’t sure what she was thinking, but he hoped she was merely overwhelmed with Natalie’s welcome and not having second thoughts.
Leaning forward, he whispered in her ear, “You okay?”
Blythe nodded, but didn’t have a chance to say anything as Natalie was dragging her inside.
Squirrel stood back and watched his family work their magic on Blythe. Emma and Charlotte greeted her as if she were their long-lost sister. Everyone was talking a mile a minute, going out of their way to make her feel welcome. His dad was next. He shook Blythe’s hand warmly, giving her his trademark huge smile. He even went so far as to tell her that she was welcome at their house anytime.
Then it was his mom’s turn. She didn’t even hesitate to engulf Blythe in one of her mom hugs. He saw her whisper something in Blythe’s ear, and Squirrel was going to intervene when he saw tears spring to Blythe’s eyes, but he relaxed when she pulled back and smiled at his mom. Whatever his mother said had made Blythe emotional, but she wasn’t immediately asking to leave, so he’d take that as a win.
Like Natalie promised, his mom had made a ton of food…even though she knew he was taking Blythe out to eat before they came over to the house. His sisters filled their plates with food though, and everyone went into the large living room to settle in and eat. Squirrel claimed Blythe before anyone else could and seated her on one end of their huge couch. He sat next to her and Charlotte grabbed the seat next to him. His dad took his customary spot in the recliner and the others settled in the other available seats.
As they ate, Blythe gamely answered his sisters’ questions as best she could. But she also questioned them right back. Asked Emma about her college plans. Talked to Charlotte about the dance she’d been to. Encouraged Natalie when she went on and on about the boys she liked and which she thought liked her back.
She was also awesome with his parents. When his dad started talking about his marketing job, she didn’t hesitate to jump in with questions and let him know how impressed she was with the few advertisements she’d seen from the campaigns he’d worked on. His mom had been somewhat quiet, but Blythe drew her out too, getting her to talk about her job as an executive with USAA, the insurance and financial services institution.
After dinner, Natalie and Charlotte took everyone’s plates back to the kitchen and returned with a huge platter of the cookies his mom had made. Everyone was relaxed and mellow and Squirrel was feeling good about how the night was going.
Then Natalie had to bring up the one topic he’d warned her, repeatedly, not to bring up.
“I didn’t know you were homeless when we first started texting.”
“Nat,” Squirrel warned.
But Blythe put her hand on his arm and said, “It’s okay. It’s not like you would know unless I had said something, Natalie.”
“You’re the first homeless person I’ve ever met.”
Squirrel watched as Blythe took a deep breath before she answered. “I doubt that.”
Natalie’s brows came down in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“It’s not like people wear signs that say ‘I sleep in my car’ or ‘I don’t have any food at home.’ I bet there are some kids at your school whose parents have had money issues and either don’t have a stable place to live, or are struggling with affording the things they need for their everyday life.”
Natalie was his easy-going sister. The one who never really got sad. She could talk a mile a minute and always saw things with a positive eye. For the first time in a long time, Squirrel could see her really thinking about what someone had said.
“Really?”
“Really,” Blythe affirmed. “Think about it. I’m sure you’ve seen kids turn down lunch, saying they’re not hungry. Maybe they really aren’t hungry…but maybe they simply can’t afford to buy the food at the school or to bring their own. What about the kids who are made fun of because their clothes are dirty or smelly? Do you think they really want to come to school that way? Do you think they like being made fun of? It costs money to wash clothes.”
“There’s a girl in my English class. Everyone thinks she’s weird. She sits in the back of the class by herself and doesn’t talk much. It’s like you said, she wears the same clothes all the time and they usually look dirty. Her hair is always up in a baseball cap, and when the teacher makes her take it off, her hair is really greasy looking.”
“Have you talked to her? Asked her how she’s doing?”
Natalie looked aghast. “No way!”
“Why?” Blythe wasn’t letting his sister out of the conversation. Everyone else was silent, listening.
“Well…because she’s weird.”
“Is she? How do you know if you haven’t talked to her?”
Natalie looked down at her lap and picked at a string hanging off her shirt. “I don’t want my friends to make fun of me like they do her.”
Blythe nodded, then said, “Most of the time when I was homeless, people would look right through me. They’d pretend they didn’t see me. I smelled, my clothes were dirty, but that never made me less of a person, Nat. I still felt sad, happy, frustrated, or embarrassed. Then one day, a woman looked right at me and smiled. She said good morning. She told me I had beautiful eyes. Then she handed me a bag that had a blueberry muffin in it. I didn’t say much back to her because I was trying to process the fact that this pretty woman, who I had never met, was being nice to me.
“To this day, I’ll never forget how good that first muffin tasted. If I had the same thing today, I’d probably find it wasn’t nearly as good as the cookies your mom made tonight, but at that point in time, when I was hungry, depressed, and trying really hard to remember that I was a good person, it was the best thing I’d ever eaten.”
Squirrel hated this. Hated it. For the millionth time, he mentally beat himself up for not forcing Blythe to accept his help before she’d been hurt.
She obviously felt him tense next to her because she rested her hand on his leg, her fingers on the inside of his thigh, her thumb gently caressing. If he’d been anywhere else, if they were talking about anything else, Squirrel might’ve thought she was coming on to him. But he knew she was simply trying to comfort him. Even as she talked about the most difficult time in her life, she was comforting him.
“I was at rock bottom that day. I felt as if I was an awful human being. I was depressed and at the end of my rope. But all it took was one person looking at me, and not through me, to get me through that day.”
“Did you ever see her again?” Natalie asked.
“Yup. All the time. But I never really talked to her. I didn’t feel like I was good enough to talk to her. So, I hid whenever she came around. But I watched her. She treated my friends Tadd and Louise as if they were her good friends. She took care of them, but never forgot about me. She always brought me a muffin, even though I wouldn’t talk to her and hid in the abandoned building I was living in whenever she came around.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. And you know what else?”
“What?”
“I now live in her old place. She lives next door with her man-friend, and she also let Tadd and Louise live in her house before me. My point is…if Sophie hadn’t reached out to me, to let me know that she saw me—not a dirty, worthless homeless person—I might not be here today.”
“Man-friend?” Emma asked.
Blythe chuckled, and while Squirrel wasn’t quite ready to laugh, not when he’d just learned how close the woman he wanted for his own had been to giving up, his lips did twitch at his sister’s question.
“If you ever met Chief, you’d never think of him as a boy. There’s no way I could ever call him a boyfriend,” Blythe told his sister.
Everyone laughed, except for Natalie.
“Her name is Kodie,” Natalie said quietly.
“Who?” Blythe asked.
“The girl in my class. The one who sits in the back.” Natalie was sitting on the floor at Blythe’s feet, her legs crossed. His sister tilted her head back and looked straight into Blythe’s eyes and said, “I’m going to talk to her tomorrow. It’s not her fault she smells and seems weird. Maybe she’s like you and just needs a friend.”
“And what if your friends don’t like you talking to her? What if they laugh at you? Don’t get her hopes up, Natalie. If you’re nice to her, then back off because you don’t want to make your friends mad, then she’s better off if you leave her alone. You don’t want her to think she’s the butt of your jokes or something. There’s nothing worse than getting someone’s hopes up then cruelly dashing them.”
Natalie nodded seriously. “I’ll explain to my friends. We’ll all talk to Kodie. The only one who might not like it is Aimee, but she’s mean to everyone, so it won’t matter if she doesn’t want to do it. We don’t need her anyway.”
Blythe leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees as she stared at Natalie. Squirrel couldn’t stop his hand from moving to the small of her back as if his life depended on it. Her shirt rode up and his fingers landed on her warm skin. He wanted to caress her there, move his hand up under her shirt and trace her backbone. Wanted to dip his fingers down inside the waistband of her skirt, but he refrained. Barely.
“You’re a good person, Natalie. Kodie is one lucky girl. I hope it works out. Don’t be surprised if she rebuffs you at first. She probably won’t trust that you have good intentions. Keep at her. She probably needs a friend more than you know.”
“I’ll be her friend,” Natalie vowed.
Blythe sat back, and Squirrel shifted his hand to her thigh. He loved when she covered his hand with her own.
“How’d you end up on the streets?” his dad asked softly.
Squirrel stiffened yet again. Blythe had just told him the circumstances that had led to her being homeless; it was way too soon for his family to be asking.
He opened his mouth to tell his dad to back off, but as usual, Blythe got there before he could say anything.
“My mom got sick. Cancer. I took care of her, and eventually lost my job because there were a few too many days she felt so bad, I couldn’t leave her. I sold everything I had of value to pay for her meds.” She shrugged. “After she died, I got kicked out of my apar
tment because I was so far behind in the rent.”
“Common decency is all but gone these days,” his dad muttered.
“Was it hard?” Charlotte blurted.
“Was what hard?” Blythe asked.
“Living on the streets. I mean, you slept at the shelters most nights, right? And they had food?”
“Let me tell you about the shelters,” Blythe said quietly. “If you’re not there right when they open, you won’t get a bed. You have no idea who slept on the cot you’re lying on. Yes, the sheets are washed every day, but the mattresses themselves are old and dirty. You sleep in a room with at least ten other people. They do separate the women from the men, which is good, but that doesn’t mean that desperate women won’t steal from you. They do. Before I learned to use my backpack as a pillow, I had my stuff rifled through, and clothes and socks stolen from me as I slept.
“You never sleep real deeply, either, because you’re always on alert. It’s often unbearably hot in the shelters. Air conditioning costs money—money the shelters almost never have. And the food…it’s barely edible most days. Don’t get me wrong, I was grateful for it because if I didn’t eat there, most of the time I didn’t eat at all, but the hot food is usually cold, and the cold food is usually hot. The volunteers aren’t cooks, and they don’t really know how to make such large quantities of food taste good.
“The shelters are depressing places, Charlotte. They do a lot of good, but there’s not enough help, not enough people who really care about the homeless to operate them. Many people are there for their own agendas…for community service for some crime they did, or because they need volunteer hours for their job or school. Not to mention, a lot of homeless men and women are mentally unstable. They aren’t taking the medicines they need in order to be functional or they’re on hard drugs.”
“Were you scared?” Emma asked.
