Espresso in the Morning

by Dorie Graham

  “I keep doing that,” she said.

  “You didn’t see me stopping you.”

  He resisted the urge to pull her back into another kiss. He had to be sure of what he was doing with Claire and if he was honest, he wasn’t clear on anything where she was concerned.

  “So, you’ll call me after you talk to the BBBS?” he asked.

  She nodded. “If you’re sure you’re not busy.”

  “My schedule is flexible. Just let me know and I’ll come get you, or you can stop by the shop and we can go from there. Or I can meet you there. Whatever makes you the most comfortable.”

  Cool air floated over him as she opened the door. “We can go together.”

  He nodded, placed one last chaste kiss on her mouth, then stepped into the night. He shivered with an unexpected chill as he headed to his car. Helping Claire get Grey a Big Brother was the right thing to do. That she was willing to ride together showed she was growing more comfortable with him.

  The memory of the feel of her mouth on his and her body pressed to his stayed with him as he headed home. One step at a time.

  * * *

  SATISFACTION FILLED CLAIRE as she pulled out of the parking lot of the BBBS office and glanced at Lucas. “I did it. At least my interview part. I still need to bring Grey in for his interview. But it sounds like they have some good candidates to match him with.”

  “He should have someone active,” Lucas said. “Someone able to keep pace with him.”

  “And they have one who’s a history buff. He’ll score big-time with Grey on that. Thank you so much for going with me. I wouldn’t have been able to get through it without you.”

  “I didn’t do anything but sit there like a lump.”

  “You helped me to keep it together. Remember, I tried on my own and it didn’t work so well.”

  “I was happy to come along for the ride,” he said. “So are you coming back to The Stop with me, or do you have a class?”

  “I don’t have classes on Mondays.” She glanced at the clock on her dash. “I’ll come in and work for a bit. I have a little time before Grey gets home. This used to be a soccer day.”

  “You decided to work from home, then, so you could be there with him?”

  Her earlier satisfaction drained away as the dread crept in. “We’re going to give it a try. This afternoon will be telling.”

  He cocked his head and said, “Most people would like working from home, but you don’t sound all that excited.”

  She shrugged. “You know how it is with kids around. I’ll be lucky to get anything done.”

  “Really? Grey seems like a great kid. I would think he’d not bother you and do his homework without much fuss.”

  “He’s wonderful and homework is never an issue.”

  “But being home is an issue.”

  His quiet statement had her swallowing. “Is it obvious?”

  “You were relaxed at the park, but you seemed a little tense once we got back to your house.”

  She had enjoyed the park. Claire kept her gaze on the road and ignored the throbbing at the base of her skull. “Sometimes being home is difficult, but it’ll be fine.”

  The satellite radio broadcast a cover of an early metal song. She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel and focused on the road, thankful when Lucas let the subject go.

  “So, what home fix-it projects are you working on?” she asked. “You mentioned you had to do some painting.”

  “I’m fixing a hole in my stockroom wall and then putting up some shelves. I was helping my mother with some painting, but that’s done.”

  “That’s nice of you. Does she live nearby?”

  Lucas nodded. “She’s got a little place not too far from mine in Sandy Springs. She’s great. It was always just the two of us. Like you and Grey. We’re pretty close.”

  “That’s nice,” she repeated.

  “So, where does your mother live?” he asked. “Is she nearby?”

  “Ah, yes, unfortunately.” She shook her head, her cheeks warming. “No, I don’t mean that. That sounded horrible. She’s great with Grey and he always has a wonderful time with her. She spoils him shamelessly.”

  “That’s what grandmothers are for, right?”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “I’m guessing you and your mother don’t get along as well as you’d like, though,” he said.

  “No, not at all. She makes me crazy. And I seem to do the same to her.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  She made a swiping motion with her hand. “It’s all good. Maybe we’ll work it out one of these days.”

  She merged onto the interstate. This topic wasn’t much better than the last. She needed to turn the conversation to something that didn’t involve her and her issues.

  “So, the marines, what was that like? Why didn’t you reenlist?”

  He hesitated before answering. “It was great...at first. Definitely what I needed at the time. I learned so much—acquired skills, grew up fast. I got my certification as an EMT, like I told you, and I trained as a medevac pilot.” He paused as a horn sounded in the distance.

  “The military was good for me...don’t get me wrong,” he said. “I needed the discipline. My mother was wonderful. She did the best she could, but I made some bad choices when I was younger. I got into trouble. Being in the marines straightened me out in a way nothing else could have.”

  Lucas gazed out the front window. A chill passed through Claire. She had so many questions about him. It seemed the more she learned, the more she wanted to know.

  “What...what kind of trouble did you get into when you were younger?”

  He took so long to respond she was afraid she’d pushed too far. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”

  He touched her shoulder and surprisingly, she didn’t flinch. The feel of him was comforting, rather than threatening. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s just not a part of my life I’m particularly proud of.”

  “You don’t have to tell me, Lucas.”

  “Things were always tough for us. My mother did the best she could, but it was hard to make ends meet. Some months we didn’t have electricity. I got a job bagging groceries when I was fifteen, but then she lost her job. She’d been working in a diner. And...well, we started to get hungry.

  “I got mixed up with the wrong crowd, a bunch of gangbangers. They were into a lot of questionable, but...profitable activities.” He shook his head. “At first I thought it was worth it. The money sure beat what I made bagging groceries. I was able to put food on the table and help keep the lights on, but I’m not proud of what I did.”

  He stopped again, his gaze shifting once more to the road as she exited the interstate. He exhaled as if the weight of the world bore down on him. “I ran deliveries,” he said. “I didn’t always know exactly what I was carrying, but I knew it was drugs or stolen goods—even weapons. I thought, if not me some other kid would do it and I wasn’t doing drugs or stealing anything. How bad could it be?

  “I only meant it to be for just a little while. Just long enough for my mother to get back on her feet. But the weeks stretched into months and then a year or more had gone by. We got into it with another gang. Things went bad in a hurry. I was running a delivery in a respectable neighborhood. It was way out in the suburbs, though, on the west side. I didn’t have my license or a car, so a friend of mine drove. We got to the place and it was deserted and quiet—too quiet.”

  The tension in her skull increased as her pulse thudded. Claire gripped the steering wheel as the dreaded tingling started in her fingers. “What happened?”

  She felt Lucas glance at her from the other side of the car. “We got jumped,” he said. “It was bad. I’d been in fights before—we had regular beat-downs—but nothing like this.”

  They passed through a yellow light, and then turned down a side street. “I was lucky. I walked away, crawled, really, but no permanent damage. The guy with me, my driver, he wa
sn’t so fortunate.”

  She swallowed her apprehension. “What happened to him?” she asked.

  “He didn’t walk for months.” He shook his head. “And he never seemed quite the same after that. That’s on me.”

  “But you can’t feel responsible for him. He chose to be there. He must have known what he was getting into.”

  She risked taking her eyes off the road and his gaze met hers. “He was my friend—my best friend. I talked him into running with me because I needed him to drive. He only went because he was trying to keep me out of trouble.”

  Claire’s stomach clenched. She shivered, but remained silent. She hadn’t been in Lucas’s shoes.

  “I’m sorry about your friend,” she said.

  “Toby was tough as nails. We got out of the gang after that. Before all that trouble I never would have thought anything could get him down. We joined the marines together. He saw things...did things...and he couldn’t get over it. I didn’t know then how much he really wasn’t handling it....”

  She turned a corner and The Coffee Stop came into view. Claire bit her lip. She should probably ask, but did she want to know what had happened to Lucas’s friend?

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to be such a downer.”

  “It’s okay,” she said as she pulled into the parking lot. “I know how it is once you start to unload. I’ve told you plenty. I appreciate that you feel you can confide in me.”

  She pulled the key from the ignition and flexed her fingers. Thankfully, the tingling had subsided. “Will you let me buy you dinner or something to repay you for going with me today? Or maybe I can help you with your shelving or painting. Not that I’m good at that kind of thing, but I’ll be your gofer, if you’d like.”

  “Claire, you don’t owe me anything. You listened just now. I’d say we’re even.”

  “Oh, no, you’ve already put up with some of my craziness. You said whatever made me happy and I’d be happy to either help you or feed you. Your pick.”

  He smiled as they exited her car. “I don’t want to make you cook and I’d rather take you to dinner.”

  Lucas wanted to take her to dinner. That and the thought of doing chores with him lightened her mood. A breeze swept over her and she inhaled the fresh air. The pounding in her head also seemed to ease.

  “So I’m your gofer,” she said. “When are we putting up shelves?”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CLAIRE GRITTED HER teeth later that afternoon and straightened as she heard a tap on the kitchen window. She was strung as tight as a bow. Hadn’t it been enough that they’d had a proper dinner with Lucas on Saturday? How had she let Grey talk her into that? She moved to the window to make sure it was still the same branch that had made the sound earlier. Maybe she could get Lucas to trim that tree the next time he came by. The branch hit the glass every time the slightest breeze caught it.

  Satisfied the culprit was indeed the old maple, she again took her seat at the table across from Grey. A car rolled along the street outside. She remained alert until it passed, then tried to focus again on the contract she was reviewing. The house was too quiet.

  She’d turned off her music earlier so Grey could concentrate on his homework. She was afraid to use her earphones, since even that seemed to bother him. He hadn’t complained, but she was keenly aware of his every squirm, cough or glance and he hadn’t been able to focus. The kid had supersonic hearing. Surely, she could stand the quiet for the amount of time he needed to do his homework.

  Grey glanced up from his spot across the table. He’d been so excited to have her there when the bus dropped him off, she hadn’t had the heart to work in her home office. Besides, if she weren’t right there with him she’d be obsessively checking to make sure he was okay.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Why aren’t you working?”

  “I’m working.”

  “No, you’re not,” he said, frowning. “You didn’t have to turn off your music. It doesn’t bother me.”

  “You weren’t concentrating when I had it on,” she said.

  He drummed his pencil on the table. “Please, Mom, try again. I promise it won’t bother me.” He jumped up and headed for the television set in the adjoining living room. “I’ll put the TV back on, too.”

  “Honey, it’s okay.”

  But he’d already turned on the TV. She sighed and put her earphones back in and cranked the heavy metal. She finished reviewing the contract, then opened the proposal for one of her newest clients. The movement of a drumming pencil caught her attention again.

  Grey sat with his head in his hand, feet swinging, pencil keeping a constant beat on the table, his homework forgotten in front of him. She pulled out her earphones. “Do you need help, little man? What are you working on?”

  “Vocabulary. I just have to write sentences with these,” he said and showed her a list of about twenty words. “I can do it.”

  “How much have you gotten done so far?”

  He turned his notebook toward her. She scanned down the page. It held two completed sentences and the start of a third sentence, smudged with eraser marks.

  “I think maybe we should try again without the television,” she said. When he opened his mouth to protest she held up her hand and moved toward the other room to turn off the TV. “I’ll keep my earphones in this time.”

  He nodded, responding only by putting pencil to paper and scratching out the rest of the sentence. Claire smiled as her phone buzzed, announcing a text. Her pulse quickened as she checked the display. It was from Lucas.

  how’s working from home?

  She glanced at Grey, who’d stopped writing to watch her. She motioned for him to continue, then sent Lucas a return text. idk. working on it.

  good luck. if u need to u can come back here.

  She frowned. After this past weekend and this morning, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to ever work around Lucas again. She’d spent her time after the BBBS meeting alternating between thinking about his gang past and remembering kissing him.

  And she couldn’t let go of the picture of him with that knife in his hand. Even now the image washed over her, triggering the squeezing again at the base of her skull and the tingling in her fingers. She struggled more and more these days to maintain a state of normalcy around him.

  will give it more time. not ready to give up yet, but thanks for the offer.

  She set down her phone as Coldplay came on her internet radio. She smiled again. When had Coldplay snuck into her library? Perhaps hanging out at Lucas’s coffee shop had mellowed her.

  Grey remained hunkered down over his vocabulary, though a quick glance at his paper revealed more eraser marks than sentences. The tree branch tapped again at the window and she stiffened, but ignored it as she pulled out a red pen to mark the drafted contract.

  Fifteen minutes later, the drumming again drew her attention to Grey. She placed her hand on his to still his pencil.

  “Little man, how are those sentences coming?” she asked.

  He frowned and covered his paper with his arm. “They’re coming.”

  She nodded as she turned off her earphones. “Okay.”

  The quiet of the house settled around them as Grey bent his head over the sheet of paper, his pencil now working across the page. Claire swallowed and turned back to the contract. The branch tapped the windowpane. The overhead light buzzed quietly.

  She squeezed her eyes shut. Outside, the wind blew and the house groaned as it settled on its foundation. The buzzing of the light magnified as her breath became shallow and she broke out in a sweat. When the tingling in her fingers started, she pushed back from the table.

  Grey paused in his writing, glancing up at her, his eyebrows arched. “Are you okay, Mom?”

  She nodded as the floor seemed to tilt beneath her. “I think we should try this at the coffee shop. What do you think? Lucas is still there.”

  “Sure, if that’s what you want. It would be cool,” Grey
said, though disappointment weighed his words. “Is it because I didn’t get more sentences done?” He showed her his paper. “I did more. See?”

  She nodded. “Good job, honey.” She flexed her fingers to try to stop the tingling. Thankfully, the floor seemed to have leveled below her feet. Still, she wasn’t taking any chances. Grey had yet to witness her in a full-blown panic attack and today would not be the first time.

  Not if she could help it.

  The buzzing of the light continued and it was all she could do not to turn it off. They had to leave.

  “I’m going to get my purse. Pack up your stuff and we’ll head to Lucas’s shop,” she said.

  Grey nodded without responding and Claire escaped to her bathroom where she splashed water on her face before grabbing her purse. When she stepped back into the kitchen, Grey had not only packed his school bag, but he’d also loaded up her computer bag with the papers she’d been working on.

  “Thanks,” she said as she slipped the bag over her shoulder.

  Heavy metal blared from the car radio during the ride to Lucas’s shop. Grey stared out the window without speaking, his arms crossed. Claire inhaled slowly, again flexing her fingers to make sure the tingling had stopped.

  Why had she thought she could do it? She shouldn’t have gotten Grey’s hopes up.

  But the day hadn’t been a complete loss. She’d had some success in her mission to find him a Big, as they called them at the BBBS. “I have some good news.”

  “What?” Grey asked, slumped in the passenger seat.

  “I went to the Big Brothers and Big Sisters organization today. If you think you’d like it, I’ve started the process of finding you a Big Brother.”

  “What is that?”

  “It’s someone who can hang out with you.”

  “You mean, like a stranger?”

  “Well, he’ll been screened by them and I’d meet him with you and we’d make sure we were both comfortable with him before we planned anything.” She glanced at her son as he sat frowning beside her. Maybe she should have discussed this with him first, prepared him better.