by Faye, Amy
The woman looked up at him like he'd just asked if she wanted to be taken on an alien ship. Then her confusion straightened out into understanding and she lowered her eyes to the ground and shook her head. "I'll be fine," she said. Just like that.
He started the countdown again. He'd seen that look on plenty of faces. Faces of people who were in bad situations and wanted out.
"You know what? I never introduced myself. I'm Dan Bryant. Nice to meet you."
The woman set one of the screaming babies onto the ground and shook his hand. He reached into his pocket with his other hand and slipped a business card into her outstretched hand as she pulled away.
"That's my personal number. You have any trouble with anything, anything at all, and you call me. Yeah?" She nodded vaguely. "Come on. I'll walk you out."
She seemed surprised at the suggestion. He left the jacket there. Hopefully Jane would get the idea if he was gone when she needed him that he'd be back for it. Then again, it wouldn't be the first time that he'd gotten caught up in something. It probably wouldn't be the last. Hence the anger management training.
The little guy apparently decided that he wanted to keep his teeth, which suited Dan just fine. He walked a step behind the woman, watching the babies sway as she did. They started to calm down, thankfully. He didn't know how else she was going to calm them down.
"You going straight out to your car?"
"I need to stop on the way out. I guess since Cole woke them up, they're probably hungry. You know a place where I can duck off to the side? You seem comfortable around here."
The thought of her feeding her babies made his eyes naturally draw to her breasts for an instant, before he knew better. The same as men, just with a softer chest, he thought. Yeah, right. His cheeks got hot for a second and he scolded himself for the whole thing. Then he drew a map of the courthouse in his head and thought for a second. "There's a bathroom right over here," he said, and turned.
A few feet later he pressed one big hand into the ladies' room door and she ducked under his arm. "Thanks again," she said. "You really didn't have to worry, though."
"Any problem at all," he repeated. "You have any problem at all, and you call me, okay? Any time, don't worry. I don't sleep much."
"Thanks," she said for a third time. Then she ducked behind the wall and around the corner and took her babies and her perfect breasts out of sight.
He moved his hand from the door and let out a long breath, counted down from ten, and flexed his hands. It made him feel a little better. A little less like flexing them around that asshole's throat.
He came back to find Jane waiting. She was a moderately attractive woman, as ladies go. Granted that, again, she was no different from a man, except in her bits. He wasn't interested in her bits, though, no matter how attractive she was. She was his partner first and foremost, and she was the brains of the operation. There was no use in screwing that up, in spite of everything.
"I already spoke to them, and they're definitely interested."
"Good, then all we have to do is just seal things up."
She jerked like she'd been pinched, and then reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone. "Oh, that's Tom. I'd better take this."
He smiled at her a moment, leaned down to pick up his jacket, and stepped through the closed door. A handful of men and women, no difference between them but the color of their skin and the places on their bodies where they jiggled, and how he'd react if some asshole put his hands on them, stood to greet him.
"Mr. Bryant," one of them said. "It's so nice to finally meet you."
He smoothed his tie against his chest and smiled back, let out one big paw for a handshake. "Nice to meet you too, Mrs. President." Nice and easy.
All he had to do now was not screw everything up.
3
The guy wasn't exactly creepy, per se. Sarah even appreciated having someone try to step in, at least, even if it was a bad idea from beginning to end. She wasn't sure how or when, but she knew Cole well enough to know that if he backed down on something, it was only temporary.
But at the same time, she wasn't particularly interested in following up on his offer. Some guy, some stranger, comes up and gives her a business card, she assumes that he's selling something. Regardless of how much he couches it in language of how much he wants to help out.
Which was why she didn't think of it when she was sitting on the side of the road, the heat beating down on her through the car windshield. She ran through the checklist in her head. She wasn't out of gas, right? She turned the keys again in a vain hope that it was just a stall, and this time, it would work fine.
There was no smoke. So that was out. The car just... stopped working. Sarah's jaw worked itself loose, and then tightened itself again when she stopped forcing herself to relax. Then she squeezed the wheel as hard as her fingers would squeeze, and then loosened them again. Allison had woken up, but at least the twins were in the shade.
Who do you even call in situations like this? A towing company? She nodded. That sounded about right. A towing company would come, they would charge an arm and a leg, but she could just skip a few meals and pay that off, no problem.
Sarah reached into her pocket and pulled the phone free. It came with a piece of heavy card-paper stuck to the screen, stuck there by sweat. It would have been fine if they were still moving, but there was no A/C in here and the windows down didn't help near enough.
She peeled the card off and looked at it, more out of interest in what sort of disgusting crap had worked itself onto the phone screen than out of interest.
Dan Bryant, it said. Real Estate Developer. He'd told her to call him if she had any trouble. There was more trouble than she knew what to do with, but at the very least, maybe she could get a ride or something. Not having to pay a towing company with heavy time constraints would be nice. And then she'd just have to have it towed a second time to get it to the shop.
She considered the idea for a minute. Nobody else was going to help her, that much was certain. She didn't really expect anything, but if there was one thing that she'd learned in life, it was that things could always get a hell of a lot worse. She might as well give it a shot.
She entered the number in the bottom-left slowly. It had only been a few short hours, and she was already calling in that favor? A favor she hadn't earned? What a great day.
He answered on the third ring and remained silent. After a long moment Sarah decided she ought to speak first.
"Uh, Mr. Bryant?"
"Speaking," he said. "Who's this?"
"I'm, uh, Sarah Jones. We met earlier today at the courthouse? You said to call if I needed anything?"
"Yeah, okay. I remember. Is everything alright?"
"Uh, I'm afraid it isn't," she said. She was afraid of it. She wished it weren't the case. But that wasn't exactly an option for her. So she held herself very still and tried to hope that it wasn't going to be the case for very long, or that he told her there was nothing he could do.
"Okay," he said, though he meant 'continue.'
"I, uh..." she took a breath and looked back at the girls. "My car just died on the side of the road and I'm kind of stranded. Do you think..."
"Where are you?"
She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. Her head hurt, and it hurt badly. But it would all go away just as soon as the biggest part of her stress went away.
"I'm off I-75, but if it's out of your way, then..."
"Your children are with you, I assume?"
She hesitated a moment, before she nodded. Then realized that she was on the phone. "Ah-yeah. Yes, they're here."
"And you're just on the side of the road?"
"I am."
"Do you know what mile marker you're near? I'm getting in the car now."
She looked down the road. There was a mile marker a little ways down, but it was hard to read from here. She squinted hard. "Thirty four."
"Northbound?"
"South."
"Okay, got it. I'll be there in..." he seemed to be tabulating the distance in his head. She heard a car door close on the other end of the line. "Ten minutes."
"Thanks," she said. "I really appreciate it."
She did, too. Sarah leaned her head back and took a deep breath. Allison fussed softly, and Sarah reached back as far as she could to touch her. She hoped it was soothing, because it was the best that she could do.
"It's all going to be fine, little girl. Mommy's just waiting for someone to come and get us out of this heat. Everything's going to be just fine, okay?"
A gust of wind blew hard and filled the air for a moment with cold air that felt good against Sarah's forehead. The heat wasn't good for children, she knew. But it wasn't like she'd asked to have this happen to her. She was doing the best she could with what she had; it was just that what she had was piss poor.
"Can you be a good girl for mommy?" She asked, as if Allison could hear. She gurgled softly in answer, which was the best Sarah could hope for. She undid her seat belt and turned around in her seat, which let her reach a little further, but the rear-facing car seats made getting a look at the girls more difficult than it was worth. But she could at least reach in enough to tickle the little thing.
Allison giggled and squirmed to push the hand away, and that got Chelsea going. So Sarah reached her other arm, as well, until both of the little girls were shrieking delightedly, the heat forgotten at least temporarily.
She didn't even notice when the black car stopped in front of her. But she noticed when the knock came at the passenger-side window. She let out a yelp and jerked back straight in her seat and stared out the window. A man in a business suit, light-colored for summer, stood outside the window.
He was big, big enough that she couldn't see much of him above the belly button through the window. She reached across and turned the passenger-side window until it was down, like all the others. Then Dan Bryant leaned down to look through at her.
"Hey, sorry, I would've been here a little sooner, but..." he raised his eyebrows in an 'oh well' gesture. "How do you want to do this?"
"Uh, I guess I'll climb out that side and then we can get the girls out," she said. She hadn't really known if he would show up, even after he said that he would. It wouldn't be the first time a man had been a flake. It gave her a fluttering feeling in her stomach just to imagine that someone might be reliable in her life.
"Sounds good to me. I'll get started behind, but you're probably going to have to show me how to get this free."
"Of course," Sarah said. She lifted her leg over the center divider and hoped that she wasn't giving too much of a show. She was wearing shorts, but when you were practically doing the splits, it was easy to show way, way too much.
Then she reached across, pulled the keys out of the ignition, and pushed the door open. Dan was leaning in over Chelsea and seemed to be having an impossible time with the belts that had been laced through the car seat. It had taken her a few tries, herself, but that was weeks ago.
Allison and Chelsea were only twelve weeks, now, but it seemed like she'd been doing this forever. She could only imagine when they were a few years old. Then again, she could only imagine a lot of things about motherhood. After all, she'd never had a mom, and she'd only had a dad a little while. Then it was an aunt and an uncle, and they hadn't been a great pair of role models.
She put a hand on his side, and he pulled back with a sheepish smile.
"I'll get it," she told him, and he nodded.
"Yeah, I think you're probably going to be a little better at this than I am. Sorry."
She shrugged and leaned in and undid the belt, then handed the carrier over. "I'll be right behind you," she said. "So just go on ahead."
4
Dan held the baby carrier and looked down at it. He wasn't sure whether it was a 'he' or 'she,' and at that age, it was pretty much impossible. The carrier had green fabric, and the other one was blue. Was it a gender thing, or just a convenient choice? And what the heck gender was green supposed to mean if it were gendered?
He waited and true to her word, a second later Sarah slipped out the back with the second carrier. She was young, he thought. Not too young to have kids, per se, but too young to think of her as a 'mom.' Probably not twenty-five yet.
"What now," he asked. The rear door was open and waiting for her to figure out the logistics of everything.
"Hey, thank you for this."
"You can thank me in the air-conditioning," he said, smiling. She wasn't just too young to be 'mom' material. She was too attractive. Hot mom. He allowed himself a momentary thought about how much of a crying shame it was that she was with that asshole he'd about clocked earlier.
Then she crawled that comfortable-looking ass in the back seat and he heard the pulling of the seat-belt, and then a moment later, some clacking. That ought to have been the end of it, he thought. But her legs didn't suddenly reappear, and after a second he looked in.
Sarah's butt wiggled pleasantly, and she let out a little grunt that could only have been described as 'interesting.' Then she did it again. There was more about it that he liked than he was necessarily ready to admit. He didn't understand the thought that passed through his mind, the thought that she seemed like a good mother. He didn't understand it because it had nothing at all to do with him. But he filed it away, nonetheless.
Only then did she start wriggling back out of his seat. He watched that with some interest, as well. She was a good-looking woman, that much was clear. It wasn't hard to imagine how she'd gotten those twins. It was harder to imagine how anyone could have necessitated going to court with them, or what that idiot had done to piss her off.
Hell, if those were his little ones, and he'd made them with that woman, he'd probably do just about anything to keep her satisfied. But they weren't. He hadn't. She was just some attractive woman he'd run into. He reminded himself of that consciously, because it seemed like his unconscious mind wasn't particularly interested in it.
"Here you go," he said, as he offered the second carrier over to her. She installed that one more or less the same way, except that there was less leaning, and therefor more chance to see her swaying as she worked the seat belt into the slot and started ratcheting down on the belt until it was as tight as it would go.
"You next," he said, opening the passenger-side front and moving around the car.
He couldn't bring himself to avoid looking over for a second as he strapped himself in. The AC came on full blast the instant that he turned the key, the car coming silently to life. He wondered dimly if she'd ever been inside a Bentley before. Most people hadn't, but then again, she'd been with that rich boy, so maybe she had.
"Where to?"
"You can just take us home," she said. "Just turn around."
"Where were you headed originally?"
"Uh, to see my parents."
"You sure you don't want to? I'm sure she could give you a ride home."
"She's in Monroe."
"I've got time."
"At Woodland Cemetery."
"Oh." Dan went quiet. "I guess she can't give you a ride, then."
He waited for a gap in the cars, his signal letting out a gentle 'tick' as the light turned itself off and on. Then he eased into traffic and let out a breath. The mood just wasn't there any more, that was for sure.
"What, where are you..." Sarah's head swiveled in his peripheral vision as he passed the next exit.
"Monroe," he answered. "I'm not about to get in the way of someone going to pay their respects, am I?" She went quiet at that. "So what's the situation with the car? Do you have a tow coming, or..."
Sarah was quiet for a long time. Long enough that he decided she wasn't going to answer him.
"What happened? Everything alright? Do you know what the problem is?"
"The problem is that it's an eighty-five. It's older than I am. Anything else is just getting technical," she said. Dismissive.
"Smo
ke?"
"No smoke."
"Okay. And what happened? The car just died?"
"Yeah," she confirmed. "Just up and quit on me at eighty miles an hour."
"Oof."
"Yeah."
He chanced a look over. They had a little while to go before they were going to reach Monroe.
"So you want to tell me what happened between you and the guy, or is that being too forward?"
"It's all ancient history," she said. "Stuff that happened forever ago."
"So he's not the father?"
"He's the father."
"Oh," Dan said, like it made sense. It didn't. The kids couldn't have been more than a few months. Not even toddlers, really. So nothing was 'ancient history' where they were concerned, as far as he could tell.
"So are you two..."
"No, we're not. Ancient history, like I said." There was an edge of anger in her voice. He wrote it off as her being angry about whatever had happened.
"So what are their names, if you don't mind my asking? We've got a little bit of a drive ahead of us, so I figured..."
"Allison and Chelsea. You were carrying Chelsea."
"Oh yeah? Girls, huh?"
"Two little darlings. Just give them a few years, and then they become really darling."
The tone in her voice said that in a few years, whatever happened it wasn't going to be 'darling' at all. But he took it with good humor, which he assumed was how he was supposed to take it.
"So what is it that you do, Sarah Jones?"
"I'm a teacher. Instructor. I don't know any more. I teach knitting."
"Oh yeah?"
"It pays the bills, I guess."
"Good money?"
"Not really," she said. "And it doesn't really pay the bills, either. But hey, as long as I keep my expenses low..." She trailed off and then only after she'd been silent for a few seconds did she seem to realize that she'd been complaining. "Not that any of that is important."
Dan let out a breath. "I get you, though. Not a good time."
"I mean, it wasn't like it was a big deal, nine months ago. I was living with Cole, you met him, and things were pretty good. The teaching was just a side thing. Gave me a little spending money on the side."
