by Malcom, Anne
Given my history, that should’ve given me pause.
Like a lot of it.
It certainly shouldn’t have had a warmth settling in the bottom of my stomach and a straight-up heat even lower.
“You’re at a frickin’ elementary school, Elena,” I hissed under my breath as I put the car into park.
I left the keys in my car and got out.
“Mom!” Nathan screamed, running to me and jumping into my arms. I caught him, exhaling properly for the first time today. Nathan hadn’t reacted like this to me picking him up in months, not since he’d gotten adjusted to school. Since then, he’d been more likely to be sprinting away from me with a grin on his face, excited to see his teachers, his friends and to learn—the little nerd.
My little boy was strong, but he was not completely unaffected by what happened. That simple fact speared agony through all of my nerve endings and fury into my blood. I hadn’t even felt such an anger when Robert used me as his punching bag. But even a scratch on Nathan, emotional or physical, was enough to strip me down to my baser instincts. I squeezed him extra hard before letting him go.
“Captain came to meet me outside of class,” he said, grinning while I smoothed his hair. It was a constant battle, thick and shiny like mine and always messy. It would have been easier to shave it close-cropped to his head, but I didn’t have the heart.
“I see that, bud,” I said, doing my level best not to glance upward at the man whose shadow blocked out the frickin’ sun.
“Are we going back to your work?” Nathan asked.
I straightened. “Yeah, but Momma isn’t working. Pop and Esther just want to see you and Bobby has some leftover pie that was gonna go in the garbage...”
Nathan’s eyes widened in panic. “We need to get there before the pie gets throwed out,” he said.
I grinned. “Thrown out, sweetheart and don’t worry, Bobby would never do that to you.” I ruffled his hair. “Get in your seat and I’ll buckle you up in a sec.”
Nathan paused, looked up to Lance. “Do superheroes eat pie, Captain?” he asked. “Because I will share mine with you. It’s even better than donuts today.”
My heart clenched at my kid willing to share his pie. He barely even did that with me. My child liked his baked goods, especially since they were a big treat. This was kind of pivotal.
Lance glanced to me then back at Nathan. “I don’t say no to pie.”
Nathan’s eyes lit up.
“Go get into the car, kid,” I instructed. “I just need chat to Lance for a second.”
Nathan didn’t need to be told twice.
I braved his gaze. “I hope you don’t mind. My bosses, and my friend Bobby kind of want to meet you.” I paused. “Well, they don’t want to meet you, they’ve demanded to meet you. I couldn’t exactly hide this from them.” I pointed to my sunglass clad face that did the job from hiding the bruise from the moms and teachers. “And then they all ganged up on me and the whole story came out,” I explained. “They’ll just turn up at the house if we don’t go there now. And they want to see Nathan with their own eyes. They’re worried. That’s why they want to meet you. I know that it’s not in the job description but there will be pie, and it’s good pie.” I smiled at him.
He did not smile back.
“I’ll come,” he replied.
I waited for more.
That was it.
“Okey dokey,” I replied, grinning wider.
Did I just say okey dokey?
This was trouble.
* * *
Both Karen and Eliza were waiting on their porch when I pulled up. Lance was meeting up with Luke, who was apparently installing our security system. I couldn’t argue with him about this because he’d turned and walked away as soon as he’d informed me of this.
This was after meeting everyone at the diner, being taken into the kitchen by Logan and Bobby for what I assumed was ‘man talk’. Everyone came out with all their digits, so I assumed it went okay.
Everyone seemed satisfied, most especially Nathan, since he was spoiled by the entire diner. Not just pie, but his favorite meatloaf and mac and cheese being brought home for dinner. Bobby ‘accidentally’ made it when it wasn’t on the specials menu until Monday.
I didn’t argue because I knew they wanted to do what they could to help.
I mentally told myself to have them all over for dinner when I could afford it. Esther had forced me to have the afternoon off, paid, to be with Nathan. I weakly argued, but she steamrolled me because I was dead on my feet and dying to hang out with my kid.
I did reevaluate that when Karen crossed her lawn and had my car door open before I’d even properly parked in the driveway. The fury, panic, and sadness in her eyes told me that Bobby had called her. Or Logan. They hung out at the diner a lot and we had Christmas, Thanksgiving, and birthdays together.
Somehow, I’d managed to create some kind of patchwork family for myself and my son, when I’d come here with an almost empty bank account and wounds that will never quite heal right.
“Aunty Karen!” Nathan yelled, oblivious to the look I was being treated to and the tension in the air. “We have meatloaf, pie, mac and cheese! And donuts in the kitchen. Wanna have dinner?”
Karen’s eyes immediately softened. “Sure, monkey. As soon as I crucify your mother.” She looked over her shoulder at the woman rounding the car. “Aunty Eliza is gonna take you inside, ‘kay?”
Eliza opened Nathan’s door, eyes kind on mine and unbuckled Nathan, yanking him into her chest in a hug that wasn’t just because she hadn’t seen him in a day. She squeezed him too hard for that. Held him for too long. And her eyes were glassy and kind when they settled on mine.
So they both knew.
Crap.
“Karen—”
“Nope,” she cut me off. She stepped back, considering I couldn’t get myself out of the car without her moving. She was built, as Logan would say, like a brick shithouse. She had broad shoulders, wide hips and was almost as tall as all the Greenstone Security men. She had her hair piled on top of her head, she changed the color monthly, it was red today.
She was wearing a ripped tee and cutoff shorts. Tattoos covered her arms and legs. I guessed she looked intimidating to some people, especially glaring at me like she was right now, but she was one of the most generous and kind-hearted people I’d ever met in my life.
Though she didn’t look to be feeling kind right now.
I didn’t really blame her. Eliza and Karen pretty much helped raised Nathan over the past three years, ever since Eliza had come to the door with cookies and seen him clinging to my leg, my house in shambles, something burning in the kitchen and my hair unwashed for who knew how long. She’d immediately thrust the cookies at me, yanked Nathan into her arms and barged into my house, demanding I take a shower while she took care of the kid and cleaned the house.
I had done so, mostly because of sheer surprise, lack of sleep, and desperation for a break. And because I saw her aura, felt it. I was comfortable around her from the start. The same with Karen. They were my sisters, my mothers, my aunts, my best friends.
And they had to hear, second-hand, what happened to Nathan.
I got out of the car, bracing for Karen’s wrath.
The past three years had been filled with mostly kindness, laughter, food, wine and happiness. But now and again, mostly when I hid how bad things had gotten a while back and didn’t accept help from her, Karen showed me she was a woman you did not want to fuck with.
She was very slow to anger, but when it came, hurricane sirens needed to be sounded.
I braced for it.
But she yanked me into her arms instead.
I sank into her embrace, though it threatened to break some of my ribs.
When she let me go, she was still scowling and her eyes shimmered with tears I’d never seen her let fall. “I can’t believe that you went through all of that and I was stressing over fucking website coding and Instag
ram algorithms,” she hissed.
I blinked away tears of my own, knowing full well I wouldn’t be able to stop them if I started. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
Her eyes only narrowed more. “Why are you sorry? This is my fault, I should’ve been a better friend. Should’ve checked on you. Should’ve…”
“Been clairvoyant and known that my estranged husband who we haven’t seen in three years would come here, punch me in the face and then kidnap Nathan the next day?” I finished for her, my voice dry. I reached out to squeeze her hand. “You are one of the best friends I’ve ever had. I’ve never had anyone like you and Eliza. You’re my family. And I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you earlier, that you had to find out from Bobby. I just...” I trailed off. How could I tell her that I was ashamed? Ashamed that I let myself get in this position in the first place. Ashamed that I couldn’t protect my child. And terrified that if I called her and Eliza, if I called anyone who loved Nathan, that it would make it all real, permanent.
“I know, kid,” she said, hearing what I was saying without me having to speak. Her anger fizzled out of her, with only compassion left.
It was then Eliza walked up to us. She was night to Karen’s day. Tiny, shorter than even me, pure white-blonde hair, and always in a fifties-style dress. One of her arms was a full sleeve, in pastels and a true work of art. She was delicate, beautiful, soft-spoken but could totally be scary when she needed to be.
Karen let go of my hand so Eliza could hug me. I inhaled her sweet perfume. My body was starting to relax from this morning when I felt like all my muscles were going to snap from tension. It was really true that important people helped shoulder heavy weights.
I just needed to stop being so resistant to it.
“Nathan seems great,” she said when she released me, her eyes pausing over my face, her pink painted lips thinning.
I nodded. “He is taking this better than anyone,” I replied honestly. Definitely better than I was.
“’Course he is,” Karen contributed, grinning, though it didn’t reach her eyes. “He’s a badass.”
I smiled back, thinking about what Rosie said about him. Neither of them were wrong. My kid was a badass. I needed to follow his lead. Well, in some respects, not in the wetting my bed and picking my nose type situations.
“He says he wants to show you the donuts,” Eliza said to Karen with a wink. “And they’re the really good ones... from Alice’s Bakery.”
Karen’s eyes lit up. She was a bigger sweet tooth than my five-year-old son. She looked to me. “We’re coming over for dinner tonight. With wine.” It was not a question.
I nodded, I was relieved, not sure if I could be alone in my house. Lance had informed me that the ‘team’ managed to get a house down the street. I didn’t get time to question how they did this in such a short amount of time or what this was costing. I was being completely and utterly immature about all things pertaining to him and Greenstone Security, burying my head in the sand until I was strong enough to deal with the reality of it.
Karen kissed Eliza, reached over and squeezed my hand and walked toward the house.
“I’m sure Karen’s already done the whole angry lesbian thing,” Eliza said, watching her wife’s back. “But I just want you to know, you tell me where he lives, they’ll never find his body.”
See? Totally scary.
“The number of people that have offered to kill my estranged husband for me lately is quite worrying,” I replied, smiling.
Eliza smiled back, sadness in her irises. “That’s the number of people that love you and would do anything for you and Nathan.”
I nodded, heart heavy, with both joy and sadness. I could use this whole event to lapse into a depression full of fear, self-pity, pain. Surely it was tempting and I had enough material to work off. Violent husband deciding to make our lives hell, money problems only made worse by the huge bill I was going to get lumped with, a car with a broken AC and likely ready to break down at any moment. No career prospects beyond being a waitress at a diner.
Sure, I could let that all turn me into a sad and bitter person who aged prematurely thanks to all the frowning and such.
But this had shown me other things. Other people willing to do everything and anything to help me. Like give me food that I didn’t need but made my son feel better, like offer to commit homicide. And other people, for some reason, bought donuts in the morning and held my son’s hand after school.
It was then that Eliza’s attention moved from our conversation of murder and to the curb. Or more likely, who was pulling up to the curb.
“Who is that?” Eliza breathed.
I already knew who my neighbor was talking about with a slack jaw. I didn’t need to turn. But I did anyway, because I never missed a chance to stare at Lance and torture myself with his complete and utter lack of interest in me.
And yes, as my eyes locked with his shades—totally kick-ass black Ray-Bans—I was tortured with his utter hotness and utter lack of interest in me.
“That’s Lance,” I said by explanation, watching him walk from the SUV he’d emerged from. His muscles moved, glinted in the afternoon sun underneath the fabric of his tee. If I squinted really hard, I might have been able to see the outline of his abs.
What is wrong with me?
“I would like to climb him like a tree,” Eliza breathed, eyes following Lance like mine were.
I moved my head and pushed my glasses to the top of my head so she could see my raised brow. “You’re gay,” I reminded her.
“Honey, something like that transcends all sexual affiliation,” she said without looking at me. Her eyes widened as the sound of another door echoed through our yards. “Dear God there’s two of them,” she muttered.
I moved my eyes again.
Luke was moving around the truck, aviators on his face, wearing worn jeans and a plain white tee.
I felt weird even staring at him for too long because I wouldn’t be surprised if Rosie had some perceptive powers to know if I’d checked out her husband and I was kind of scared of that woman.
I was actually sure that the women who surrounded me could probably do a lot more damage than the men, and that was saying something. But I was also proud to be around such strong, badass women. That wasn’t exactly me, I wasn’t born to be a badass, for a start, I was a punching bag, a doormat. I just wanted to be half as strong as them.
“This is Captain America?” she asked as Luke bent into the passenger’s seat. “Because that is America’s ass.”
She and Karen were huge Marvel fans. It’s where Nathan got it from.
Though you didn’t have to be a Marvel fan to agree that was America’s ass.
“No, though I’m not disagreeing with you on the ass,” I said, whispering, just in case Rosie was hiding in the bushes. “It’s him.”
Lance was walking toward us with a box in his hands, so I could only kind of nod my head toward the man-god who may or may not be Hades reincarnated.
“Yeah, I can see that too,” Eliza said out the side of her mouth as he approached hearing distance. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had some kind of badass powers that enabled him to hear us from the frickin’ curb.
As long as his powers didn’t extend to him being able to read my mind, I would still be able to walk away from this with a small amount of dignity.
Lance stopped in front of us, not taking his sunglasses off, not saying a word, just staring at me.
“Eliza, this is Lance,” I said after a prolonged awkward silence. I’d been too busy looking at how his biceps were defined holding the box full of electrical stuff.
“Pleasure to meet you,” she said, her voice a little breathy. I was happy that even a woman who was well and truly into women was having trouble sounding normal or not drooling when confronted with Lance.
He nodded in response.
Apparently, badasses didn’t actually verbally greet people anymore, they just nodded. And it worked for him i
n a big way, somehow he pulled it off without looking like a rude asshole.
I couldn’t decide whether he actually was a rude asshole or just super mysterious and damaged.
The hotness was distracting.
Maybe that was the point.
“And thank you,” Eliza said, not at all perturbed by the lack of response. She threaded her hand in mine, which was all clammy because of my body reacting to Lance. “For doing this for Elena, Nathan,” she clarified. “We can’t tell you how much we appreciate you getting our nephew back to us.”
There was never a point when we spoke about Nathan being their ‘nephew,’ but he just started calling them his ‘aunts’ at some point within the first month of meeting them and they acted like family from the start.
It was natural.
Lance nodded again. “We’re gonna start installing security shit,” he said by answer.
Again, that response to my friend’s heartfelt thank you should have cemented his place in the asshole hall of fame. Somehow it didn’t.
Another awkward silence.
“Um, yeah, okay, do you need help or anything?” I asked, looking from the wires and things in his muscled arms and back to his face.
Eliza snorted. I glared at her.
“You don’t even know how to use your TV remote,” she teased.
“I didn’t mean helping them hook up the system,” I snapped, forgetting all fond feelings toward her. “I meant like help with the boxes.”
“We’re good,” Lance barked, some kind of emotion in his previously flat voice. My eyes went to him immediately, and my stomach dipped at the hardness of his jaw.
Apparently badasses didn’t appreciate women questioning their badass ability to carry boxes.
“I’ll take that help,” Luke’s voice sounded from behind us, smooth, warm, nothing like Lance’s. “Here’s somethin’ you can hold onto.”
