The kids stared at him, all completely silent. Nik shook his head. Now he had a merry little band of kids that he needed to get where they needed to be, including Albi, who wore a frown. And he needed to check that the old lady was okay. But when he looked down both flights of stairs, she’d already disappeared. Smart move. “Let’s go. Albi. You’re coming with me.”
Once he had them all into cabs and had given them their money, he led Albi to the car. Thoughts swirled in his head. Had Albi really been about to do whatever it was they were encouraging him to? Would he have gone through with it if Nik hadn’t appeared?
“Get in,” Nik said as he unlocked the doors.
“Aren’t you going to yell at me? Ask me what I was doing there?” Albi asked moodily as he stepped inside and began to fasten his seatbelt.
Nik shook his head and steered the car toward Lake Shore. “No. That’s the point of the X.”
“What do you mean?”
He wasn’t going to bore Albi with all the details. How a prison-based therapist had found one thing to be true among career criminals—that they’d ended up taking part in something from which they didn’t think they had a way out and then couldn’t get out of that way of life because everything compounded. Steal a bottle of liquor from the store as a dare, and before you know it, it was being held against you to make you stand watch during a robbery. Stand watch during a robbery, and your next step is a robbery of your own. Ignore your partner beating the homeowner in a robbery the first time, and you end up doing the beating the second. All because nobody was there to help you get out of stealing the liquor in the first place.
“You realized you weren’t supposed to be doing whatever it was that kid was trying to get you to do, but didn’t think you could get yourself out of it safely. You messaged an adult to get you out of it. You deserve a little credit for that, Albi. So I’m not going to lecture you.”
Albi looked out of the window and was silent for a while. “Thanks, Nik,” he said gruffly.
“You’re welcome. Let’s get you back to the home.” He made the call to let the home deal with it instead of taking him straight back to school. Nik had no clue of the kid’s circumstances and before he threw Albi under the school principal bus, he’d see if Ellen’s replacement wanted to handle it differently.
Nik turned on the radio and let classic Rage Against the Machine flow. He knew exactly what was going through Albi’s mind because he’d found himself in Albi’s shoes a million times before he’d landed on Ellen’s doorstep. There had been the time he’d tried to break into the liquor store with Elliott when they were fifteen. Stupid acting out, trying to look cool in front of his friends. But there was also the time when he’d been unable to control his emotions. When they’d poured out of him as he’d trashed his classroom in rage after Adam had killed himself, disappointed in himself for not having done enough or talked to Adam enough to understand just how broken he had been. Angry that he hadn’t managed to save him, like he hadn’t been able to save his mom.
The reason behind the behavior was way more important than the behavior itself, and Nik knew he’d have to spend more time with Albi to get him to trust Nik with that.
When the home came into view, Nik slowed and pulled up to the curb. “You ready to go inside and face the music?”
“Whatever.” Albi shrugged. “Lecture, punishment, my social worker giving me shit.”
“Want me to come in with you?” Nik asked, pretending it hadn’t been his plan all along. Immediately after he got out, he was going to phone Ellen and let her know what had happened to Albi.
“You’d do that?” Albi asked.
“Sure thing, kid.”
As they got out of the car and walked up the drive, Albi asked, “Do you know when Ellen is going to be back?”
Nik shook his head. “Hard to say. A month, maybe two. Why?”
“I don’t know how the new lady is going to take this.”
As shitty as it was for Ellen to have broken her leg, it was worse for the kids under her care, who’d already dealt with so much disruption in their lives.
“I’ll talk to her. I’m sure I can smooth it over. What’s her name?”
“Albi?” A female voice came from the garden, and Nik looked over.
Jenny.
She stood with the late fall sun behind her, her hair shining like a golden halo and falling in long golden-ombre waves past her shoulders. She dropped the two large packs of paper towels she was carrying. They bounced before landing on the grass.
He couldn’t speak. He should have words. He’d thought a million times about what he would say to her if he ever saw her again. But he couldn’t remember a damn word of the speech he’d practiced just about every day in the shower.
Silence stretched between them as he took in the soft curve of her neck, the way her eyes seemed even wider, and how the jacket she wore hugged her curves in a way that told him she’d lost the ten pounds she’d always thought she needed to but he hadn’t ever given a damn about.
“Nik?” she gasped, putting her hand over her heart like she used to when he’d snuck up on her and made her jump by tickling her sides. Visions of her in a white cotton tank and panties, lying on his bed, giggling and begging him to stop while he did just that, filled his head. He thought about how he’d kiss her until she opened those sweet legs of hers and allowed him to touch her most intimate places.
Jenny gathered herself quickly, dropped her hands, stood taller, rolled her shoulders back, and lost the look of surprise.
She turned away from him then, just like he had done to her all those years ago. “Albi,” she said, “why aren’t you in school?”
Without thinking, without even really processing what she was saying, Nik took one step after another until he stood right in front of her—until she looked right up at him, not with the look of love she’d always used to, but with a scowl. Leaning forward, he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and hugged her tightly, his body immediately remembering the way they’d used to come together in the creaky bed in the damp apartment over that Greek restaurant on the Danforth.
“God, Jenny. I missed you,” he murmured. “I looked for you everywhere. I—”
“Nikan,” she said, and shoved at his chest. “No. Don’t do this. I’m at work.” She glanced over to where Albi stood, looking bemused.
Nikan placed his hands on her biceps, more to prove to himself that she was here than anything else. That he hadn’t suddenly imagined her appearance. That she was as real and as solid as the home that stood behind her.
“Please let go of me,” she said as she tried to shrug out of his grip.
God. Why couldn’t he find words? Why wasn’t he ready for this? The house he’d bought, the timing of it, it all suddenly seemed fated. She was back and he had a home, one he’d already imagined—dreamed of, really—her sharing with him.
But he let go and stepped back because she was right.
First they needed to deal with Albi, and then he was going to take however long was necessary to persuade her that she belonged in his life.
CHAPTER TWO
Nik was there.
In the yard.
As the breeze rustled the leaves around Jenny’s feet, his eyes held hers in that dark gaze of his.
And he’d been holding onto her arms in a way that made her chest squeeze like an orange in the antiquated juicer in her apartment. Even her hands shook.
He’d filled out. Everywhere. In a way that the magazine covers she’d seen of him hadn’t done justice. And it looked good on him. And even though it was futile, she tried to convince herself that she didn’t care. Nothing about her response made sense. She thought she’d moved on, thought she’d gotten over the way he could make her feel with just a look. But she suddenly felt as messed up as she’d been back then.
So much so that she’d almost forgotten that Albi, who was supposed to be in school, was standing there.
Forcing herself to break his stare,
she tried to forget the way his fingers had felt. His forearms were more muscular than they’d been—he probably could have held her pinned to the spot had he wanted to—but he’d quickly let go when she’d told him to.
“Albi,” she started, then took a deep breath. Her voice sounded floaty, breathless, unanchored. She tried again. “Albi, what happened?”
“He got into a little trouble and contacted me to help him out,” Nik replied.
Jenny turned to look at him and rolled her eyes. The last thing she needed was Nik leading Albi in what to say. The words Albi chose to explain it, the tone he used, and the space around the things he didn’t say would communicate volumes. “Thank you for your perspective, Nik, but I asked Albi.”
The corner of Nik’s mouth turned up in a smile. She looked away from him.
“What Nik said,” Albi replied, and looked toward Nikan. It was hard to miss the way the kid looked up to him. She could see it in his eyes. Somewhere between familial affection and hero worship. It was the first time she’d seen it from the unruly boy. And she knew she wasn’t going to get much more from Albi until Nikan had left.
“Make yourself useful, Albi. The groceries are in the back of the car. Take the bags to the kitchen, then start putting things away while we wait for your social worker to arrive. No point in making you go through all this twice, and there isn’t enough left of school to get over there and deal with this today.”
Albi headed toward the car.
“Hey, Albi,” Nik said. “Don’t you have something to say to Jenny?”
Albi cracked his jaw, looked down at the dirt, and turned to face her. “I’m sorry, Jenny.”
It was the first time since she’d met him that Albi had apologized for anything without a fight, which she considered progress. She’d take that into account when deciding what his punishment would be. Maybe extra chores rather than any loss of the privileges he treasured so much.
She watched as he reached the car. The way he had to step up onto his toes to reach the grocery bags reminded her of how young he still was.
“Where was he?” she asked without turning to look at Nik. She couldn’t look at him. Not yet, with everything feeling so raw and open.
“By the Blue Jays stadium. Some kids were pressuring him to do stupid shit. Look, have dinner with me tonight. I’ll tell you all the details and we can—”
“No,” she said quickly. “Not going to happen.”
“I’m sorry, Jenny, but seeing you . . . it’s impossible to focus on Albi when there’s so much I want to . . . no, need to say to you.”
Jenny took a deep breath and finally turned to look at him. “There’s no need for us to talk. There’s nothing left for us to say. Ellen warned me that you and the band still supported the home and that you’d all taken it upon yourselves to mentor the boys. I’m not going to stop that. But please, for the sake of keeping things civil between us, let’s not make more of this than there is.”
Albi walked by with three grocery bags. “Am I going to get into trouble once Nik’s gone?” he asked.
“Yes, Albi, you are. You should have been in school, and you know why that’s important. Right?” Jenny moved away from Nikan, grateful for a moment to compose herself, to do something she knew how to do rather than floundering in subtext with Nik. Right now, she needed to focus on the boy in front of her.
“It makes me self-dependent, educated, and confident,” he mumbled. “And a person who is educated, self-dependent, and confident can handle anything life throws at him.”
She placed a hand on his shoulder. “Say it proudly, Albi.”
Albi straightened with the bag in his hand. “It makes me self-dependent, educated, and confident,” he said, louder this time, the words more clearly enunciated. “And a person who is educated, self-dependent, and confident can handle anything life throws at him.”
“Exactly,” she said softly. “So, there has to be some kind of consequence for your actions. You bailed on school to do something inappropriate. We’ll talk about exactly what that was later. But between now and then, it might be useful for you to consider what kind of consequence you would consider appropriate.”
Albi’s shoulders sagged. “Whatever,” he said with a sigh and carried the bags up the steps to the front door.
“Says the woman who used to routinely skip school to hang out with me, riding the subway all day in winter because it was too freaking cold out to be anywhere else,” Nik said, a warm smile on his face.
She didn’t need to be reminded of her own youthful failings—especially as she’d spent most of her adult life playing catch-up. Her mistakes had been a part of her own journey but weren’t something she was completely cool with. “What do you expect me to say, Nik? That I skipped school but turned out okay? It’s our turn to be the adults. I’m grateful that you were there for him today, so thank you for doing that. But telling Albi this kind of behavior is fine doesn’t do him any service.”
“He did the right thing,” Nik began. “Well, not the start of it. You’re right, of course, that he should have been in school. But once he realized he was in over his head, he activated his X-message and asked for help to get out of a situation.” He pulled off his baseball hat and untied his hair. She remembered how it felt between her fingers, how it felt spread across her thighs, thick and cool.
“So, we don’t discipline him?” She looked over her shoulder as she heard Albi’s footsteps behind her. He’d shrugged out of his sweater and jogged across the garden to the car. It was a miracle how kids never felt the cold, but then neither did Nik, whose jacket was slung over his arm.
As much as she wanted to be mad at Nik, she loved the idea behind the message, even if it made her job tricky now. If what Nik said was true, which she could wholeheartedly believe it was, how did she discipline Albi?
“He needs to know I’m going to show up, that I’m going to get him out of trouble and that there won’t be significant repercussions,” Nik said. “Otherwise, next time he is in over his head, he’ll weigh up whether he’ll be in more trouble if he calls me to avoid whatever it is he is being forced into than if he actually does the thing.”
For a moment, she put aside that this was Nik she was talking to. She put aside their history and just listened to what he was telling her. “So what do you think happens if I discipline over this?”
“I think next time he might not call.”
Jenny shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans. Albi was over by the car, so she spoke quickly. “What was he involved in when you found him?”
“Did you see that video from that Berlin train station that did the rounds of the news media recently where a guy kicked a woman in the back at the top of a flight of stairs in a subway?”
The gasp escaped before she could stop it. “He was about to do that to someone?”
“An older lady was just approaching the top of the steps,” Nik said, “and the rest of the gang of kids Albi was with had their phones out, ready to film whatever it was he was supposed to do. But for what it’s worth, the kid was fucking gray. It was clear he didn’t want to do it. But with a gang of bigger kids around him, I don’t know that he could have walked away.”
Jenny looked down at the small patch of daisies by her feet. They’d be dead soon enough as fall turned to winter. Everything had a season.
“Thank you, Nik,” she said softly as she watched Albi slam the trunk of the car closed. “I’ll take it from here with his social worker when she gets here.”
“You’re welcome,” Nik said, reaching for her hand. He wrapped his thumb and forefinger around her wrist gently.
The move had once been her everything. It had been all he’d have to do to persuade her to follow him. Away from school, away from life, away from everyone who called her a weirdo and a freak because of her dissociative episodes.
She needed to compartmentalize the two sides of Nik—the part she’d loved and that had broken her heart, and the side who’d taken the time
to go look out for one of the kids in her care.
“Now can we talk about us? Perhaps just get together and catch up on the last few years?” he asked.
“I’m sorry. Nik,” she said. She pulled her hand away and slid it into her jeans pocket. “Outside of the boys, I don’t think we really have anything else to say to each other. Next time you get an X-message, I’d appreciate it if you contact the home immediately and let us know. If this system is working for you and Albi, I’m not going to ruin it, but the least you can do is keep us involved every step of the way.”
“Don’t,” Nik said, stepping closer to her. “Don’t reduce our history to a five-second dismissal when I haven’t seen you in nearly a decade.”
“Don’t? I’m trying to be polite here. You want me to spell it out for you, Nik? I can if you need to hear it. You cheated on me. On your first major tour. You kissed me goodbye and set off in that stupid van. I thought you were coming home to me, but you couldn’t keep your dick in your pants long enough for me to miss you. You broke me into a million pieces I have never been able to put back together properly, and I hate you for that.”
Tears stung the corner of her eyes, but she wasn’t going to shed even one more over the man who had thought so little of her that he could disrespect her that way.
Nik’s face was filled with anguish. “I’ve changed, Jenny. You need to give me a chance to explain.”
“The cover of the magazine I saw at the Superstore this morning says you haven’t, Nik.”
“Wait, Jenny, that isn’t what—”
“Goodbye, Nik,” Jenny said, unable to listen to any more excuses.
She turned on her heel, jogged up the steps to the front door, and loudly slammed it closed behind her.
Nikan Rebuilt Page 3
