by Ted Evans
Something sharp bites into his foot as he’s crossing the room, pain shooting across his instep. “Shit,” he mutters and bends down to see what it is. Crushed underneath his bare foot is one of Frank’s tiny plastic trucks, this one red and yellow. Liam picks it up and studies it, the plastic crushed, the little wheels askew. With a sigh, he tosses it into the trash and pulls a beer from the fridge. He’s been trying not to think about the look on Frank’s face when he walked away from them. It was a look that cried betrayal. Liam takes a long, gulping drink from his beer and drags himself back to his sofa.
He’s into his third beer when he hears the small knock on his door. He knows who it is. The only people who knock on his door are Willow and workmen and knows that isn’t a workman. He goes to the door and peers through the peephole. Yep, there’s the top of her head and her swinging bright gold ponytail tied up with a violet ribbon that matches her eyes. Shit. He sighs heavily and unbolts the door, pulling it open.
She’s standing there with Frank clinging to her hand. The little boy won’t look at Liam, he’s got his eyes focused on his little sneakers with trains choo-chooing across the toes. Liam bites back his sigh, pushing his regret down deep. “Can I help you?” he asks her.
When she trains those lovely purple eyes on him, he almost invites her in. Almost apologizes. She’s chewing on her bottom lip and her eyes are sparkling. He knows she’s trying not to cry. Almost.
“Um,” she swallows heavily and clears her throat, “I just wanted to thank you for babysitting Frank for me. It was very kind and I know you didn’t have to do it. So, here.” She reaches toward him and crams a wad of crumpled bills into his hand. “It’s not much but it’s what I can afford.”
Liam stares down at the crinkled bills. He doesn’t want her money. He wants her and Frank to come in and have pie with him. But he’s not going to ask her. He glances back at her and finally notices the wheeled suitcase behind her. She follows his gaze and drops her eyes, her face blushing a beguiling pink.
“We’re leaving. I lost my job.”
Liam doesn’t know what to say to her so he just watches her carefully, waiting to see if she’s going to tell him why she lost her job. When all she does is chew on her lip, he leaves it.
“Okay, then,” he says to her.
He drops down to one knee in front of Frank, who still hasn’t looked up at him. He wants to say so many things to this little boy. He’s had so much fun with the kid and he never thought he’d have fun with any kid. Frank had wiggled and laughed his way into Liam’s heart. Liam’s gut clenches at the thought of never seeing his little towhead again. He clears his throat and stands back up, tapping Frank lightly on the top of his head with his hand. “Bye, bug.”
Willow backs away from the door and wraps her fingers around the handle of her bag. Frank is wearing a tiny backpack. Liam can’t believe that’s all they have between them. Two bags. And on the move again. It’s no way for kid to live. But’s it’s also not his business. Willow and Frank are not his business. That had been made very clear. Just as he’s pushing his door closed, a small, screaming man bursts out of the stairwell and rounds on Willow.
Liam watches as the portly, sweating man grabs at Willow’s bag and snatches it away from her. That’s something he can’t let happen, no matter what Willow thinks of him. He steps forward and sweeps the bag easily from the man’s hands, pulling it out of his reach. “What’s going on here?”
The man has sweat beading his upper lip and scant hairline, the armpits of his shirt are stained dark. His face is the color of an eggplant. He’s visibly shaking with his anger.
“This girl,” he splutters, shaking a finger in Willow’s face, “she owes the rent.”
“Ah, the landlord. Nice to meet you.” Liam thrusts his hand into the man’s face.
The landlord stares at likes it’s some new species of bug before daintily shaking just the tips of Liam’s fingers with his.
“Now, let’s get this straightened out, shall we?” Liam smiles at the sweaty, little man.
“This girl, she owes three months and she never pay. Now she try to leave without paying. She won’t answer the door when I come, she hide. Now, give me.” The landlord tries to reach around Liam and grab Willow’s bag again. Liam uses his foot to slide it out the man’s reach.
“Willow?” Liam gives her a searching look. She seems to have sunk in on herself, her shoulders are hunched over and her head is hanging low between them. He’s never seen anyone look so defeated and ashamed. Frank is standing beside her, big fat tears rolling down his face. The boy looked so confused and scared. It stabbed Liam in the heart to see them both looking so helpless. Shit.
Willow doesn’t say anything to him. The landlord is still huffing and puffing about what a horrible girl she is.
“I’m going to call cops on you, horrible girl!” he huffs at her.
“Okay, that’s enough. No one’s calling the cops.” Liam pushes Willow’s bag through his open door and spins to face the landlord. “How much does she owe?”
The landlord names a number well into the four figures. Liam sees Willow’s face blanch at the number. He knows she’d never be able to afford it. No wonder she was trying to take off. Liam can’t believe what he’s about to do. He takes a deep breath and blows it out loudly.
“Stay here. All of you,” he barks.
He moves quickly to his bedroom and pulls out a drawer in his dresser. Reaching into the hole, he slides out a stack of money. He counts out the required amount, amazed at how much the stack has shrunk. He’ll definitely have to look into getting a job now. He’s spent almost all of what was left of his savings on Willow’s apartment. He guessed it was worth it to keep her and the kid from being homeless.
He walks back to the hallway, they’re all still there, an abject little group. “Here.” Liam smacks the pile of bills into the landlords waiting hand. “Now, her rents paid.”
The little, overweight man counts out the bills and smiles at them all. “Thanks to you, my man.” Then, he moves to Willow’s door and slips an exterior lock on the knob, twisting it shut and dropping the key in his pocket.
“What the hell, man? I just paid you.” Liam can’t believe the balls on this little man.
“Yes, you pay me rent she owe. Not pay for now. She no go in. She no live here anymore. Okay, thank you.” Then, the little round landlord turns and bounces down the stairs like the beach ball he resembles.
Liam looks over at Willow. The stunned look on her face couldn’t be more plain. Her mouth opens and closes several times but she never says anything.
Liam is floored. This chick was winding up to be more trouble than she was worth. He can’t believe he just handed over thousands of dollars for her and she still wound up homeless. So much for being a shining knight and all that.
Willow finally wakes up and crosses the hall to where he’s standing inside his door. “I’m so sorry, Liam,” she says. Tears fill her eyes, “It’s just that. With my mom and his dad, I just don’t know what to do with myself?”
Liam’s a bit confused about her mentioning the two people that she tries to avoid talking about most of the time. He mumbles a few choice words before rubbing his fists roughly over his forehead. “It’s okay, we’ll figure it out.”
Willow lays a soft hand on his arm and squeezes lightly. “It’s okay. We’re not your problem. Thank you for…everything really. Everything thing you’ve done. No one’s ever been as nice to me as you. I’ll never forget you.” She reaches around him for her bag.
“Wait.” He puts his hand on hers to stop her. “Where are you going?”
“Uh.” She seems stumped by this question for a minute. She looks over her shoulder at Frank still standing by the door. “I guess, to the shelter.”
“Shelter?”
She leans forward and whispers to him, “Homeless shelter. I’ll tell Frank it’s a hotel.”
“What? Willow, no. I can’t let you do that.”
“I
don’t have much of a choice right now, Liam. I’m broke and homeless. That’s where broke and homeless people go.” She grabs the handle of her bag and starts to wheel it out of the apartment.
He can’t let her go. “Stay here,” he blurts out.
What did I just say?
Liam has a feeling that there was something more than rent that made Willow want to leave. If she’d tried to get a job at another place, then he could understand, but she hadn’t and just seemed bent on leaving.
He must have because Willow stops dead and turns to face him. “What?”
Liam clears his throat. “Stay here. You and Frank. Just for a little while. I can’t let you take him to a shelter, Willow. Those places…can be…not so nice, sometimes. You guys can have the bedroom, I’ll bunk on the sofa.”
“Uh.” Willow is fidgeting, glancing back and forth between Liam and Frank. He can see her wavering. She doesn’t want to go to a shelter with her son in tow. Who would?
“Mommy, are we staying?” Frank pipes up in a small voice.
Frank’s tiny voice is all it takes to break her resolve. Her shoulders slump and her hand drops from her bag. She sweeps Frank up and hugs him to her. “Yeah, baby. We’re staying, just for a few days.”
When Liam looks at Frank, he sees the boy studying him with a serious expression on his preschooler face. “Okay,” he lisps “but no being mean.”
Liam presses his lips together to hold back a chuckle. Schooled by a three-year old. “Okay, no being mean.”
“Yeah.” Frank grins at Liam. “Cause we’re bugs and bugs don’t be mean to each other.”
“That’s right,” Liam says. He puts his hand onto the small of Willow’s back and steers her into the apartment, shutting the door behind them. Now, she was stuck in a hard place. She had no money and the reality of putting Frank through more hardship seems to have hit her finally. This part he’s relieved about, he couldn’t stand it if she left and was living on the streets.
Chapter Sixteen
Liam
The bar running down the center of the sofa digs into Liam’s back. He rolls over and elbows his pillow into submission before flopping back down. He lets out an exasperated breath. He can’t believe he let Willow and the boy stay in his place. Is he insane? He lifts onto one elbow and stares at his shut bedroom door. He pictures Willow in his bed. When he thought about her in his bed before he’d always imagined himself in it with her, wrapped around her warm, naked flesh, moving inside her welcoming heat. He flops back down and rubs at his face with his fists, ignoring his cock twitching in his shorts.
And now, he was close to broke. All the money he’d been saving to live off of for the next few months was gone, because he couldn’t stop help himself from saving a damsel in distress. All a girl had to do was squeeze out of a few tears and he immediately became Captain Save-a-Ho. Shit.
He couldn’t let that little boy go to a shelter though. Sighing, Liam rolls over to his side and bunches his pillow underneath his head, trying to find a comfortable spot. He guesses his sleep is going to be a little short while Willow and Frank are staying at his place. Great. Just one more thing a woman has taken from him. He closes his eyes and tries to will himself into slumber.
Soft whispering wakes Liam up and he notices that the sun is slanting low and golden across the wooden floor. It’s still pretty early then. He sits up and looks toward the kitchen. A low light coming from the open refrigerator door highlights Willow and Frank as they try to move silently around the kitchen. She’s shushing Frank as he settles onto a stool at the counter and flinches when the cereal she’s pouring clinks into the bowl. Liam watches them for a minute, sees the way her hands hover protectively around Frank, smoothing over his hair and patting at his back. When she hands the boy a spoon and drops a kiss on his cheek, Liam feels his chest clench. Maybe he was right to ask them to stay.
“Morning,” Liam says across the low lit room.
Willow jumps at his voice, the spoon in her hand clattering to the floor. “Sorry, we didn’t mean to wake you up.” She grabs a clean spoon and hands it to Frank before stooping over to pick up the dropped one. Liam gets an eyeful of the backs of her thighs, smooth and creamy underneath the short t-shirt she wore to bed. His cock twitches again as he thinks about running his hands up the back of them and bending her over in front of him, pressing her tight little ass into his cock. He clears his throat. “It’s fine, wasn’t really sleeping.”
“We’ll get out of your way soon.”
Liam nods and drops back down to his pillow, crossing his arms under his head, listening to them move and speak in low voices. Frank punctuates the morning air with his little giggles and funny stories. There’s something satisfying about having someone in the house when you wake up in the morning. When a whiff of fresh coffee drifts past his nose, Liam decides there are definite advantages to having someone around in the morning. He gets up and meanders to the kitchen.
Willow hands him a cup of hot coffee, black, with sugar. He takes a sip. Perfect. She remembered how he likes it. He couldn’t decide to like Willow or not. The coffee was going a long way toward sweetening his disposition toward her. He takes another sip. Ah, yes.
Leaning against the counter, cradling his coffee cup, Liam watches as Willow bustles around the kitchen. She helps Frank down and washes his bowl and spoon, drying then and putting them away before popping bread into the toaster. She quickly wipes down the counter and butters the toast when it pops, sliding the crisp slices onto a plate and pushing then across the counter to Liam. She nibbles on the edge of a piece before putting it down. Little frown lines appear between her brows and Liam notices that she doesn’t look very well rested.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. No,” Willow sighs as if she’s completely confused. Liam notices that she had a tendency to be fickle, but ever since that day when Frank was lost. She’d completely changed, some part of him worried that she wasn’t into him and was only staying because she had no choice.
“So, which is it?” Liam gives her small smile and chomps down on his toast.
She doesn’t answer. Instead, she hustles Frank off toward the TV, quickly flipping through the channels until she finds a cartoon to distract him. Moving back to the kitchen, she grabs Liam by the elbow and leads him toward the bedroom. Liam raises an eyebrow. She gives him a little shove. “No.” She shakes her head as she reads his dirty mind.
“We need to talk, I guess.” Willow glances back at Frank and keeps her voice low. “We’ll be out of your hair today. This morning if we can.”
Liam glances around the room and notices her suitcase opened on the bed. She didn’t unpack and use the drawer Liam had offered her the night before. Liam’s chest feels uncomfortably tight.
“Going somewhere?” He pins her with a glare.
“I think it’s best if we leave. We don’t want to put you out any longer than necessary.”
Liam gives her one nod. “That’s what you think?”
“Yes. Thanks. For everything. I…I hope…I can pay you back someday. For helping us, for helping Frank. I don’t know…no one’s ever. Just…thank you.”
Liam takes a step away from. He’s staring down at Willow, his jaw clenched tightly. She’s really leaving. Just, going to take Frank and damn everything he’s done, just going to leave. And go to a shelter?
“Where are you going?” he asks tightly.
“Uh, I know some people…who might help. If I could just…if you’ll let me borrow your phone to make a couple of calls…” she trails off, her lips quivering.
She’s lying to him. If she had someone to help why didn’t she ask them before. Why did she waste Liam’s time and money with her dramatic bullshit if all she had to do was make a phone call and get someone else to help her? Why did she bring that little boy into Liam’s life and just…
He takes a step toward her, his face hard. He watches as she gulps and takes a step back, fear flitting briefly across her face.
&nb
sp; “How. In the fuck. Are you. Going to afford a place. To live?” He bites off each word, harsh and cruel. “You can’t even afford to make a fucking phone call.”
“I…I…” Willow’s face has fallen and tears dampen her amethyst eyes, shivering on the edges of her lashes. Liam is tired of her tears.
He steps to his bedside table and pulls phone from the drawer, tossing it on the bed. “Make your fucking calls and get out. I’ll be back later. Be gone.”
He turns his back on her and slams out of the apartment. And pretends he doesn’t hear the sob she tries to hold in as he leaves.
Liam takes the stairs two at a time and pushes through the double doors at the bottom. When he steps onto the sidewalk he realizes he doesn’t have any idea where’s he’s going. He looks at his watch and realizes it’s too early for the bar, they’re not even open. With a sigh, he turns toward the diner. If he can’t have beer, he’ll have to make do with pie for the time being.
Stepping into the steamy diner air, Liam slides into onto one of the stools lining the counter and accepts a cup of hot coffee from the waitress. He gestures toward the pie case and holds up two fingers. Sipping on his coffee, he watches as the waitress slices two generous pieces of pie and slides them onto a plate. She sets the plate in front of him, hip cocked to the side, eyebrow raised, as he digs his fork into the flaky crust and shovels cherry into his mouth. Cherry. Suddenly, he’s not hungry. He drops the fork and pushes the plate away, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. Tossing a few bills onto the counter, he’s making his way out of the diner when someone leans out of a booth and stops him. It’s his little, round landlord. Liam shakes the man’s hand off his arm roughly.
“Hey, you,” the little man says, “you got that girlie in your place. You better watch for her, yes? She be nothing but big trouble for you.”
