by Karina Halle
“I know I was there. I mean, how is she now? And how is her mum?”
“I guess she’s fine as she can be, I don’t know. I know Steph is at her place right now, helping out. She’s worried as hell. You know how she can dote on people.”
That I do know. Steph’s like the mother we never had. I don’t tell Linden that or he’ll balk at the Freudian implications.
“Do you have her phone number?”
“Nicola’s?” he asks. “Not on my phone. I have her Facebook. Why?”
“No matter,” I say, then pause. “Tell me something about her.”
“What, why? Wait. No, Bram. No,” he commands, like I’m some rangy pooch.
“No, I’m not asking because of that.”
“Right, you’re not asking because you don’t want to stick your dick in her.”
“I honestly don’t,” I tell him. “I think she’d cry if she saw a dick in real life.”
“Nice,” he says dryly. “Anyway, she’s off-limits to you. She’s gone through enough. She doesn’t need my arsehole brother fucking up her life anymore.”
“Arsehole?”
“Yes, Bram,” he says, tiredly. “Look I have to go.”
He hangs up and I mutter a swear at the phone.
There’s only one thing to do.
Soon I’m parking the car in an above-ground garage near Union Square and walking several blocks over into the heart of the manky Tenderloin neighborhood. Other than good music venues, the place is crawling with crazies. It’s not that bad during the daytime. I mean, it ain’t pretty but the people just really annoy you to death with their begging and aren’t dangerous. But if I were Nicola’s parents, or even friends, I wouldn’t want her living there. The thought of fuckheads outside her apartment at night makes me strangely pissed off.
By the time I reach her place, I’ve been asked for change by eight different people and was told I “smell like crunchy toast” by a random running down the road with a severed parking meter under his arm. I’m not sure if I do smell like toast, but it is hot out. I’ve been warned how San Francisco’s seasons don’t follow any rhyme or reason.
I take off my suit jacket, run a hand through my hair in an effort to look respectable, and buzz her apartment number having remembered it from last night. Borderline stalker-ish, I know.
“Hello?” I eventually hear her voice come through the crackly intercom.
“Nicola, it’s Bram.”
More crackle. Silence. Maybe she’s hung up.
“From last night,” I go on. “And other times.”
“Uh, hi…”
“Can I come up?”
I can sort of hear Steph in the background, “Who is it?”
“Tell her it’s her brother-in-law!” I yell and then I’m disconnected.
I stare at the door wondering if I’m being told to fuck off when it buzzes and I go on up.
The funny thing about Nicola, the thing I’ve gathered from what little I know about her, is that if there’s anyone that shouldn’t be living in a place like this – bars on the doors, mildew on the stairwell walls, stains on the carpet – it’s her. Maybe some hipsters could make it work, or James and Penny, Linden’s friends on the alternative side who might call this type of living as “being real.” But Nicola seems too stiff, prim and proper for this place, like she should have been born in a palace instead. From the way she was talking, well blubbering, in my car, I have a feeling she might have been.
Just before I’m about to knock on the door, it opens and Stephanie is staring at me with a suspicious twist to her lips.
“What are you doing here?” she asks, blocking the door.
“What are you, her guard dog?”
“Well, I am a bitch sometimes,” she says. “Woof, woof.”
“Can I come in?”
She shakes her head, her skull earrings rattling. “Why?”
“I want to know if they’re okay.”
A line slowly forms between her brows. “They’re going to be okay,” she says in a drawn-out tone. “Sorry, Bram, not used to you caring about people.”
I guess I deserved that. “Can I talk to Nicola? Alone?”
Steph flinches. “What?”
I look over her shoulder and see Nicola appear just beyond the door. She looks like shit. Her hair is greasy and pulled back, her face sallow, her eyes puffy and red. Other than sad, though, I can’t really read her face and tell if she’s happy to see me, or pissed off, or indifferent. I’m betting it’s the latter.
“Hey,” I say to her. “I just wanted to check up on you. You never called,” I add.
Steph looks between the two of us. “He gave you his number?”
“Business card, actually,” Nicola says wryly.
Steph folds her arms across her chest and I try my damndest not to stare at her cleavage. Damn, Linden is a lucky guy. Good thing I think of her more as the mother type. “What did I tell you?” Steph whispers harshly to her.
I raise a brow. “What did you tell her?”
“Never mind,” she says quickly, fixing her eyes back on me. She’s like mother hen with teeth in that beak. “I’m watching you,” she says to me.
I raise my arms out to the side. “Watch all you want, babe, I’m used to it.”
Nicola gives out a small sigh of resignation. “It’s fine. Bram, you can come in. Just be quiet, Ava’s sleeping.”
Victory. I step inside and take a quick intake of my surroundings. It looks like some trendy grandmother’s cottage in here. The type who puts ruffles and doilies on everything but also listens to the Rolling Stones on vinyl to remember the days when she’d get so bloody high.
Nicola walks over to her tiny kitchen, which is cluttered with bright cups and plates. “Want coffee? Or tea?”
Do I admit I drink tea over coffee? Hell. “I’d love a cup of tea, please. Do you have orange pekoe or Earl gray? With cream?”
I can’t see her face but I know she’s not looking too impressed. “I have chai.”
“That’s fine,” I say, aware that Stephanie is staring at me. “What?” I say to her.
She just narrows her eyes, points her finger at me as if she’s about to say something, then picks up her purse. “Okay, Nic,” she calls to her. “I’m going to go. Call me later, okay? Please?” Now I’m not sure if that please is because of Ava’s situation or the fact that I’m here.
“I will,” Nicola says. “Thanks for everything.”
“Love ya!” And then Steph is out the door and I’m alone with Nicola.
It’s suddenly very awkward. While the kettle is boiling, I sit down on her sofa. It’s like sinking into a marshmallow. I’m afraid I won’t be able to get up.
She’s not talking, so I attempt to fill in the gaps.
“Nice apartment,” I comment.
“Thanks,” she says, still puttering around in the kitchen.
“Did you inherit all your furniture from your grandmum or something?”
She shoots me a killer look over her shoulder. “It’s from Anthropologie.”
I shrug and run my hands over the couch cushions. I can feel all the rough threads where she tried to sew together any rips and tears. I don’t think she’s hanging onto it out of love, but out of necessity.
“How’s your little one?” I ask.
She doesn’t say anything for a moment. Her voice turns quiet. “I think I’m having a harder time than she is.”
I hear her pour the water and the clank of a spoon against porcelain and she comes over, placing a cup of tea on the coffee table in front of me, making sure to use a coaster. It’s black.
“Sorry,” she says, cradling her own cup of tea and sitting at the opposite end of the sofa, legs curled up, as far away from me as possible. “I don’t have any milk in the house. I’m lactose intolerant.”
Though she’s curled in the corner, she doesn’t look all that comfortable. Her head is up high, chin out and her mouth is set in a firm line. I can’t read her eye
s at all, so I stop trying.
“Did you get the medicine okay?” I ask.
She nods and takes a sip. “Thanks to Steph’s insistence on paying, yes. The doctor at the hospital gave me a month’s supply of insulin, but Steph paid for everything else. The pharmacist at Target gave us both a crash course on injecting Ava again, so I don’t have to go and pay for my doctor either.” She exhales heavily. “I really needed that reminder. Last night just seemed like a horrible nightmare.” She looks at me and maybe I see her face softening. “Thanks again for driving me around. I kind of ruined everyone’s night.”
“Shit happens,” I tell her with a wave of my hand. “It’s no big deal.”
“I bet your girlfriend was upset.”
“Aye,” I nod. “But she’s not my girlfriend. Especially not now.” I don’t say anything else.
“So, what did you want me to talk to you about?” she says, sounding tired. I realize talking to me is probably the last thing she wants to do.
“You look like you need a nap,” I tell her. Her eyes look sad and I realize it’s a jerk thing for me to say. No one wants to hear they look tired. “I mean, you’re still pretty hot but you look tired as hell.” And now I’m just making it worse.
“I don’t dare sleep,” she says. She seems to shrink down before my eyes. “Not now, not when something can happen to her.”
“You could,” I say. “Right now. Just have a nap. I’ll stay here. I’ll be up, make sure that everything’s okay.”
She looks at me like I’m crazy. Maybe I am. I have no idea why I just volunteered to do that – maybe because it’s the right thing to do – but it makes me sound like the world’s biggest creeper.
“No thanks,” she says, looking a wee bit disgusted. “So.” She sounds impatient now. “What is it that you want from me, Bram?”
I lean forward on my elbows and twirl the watch on my wrist over and over again.
“I have a proposition for you.”
She watches me for so long I have to look up. She doesn’t look curious, she looks worried.
“Is this going to be like ‘Indecent Proposal?’” she asks. “Because Robert Redford loses at the end.”
“A) I’m surprised you’re old enough to remember that movie,” I say. “And B) no, it’s nothing like that. I know my reputation precedes me –”
“That is does.” She takes a quick sip of her tea.
“But, this offer is coming from a good place. An honest place.” I pause. “I think you should move in with me.”
She nearly drops her mug.
CHAPTER FIVE
Nicola
For my first week of age twenty-nine and second week of being a small business owner, I wonder if I’ve ruined one of the best friendships I’ve ever had.
No, not me and James, even though he would be the cause. Did I just hear him right? My hand starts to shake and I put the mug of hot tea down before I scald myself.
“I’m sorry, what?” I ask Bram, bewildered. “Did you just ask me to move in with you?”
He gives me a placating smile. “Not exactly. What I mean is, the apartment next to mine is vacant. The tenant moved out at the start of the month. I think you should take it. You can live there rent free, just until you get a good job and your feet back on the ground. What do you say?”
What do I say? I have no fucking idea. Why on earth would Bram McGregor offer me a place to live for free? It doesn’t make any damn sense and I don’t want any part of it.
“You can think about it…” he goes on.
“No,” I say and he looks shocked. “Sorry, but…no. Move into your empty apartment? Why? Why would you do that? Why not rent it out for thousands of dollars a month, which is what I’m sure the rent is.”
“But I don’t want the rent to be that high,” he says.
“It doesn’t matter what you want,” I tell him. “You have a mortgage on that place and I know it costs a pretty penny.” And it doesn’t really jive with everything I’ve known about Bram. He’s grown up with money. He spends it like a gambler who thinks he has nothing to lose. Everything about Bram screams, “I’m here to make money and spend money!” Letting Ava and I live in his complex for free would completely mess up those plans.
It doesn’t make any sense and I sure as hell don’t like it.
“You let me worry about matters of money,” he says, rolling up the sleeves of his dress shirt. I notice his perpetual tan, his skin a nice honey bronze that I don’t think is fake and makes me wonder where on earth he’s gotten color like that. His forearms are large, muscular and toned. Forearms are my weakness. As are hands. He’s got good hands too, big and strong.
He catches me staring and smiles, just a little. “Please, this isn’t anything weird.”
“Like hell it isn’t.” I scoff, tearing my eyes away. “This is an insanely generous offer and I have a hard time believing you aren’t coming from a despicable place.”
He flinches. “Wow. Just how poorly do you think of me?”
“I don’t think of you at all,” I fire back.
He mouths, “Ouch.” For a moment I feel bad but then I remember him pulling that chick into the bushes and how humiliated I felt, and I don’t feel so bad anymore.
“What do you want, really?” I ask him. “Just be honest.”
He throws his hands up. “I am being honest. I want to help you and your little one. Sometimes people do things because they can help and because they want to.”
I ain’t buying it. My eyes narrow at him. “What do you want in exchange?”
“Nothing,” he says, sounding strangely sincere.
“Right. As if I’m not supposed to be your sex slave or something and, like, suck you off anytime you want. Nothing is for free.” Boy did I know that.
He grins. “Sweetheart, you wouldn’t know what to do with my dick even if you tried.”
“I most certainly would!” I blurt out, unable to help myself. I regret my words immediately.
There’s one hell of a long, mortifying second as he slowly raises his dark brow, a twinkle in his eye. “Oh really?” he muses, smile dancing on his lips.
Shit.
I cross my arms. “You know what I mean.”
“Not really. But you could show me.”
“You aren’t selling me on this at all, you know.”
He rolls his eyes and gets up. In another lifetime, a naïve one full of meaningless sex and yellow-brick roads, I would have been completely enamored with how damn handsome this man is. Because, really, he is. But in this lifetime, the short stick I’ve been handed (I haven’t had a long stick in a long time, if you know what I mean), his good looks and hot bod and slick suits mean nothing to me.
“Look,” he says. “I’ll be honest with you. I’m not just trying to be a nice guy.”
And the truth comes out. I breathe a sigh of relief that we’re finally getting somewhere.
“If I take in a low-income resident,” he explains, “someone who can’t find affordable housing in the city, then I get a big tax break from the government.”
“Well, why didn’t you just tell me that to begin with?”
He gives me a lazy shrug. “Thought I could earn some extra brownie points with you.”
“And why would you want to do that?”
“I don’t want to live next door to a bitch, I guess.”
I actually laugh at that. “Fair enough.”
He sticks his hands in his pockets and peers down at me. “So, what do you say? Do you think you and Ava will be comfortable in a nice building, south of Market? Rent free, take the time to get a job, get a handle on things?”
It sounds too good to be true. I hesitate.
“Can I think about it?”
“Of course,” he says. He looks at his watch. “I better be on my way. You do have my card right? You didn’t spit on it and throw it out?”
“I still have it.”
“Good. Because if I don’t hear from you over the nex
t few days, I will have to find someone else. I don’t want to have to show up here unannounced again. And I’m guessing you’re not about to give me your phone number either.”
“I’ll call you,” I tell him and this time I know I will.
I just don’t know what I’m going to say.
***
After Bram leaves, I take my time to think about it. Actually, I don’t take that much time at all. Ava wakes up from her nap and though she’s lively and happy as ever – as if last night never even happened – she also asks if she’ll have to get the needle tomorrow. I can’t lie to her. I tell her the needle has medicine that will keep her strong and healthy, so she can turn into a big girl. She seems to understand but…it’s still something I can’t wrap my head around.
Giving her the injection earlier was also a challenge and if Steph wasn’t with me, I don’t think I could have done it. It doesn’t seem right putting your child in pain, even though it’s the only way from now on, even if it’s what will help her in the end.
But as proud as I am, as much as I want to turn down Bram’s offer, I honestly can’t. For Ava’s sake, I can’t. My pride must be swallowed if she’s going to have a shot at life. Living rent-free would save me $1000 a month. If I put that money into food and medicine, we could get by. It wouldn’t be fun, but I could do it. And that’s before I even get a job. I know I can’t afford to be too picky about that either, but I decided to give it another week just to see if I really can shoot for something that pays well and in my field. It’s a longshot, but I have to try.
I make us both some sliced avocado on whole-grain bread (the doctor said the way I’d been feeding her – low in sugar – was excellent and to keep it up. It’s nice to know that at least I didn’t bring it upon her). We sit down on the couch and I read a picture book to Ava between bites. Somewhere in the building I can hear a couple arguing loudly. The neighbor above me has a shower – the pipes rattle the walls. To think I could be out of this place, one foot out of the mess, one foot toward my future.
I just really hope there’s nothing else that is owed for this. That Bram doesn’t expect anything from me. I hadn’t really thought I’d be his sex slave. I just wanted to poke fun at his manwhore ways, but even so I have a hard time believing that I won’t be in debt to him in the end. The thought of owing something, anything, to a man like that is a scary one.