No Regrets

by Vivian Ward

  The apartment was in a much better neighborhood than most apartments around Memphis and was near a private school that we had talked about sending Andrew to. The rooms were spacious, and it was mostly filled with middle-aged married couples and a few retirees sprinkled into the mix. Her eyes lit up when we walked through the display units, and she was so excited to put in the application.

  “How’d it go in there?” Byron asked as he walked by, keeping his voice low.

  “Not sure yet. I just completed the interview portion while they reviewed my files and asked me questions. Chief asked me to step outside so now I’m waiting for them to call me back in.”

  “Nervous?”

  “Can’t you tell?” I held my hands out as they shook.

  “Good luck, man.” He patted my back and headed out to the bay.

  The door cracked, and Chief’s face emerged. “Can you come back in, please?”

  I took a seat in my chair and looked around the table. Their smiling faces had faded, and their laughs were absent. They were all stonewalling me, not giving away a thing. Kenneth House, our Fire Marshall, was holding my file in his hands, tapping my file on the table as he stared at me. “Well, Mr. White, you have an impressive file, but there are a few things that we feel deserve an explanation.”

  “Okay,” I nodded. Shit. I was trying my damnest to look calm and collected, but I was so worried. “What would you like to discuss?”

  “We see here that you recently walked out in the middle of a shift. Can you elaborate on that?”

  “Yes,” I looked at Chief. He just had to write than in my file. “There was a family emergency and, against my better judgment, I left without approval. I apologized for that, and it has never happened before or since that incident.”

  “Very well,” his eyes scanned my file. “We have one final question for you, Mr. White.”

  “Sure,” I tried to keep my tone even.

  “Are you ready to become our next Fire Captain?”

  “I, um—wait. What?” his question caught me off guard. Did he really ask what I thought he said?

  “We would like to give you the promotion. Can you handle it?”

  “Yes, oh, yes sir! I’ve been waiting for this opportunity for a long time, sir.” I stood, shaking each of their hands. “You have no idea how much this means to me.”

  Eager to tell Stephanie, I went up to her work at the end of her shift. When she walked out of the building, I picked her up and swung her around in the air before setting her back down on the ground.

  “Oh, my God! What’s gotten into you?” she smiled at me.

  “You’re looking at the new Memphis Fire Captain,” I bowed and did a curtsy.

  “That’s amazing!” she threw her arms around me.

  “Do you want to celebrate tonight? I can buy some steaks and bring them over and—” she shook her head no and held her hand up, stopping me dead in my tracks. “What? Why?”

  “I didn’t want to have this discussion because it’s embarrassing,” she began as we walked to her car, “but Susan has made it very clear that I’m overstaying my welcome. Matt, she only gave me a month to find a place, and I’ve been there almost double that time. She isn’t happy with me so I don’t think having an extra person there invading her kitchen would be the best thing to do right now.”

  “Have you heard back from those apartments? The ones that you liked?”

  “Not yet. I’ve been trying to call them the past couple of days on my lunch break but I think they break for lunch at the same time that I do. Nobody ever picks up and by the time I get out of here, they’re gone for the day.”

  “Well,” I wrapped my arms around her waist and pressed our foreheads together, “how about I take you and Andrew out tonight? We can go to that restaurant on the edge of town—the one with the fireplace—and order a couple of steaks?”

  “You can take me. It’s Joe’s day to take him so he’ll pick him up from daycare.”

  “Even better,” I kissed her, “we’ll have a little romantic dinner with just the two of us. I’ll pick you up around six? Will that be enough time to get ready?”

  “Plenty,” she flicked her tongue against my neck before sucking on it, “I’ll see you then.”

  I bit my lip, trying not to think about my jeans stifling my cock, holding it down. It didn’t take much for her to turn me on. “Try to wear as little as possible,” I winked at her.

  Chapter 25

  Stephanie

  I was hoping that Matt’s good fortune at his job would carry over into our apartment search. It had been almost a week since I had applied at Golden Oaks Apartments, and getting a hold of them was proving to be difficult. I guess maybe I was so nervous because of what I put on the application when I filled it out.

  They were salary-based apartments though they weren’t low-income housing. Basically, your income had to meet certain criteria in order to live in them, and I wasn’t sure exactly what their requirements were. When we looked at the display units, they were fancy—something I could never afford on my own, so I included Matt on the application. He was fine with it and thought it was a good idea because it would help boost our income and hopefully, improve our chances of getting accepted.

  Even though we had been overstaying our welcome at Susan’s house, she was being patient because she knew that I was trying, but I could tell that Andrew was wearing on her nerves. Trish’s girls were quiet for the most part and stayed to themselves whereas Andrew is loud and rambunctious, which is the exact opposite of what she’s used to. I know she loves him to death, but I think it’s a little much on her.

  With the weekend coming up, I had to get a hold of them to see what they had to say about my application. If I didn’t, I was pretty sure that I was going to go crazy. I tried calling them before my shift started but got their answering machine once again. It was killing me not to know so left a message hoping they’d call me back.

  Disappointed that I was unable to get through once again, I clocked in for my shift and moped around at my desk. It was a little after 10 AM when I saw that my phone was vibrating on my desk. I jumped up from my seat and tapped on the green phone to answer the call as I darted to the bathroom. As soon as I had the door shut, I began speaking.

  “Hello?” I said breathless, hoping they were still there.

  “Hello?” the woman on the other line replied. “Is this Stephanie?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Is this a bad time?” she asked. She probably thought I was dying by the heavy breathing I was doing into the phone. I moved it away from my mouth so that she couldn’t hear my breath.

  “No, no. Is this Golden Oaks Apartments?”

  “Yes, this is Caroline, the assistant manager.”

  “How are you doing?” I asked.

  “Good, thank you. I was returning your call from this morning.” Oh, thank the Lord, leaving that message did help!

  “Yes, I’ve been trying to get through all week, but I think you must break for lunch around the same time I do,” I nervously laughed into the phone. “Do you know if my application has been reviewed yet?”

  “Actually, that’s why we haven’t called you back. Misty, our full-time manager, did review your application. Unfortunately, you did not fall within our guidelines and qualifications to rent from us.”

  “Ugh.” It felt like someone punched me in the gut. “Well, if it helps any, my boyfriend who I listed on the application just received a promotion so that will help our income increase and I’ll be due for my next raise in a few months,” I said, hopeful.

  “I’m sorry, Stephanie, but that’s the problem. In order to live in our units, we require that your income is between twenty-five thousand to forty thousand. Your income alone is too little to live here and when you include…,” her voice trailed off as she read the application, “Matt’s income, you make too much. Your credit is also an issue.”

  “My credit? What’s wrong with my credit?”

  �
��At Golden Oaks, we require that you have a minimum 650 credit score and yours is in the low 500’s.”

  “What? How?” I’ve always paid my bills on time; there was no way that was true.

  “You can request a copy of it if you’d like but just by looking at it, I see that you have some collections on there from Home Furnishings Mart, another unpaid collection from Gamers Everywhere United, LLC and several cell phone collections.”

  I’ve never purchased anything from a home furniture store, nor have I ever bought video games and I’ve only had one cell phone—the one I’m currently using—in my entire life. The only other person who may have had access to my social security number that could have opened those accounts would be Joe. He was dead meat the next time I saw him.

  I couldn’t believe my ears. “So, we can’t live there?”

  “No, ma’am. I’m afraid not. If you’d like, you can appeal this with Misty, but she’s on vacation and won’t be back until Monday.”

  “Thank you,” I said as I hung up the phone.

  I felt flat and defeated. I’ve never heard of making too much money to live someplace, but apparently it could happen. And my credit? That was a whole other ballgame, and I couldn’t wait to see Joe the next time we exchanged custody. I tried calling Matt, but he didn’t answer, so I returned to my desk and finished entering a stack of data.

  The longer I sat at work, the more agitated and depressed I became. It floored me that Joe had single-handedly ruined my credit, and that was after all the ish I put up with while we lived together. And my brother thought Matt was the bad one. Pfft, he was sadly mistaking. I decided that when I got off work, I was going to call my brother and Joe, and let each of them know exactly what I thought about them.

  I called Joe first because I couldn’t wait to tear into him. His phone—or maybe my phone, one of the many phones I’d apparently had—rang until the voicemail picked up. I hung up and began dialing my brother but just as I was about to hit the last digit, my phone started ringing. It was Joe.

  “Hello?” my voice was angry.

  “What’s going on? I’m not supposed to get Andrew for two more days. Is everything okay?”

  “Okay? You want to know what’s not okay?”

  “Oh, here we go with this shit,” he cut me off.

  “No, you listen to me! I’ve had enough of you bullying me, overstepping your boundaries and inserting yourself into my life. I’m a grown ass woman and can do what I please, but what pisses me off is that you ruined my credit!”

  “Psh, ruined your credit how?” he played dumb. I swore I was going to murder him the next time I saw him.

  “Joe! You have collections on my credit for gaming stuff and house stuff and cell phones!” I paused, thinking fast. “I had them verify the debts, and they came from you!” I can’t even remember the last time I lied, but I wanted to get him to man up and own it. If he was dumb enough to use my social security number, he was probably dumb enough to believe anything I told him.

  “Verify them?” he sounded worried.

  “Hell yeah! You think they’re just gonna remove debts because I say they aren’t mine? No! I had to verify they were mine and when I didn’t know the address or dates, they knew that it wasn’t me. But the thing is, the Gamer place had you calling in, and the notes on the account stated that Mr. Frost called in, and I know it wasn’t Lance because they had our old address from when I was pregnant with Andrew.”

  While I was in the middle of arguing with Joe, Matt beeped in. Deciding not to talk to an idiot any longer, I hung up on him and clicked over.

  “Hello?”

  “What’s wrong? You sound tired,” Matt said.

  “Yeah, I was arguing with Joe.”

  “About what?”

  “He ruined my credit. I finally got a hold of the people from the apartments, and they said that we didn’t qualify for a place with them. One of the reasons being my credit and the other was our income. They said we made too much combined.”

  “What? That’s insane. I’m sorry baby; I know you wanted to live there and send Andrew to that nice school that was up the street from there.”

  “Yeah, I know. I wish you weren’t working right now.”

  “Why? You want to see me?”

  “You know I do.”

  “There’s nothing stopping you from coming up here to see me. Why don’t you come up and bring me some food while you’re on your way?”

  “I’ll swing by the daycare to pick Andrew up, and we’ll have dinner at the fire station with you.”

  “I’ll see you in a bit.”

  Chapter 26

  Matt

  I knew how bummed Stephanie was about not getting accepted into those apartments. She had her heart set on sending Andrew to the private preschool school that was just up the road from them and was looking forward to living in a nicer area. It also pissed me off that Joe had ruined her credit, but all I could do now was be there to support her.

  She had talked to her brother about everything and even he was angry that Joe would stoop to such a low level, but he still hated me. I don’t think there’s anything I could have done to change their minds, but at least her mom was still letting her use her car which was something that Stephanie was worried about. Her mom said she could use it as long as she needed it, and I knew Stephanie had been saving some money to get a new one.

  I wanted to do something special for her to cheer her up, but I had been filling in on shifts, taking overtime. On my days off, I kept busy, but I always made sure I was available to spend time with her and see her in the evenings after she got off work. Lately, she had been complaining that Susan was growing more impatient by the day, and she was worried that it was taking a toll on their friendship.

  Ironically, the park that I had hated for so long had started to become our haven to get away and escape it all while we watched Andrew play. I invited her to meet me there when she got off work since it was my day off and packed us a dinner with a blanket. I had grown to learn that her son would eat PB & J sandwiches 24/7 and that he loved Cool Ranch Doritos, and that she liked turkey sandwiches with cheese, pickles, and tomatoes.

  “How was your day?” I kissed her on the cheek.

  “Same as it always is,” she sighed. I could tell that she was still down, and I hated seeing her like that. “Drew, do you want to go slide?”

  “Yes!” he ran towards the green plastic slides and found a boy about his age to play with.

  “Still depressed about everything, huh?”

  “Matt, it’s almost been three months since I moved into Susan’s. I don’t know how much more she can take. I’m so glad that it’s been nice outside and that we’ve been able to get out of the house most evenings, but I just want a place that I can call home. A permanent place, not a friend’s living room. I’m tired of living out of bags and suitcases.”

  “I’m sorry, babe. You know if I could make it all better, I would,” I rubbed her shoulders, trying to help her relax.

  “I know, and I’m hoping that my social worker will get to my name within the next month,” she patted my hand. “What did you pack us for dinner?”

  “Some sandwiches, chips, and juice. Are you hungry? We can eat now if you want.”

  “Yeah, let me call Andrew. Do you need help setting it all up first?” she asked.

  “I got it.”

  After the three of us had eaten dinner in the middle of the park, he ran back to the playground, eager to play with the other kids. It was nice spending time together as a family, even though he wasn’t mine. I loved him just the same and would do anything in the world for him. Although his fingers were tiny, he had me wrapped around every single one of them. The problem was that he knew it and used it to his full advantage.

  “You’re off work tomorrow, right?” I asked her as we picked up our trash and threw it away.

  “Yeah, I’m off tomorrow and Wednesday. Why? Did you want to do something?”

  “Stephanie, ther
e’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while now, and I want to ask you a question. Remember how we were going to get that apartment together?”

  “Yes?” I could tell by the look on her face that she was wondering where this was going.

  “Would you still be willing to live with me if I bought a house?”

  “If you bought a house?” Her brows furrowed and her mouth twisted.

  “What’s that look for? You don’t like the sound of it?”

  “No, it just sounds so…serious,” she said. “But I don’t dislike the idea.”

  “Good, because I have a surprise for you tomorrow. Would you like to go see a house with me?”

  She smiled, “Yeah, I think I would. You would be willing to buy a house for us to live in together?” she put her head on my chest.

  “We were going to live together in the apartment. What’s the difference?”

  “Because an apartment is permanent for a year, during the lease. A house is permanent forever.”

  I grinned at her, “It sure is, but the thing is, you’re mine. All mine, and it’s time that we start our future together. I’m tired of us going to separate places every night. I just want to lay next to you every night and wake up beside you every morning.”

  I decided to leave out the part that I had already put a down payment on it as soon as I had my real estate agent make an offer on it and the owner accepted it. The house was already ours, and I couldn’t wait to see her face the next day when I showed it to her and told her the news. We had been apart long enough, and it was time that we changed that because we had both worked so hard to get where we were.

  Chapter 27

  Stephanie

  I couldn’t wait to go house hunting with Matt. My back was sore, and my eyes burned because I couldn’t stop thinking about it all night. I tossed and turned on the couch, imagining what type of kitchen I wanted, how I wanted the bathroom, what size yard we would need, and I secretly wondered how many bedrooms we should look for. We had always planned on starting a family together someday and even though we had Andrew, I wasn’t sure if he would want one together.