Light the Lamp

by Catherine Gayle

  I couldn’t help but wonder how long Noelle had been homeless and how often she went without food. The thought of her not eating and wasting away to nothingness gnawed at my insides until I felt like I would be sick.

  Sara grinned, peeking around me to see inside but giving up when I didn’t move out of her way. I crossed my arms over my chest and took up as much room as I could in the entry. I didn’t want Noelle to be uncomfortable with strangers coming around when she was hardly wearing anything. I wouldn’t have let Soupy come in earlier if I’d thought she was already out of the shower.

  “Rachel said you needed some clothes for someone around my size?” Sara lowered the duffel from her shoulder and held it out to me. “I was going to take all of this to Goodwill anyway, so if any of it fits...”

  I took the bag from her. “Thanks, Sara. Do you want—”

  “Gotta run!” She spun on her heels and in no time was halfway down the hall. “I was on my way to a hot date when Rachel called, and Daddy doesn’t know anything about this guy. He thinks I’m going out with the girls. I don’t want to keep Brad waiting.”

  “Thank you!” I called out again as she disappeared around the corner by the elevator. I’d intended to ask if she needed the bag returned. It wasn’t a big deal, though. I could hold on to it until the next time I saw her, or if necessary I could get her a new one.

  “Don’t tell my father!” she shouted back.

  I had no intention of telling my coach anything about his daughter one way or another. It was usually better just to stay out of things like that, and I didn’t need any other distractions right now. I had enough of my own. I closed the door and headed back to the table, pushing away the thought that a brand-new distraction was sitting in the dining room and wearing one of my T-shirts while looking up at me with the most enchanting smile.

  Noelle had finished off her sandwich and wiped her face. She looked up at me with big eyes. “Those are for me?” she asked, pointing at the bag Sara had dropped off.

  “Yeah. Rachel thought maybe it would be better than my clothes since they’re falling off you.”

  “That was really sweet of your friend to bring them over.” Noelle swallowed the last of her milk and took the empty glass and her plate to the kitchen, loading them into the dishwasher.

  She turned around, and I had to force myself to keep my eyes on her face and not on the way her breasts made themselves known or how her long legs stretched out from underneath the hem of my T-shirt.

  She shrugged and crossed her arms, pushing her breasts up a little higher. “I don’t understand why you’re doing all of this. I mean, I know your wife died and you didn’t want to let anything like that happen to me, but this is so much more than was necessary. You could have taken me to the shelter. Most people would have done that. Or they would have just left me and let me figure it out on my own.”

  I couldn’t have done that any more than I could stop my heart from beating, but I didn’t understand it, either. I shook my head. “I guess I’m not like most people. But neither are you.”

  She didn’t let anything get to her, other than maybe trying to figure out why I felt the need to help her. Even when the world was falling apart around her, she could smile and laugh and put other people and their problems first, before her own disasters.

  I wanted to be more like her. I wanted to understand how she had come to be like this. But I had no business wanting her. None at all. She ought to be with a man so much better than me.

  “No, I suppose I’m not,” she finally said with a shrug. “I still don’t understand, though.”

  “I wish I could explain it.” I also wished she still had that grape jelly on her lips because there was nothing between us now, no table or anything else, to stop me from moving over to her and kissing it away. I hated that I kept thinking about kissing her. It made me feel like I was forgetting all about Liv, like I was pushing her aside and trying to replace her with some young and perfect girl I could never deserve.

  I had to stop thinking like that. All of it—kissing, beating myself up. It wasn’t doing me any good. “Babs and I have to go to practice in the morning,” I said after a minute. “We should be finished by lunchtime. I want you to stay here and wait for me, and then I can take you to buy more clothes.”

  “I don’t have enough money to buy more clothes right now. I’ll make do with what your friend brought until I can get a job. I don’t know how long it’ll take me to pay you back for everything—”

  “I don’t want you to pay me back,” I interrupted her. “And I never said anything about you paying for clothes. I want to buy them for you.” I wanted to do a hell of a lot more for her than just buy her some new clothes, but I had to start somewhere. “Will you let me?”

  Noelle stood there staring at me, blinking a few times, for so long it was unnerving. “I hope Liv really understood what a good man you are.”

  I didn’t feel like a good man. I felt like an asshole who’d been so focused on myself and what I wanted that I hadn’t been able to see what my wife needed. I’d taken her away from her family and her home, and she’d died alone on the side of the highway.

  I had to laugh and look away because the kindness in Noelle’s gaze was threatening to crush me beneath its weight.

  “You are,” she said. In an instant, she’d closed the distance between us and put her palm against my cheek, turning me so I had to face her. “Maybe you can’t see it right now, but I can. I want to help you see it, too.”

  Without warning, she stretched up on the tips of her toes and kissed my chin. My breath caught in my throat and nearly strangled me from the sweetness of what she did. Then she giggled, backing away just a step and touching her fingers to her lips. “Your facial hair is scratchy.”

  I forced my hands to remain at my sides, clenching them into fists so I wouldn’t put them around her waist and drag her to me and let her feel my scruff tickling against her skin in all the places I was imagining. “How is it possible that you’re not married and making some man very happy?” I asked. If I were younger and whole, I would be hard-pressed not to toss her over my shoulder and claim her. But I wasn’t. I was thirty-four and a widower and couldn’t get my own life in order, let alone be the sort of man she deserved to have in her life. She deserved a man who wasn’t broken. Someone who wouldn’t suck all the goodness and light and life out of her and leave her as damaged as he was.

  “You blame yourself, don’t you?”

  I had blamed myself since the moment I’d learned of Liv’s death, and I couldn’t imagine a day where I didn’t carry that guilt around with me. That was a future I couldn’t see through the fog of remorse I had been swimming in. But how did Noelle know? How could she see that? I didn’t like the thought that she could read me so easily. These were things I didn’t even like to know about myself, and I definitely didn’t want anyone else to realize them.

  Swallowing hard, I backed away and picked up the duffel bag Sara had dropped off, carrying it with me into my bedroom. “You can sleep in here,” I called out over my shoulder. “I’ll take the couch.” I tossed the bag on the bed and rummaged through my boxes for something clean to sleep in and a blanket to pull over me.

  Noelle came wordlessly into the room behind me, but I could feel the sympathy rolling off her and onto me, like waves crashing into a rock and wearing it into a new shape through the sheer force of nature.

  I didn’t want her sympathy. I didn’t want her to feel sorry for me or know the guilt I felt or understand any of the pain I had carried around with me every day for the last year and a half.

  I didn’t deserve that kind of goodness. And she didn’t deserve to bear any part of my burden.

  When I moved past her, she stopped me with a hand on my chest. “Liam?” It was just a gentle touch, featherlight and barely there, but it nearly bowled me over.

  I couldn’t look in her eyes. I couldn’t bear to see the compassion I knew I’d find in them, so instead I looked down
at her hand curling over the top of my polo shirt. She had long, dainty fingers and a delicate wrist. Physically, she wasn’t anywhere close to strong enough to stop me, but she was a thousand times stronger than me where it mattered. Emotionally. Mentally.

  “You should sleep in your bed and let me sleep on the couch,” she said when I remained silent. “You’re an athlete. You need your body—”

  “I have no idea when Babs will be home,” I cut in. “I don’t want him coming home and finding you on the couch with almost nothing on. And you’ve been sleeping in a fucking car.”

  She flinched when I cursed.

  God, I was such a bastard. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have used that kind of language with you.” Before she could argue any further, I pushed past her and closed the door behind me. I tossed my clothes and blanket on the couch, crossed to the wall, and banged my head against it as hard as I could without potentially causing myself damage or scaring Noelle half to death.

  What the fuck was I doing?

  The sun wasn’t yet up, but I lay in Liam’s bed as wide awake as I could possibly be. Not to mention warmer and cozier and way more comfortable than I’d been in quite a while.

  I popped my eyes open and looked at the bright green alarm clock lights on the nightstand next to me. It was only 6:13 a.m., and I’d already been lying awake in here for at least half an hour, not wanting to wake anyone else up if I could avoid it.

  I still thought Liam should have slept in his own bed, but I knew better than to begrudge myself a night of peace and comfort. I straightened my legs and pointed my toes, and at the same time, I raised my arms up over my head, extended my length as much as I could before getting up from the bed. Cats always stretched before they got up to do anything, and it had always seemed to me that there wasn’t an animal in the world that understood comfort better than a cat. I figured they were onto something, so I tried to remember to stretch out regularly. So far, I didn’t regret it.

  After a few minutes of that, I got up and used the bathroom. Then I listened at the bedroom door before opening it. Since Liam had slept on the couch last night, I didn’t want to do anything that might wake him. I had no idea what time he would be getting up. Was he a morning person? A night owl? Some people could be really grouchy in the mornings, especially if they were awakened by someone like me who lived for the start of a new day.

  He’d said that he would have to go to practice this morning, but I didn’t know how early that would be. Six? Ten? It was all technically morning.

  I heard a couple of masculine grunts and a few bangs and booms, and then the water from the faucet came on in the kitchen. Someone was up, whether it was Liam or his roommate, Babs, who I hadn’t met yet. I took that as my okay to head out into the living area.

  The lights were on in both the living room and the kitchen, but Liam wasn’t on the couch anymore. The blanket he’d used had been tossed onto the coffee table. A young guy—probably at least a few years younger than me—was standing at the sink, his light-brown hair sticking up willy-nilly. He had a coffeepot in one hand and was filling it with water, but his focus was on the cell phone in his other hand as he let out a huge yawn.

  I cleared my throat so hopefully I wouldn’t startle him, and I grabbed the blanket so I could fold it.

  His head shot over to me, and he grinned so big that dimples showed up in both of his cheeks. “Morning. You must be Noelle.” He shut the water off and set both the coffeepot and his phone down on the counter. “I’m Babs—Jamie Babcock. Kally’s in the shower. I’d offer to make you breakfast, but it’s probably better if we wait for Kally. He can cook. It should just be another minute or two.”

  “Kally?” I wasn’t positive, but surely he had to mean Liam.

  “Sorry. Liam,” Babs said. “Everybody gets a nickname as soon as they show up at their first practice, pretty much. It’s a hockey thing.”

  “Oh,” I said, letting that sink in.

  “I might have to come up with one for you, if you don’t already have one.”

  “That’s not necessary.” I doubted I’d be around long enough for him to need to give me a nickname. I needed to get a job and figure out somewhere I could live. Maybe after Liam took me shopping today, he could drop me off at the shelter. They were supposed to have resources for job hunting. Maybe they’d have some leads I hadn’t tried yet.

  “That’s what you think,” Babs said, but he was grinning.

  I nodded my head toward the coffeepot full of water, setting the folded blanket down on the arm of the couch. “You making coffee?”

  Babs blushed and shrugged his shoulders. “I was looking up how to do it so I don’t screw it up and start a fire or something.”

  I laughed. “It’s pretty hard to start a fire by making coffee.” I crossed over to him and picked up the pot, then poured the water into the coffeemaker. The filters and grounds were all out on the counter and ready to go. “You open this compartment up and put a filter in like this. Just rub your fingers over the edge of the filters to be sure you’ve only got one, not two. If you have too many, you might make a mess on the counter. The water can’t get through fast enough and it spills over.”

  He blushed again and gave me a sheepish nod, and he said, “Mmm-hmm,” which led me to believe he might have done that very thing before.

  I kept going with my demonstration. “Then you add a few scoops of coffee grounds like this. Since we’re making a full pot, let’s try four scoops and see how it comes out. We can adjust on the next pot if it isn’t the right amount. And once you have it all set up, you flip the switch.” I turned the machine on, and seconds later the heavenly aroma of freshly brewed coffee filled the apartment. “Piece of cake.”

  “Yeah,” Babs said. “Maybe for you.”

  “Start with making coffee and who knows what you’ll be cooking next.”

  “He’d better not be cooking anything,” Liam said, his tone light and teasing as he came around the corner from the end of the apartment opposite his bedroom. He had on sweatpants and a gray T-shirt, and he was rubbing a towel over his still-wet hair. When he saw me, he smiled.

  He hadn’t shaved yet, which made me unreasonably happy. I’d loved the sensation of his scruff teasing my palm and my lips when I’d touched him last night.

  My dad had never let his facial hair grow out, and both Chris and Ethan seemed to be following in Dad’s footsteps in that regard. I wasn’t sure if I liked it so much because it was different from the other men in my life, or maybe it was just because it seemed so very Liam. Either way, I didn’t want him to shave it any time soon.

  “He’s not,” I said as I met Liam’s eyes. “I showed him how to make coffee, though, so maybe he can start doing that sometimes.” I winked at Babs, and he blushed even harder than he had been before. I found him endearing and just as dissimilar from my brothers as Liam was, but in an entirely unique way.

  Liam shot a look over at Babs and then returned his gaze to me. “As long as he doesn’t burn the place down.”

  “He won’t. I’m a good teacher.” That was what I’d wanted to do with my life, at least before my parents died—teach. I’d always imagined myself in a classroom full of kindergarteners. But then everything had changed, and I’d had to drop out of college so I could get a full-time job and support my brothers.

  I didn’t regret it. Not even for a moment. But I did sometimes wonder how my life would be if my dad hadn’t tried to be a hero that day.

  “I can believe that.” Liam came into the kitchen and took a couple of pans out of a cabinet, setting them on the stove before turning on the burners. “Fix yourself a cup, and I’ll have breakfast ready by the time Babs finishes showering.”

  “I’ll take that as my hint to scram,” Babs said. He grabbed an orange from a bowl on the bar and headed in the direction Liam had just come from.

  Liam opened the refrigerator and pulled out bacon, eggs, peppers, mushrooms, and a whole stack of other things. Once he set them down on the coun
ter, he turned to me, his eyebrows knitted together in concern. “Did none of the clothes Sara brought fit you?”

  I hadn’t even given those clothes a moment’s thought today. Or last night, either, since I had already been in the T-shirt Liam had given me and that had seemed reasonable for sleep. “I haven’t even opened the bag to see what’s in there,” I admitted, pouring a cup now that the coffee had finished brewing. I added sugar and cream, probably more than anyone else on the face of the planet would find reasonable, and stirred.

  He lifted an eyebrow at me, taking out a cutting board and a knife. “You realize you’re almost naked and Babs saw you like that.”

  He had a point. I glanced down at myself, suddenly self-conscious. I tugged at the hem of the T-shirt, but it didn’t seem to do any good. “Do you think I embarrassed him?” It seemed possible, especially since I’d never met Babs before. Maybe that had been why he’d kept blushing.

  Liam put a few strips of bacon in a hot pan on the stove. They started popping and sizzling immediately. “I’m not worried about him; I’m worried about you. I don’t like anyone else seeing you like this.”

  Anyone else, he’d said. Meaning he liked seeing me like this, himself. A warm flutter raced through my body to settle in my stomach.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, crossing my legs at the ankles as though that could do anything to cover me. I hadn’t thought about how little I was wearing until now, which seemed stupid of me. Just because Liam felt like he was harmless to me didn’t mean he actually was harmless. I had no way of knowing. “I wasn’t thinking.”

  That seemed to be a problem for me more often than not. I just reacted to things instinctively and let the chips fall where they may. I took a sip from my cup and nearly choked on it because of the heated look Liam sent in my direction. It seemed like the more time I spent in his company, the more he was flirting.

  And I liked it.

  A fleeting smile tugged at the corners of his lips. “Go see if any of it fits so I don’t have to hurt Babs for looking at you too hard. I’ll have breakfast ready soon.”