Downfall

by Jay Crownover

  I did a mental rundown of my week trying to find a hole where I could fit her in. Not for the first time a wave of exhaustion washed over me when I realized how every hour of my days were packed. It shouldn’t be nearly impossible to eke out a night for something as easy as dinner. Finally deciding I was just going to have to skip a training session or get up even earlier to work on school work, I told Orley I would be over on Wednesday night.

  She nodded at me and took a step forward. I went to move out of the way so she could get out of the small space without feeling crowded, but she caught me completely off guard when she walked right up to me and wrapped her arms around my waist. I felt her soft breath against the base of my throat and her soft hair brush against the bottom of my chin. I reflexively put an arm around her shoulders and returned her embrace. If she tilted her head back just a little, there wasn’t enough self-control in the world for me to keep my mouth off of hers. I would kiss the shit out of her, even though I knew it was the last thing she needed.

  “I’ve never had anyone like you in my life, Solo. You terrify me.” She hugged me hard enough I had to bite my tongue to keep the yelp of pain from my jacked-up ribs at bay.

  “That street goes both ways, Orley. I’ve never met anyone like you either.” I never thought I would to be honest.

  She let me go and took a deep breath. She was halfway across the room when I realized something. “Hey, what about you? You never told me your last name.”

  She stopped by the door, her back to me. For a minute I thought she didn’t hear me, but then she pulled the door open and called softly, “I’ll see you on Wednesday night.”

  She slipped out the door without another word, leaving me with one more piece of a puzzle I was determined to put together. Figuring out my pretty neighbor was going to have to wait. I still needed to shower and drive out to see my mom. My obligations were never-ending and usually I liked being busy enough I didn’t have to think about much of anything. Lately, I found myself resenting every minute that took my attention away from the mysterious redhead I couldn’t stop thinking about.

  Orley

  Dinner.

  It was something I managed every single night now that I had a more predictable schedule. I would sit with Noble and catch up on the day. She had a million stories to tell now that she was spending time with other kids again and had found a new idol in Riley. Adding Solo into the mix shouldn’t have been a huge deal, it was just a friendly meal between neighbors, literally the least I could do, but for some reason, knowing he was going to be in my space, within the walls of my tattered sanctuary, turned me into a scattered mess of a human.

  I was sticking with something simple and cheap. I planned on making something I knew both a toddler and a big guy like Solo would eat: spaghetti and meatballs. But somehow, I managed to scorch the sauce, burn half of the meatballs, and drop most of the noodles on the floor before I got them into the boiling water. My itty-bitty kitchen looked like a warzone, and I was fairly certain I’d somehow managed to get red sauce on the ceiling. Noble thought the disaster was hilarious. She made picking up the noodles off the floor a game, making even more of a mess as they cracked and splintered into too many pieces to count. When I told her Solo was coming over to join us for dinner, her little face lit up and her blue eyes glimmered with obvious delight. My daughter was much more comfortable showing how much she liked our handsome neighbor than I was. She asked about the dark-haired man on a regular basis, wanting to know when she would see him again and asking if he would finally take her up on her challenge to race up and down the block. She’d caught sight of him jogging in the mornings a couple of times and was obsessed with the idea of being faster than him.

  Ready to throw in the towel and order pizza or call the whole thing off, I took a second to breathe, put my hands on the counter next to the stove, and valiantly tried to pull my shit together. I helped Noble clean up the mess on the floor, and realized I could save most of the sauce if I changed pots and tossed in the remaining, non-burned meatballs. I boiled the noodles that didn’t end up on the floor and let out a sigh of relief when it all came together at the last minute. I even splurged and bought stuff to make garlic bread, which I was pulling out of the oven when there was a knock on the door.

  Noble let out a shriek of delight and bolted through the living room before I could stop her. Her little feet pounded on the floor as she ran for the door full-out, barely stopping as she reached for the knob.

  “Hey! What did I tell you about answering the door without an adult in the room?” I dropped the hot pan in my hands on the counter and rounded the corner of the long breakfast bar in a rush. The door jerked open, bouncing against the chain at the top. Through the small space, I could see Solo’s surprised expression. He was missing the well-worn baseball hat I’d grown accustomed to covering his dark hair, so there wasn’t the usual shadow hiding his intriguing dark gaze.

  The corner of his mouth kicked up in a slight grin as he looked down at the little girl bouncing up and down on her toes in front of him. “I think you’re supposed to ask who it is before you pull the door open, little one.”

  Noble smiled up at him as she continued to tug on the door. “I’m not supposed to open the door at all. I got too excited. Mommy is mad.”

  I heard Solo chuckle. “I think you should listen to her so she doesn’t get mad.”

  Noble’s bottom lip stuck out in an exaggerated way as she moved away from the door in a huff. She turned her bright gaze up toward mine and offered a reluctant apology. “Sorry I answered the door without you, Mommy.”

  I reached over her head to slide the chain free and pulled her back with the other. “It’s not safe to open the door without knowing who is on the other side. That’s an important lesson for you to learn. If you don’t get dessert tonight for not listening, then next time you’ll remember to wait for me when someone is at the door.”

  I lifted my eyebrows at Solo, tilting my head toward the interior of the apartment so he would walk through the door. Noble proceeded to throw a fit at the threat of no dessert. So far this was turning out to be the opposite of the simple dinner I’d planned.

  I tried to calm my daughter down and pointed Solo in the direction of the kitchenette. “There’s stuff in the fridge if you want to get yourself a drink. I don’t have anything fun. I think orange juice is probably the hardest thing I keep stocked.”

  He nodded in understanding and gave me a little wink. “It smells pretty good in here.”

  Noble stopped wailing about getting dessert long enough to rat me out. “Mommy made a mess. I had to help clean it up.”

  I sighed and rolled my eyes at the back of my daughter’s head. “That was supposed to be our secret.”

  Solo laughed, and I tried not to stare at the way the expression turned his face from harshly handsome to outright breathtaking. He didn’t smile or laugh nearly enough. I was suddenly thankful for his serious nature. There was a solid chance I would have tried to climb him like a tree if he was flashing that deadly grin in my direction all the time. I lost all sense of reason and reserve when I was around him.

  “It wasn’t much of a secret. These walls are as thick as tissue paper. I heard something fall and smelled something burning through the vents. I honestly expected pizza, which I would’ve been okay with. I know you’ve been working a lot. You didn’t have to go to any extra trouble for me.” He gave Noble the same wink he offered me and the way she giggled sent my heart tumbling. It felt like it had been years since she’d had the freedom to be the carefree, lighthearted little girl she’d been before I’d bolted with her in the middle of the night. If I hadn’t wanted to kiss him for any variety of reasons before, I wanted to lay one on him right now for the ability he had to make my kid laugh.

  “Mommy fixed it. She always fixes everything.” Noble grabbed Solo’s much bigger, tattooed hand and proceeded to tug him toward the living room so she could show off her variety of toys and whatever new dance moves Riley h
ad been teaching her.

  He went without complaint and I felt like I was caught in a trance watching my daughter giggle and prance around the huge, tattooed man in my living room. Noble had never been around a good man before. Her father wanted nothing to do with her. We were both foolish teenagers taking risks we shouldn’t have and tried to prove a useless point when she was conceived. He was acting out, desperately trying to win approval for something. I was caught in a downward spiral, constantly searching for attention and any kind of reaction from my father. When I found out I was pregnant, Noble’s father couldn’t bail fast enough. She was not part of his plan at all. In fact, she was the opposite of whatever it was he was trying to accomplish. He shoved money at me, demanding I get rid of the ‘mistake.’ When I refused, he convinced his family to send him away to a fancy boarding school in Europe before the truth came out. It didn’t take a genius to figure out my baby and I would be better off without him.

  Then there was my father.

  The man never had time for me, never acted like I existed. He looked through me like I was made of glass. I was used to his indifference. I lived my life being invisible in his house no matter how much I acted out or silently screamed for approval. I had no idea how to react when Noble came along and my father started showing an unexplained, intense interest in her. All the love and affection I’d been starved of as a child, my father heaped upon my curly-haired baby. He treated her like a princess, called her his ‘precious little doll,’ and finally acted like the father I’d dreamed of having myself. I didn’t know his actions were a purposeful attack on both me and my mother, that he had ulterior motives I would never have been able to see coming. I didn’t know he was using my child as a pawn to drive my mother over the edge of the mental cliff to which she’d been precariously clinging. I was so in the dark about things that when the truth came to light, it was blinding. I was so happy he’d finally come around, I hadn’t even questioned his actions until it was almost too late.

  Then there was Mr. Sanchez. Sure, he wasn’t as bad as the rest, but he was still a man in my daughter’s life who judged her and found her lacking simply because she wasn’t from the same place he was. It seemed so unfair to decide a child was unworthy of acceptance when they weren’t in control of their circumstances. Sure, Noble had come from a lot when we first showed up, but now she had next to nothing and it totally sucked that her former babysitter’s husband was cruel and prejudiced enough to take even more away from her.

  But not Solo.

  Nope. Solomon Sanders, with all his tough guy attitude and dangerous swagger, sat down on my living room floor and played with my daughter like she was the single best thing in his entire day. He smiled with her, laughed at her silly antics, and promised her they would have a foot race when the weather cooled down. He played with whatever doll she handed him, no matter how frilly, and he didn’t blink an eye when Noble eventually crawled into his lap and started tracing the colorful tattoos that snaked up and down his strong arms. He patiently described what each image was and why he’d permanently etched them into his skin. Noble was extremely proud of herself when she recognized MOM in a scrolling banner suspended between the beaks of two birds on his bicep.

  “You got an owie.” I glanced over from where I was setting the last of our dinner on the breakfast bar and watched as Noble patted Solo’s cheek and lifted her tiny fingers to touch the ugly bruise around his eye. The swelling had gone down, and most of the blue and purple had lightened. Now there was a yellowish tinge to the injury which almost got lost as it blended with his naturally bronze complexion.

  I was so glad he didn’t wear his hat. When Noble used his broad shoulders for leverage so she could touch her lips to the slightly discolored area, Solo’s dark eyes melted like sweet chocolate candy. It did something to my insides watching such a big, strong guy go soft over the innocent, childish affection. Clearly Solo hadn’t let enough people in his life take care of his owies for him. Suddenly, I found myself blinking back tears and clearing my throat which was clogged with a rush of emotion.

  “We can eat if you’re ready.” I waved a hand at the food on the breakfast bar. “We’ll have to sit on the couch and eat on the coffee table.” I didn’t trust the shaky, dining room table that came with the apartment. I’d already picked up dinner off the floor once tonight.

  Wordlessly Solo climbed to his feet, Noble hanging from around his neck like a little monkey. She squealed and demanded I look how high off the ground she was. I smiled, a real one. The first genuine one that’d crossed my face in a very long time. I’d almost forgotten how it felt to relax enough to enjoy such a simple moment.

  I handed out plates and helped Noble find a place where she was least likely to make a mess. She blinked those big baby blues of hers at me and asked if she finished all her dinner if I would reconsider dessert. I told her we would see after she was done eating. Solo jumped in and told her their race would be called off if she didn’t take my rules seriously.

  Noble nodded solemnly and then launched into a story about how Riley and a couple of the other kids Erica watched during the day were trying to teach her how to play soccer. It was the babbling, rambling nonsense of an almost-four-year-old, but it was lovely compared to the threats from the landlord and the arguments from the apartment on the other side of the wall.

  Thinking about the thin walls, I cocked my head and looked at Solo through narrowed eyes. “You heard me drop everything in the kitchen earlier? Do we bother you coming and going?” Noble wasn’t exactly quiet, and when I had enough money to buy the cowboy boots she coveted, she was going to be even louder.

  Solo shook his head as he slurped at a saucy noodle. “Naw. No way you guys could be as loud as the couple on the other side of me. For a long time, I wondered if anyone had actually moved in when I heard this apartment was rented. I’m so busy, when I crash, I tend to be dead to the world.” Something flashed in his gaze and I realized it was an apology. He still wasn’t over the fact that he’d shown up after that creepy landlord had me cornered.

  I tried to indicate none of it had been his fault with my eyes. That wasn’t a conversation we were going to have in front of my kid. I changed the subject after taking a bite of the buttery garlic bread.

  “So, you’ve lived in the city your entire life? You’ve never wanted to go anywhere else?” The sauce on the pasta had just the right amount of bite, and the little chunks of meatball were juicy and savory in all the best ways. Not bad for what started out as an utter disaster.

  Solo’s jet-black eyebrows arched as he lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “My mom is here. My job is here. My friends are here.”

  I lifted an eyebrow in return. “So, your future is here?”

  He sighed and looked away. “When I was younger, I always imagined I’d leave. I had those dreams, the ones where I left and magically went off and found fame and fortune somewhere else. I was going to buy my mom a mansion on a hill somewhere far away from the city and make sure she never had to work another day of her life. Things didn’t really work out that way, but do they ever? When you grow up, you get different dreams, make different goals for yourself, and so far, I’ve been able to do everything I set out to do, even if it’s in a place I always thought I would leave behind.”

  “You no longer want to buy your mom a mansion on a hill?” I thought I was being funny, but I saw his expression change, shutters came down in his eyes, and the way his big body stiffened gave me pause. Clearly, I’d unwittingly walked into a very touchy subject for him.

  “My mother was shot in the head during a carjacking when I was a teenager. She was at her weekend job, one she picked up for some extra cash. She always had at least two, if not three jobs when I was growing up. She made sure I never went without and I didn’t realize how much she sacrificed for me until it was my turn to take care of her.”

  I gasped and looked over at Noble. The conversation had taken a turn not exactly appropriate for a child, and luckily, she was
focused on her food and humming a song under her breath.

  I cleared my throat and lowered my voice so only Solo could hear me. “I’m so sorry. That’s all horrible and I hate you went through it when you were just a child. That must have been so hard.”

  He shrugged. “She survived. I still have my mom, and that’s all that matters. After therapy and rehab she was able to leave the hospital. I brought her here for the first year, but realized pretty quickly she needed more care than I could provide. The bullet damaged her brain, so she has violent mood swings, and often forgets where she is and who the people around her are. She tried to set the apartment on fire once while I was at work, and she came after me with a knife one night when I was late getting home from a date. It was better for her to be in a facility that could monitor and take care of her needs twenty-four hours a day. I visit her as often as I can.”

  I pushed the end of my ponytail over my shoulder and looked at him from under my lashes. It made my heart soften when I realized he was a caretaker through and through. “So now you work a lot of jobs and push yourself to the limit so you can take care of her the way she always took care of you. That’s very sweet, and honestly, admirable. You’re a good man, Solo.” I was an idiot for thinking he wasn’t my type because he looked so different from the polished, boring men I was used to. His loyalty and dedication to the woman who gave him all she had was commendable and explained why he was so good at looking out for everyone else, even when he claimed he was no hero.

  “I’ll take care of you, Mommy. Don’t be sad.” Both Solo and I jerked our attention back to our smallest dinner companion. I hated myself a little for almost forgetting Noble was there. Solo’s presence was too distracting. Once again, I realized how quickly I could get in over my head with this man.

  “Thank you, baby. I appreciate that. But let’s hope you don’t have to worry about taking care of anyone for a very long time.” I pointed at the last few bites of food on her plate and told her to finish up.