by Teresa Hill
It seemed at first there was nothing left of the boy. But after a moment, he got tired of glaring at her and looked away. From that angle his face still looked a bit boyish. Like it didn't fit on his body. Like all of his parts were growing at a different rate, and his face was one of the last things to turn manlike.
"I did miss you," she said.
"Yeah. I could tell." He shrugged and stared at the opposite wall. "All the phone calls. The letters. Birthday presents. Christmas stuff. You were really thinking about me, weren't you?"
"I'm here now," she said. "Doesn't that count for anything?"
"You don't want to be here," he shot back.
"No, I don't." No lying about that. "But I don't want you here alone, either, and that meant more to me than how much I hated the idea of coming back here."
"You didn't have to," he said, shrugging again. "I can take care of myself."
"No one's going to let you do that, Peter. You're only thirteen."
"I'll be fine till Mom and Dad get out of jail. It's not like they take care of me when they're here."
True, but... "The lady downstairs won't let you stay here by yourself. I don't want you to be here by yourself with no parents and no one to take care of you."
"Look, I don't need them," he growled. "And I sure as shit don't need you."
Julie took a breath, not liking arguments like this any more than when she'd been a teenager herself. She should probably give him hell about his language. That seemed like the motherly thing to do. But they had more important issues to settle, like the fact that he was stuck. Someone had to take care of him. Like the fact that she truly did care, even if she'd done a lousy job of showing it.
"Well, I'm here now." She could be as stubborn as anybody. "And I'm going to do my best to take care of you."
"I told you, I don't need anybody to take care of me."
"Then there shouldn't be much for me to do," she said, switching tactics midstream. "Maybe I'll just consider this a little vacation. I haven't had one in a long time."
He seemed taken aback by that. Was this the way? Agreeing with him and just staying? God, she didn't want to stay.
"You could come back to Memphis with me," she said.
He made a face. "What's in Memphis?"
"Not much," she admitted. No job. No fiancé. A few friends, but no one she was close to. "I live there. They have good barbecue. Nice music. The Mississippi..."
Peter shook his head and snarled, "I'm not going anywhere with you."
"Fine. We'll stay here," she bluffed. Surely he wouldn't really want to do that. Surely he'd always wanted a chance to get away, just like she had.
He seemed at a total loss then. Like he'd expected a good fight. Like he might enjoy it. She took perverse pleasure in denying him the opportunity.
Peter's bottom lip started to tremble and a telltale glistening came into his eyes as he stood there, as defiant as ever on the outside and crumbling inside.
She reached for him. "I'm sorry, Peter. I'm so sorry."
He backed up a step, his chin jutted up, and his tears never fell. "I hate you," he said. "I hate you almost as much as I hate them."
Then he slammed the door in her face.
* * *
The social worker had obviously heard every word. She was standing halfway up the stairs as Julie came back down. They walked into the living room. Neither of them sat down. Might as well get this over with, Julie decided.
"So, what now? Do we have to fill out some paperwork? Sign something? It's been a long day already, and..."
"We have forms to fill out, and there will be things to sign. But I wanted you to have some idea of what you'll be dealing with, with Peter, first. If you're sure..."
"I'm sure," Julie said.
"All right. Why don't I take Peter back to the shelter, and I'll come back? Then we can get started."
"What's he doing in a shelter?"
"It's the best we could do. I'm sorry. We didn't have any open slots with foster parents at the moment."
Kiddie jail. To think she'd joked about it. In that moment she was glad she'd come. Peter must have been so scared, thinking that she wouldn't.
"I'll go see if he's gotten his things together, and we'll go," Ms. Reed said.
"Wait, go?" Julie still didn't understand.
"I'm sorry. Obviously I didn't make myself clear," Ms. Reed said. "Yesterday, when both his parents were arrested, Peter was taken into the custody of the Division of Child and Family Services. Once we do that, he's our responsibility. Mine and the judge's and a whole host of other people's, and our job is to make sure he's in a safe place."
"He'll be safe with me," Julie said. "I'm his sister."
"But you're not his legal guardian or his parent. Which means we have some work to do. References, court records, criminal background check, work history, that sort of thing."
Julie wondered if she'd pass. "And how long does all that take?"
"If everything checks out—quickly—we might be able to get you temporary custody in forty-eight hours or so."
"Oh."
"It's for his protection. To make sure he's placed with a responsible adult."
Responsible? That would be me?
"I just broke up with my fiancé and quit my job. Yesterday," she said. "Is that a problem?"
"It depends... You and your fiancé... is it... an abusive relationship?"
"No."
"Do you drink? Use illegal drugs?"
"No."
"Ever been arrested?"
"No."
"What about stability? How long had you been in that job?"
"Just two years, but I'd been with the company for five. I started working there while I was in school."
"That's good. Your employment record won't show any problems?"
"No." Somehow she'd managed to be a model employee.
"We'll need to speak with your former employer."
"That would be my former fiancé," she said, wondering if Steve would tell Ms. Reed that Julie was sleeping with Zach, the fiancé of Ms. Reed's good friend's daughter. "Working there didn't seem like a good idea after breaking our engagement."
"I can understand that. We're not asking that you be a saint, or someone who's never made a mistake. If everything you've told me checks out, we should be fine. Provided you can handle your brother."
Julie laughed yet again.
"You did fine up there. He's angry at the whole world right now, with good reason. It's better to have it come out than for him to be bottling it up inside. And it's going to be hard for him to trust that you're going to stay, because he must feel like his parents just abandoned him. You can work past that, in time, if that's what you really want. If you don't, it would be better for him if you left right now rather than let him come to depend on you and then lose you, too.
"Think about it," Ms. Reed said. "I'm going upstairs. It was late when we gave up on finding a foster home to take him last night, and he didn't pack any more than he needed for one night. I don't think he believed me when I told him he wouldn't be back home for a while. If he's finished packing, I'll take him back to the shelter and then come back here so you and I can get started."
"Thank you."
Julie sat down on the sofa. This was going to be more difficult than she'd feared. From upstairs, she heard shouting, Peter mainly. "Why?" he said, and "I don't understand." Did he want to stay with her after all? Maybe she was better than a shelter, at least.
He came downstairs a few moments later, a scuffed-up duffel bag in one hand and a basketball in the other, Ms. Reed following closely behind. He paused for a moment by the front door and glared at her before stalking outside.
Ms. Reed handed her a key. "To the house. It's Peter's."
Julie took it and went to the door, calling after him, "I'll be right here, Peter, and you will be, too. Just give us a couple of days."
He didn't acknowledge her words in any way, just walked across the overgrown grass
of the front yard and stood rigidly, his back to her, by the social worker's car.
"Try not to worry so much. He's far from the first scared, angry teenager we've dealt with," Ms. Reed said. "We'll be in touch."
And then Julie found herself in the last place she wanted to be. With no job, no fiancé, and a brother who said he hated her. Oh, and a social worker who was good friends with the mother of the fiancé of the man she'd slept with two nights ago. As she saw it, she didn't have a chance in hell of making this work.
She also needed to talk to Zach. She could say she was sorry again, and then maybe beg him not tell his fiancée about the two of them, for Peter's sake.
Julie looked at the clock. Almost three o'clock. Thirty-six hours after they'd done the deed. If she knew Zach, he'd already confessed.
She pulled out her cell phone and dialed the number he'd given her that first night in the restaurant, getting his voice mail.
"Zach, it's Julie." Damn. Her voice was shaky. She cleared her throat and tried to steady it, to not sound quite so needy. "You'll never guess where I am. Never in a million years. I'm home, and I saw Peter today, just for a minute." Okay, she couldn't hide it. She was needy as hell. "Peter can't stand me. He's in an emergency shelter, because they didn't have space in a foster home for him, and they're going to do an investigation into my background before they'll even let him live with me temporarily. If they let him live with me. And..."
And I'm scared again, Zach. I'm so scared.
Not that he needed her to tell him that. It would be painfully obvious from the message she'd left so far.
Julie tried to think of something to say to save herself from sounding so dismal and seeming so pathetic.
"Oh, and the social worker said she knows your fiancée's mother—" She got that much out before the voice-mail system cut her off.
Chapter 9
Zach got to Memphis late Saturday night. He spent Sunday feeling guilty about everything and reading over files, then went to visit his client and the public defender assigned to Tony's case.
Returning to his room Sunday night, he heard his cell phone ringing as soon as he powered it back on. He hadn't answered any calls since he'd left Gwen in Cleveland, but he couldn't ignore them forever. He dialed into his voice mail. Mother, father, sister, sister, mother. He listened to a few words of each one and then erased them.
Until he heard a sad, shaky voice say, "Zach, it's Julie…."
He played the message three times, and each time she sounded worse. The social worker was a friend of Gwen's mother? Life just got better and better. Peter was in an emergency shelter while the social worker picked Julie's life apart. She'd hate that. But at no point in her message did she ask for help. She wouldn't.
She hadn't asked anything of him, except for him to go away after he first spotted her in that restaurant in Memphis. And what had he done? Butted into her life, pissed off her fiancé, tried to play conscience for her. Then he'd just grabbed on to her like she was the only solid thing in the universe, drawing her down to the floor beneath him, tearing off her clothes, pushing inside her—
God, the images, the feelings simply would not leave him.
Zach got to his feet, needing to get out of that room. Just looking at that spot on the floor made him practically break out into a sweat. The bedroom wasn't any easier to handle.
He grabbed his cell phone and went outside, welcoming the slight chill to the breeze.
No use in going back to that night again. They couldn't change what they'd done, and to hear her talk about it, she believed she could put it completely out of her mind.
Really? he wanted to ask. Because much as I've tried, I sure as hell haven't managed to do that.
But this wasn't about sex. Not really. This was about a mess she was in that was at least partly his fault. So he called. That's what he told himself—that this was an obligation.
She had him lying to himself now.
The truth was, he just needed to hear her voice.
She answered, sounding sleepy and very, very vulnerable. None of that Julie-the-tough-girl evident tonight. He glanced at his watch, checking the time. It wasn't that late.
"Hi," he said softly.
"Hi."
She'd barely breathed into the phone, and already the sound of her voice was doing funny things to his insides. He felt a little kick of heat in his groin, especially when he wondered if she was in bed already. Which made him think of having her in his bed, where—if things worked out the way they should—she would never be again.
How was he supposed to handle that? That they'd never be there together again?
And what in the hell was he supposed to do with the way something seemed to ease inside his chest just at the sound of her voice? As if, with one or two little words from her, he could gauge her mood and know that she was okay. Tired, but not bad, all things considered.
Gwen came fleetingly to mind—what was he doing to him and Gwen?—but he pushed the thought aside just as quickly. He'd felt like shit for three days straight. If the sound of Julie's voice from hundreds of miles away could bring him some measure of comfort, surely he could have it for just a few moments?
Because an odd kind of need was floating around inside him that he didn't understand but had no intention of fighting. Not when he just wanted to talk, and she was safely far away.
"So you're really there, huh?"
"Yes, I'm here," she whispered.
He imagined her there to say it in person, say it softly, with so much understanding. I'm here.
He decided he wanted to talk to Julie Morrison more than he wanted his next breath.
"I can't believe it," he said. "I had to call the number and hear you say it again before I believed you were there."
She laughed. He heard the faint creak of a chair. Good, no bed. As she sighed, he imagined her settling deeper into the corner of a big, comfy chair, her feet curled up underneath her, the phone tucked against her shoulder. That's it, he thought. Get comfortable. Let me see what I can do for you tonight.
"Surprised you, didn't I?"
"Yeah, you did. I know how hard that was for you, Julie. I'm proud of you for going and trying to help." Some people never, ever heard that, not at any time in their entire lives, and he was proud of her. She'd been running for so long.
"Imagine that. Zach McRae, proud of me."
He grinned. She was probably aiming for sarcasm—she often did—but the emotion in her voice ruined the effect.
"I am," he insisted.
"I thought you might be. Even though, to be perfectly honest—how's that coming from me?—I really didn't want to come here, Zach. You know that. Peter shamed me into it."
"Hey, it doesn't really matter why you're there. You went. That's what counts. You don't think people do the right things because they want to, do you? The right thing is usually the hardest thing of all."
"You do the right thing."
"Not always." The words came out too fast to take them back.
"Oh, yeah... that. So... you were engaged, too?" she asked softly. "You didn't tell me, Zach."
"Yeah. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to keep it from you. I guess I was so busy trying to tell you what to do with your own life that I didn't say much about mine," he said. What a lame-ass excuse. He could just hear himself telling Gwen, if she ever asked, Did that woman you slept with know you were engaged? No, darling. It just never came up.
"I guess it's too late to ask you not to tell her?" Julie asked.
"Sorry. I flew to Cleveland Saturday morning to talk to her in person."
"She lives in Cleveland?"
"No. Cincinnati. Her father's a U.S. Senator, running for reelection, and she works on his campaign, so she moves around a lot lately."
"Oh. How did she take it?"
"I'm not sure. It's probably going to take a few days for it to sink in, and then... Honestly, I don't know what's going to happen, Julie."
Zach, the man with the plan. He had
no clue what was coming.
"I'm sorry," she said again.
"And I told you, you don't have anything to apologize for."
It had been all him. If he was really up for some of that legendary honesty she credited him with, he'd admit that he wouldn't mind hanging on to her right now.
"What about you?" he asked, pulling the oldest argument tactic in the book. When floundering, change the subject. "What did you tell Steve to get away long enough to go to Baxter?"
"The truth."
"You didn't," he shot back.
"I did," she insisted. "Surprised you again, huh?"
"Yeah."
"I couldn't marry him. Not after... you know."
"You said it didn't mean anything," he reminded her, in dangerous territory he couldn't seem to avoid.
"Not to you and me. It's not like... you know."
Don't go down that road, Zach. But he couldn't quite help himself. "No, I don't think I do know. Why don't you explain it to me?"
Maybe then he could explain it to Gwen. And to himself. Maybe he could forget
"I meant that it wasn't like there was anything between us. Not really. It was just—"
"Sex?" What did it mean when people said that? Sex, to him, wasn't one of those words you could put a "just" in front of. It was always something. Memorable. Forgettable. Mind-blowing. Awkward. Comforting. Nice. Really nice.
They hadn't had forgettable sex, which was a real problem, since he was supposed to forget about it. And it hadn't been awkward, although it should have been, there in that little slice of space on the floor between the table and the couch.
It had been wild and desperate.
He didn't think he'd done desperate since he'd lost his virginity back in high school, and he'd never done it quite like he and Julie had.
"Yes, just sex," Julie claimed. "A mistake."