by Brooks, Abby
Working on keeping his breath slow and even, he pulled out of the driveway and drove back to his apartment—hyper aware of the silence in the cab, the whistle in his mother’s swollen nose, each and every moment between his parent's house and his. When he pulled into the parking lot, his mother had just sat there, staring blankly ahead until Cole opened the passenger door and helped her out. He led her straight upstairs to the bedroom where she curled up on his bed and fell asleep while his heart shattered into a million pieces.
Now, stepping into his darkened apartment, a half-finished beer in his hand, Cole focused on Lilah’s smile. Needed a break in the clouds for that ray of sunshine. He headed straight into the kitchen, where he poured the rest of the beer down the sink and started digging through his cabinets for dinner. He didn’t have much, not that would count as an honest to goodness meal anyway. He finally settled on some spaghetti and got a big pot of water onto the stove to boil.
His mom wandered into the kitchen as he snapped the long noodles in half and began dropping them into the water. The bruises on her face looked worse, and the look in her eyes was a little stunned and vacant, but damned if she didn’t try to smile at him. Cole swallowed hard, anger clenching his jaw and sadness softening his heart.
“You have any bread?” she asked, pulling open the pantry.
“In the fridge.”
“The fridge?” She looked confused. “Who puts bread in the fridge?”
“A man who doesn’t eat bread very fast.” Cole pulled open the refrigerator and gestured toward the single loaf of bread. “It lasts longer in here.”
His mom dipped her head in acknowledgement. “Makes sense.” She leaned into the fridge. “What about butter? Garlic?”
“Butter’s in the door and I’ve got garlic salt, if that’ll work.”
“That’ll work just fine, son.” She put the butter and bread on the counter while he reached into the cabinet and pulled out the garlic salt. She went to work buttering some bread, sprinkling it with some garlic salt, and popping it into the toaster oven.
They finished putting the simple meal together and ate quietly at the dinner table. Cole had a million questions to ask her. A million things he wanted to say. But just like he knew that she would hate him for taking her to the hospital before she decided she wanted to go, he knew that she needed to move at her own pace with the ‘now what’ discussion.
She flinched as she chewed and put a hand to her bruised and swollen cheek. Pushed her plate away before she had eaten enough to get full. “Thanks,” she said, sitting back in her chair and meeting his eye for the first time since he picked her up that evening.
Cole put his fork down. “Of course.”
“Don’t stop eating on my account.” She waved her hand at his plate. “Eat.”
Cole shook his head and picked up his fork. “I thought you could take the truck to work, drop me at the docks first. I’ll find a ride home, no problem.”
His mom shook her head. “I’m not going to work.” She dropped her focus to her fingers and started picking at her nails. “Last time he hit me, I threatened to leave. He showed up at work the next day, drunker than the day before. He had me backed into a closet, promising things would change…” She shook her head. “He got mad.” A long breath. “I’ll call Gloria and tell her I need to use my vacation days.”
Cole studied his mom’s battered face. How could she be so strong and so broken, able to stand living with a monster like his dad, but not able to leave? He had spent his whole life imagining rescuing her and this was the first time she had even come close to letting him. He was afraid to move. Afraid to say the one thing that would send her running back. He just wanted to keep her safe.
So, he said nothing. He just nodded and twirled his fork into the long noodles on his plate. Mopped up the sauce with the garlic bread she made for him. Finished the whole damn plate even though he was full long before and sat back, patting his belly. “That was delicious. Good call on the bread.”
“My boy, charmed by some toast and boiled noodles.” His mom smiled and a familiar glimmer of happiness danced in her eyes. “You need a woman in your life.”
Cole rolled his eyes. “I need no such thing.” He said it with a playful smile on his face but meant it with every fiber of his being.
Love hurt. One look at his mom proved that simple fact. But to make matters worse, it was his own father who hurt his mom. A monster who loved with his fists and tore into his family with his vicious mouth. And despite all his efforts to prove that he was not his father, that man was in Cole’s DNA.
“You can’t live in fear of him,” his mother said, eyeing him as he cleared the table. “You’re half me, too.”
Cole froze and turned to her. “I’m not afraid of him.” He said it and he meant it.
“I’ve watched you your whole life. You are not him. You never were and you never will be. You’re your own man and I’m proud of you every day.”
Damn if her voice didn’t crack. Cole cleared his throat and turned his back on her as he headed into the kitchen with the dirty plates. “Dang mom, laying it on awful thick, aren’t you? There’s no need to flatter me, I’ve already given you the bedroom.”
She laughed, a tense coughing sound, and stood, following him into the kitchen. “I’ll wash if you dry,” she said.
“Sit down, woman,” Cole responded. “You forget I’m living the high life. Got me a dishwasher.” He waggled his eyebrows and patted the appliance while his mom shook her head and wandered back into the living room.
“Show off,” she muttered as she eased herself down onto the sofa. Cole thought about what she said as he filled the dishwasher and got things started. He would love to find out that he wasn’t anything like his father. He would love to have proof that he was truly his own man and that he wouldn’t end up a drunken monster who spewed hatred in the faces of the people who loved him. But how could he be sure? How could he find out that was true without letting some poor woman fall in love with him? Without letting himself fall in love with her?
How was that even right? Entering into a relationship when he might be a time bomb? Where one wrong word at just the right time might send him over the edge. Like Bruce Banner into the Hulk. Like Jekyll into Hyde. Cole Bennett would dissolve into Maxwell Bennett, a monster. A mean, selfish man, hell-bent on bringing pain to those who loved him most.
He couldn’t risk it. It was that simple. Cole Bennett didn’t do girlfriends and that was all there was to that.
8
Lilah scrubbed the last remains of her dinner off her plate and fit it into the dishwasher. As she fished out one of those little packs of detergent from a container under her sink, she heard her phone buzz from the living room. She dropped the detergent pack into the dishwasher, closed the door and turned the thing on, smiling at the rush of water and hum of energy. Doing the dishes wasn’t so bad after all.
She dried her hands on a towel she had hanging near the sink and wandered into the living room to check her phone where it sat on a brand new end table she bought just last week. It wasn’t high end. And it wasn’t exactly beautiful. But it was functional and it was hers and she loved the hell out of it. She unlocked her phone and found a text from James.
Get ready to be Aunt Lilah!!! Ellie’s in labor!!
Lilah dropped onto the couch and perched on the edge, elbows on her knees, phone in her hands. The news was more exciting than she had expected it to be. James was about to be a dad. Ellie was about to be a mom. And she herself was about to be an Aunt. She typed out a response.
EEEEK! I need updates! Is she close?
James’s response came in right away.
Closer by the minute. I’ll text you when he’s here!
Damn. Lilah shook her head. James was going to be a father. She couldn’t help but smile at the thought of her brother, all muscles and tattoos, cradling a tiny human being in his arms.
She had intended to spend the evening curled up on the couch w
atching Netflix on the tiny TV she had found at a Goodwill, eating too many chips and drinking too much wine. Instead, she decided to head out and buy her new nephew a few gifts. Things at the diner had been going better lately. She could afford a little splurge to celebrate something as special as a brand new family member.
Lilah got dressed and swiped on some makeup and, noticing that her clothes basket was getting pretty full, decided to fill up her laundry bag and hit the laundromat while she was out. Baby shopping and laundry wasn’t quite as good as Netflix and wine, but it would have to do. Besides, she loved spending money. So she wasn’t as stoked about shopping for baby stuff as she would be if she were shopping for herself, but shopping was shopping, right?
She slung her laundry bag over her shoulder, grabbed her purse, and stepped out into the blistering heat. Gotta love South Carolina in late July. Hot as hell even as the sun goes down. As Lilah turned to lock her door, she heard Cole’s door thump closed. She turned, surprised by how eager she was to see him. They hadn’t crossed paths since he waited for her to come home from work so he could make sure she got her tips and her thoughts had been wandering around his stormy eyes and vivid smile more often than she liked to admit.
Her heart sank when she saw a tiny woman closing the door behind her. Lilah rolled her eyes. At least this one figured out Cole actually meant it when he said he didn’t do the girlfriend thing before she spent the night with him. Lilah was still staring when the woman turned around and she quickly dropped her eyes, only to look back in confusion.
This was not one of Cole’s bimbos. This woman, though tiny, was older, and life had etched itself into the deep wrinkles on her face. She caught Lilah staring and smiled, and Lilah knew without a doubt that this woman was his mother. He had her eyes.
“Hey there, 3B.” Cole’s mom waved. “I wondered when we’d cross paths.” She crossed the dried bit of grass that separated their doorsteps and held out her hand. “I’m Maggie Bennett, Cole’s mom.”
Lilah shook her hand, amazed at the rough callouses on the other woman’s skin. “Lilah Moore. It’s really nice to meet you.” Once upon a time, Maggie had been beautiful, but life had worn down her edges. Lilah studied her. Maggie had the same stormy eyes as Cole, wary and alert even though the smile on her face was doing it’s best to look friendly. A faint remnant of a fading bruise circled Maggie’s left eye and trailed down her cheek and nose.
Maggie shifted an empty backpack up on her shoulder. “Nice to meet you, too. Doing some laundry?” she asked, eyeing Lilah’s bag.
“Yep. And a little bit of shopping. My nephew is coming into the world as we speak.” How very un-Lilah of her. Normally, she would have made some caustic remark about the powers of observation and just walked away.
Maggie’s eyes softened. “I miss babies.”
“This little guy is a first for me. I’ve actually never been around a baby before.”
“You’re in for a treat. Make sure you smell his head the first time you hold him.” Maggie sighed. “There’s nothing like it in the whole wide world.” She shifted her empty bag again. “Well, I should let you get going. Got a little shopping to do myself.”
Lilah said her goodbyes, climbed into the rust bucket and brought the thing to life with a twist of the keys. As she buckled her seatbelt, she watched Maggie take off down the sidewalk, hands in her pockets, empty bag bouncing lightly with each of her steps. Was she walking to the store? Lilah watched her a little longer as she passed several cars in the parking lot and realized that yes, Maggie Bennett intended to walk the several miles to the store in this breath-stealing heat.
Without thinking, Lilah pulled up beside her and rolled down the window. “You need a ride? It’s too hot to walk.”
Maggie slowed but didn’t stop. “You go on. A little heat never stopped me.”
“I bet we’re going in the same direction. It’d be silly to pass up a ride.”
Maggie stopped and hit Lilah with a discerning look. For a second, she felt like a stranger trying to lure a kid into a van with some candy.
“Look, I owe Cole. He saved me from a real jerk last week. Maybe I can repay him by helping you?”
Maggie shook her head. “Seems like that’s Cole’s lot in life, saving women from jerks,” she muttered, almost to herself. “Okay, Lilah Moore. I’ll let you drive me to the store as long as you promise to let me repay you by cooking dinner.”
“But that doesn’t do anything for me repaying Cole for saving me. It just puts me right back in his debt.”
“Seems to me that you driving me to the store doesn’t actually do anything for Cole in the first place. That’s you helping me and I always pay my debts. You drive me to the store, I cook a dinner for you. That’s the deal.” Maggie smiled at Lilah from the sidewalk. “You can figure out how to settle up with Cole later.”
“Fine. Deal.” What the hell was she doing, offering this woman a ride? Accepting a dinner invitation from a near stranger? Her brothers wouldn’t know what to do with this story if she told them.
Maggie crossed in front of the car and pulled open the passenger door. “You want to repay Cole, I’ll tell you what you can do,” she said as she buckled herself in. “I’ll make you that dinner when he comes back from this run he’s on and you bring the dessert.”
“Run?” Lilah tried to make sense of Maggie’s statement as she pulled out onto the road. There was just too much going on there to digest all at once. What kind of run? Like exercise?
“Yeah,” Maggie turned those laser-focused eyes of her on Lilah. “Cole’s a shrimper. Didn’t you know that?”
“We haven’t had many chances to talk.” Lilah shrugged. “A shrimper, huh? Aren’t those a dying breed?”
“That they are, especially shrimpers like Cole.”
“What kind of shrimper is Cole?”
“One who makes a living off it.” Maggie laughed at her own joke, a thick sound that somehow lacked humor. When Lilah looked at her, the woman’s eyes were filled with pride. “My boy is good at what he does.” Maggie cleared her throat. “I’m sorry. I just figured that if he was in the business of saving you from jerks, then you guys had gotten the chance to get to know each other.”
“Nope. But come to think of it, I owe him twice over. He saved me once by jumping this rust bucket here when the battery died.” Lilah paused and patted the dash of Ellie’s Neon. “And then again when some guy put his hands on me at work.”
Maggie set her jaw. “Cole’s not big on men putting hands on women.”
The statement hung oddly between them and Lilah couldn’t think of anything to say. She flicked on her turn indicator and the heavy clicking seemed at once too loud, and also somehow drowned out by all that Maggie wasn’t saying.
“How long are his runs?” Lilah finally asked after a few awkward seconds of silence.
“Depends,” Maggie said. “Cole will stay out there till the hold is full. How long does that take? That’s up to the shrimp and whether or not his crew was sober enough to show up.” Maggie shrugged. “He’s been gone a few days. I’d expect him tomorrow sometime.”
Lilah had to give it to a man who spent days out on the water, with or without a crew, working until the job was done. That was a Moore trait right there, one she admired in her brothers. “Well, I work most evenings.” Lilah glanced at Maggie as she turned into the shopping center parking lot. “Tips are better at night,” she said and Maggie nodded knowingly. “But I’ve got Wednesday off this week. If he’s back in time, I would be glad to make a dessert and come on over.”
“I’m sure he’ll be back by then. Why don’t you plan on it and I’ll let you know if he gets held up for some reason.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Lilah said and pulled into a spot and turned off the car. Lilah told Maggie that she would get her laundry started at the laundromat and then walk next door to do her shopping for the new baby. They agreed to meet back at Lilah’s car in an hour.
“Hey,” Lilah said as th
ey headed off in their separate directions. “Any idea what dessert I should bring? Any favorites?”
A devilish glint lit up Maggie’s eyes. “Bring cookies.” She smiled widely, that smile that reminded Lilah of Cole. “Cole’s my cookie monster.”
Lilah giggled as she crossed the parking lot. Cole Bennett, the cookie monster. She couldn’t quite marry such a big man, all hard eyes and rough skin, to such an adorable nickname. Maybe she would end up enjoying this dinner with Cole and his mom. Get to know the guy who was the source of so much pride in his mother’s eyes. The guy who stayed out on the water until the job was done. The guy who somehow made it his lot in life to save women from jerks.
9
“I don’t do the girlfriend thing. You know that, Ma.” Cole leaned against the doorway to the kitchen and watched his mom buzzing around, making a meal big enough to feed an army of girlfriends.
“Just because she’s a girl and she’s coming over as my friend doesn’t mean you have to do anything to her.” Maggie stopped what she was doing and turned around, her eyes gleaming with a vibrancy he hadn’t seen from her in a long time. “But, she’s cute enough that I bet it’d be fun. You know. Doing her.”
Cole pushed off the wall and shook his head. “Geez, mom. There are some lines you just shouldn’t cross.” So that’s what the gleam in her eyes was all about. His mom fully intended for him to fall head over heels with the girl he had once called the bitch in 3B.
He couldn’t quite figure out how he felt about Lilah coming over for dinner. On the one hand, she was awfully cute, if you went for that whole stuck up thing, and she put up with his sharp wit and even threw back a few barbed comments of her own. On the other hand, something told him she was a handful and not only did he not do girlfriends, he really didn’t do handfuls. He was just about to head into the bathroom and wash his hands again—didn’t matter how hard he scrubbed, they always smelled like shrimp—when there was a knock at the front door.