by Malcom, Anne
“I’ll be at the school all day,” Lance said as if the terror had leaked into the voice I was so sure sounded calm and collected.
Although accepting help from anyone was hard for me, my shoulders sagged with that knowledge. It was unexplainable, I barely knew this man and I was trusting him with the most precious thing on this planet. But he had proved himself in regards to Nathan. And despite the darkness surrounding him and his aura, there was something else too, a strength, a comfort, something I couldn’t explain and definitely not verbalize without sounding certifiable.
So instead of protesting or talking about his aura, I just nodded, glancing to the bike. “As much as it suits you, I think the school is gonna notice a man sitting on a motorcycle watching outside. And I really don’t want to be the reason you get arrested.”
“Luke’s meeting us at the school,” he replied, voice tight as if he was pissed at having to explain himself to me. I guessed someone who looked like him rarely had to explain himself, he just had to flex a bicep, narrow his eyes and all of the world would likely do his bidding. “He’ll keep watch while I follow you to work, then we’ll switch out when I get back to school.”
“You don’t need to follow me to work,” I protested. “I’m not the one that needs to be protected here.”
Lance’s gaze changed. Only slightly, enough to be called a trick of the light, but I felt the change. On my skin. “That wasn’t a question,” he clipped. “You need what I say you need.”
I gaped at him, old wounds opening at the command in his words. But I knew that this was different, though my body didn’t know that, my traumas.
A honking of a horn got my attention.
I snapped my gaze over to where Nathan had climbed into the front seat, obviously having had enough of being an agreeable and patient kid for the day. For once, I was glad of it.
I turned, ready to stomp off to the car, even though it was childish. I got myself. Paused. Then I turned. Lance was still standing in the same place, as if he hadn’t planned on moving until I was in the car.
“Thank you,” I said, my voice a little harsher than it should have been when thanking someone. “For the donuts, the coffee, for the protection.”
And before he could answer about it only being his ‘job’ or whatever, I turned and walked to the car.
Chapter Seven
I thought I was prepared for walking into work and the inevitable questions.
Firstly, because I’d called in sick yesterday.
I never called in sick.
People like me couldn’t afford sick days. Moms certainly didn’t get sick days, so I had perfected the art of being able to do pretty much anything while suffering from the flu. I also filled myself full of every natural remedy I could, partly because they were way cheaper than medicine from the drugstore, and mostly because they did the same job and were much better for you. I didn’t want Nathan growing up with antibiotic resistance and dependence on over-the-counter painkillers.
I did that where I could, made homemade cleaner with vinegar and baking soda, made soap with lye and essential oils, toothpaste, anything else I found online.
People at work knew me and knew this. They would have been worried about me being on my deathbed, because almost everyone had text me asking if I needed anything throughout the day.
I replied to everyone, despite not feeling like it, because I knew that it worried them more if I didn’t reply.
Walking in, I expected everyone to be concerned. Esther had even texted me telling me I didn’t have to come in today if I was still sick. She never did that with people, she would never make someone work if they were sick, but she was kind of a hardass. Well, to everyone but me and Nathan. I replied quickly telling her I was better.
No way could I afford another day off, even if I wanted to do exactly what Lance was doing, and sit outside Nathan’s school watching him and eating the rest of the donuts he got.
We needed the cash.
I saw Bobby, our cook, first, and he greeted me with a smile. “Ah, she’s alive!” he declared, throwing his hands up in the air, one of them holding a huge cleaver.
I grinned, despite the fact I was thinking about Nathan. Worrying about Robert. Obsessing over Lance. He’d done as promised and followed me all the way to work, and I hadn’t heard his bike roar off until I was walking in the back doors to the diner.
“Yes, I’m alive and ready for a fun-filled day,” I replied, forcing cheer into my voice.
But Bobby was no longer smiling, he was rounding the stainless-steel counter in the kitchen, his attractive features morphing as he focused on my face.
Shit, so my concealer really wasn’t working.
Bobby clutched my face in his hand, moving it so my bruised eye was tilted to the light.
“Who did this?” he demanded. “I need a name, address, social security number.”
His words were steel, his entire body radiating with fury.
Bobby was usually a mild man, soft-spoken, shy until you got to know him. But that was because he’d had a really frickin’ rough and dark history. He was brought up in a bad situation, and he looked for solace in a worse situation—a street gang in East LA—he had ink on his arms as evidence. He refused to cover it up because he wanted the reminder of who he used to be and who he wasn’t now.
He’d been to jail, I knew that, Esther and Logan knew that. A criminal conviction made it impossible for him to get a job in the city, especially since he was trying to get as far away from his old life as he could.
But Esther and Logan had a way of reading people, not by their pasts, or their resumes. Just like they took a chance on a single mother with no waitressing experience, they took a chance on Bobby.
And it paid off, he was one of the hardest workers, best damn cooks around and kindest people I knew. I’d almost forgotten his violent past, because even with his muscles and tattoos, he wasn’t that to me, or anyone who knew him.
But right now, with him standing in front of me, shaking from rage wearing a foreign expression on his face.
Before I opened my mouth, Logan walked into the room. “Elena, you’re back. We’re so glad, I was about to...” He trailed off as he walked fully into the kitchen and saw Bobby’s face and likely felt the energy in the room.
“Bobby, what are you doing?” he demanded, but then he must have gotten a look at my face because I heard his harsh intake of breath.
“You need to tell me who did this, right now, baby doll,” Bobby gritted through his teeth.
“How about you step back, take a second, Bobby,” Logan said, always the peacekeeper, but even though I couldn’t see his face, there was an anger in his voice that was as foreign as Bobby’s expression.
Bobby didn’t move.
“How about you give Elena a second?” Logan added, enunciating my name. “She’s likely been through a lot.”
That had Bobby immediately letting me go. But he didn’t take a step back. His face did soften slightly, and he lifted his hand to gently stroke my bruised skin.
“I’ll kill them,” he whispered.
My eyes were brimming from Bobby’s reaction, and from Logan’s voice. Because of the emotion in them. The concern.
“We’re not talking about killing with you still holding a meat cleaver,” Logan said. “We’ll do it over coffee.”
I looked to my boss and father figure for the past few years. Nathan called him Pops, to his great delight. He and Esther had lost their daughter when she was fifteen to an overdose. I felt that pain in them every single day, and as a mother, I considered them saints for still finding the ability to go on, to smile, to love each other like they did after something as soul-destroying as that.
Logan was wearing a different kind of pain right now.
I flinched that it was because of me.
“I’ve got to get to work,” I told him. “It’s the breakfast rush, and I’m not going to put you out.”
“Fuck the breakfast rush,”
Logan said, shocking me more than Bobby had.
Logan never cursed. No matter what disasters happened at the dinner, and all sorts of crap happened. Waitresses stealing, customers complaining, toilets flooding, food deliveries getting lost, small kitchen fires. All through it, he kept his calm while Esther did all the swearing and stressing. He was a pond on a summer’s day, no ripples. His wife was the Atlantic Ocean, stormy and unpredictable. It worked.
But there were ripples today.
“I can’t right now,” I whispered, a plea to the two men. “I just need to wait tables, deliver food and pretend that things are normal, just for a couple of hours. After that, I can do it.”
Both men regarded me, both gazes softening as I knew they would. Though Bobby was still gripping that cleaver pretty darn hard.
Logan nodded, understanding on his face. He moved across the room to pull me into his arms. He smelled of peppermint and Old Spice. I sank into the embrace and bit my lip so I didn’t cry.
I didn’t want to let go of the safety in his arms, the love, but I had to.
I pulled back, took a breath, put on my ‘customer service smile’ and readied myself for the day.
“Two hours,” Bobby barked. “Then we’re hearing about this. You’re not dealing with this alone.”
I bit my lip even harder to make myself not cry at that one.
“Two hours,” I promised.
* * *
“Oh honey,” Esther whispered, reaching across the table to squeeze my hand. Tears swam in the woman’s eyes.
Never had I seen that.
Or heard the softening in her voice, apart from with Nathan, and even then, she was still stern. And he loved her for that. Everyone cooed and fussed over him, because he was the cutest kid ever and also the coolest to be around. He adored the fact that Esther spoke to him like an adult and didn’t take shit.
As promised, Logan had come and got me after the breakfast rush was over, and exhaustion was catching up with me. A couple of the other waitresses noticed my face and either ignored it, sensing I couldn’t talk about it or gave me soft smiles.
Apart from Kaitlyn, of course. The newest girl who inexplicably hated me when she first started.
She scowled at me and then ignored me.
She definitely wasn’t happy about Logan pulling me from the floor, muttering about having to cover my tables.
I hadn’t planned on telling them everything when Bobby, Logan, and Esther sat me down in the back office with a plate of peanut butter pie and a large pot of coffee.
You’d think I would be sick of peanut butter baked goods with the sheer amount of sugar I’d consumed this morning, but you’d be wrong.
I dove into it and somehow ended up diving into my entire story, starting with meeting Robert and finishing with one of the top security firms in the city currently staking out my son’s school to make sure he wasn’t kidnapped again.
“Why didn’t you call us?” Esther demanded, her voice sharper than before but eyes still glassy.
“I...” I trailed off, looking for a reason why I didn’t ask for help from any of the numerous people that hadn’t hesitated to give it to me over the years. I tried to think of why I went to strangers before my new family. “I don’t know,” I whispered.
Even though I did know. I was ashamed. Of what my choices had done to my son. “I think I was scared of showing you what I’d gone through for so long, how weak I’d been. How stupid. How stupid I was to not do something sooner, and put Nathan in danger. And then, after the police did nothing, I kind of blacked out.”
Logan’s jaw hardened. “I’m gonna be having a stiff word with Martin about this,” he hissed.
Martin was the chief of police, and Logan was good friends with him, he came in for breakfast a handful of times a week. I thought he was nice enough, a decent tipper, didn’t stare at my ass or try to ask me out like the rest of the single—and married—male regulars. I was a single mom, young at that, working at a diner and I had a decent face and a round ass, it was hard to get through a meal rush without being hit on.
“He wasn’t even there,” I said, trying to sift through the memories of rushing into the police station. “I didn’t recognize the officer who took my statement.”
“Doesn’t matter if he was there or not,” Logan said. “This is his team, and if he’s got people on his force who don’t help mothers find their children, he needs to know about it, then do something about it. Otherwise he can eat his pancakes somewhere else.”
“Or I’ll put something special in them,” Bobby muttered. His fists were clenched on top of the table.
“No, I don’t need any of that,” I pleaded. “I know how it works with the cops. Robert’s one of them. His father is a big deal. And I’m... no one.”
“You shut that mouth right now if that nonsense is gonna keep leaking out of it,” Esther snapped, her tone more familiar and sharp. But she was still holding my hand. “You are a lot of things, all of them good, even without knowing your past. A single mom whose little boy has better manners than most fully grown men I know. A kid that is always happy, never throws a tantrum and adores his mother. You’re a hard worker, you always smile at customers, you never turn up late, always happy to work more than you should. You’re kind to everyone you come across, even that little witch Kaitlyn.” Esther scowled at the mention of her name. “You never complain about how hard you’ve got it, and sweetie, I know it’s tough. You brought light into Logan’s and my life with you and your boy. You’re our family. You’re a fighter. You are not no one. He is no one. He doesn’t deserve a name or a set of balls.”
“I’ll happily relieve him of those,” Bobby bit out.
“I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of any kind of attention,” I said. “I just want him out of our life. I want to know he can’t get to us.”
“He’s not getting to you, I’ll make sure of that,” Bobby declared, the soft, kind cook no longer on the surface. No, this was definitely the Bobby of the past. “I’ll stay at your house every night if you need, I’ve got friends who don’t mind burying a cop.”
“Bobby!” I snapped. “You can’t go talking about killing someone in front of our bosses.” I paused. “Wait, you can’t go talking about it, full stop.”
Scarily, Esther and Logan didn’t seem ready to back me up.
“I promise, this security company is really legit. Like fancy.” I bit my lip, thinking about the fancy meaning money.
“I’ll need to meet them,” Logan said, in a tone that was what I imagined a worried father would have. Not that I really knew what that sounded like.
Bobby nodded.
“And you need to tell me if you need any help with anything,” Esther demanded. “Paid leave, somewhere to stay, you need help with what I know is a hefty bill, we won’t hesitate.”
“I’m not asking you to do that,” I said, jutting my chin up slightly and clenching my hands on my pants so I wouldn’t cry.
“I know, I’m offering,” Esther said, eyes narrowed. “You’re not alone in this. We all love you and that kid to death. And you’ve got some fancy security team, that’s all well and good, but you’ve also got us. Don’t forget that.”
I nodded, because I couldn’t speak.
“Now get back to work,” Esther commanded, voice hard but eyes soft.
I didn’t hesitate to obey, but the words echoed through my head the rest of the day.
“You are not alone in this.”
* * *
Nathan was waiting for me at the gates to the school when I pulled up.
And he was not alone.
I’d gone in with him this morning, first to make sure that they never released him to Robert again, and I’d been in the middle of politely telling them how important this was to his teacher, Hannah, when her eyes widened and the skin on the back of my neck prickled.
The moms around us were all slack-jawed.
So Lance had decided to follow us into the school.
And he had not been as polite to Nathan’s teacher.
But I didn’t even think she noticed.
I definitely noticed when he demanded to be put on the pick-up list.
My eyes widened at the same time as Hannah.
I didn’t even have time to argue him on it, Hannah was already nodding and looking between us, likely trying to figure out the connection. Because no way could this guy be my boyfriend, I knew what it looked to the outsider.
And there were a lot of outsiders watching, making assumptions, judgments.
Frankly, I didn’t care. I cared that my son was being taken care of. Plus, I was a single mother who was dressed either in a diner uniform or a boho getup that erred on the side of slutty when I picked Nathan up. Judgment was part in parcel of my day.
I had worried for the rest of the day at work, because that was a mother’s job, but I didn’t freak out, because I knew Lance was there.
It wasn’t healthy, that feeling, I couldn’t welcome it, invite it to stay. Because Lance was temporary, as was the protection. And I worried about that more for Nathan’s sake than my own. I didn’t date because I didn’t want to bring men in and out of his life, I didn’t need him having all sorts of issues with abandonment and father figures.
He had Logan and Bobby, both of whom were solid. Both of whom adored Nathan.
He worshipped them, of course. But it was different, the way he looked at Lance—he was his superhero. And he was going to have to say goodbye to him at some point.
I pulled up at school with Lance standing right beside Nathan at the curb, my son’s little hand in his larger one. Nathan’s head was craned up as he babbled on about who knew what.
“Keep it together, Elena,” I whispered to myself as I pulled up, pretending not to notice every single mom on pickup duty needlessly exit their cars in order to gaze at Lance.
None of them tried to talk to him, though. They weren’t that brave. He pretty much had a giant ‘fuck off’ painted on his forehead, despite the fact he was holding hands with my little boy. It took an extreme amount of badass to hold hands with a five-year-old, with what looked like a gentle and natural grip, at the same time as letting everyone else around you know you could kill a man with those same hands.