Everything I had just seen in Scarlett’s apartment was exactly what I had grown up in. The horrible smell in the hallway that made you wrinkle your nose in disgust and hurry to your door. Spongy carpet that you knew hadn’t seen a vacuum in twenty years and dingy walls that had once been white but were now turning yellow with water spots all over them from the roof that always leaked when it rained.
All that Scarlett and Levi had right now was exactly what I had struggled to leave behind. I rested my hands on the steering wheel and stared out the windshield.
It was taking all my willpower not to storm back up those stairs and demand that Scarlett and Levi not live there. Between Levi and Scarlett, there was a pull that I could barely resist. Every fiber of my being screamed that I needed to help them.
Except I knew, Scarlett wasn’t going to want any help. At least the kind of help where I gave Scarlett money and gave her a job. She had been through some horrible shit in her life, and this was her chance to make a better life for her and Levi. Or at least that is what I assumed.
I shifted the truck into drive and headed back to the garage. I didn’t know what I could do to help but knew I needed to do something.
_____________
Scarlett
“Mama.” I turned away from the window, prying my eyes off the fading truck and looked at Levi, who was standing in the kitchen. “I’m hungry.”
I mentally shook myself, trying to pull it together. As I watched Mitch in his truck, I was having a pity party for myself. I hated everything about my life right now. I hated that Levi and I had to live here and had to start over. I wished that I was the type of girl that would interest Mitch. There was no way living here and having my face bruised and swollen that Mitch would think I was anything more than a charity case. No matter how much I wished for things to be different, they weren’t going to change. I lived on this side of the tracks and Mitch lived on the other side. I was living my very own version of Pretty in Pink.
“Mama,” Levi insisted.
“I’m coming, big man.” We hadn’t eaten since last night, so I knew that Levi was starving. Thankfully, the last time we had stopped I had stocked up on all of his favorites.
“I want peanut butter and jelly with milk.”
“We can do the first, but not the second.” I had planned on running to the store after we had unpacked but the damn car breaking down had ruined those plans. “I’ve got juice boxes. Will that do?”
“Sure,” Levi said as he ran back down the hallway. “I’m going to unpack my transformers, and then I’ll eat.”
I shook my head as I searched through the bags trying to find the Pb & j. As I searched, I worried how I was going to be able to get milk if I didn’t have a car. There had to be a store nearby, I just didn’t know if I wanted to walk there. Everything had changed because of the damn car breaking down.
Mitch had said that he would call me later today, and I could always ask him to take me to the store, although I really didn’t want to do that. Not only was I afraid of Levi getting attached to him, I knew I would too.
I finally found the bread and all of the fixings I would need for breakfast and laid everything out on the counter. As I finished slathering two pieces of bread with jelly Levi came walking out of his room rubbing his eyes. “Can we snuggle and watch Transformers, Mama?” I knew what that meant. Levi was ready for his nap, and I had to say that I was ready for one too.
“You wanna eat first?”
“Can we eat while we snuggle?” He yawned big and leaned into me, resting his head on my leg. I reached down ruffling his hair and felt my heart clench by how much I loved this little boy. He had my whole heart, and he didn’t even know it.
“We can totally do that.”
“I’ll grab the DVD player.” He ran to his room, grabbing the portable DVD player I had picked up at a garage sale last year and opened the tote that had the air mattress in it.
I grabbed the sandwich I had made for him putting it on a napkin I had saved and held it out to him. “Eat while I blow this beast up, OK?”
Levi grabbed the sandwich and mowed it down as I wrestled the mattress out of the tote and laid it out in the living room. “When are we going to get real beds, mama?”
I pressed out the wrinkles and hooked the air pump up to the mattress trying to think of a good answer. I didn’t know when we would be able to have real beds with frames and comfortable mattresses, and the fact that was a concern for Levi ripped my heart out. I was supposed to be giving him the best life I could, and here we were living in a hell hole, sleeping on an air mattress. I wouldn’t be winning mom of the year anytime soon.
“As soon as Mama gets a job, OK, big man.” First, I had to find a job. Well, first I had to get my car back.
“Yay! I want Transformer sheets for my new bed. Can we get those please?” Levi pleaded, his hands clenched together in front of him.
“We’ll see,” I laughed. I plugged the cord to the air pump into the wall and the mattress slowly inflated. Levi finished the rest of his sandwich as he watched in amazement as the bed filled and I put the peanut butter and jelly away.
“You got the movie ready to go?” I asked unhooking the air pump and putting the cork into the bed. I had splurged and gotten the queen size mattress, and I was more than happy I had. With Levi and I sleeping together for the foreseeable future it would be perfect seeing as Levi was a bit of a kicker in his sleep.
“All ready.”
I grabbed the two blankets that were in the bottom of the tote and laid one down on the mattress and then Levi, and I crawled on, and I covered us up. He opened the screen on the DVD player, hit play and snuggled into my arms as the movie started playing.
I couldn’t even count how many times Levi and I had done this, and I knew I needed to treasure these times because there was going to come a time soon where he wouldn’t want to snuggle anymore.
“I love you, Mama,” he mumbled. His voice was tired and soft, and his eyes were already droopy with sleep.
“Love you forever, big man,” I whispered back.
These were the times that nothing else mattered. Where as long as I had Levi and he was happy, everything else would work itself out.
With Levi in my life, I would move mountains to make him happy. Nothing was going to stop me.
_____________
Chapter 5
Mitch
“It’s a piece of shit.”
It was after three o’clock, and the garage had been closed for over an hour, and we were still looking over Scarlett’s car. “It’s fixable.”
Kurt threw his rag at the bench and crossed his arms over his chest. “Anything is fixable, Mitch. It comes down to the fact the repairs that we would have to do to make it fixable are more than what the car is worth. It doesn’t make sense to fix it. Tell her it’s time for a new car.”
That was exactly what Scarlett didn’t want to hear. I knew she was worried about the cost of fixing the car, and now I had to call and tell her that it was a lost cause, and she needed a whole new car. “Fuck.”
“I’m calling it a day. There’s a pack of Oreo’s and the prelims of the drag race on that has my name written all over it. Stop stressing over this car. She’s just a customer. Call her up, tell her to look at the sweet Corvettes rolling off the line and then haul your ass up the stairs to watch the drags with me.” Kurt clapped me on the shoulder and walked out of the shop, the door banging shut behind him.
Son of a bitch. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and pulled up Scarlett’s number. This was one phone call I didn’t want to make. I was about to make a shitty day even worse for her.
The phone rang six times before she groggily answered the phone. “Hello?” she croaked.
I glanced at the clock again making sure it wasn’t later than I thought it was and saw that it was only three fifteen. “Scarlett? Are you awake?”
“Uh… I think so.”
I chuckled under my breath and ran my hand over my head. “Do you have time to talk?”
“Yeah, um… Levi and I were just taking a… six-hour nap.” Holy fuck I heard her whisper.
“I’m sure traveling in a car for a couple of days was exhausting. You both needed to catch up on your sleep.” She didn’t say anything, but I could hear she was moving around, and then I heard running water. “So, about your car.”
“Is it fixed?”
“Well, no.”
“Shit. How long until you’ll have it running?”
“Never,” I cringed.
I heard her sigh deep, and I felt like an asshole. There really wasn’t any hope for her car, but I felt like shit for telling her that. “I can see how much I could get for scrap out of the car. That would give you some money towards a new car.”
“What does that mean? I thought you said it was done. Caput. How are you going to get money for it?”
“I’d sell it to the scrap yard who would crush it and then they would cut you a check for what the market value is for scrap salvage.” Luke generally dealt with the crushers, but I knew what he was doing. This wasn’t the first time someone had brought us a car that wasn’t worth the hassle of fixing. “They pay by the ton.”
“How much a ton?”
“About fifty bucks.”
“How much does my car weigh?”
“About three tons.”
“One fifty. I’m going to get one hundred fifty dollars.” Her voice dropped, and I felt like an even bigger piece of shit.
“I’ll talk to the scrap yard on Monday and make sure I get the most I can for your car.”
“No, no. Just get me what you normally do and we’ll call it good. You’ve helped me enough. You don’t need to waste your time trying to squeeze every penny out of my car.”
“But, I think I-”
“Just send the check when you get it.” She rattled off her address although I already knew where she lived and then she was gone.
“Son of a bitch.” That wasn’t how I wanted that damn phone call to go. I mean, I didn’t really know how it was supposed to go, but knew I didn’t want her hanging the phone up on me.
“Everything OK?”
I looked over my shoulder and saw Luke standing in the doorway.
“Nope, not unless you can tell me the price of scrap is ten times the price than it really is.”
“The price of scrap has got you acting like the end of the world?”
“Not for me, it’s for Sc- uh… for someone else.”
Luke walked into the garage and looked over Scarlett’s car. “I’m assuming this pile is what’s got you all riled? The owner pissed we can’t give them more for it?”
“How the hell did the price of scrap get so fucking low?”
Luke shrugged his shoulders and leaned against the car. “It’s been going down every year. You should be glad we’re not in the salvage business. We’d be up shit creek without a paddle right now.”
“Yeah, that’s the only good news I’ve heard all day.”
“What the fuck is up?”
I slammed the hood down on the car and crossed my arms over my chest. “This chick rolled into the shop, her face beat to hell, a kid in the car and looking like she’s running from a monster.”
“Holy fuck.”
“Yeah. Then, all I’ve got to tell her is her car is shit and have a nice day.” I closed my eyes and tilted my head back. “To top it all off, you wanna know where she’s living?”
“Where?”
“Same fucking place we grew up. Remember Renker’s place?”
“Please tell me she isn’t living there,” Luke cringed.
“Sure is. My God damn skin crawled when I walked through the door.”
“Jesus.” Luke ran his hand over his head, and I knew he was thinking the same thing I was. “She must be pretty bad off to be living there.”
“All she had was a couple bags of clothes and an air mattress. I felt like an ass leaving her there, but I knew she didn’t want help.”
Luke shook his head. “If I know you, I know you aren’t going to be able to leave it the way it is.”
“There’s gotta be something I can do. I know she won’t take anything outright, but maybe I could convince her if she thought that she was somehow paying for it.”
“You can’t save everyone, Mitch.”
“Yeah, well. This girl isn’t everyone.”
Luke pushed off the car and headed to the door. “I hope you know what you’re doing, I know Violet wouldn’t like what you’re thinking of doing.”
“Scarlett isn’t Violet.”
Luke shook his head and raised his arm over his head. “Good luck, brother. You’re gonna need it,” he laughed. The door slammed shut behind him, and I tossed the rag that was in my hand at the car.
I had no idea what the hell I was going to do. Right now, Scarlett was living in the same damn apartment building I had grown up in and had no car. There had to be a little something that I could do to try and make things easier for her.
Fixing her car was out of the question but she needed a car.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and pulled up Craigslist. I had a good size nest egg tucked away for a rainy day or more parts for the race car. It looked like that rainy day had come, and that new intake I had wanted for the ‘Vette was going to have to wait.
_____________
Chapter 6
Scarlett
“Mama, I don’t want to go to work with you today.”
I didn’t want to go either, but if we wanted to eat, I didn’t have a choice. “I know, baby. How about we bring the DVD player today? I only have a four-hour shift, and I promise after we’ll get some yummy junk food and just veg out tonight.” It had been a week and a half since Levi and I had been living in our apartment and to say things were going smoothly was a bit of an exaggeration.
Every night Levi had nightmares that would keep him awake for hours leaving me exhausted. He managed to sleep in the back room of the gas station I had got a job at and the owner, Mrs. Smith, was kind enough to let him stay with me while I worked. Thankfully, the gas station was only a mile away from the apartment so Levi and I walked there every day. I hadn’t had a day off since I had started and tomorrow was going to be our first day off. “Can’t we just stay home?”
“Not if you like eating, big man,” I laughed. “Run and grab your bag. We need to get walking.” Levi trudged down the hallway, and all I could do was shake my head. Things were going to get better, we just had to make it through the next few months.
I finished packing Levi’s lunch and a couple of snacks when there was a loud knock on the front door. I wiped my hands on my jeans and hesitated to open the door. Three nights ago, three drunk men had gone up and down the hallway knocking on doors, trying to get into people’s apartments. I had to believe that they weren’t back at it at ten in the morning.
I stood on my tiptoes and peeked through the peephole. “Holy shit.” Mitch was standing on the other side of the door, his hands in the pockets of his ripped jeans and the white shirt that he had cut the sleeves off on was pulled tight across his chest. Holy shit, Mitch was ripped. I had noticed at the shop that he was a good looking guy, but I didn’t really look him over. Plus, he had pulled a sweatshirt on, so there really wasn’t much for me to check out before.
He was looking straight forward almost as if he could see me through the peephole even though I knew that wasn’t possible. “What is he doing here?” I whispered. He looked annoyed with his light blue eyes trained on the door and his chiseled chin set with his lips clenched together.
“I can hear you breathing, Scarlett.”
I jumped away from the door and held my breath. How in the hell did he hear me breathing? I looked around the apartment trying to find an escape. Just as I was about to dash to Levi’s room, he pounded on the door again. “I just want to talk to you fo
r five minutes, Scarlett. It’s about your car.”
“There’s nothing to say about my car. It’s dead.”
“I found a solution to your problem. Can you just open the door?”
“Mama! Is that Mitch?” Levi hollered as he ran out of his bedroom, straight to the door. Just as he twisted the handle open, I slammed my hand on the door, holding it shut. Levi yanked on the door and looked up at me. “Mama, it’s Mitch!”
Double shit. Levi had been talking about Mitch non-stop for the past week, and I had tried everything in the book to distract him. Mitch at my door threw all of the distracting I’d done all week out the window. “Levi, tell your mama to open the door.”
“Please, Mama. I wanna show Mitch all of my Transformers,” he pleaded clasping his hands together.
“Fine, but we have to leave in five minutes, Levi. I have to be to work in half an hour.” He yanked open the door and flung himself into Mitch’s arms. He knocked Mitch back, but he managed to recover by taking two steps back and hoisted Levi up into his arms.
“Hey, bud. Miss me?” Mitch laughed.
“Did you come to see all of my Transformers? I’ve got them all lined up in my room.”
“I’d love to see them, but I also came to talk to your mom for a second.”
Levi squirmed out of Mitch’s arms and ran back to his room. “You talk to mama and then come to my room. I’ll get them ready!”
“I bet he’s a handful.”
“That would be an understatement. He’s my handful, though.” I crossed my arms over my chest and stood in the doorway. “You said something about my car?” I was hoping to talk to Mitch and get him out of here before Levi came out of his room.
“Well, it’s still a pile of junk,” he smirked. “But I did come up with something. You think you could come down to the parking lot?”
“There’s a parking lot here?” Levi and I had walked around the building countless times playing and running, and all I had ever seen was an overgrown field in the back.
PowerShift: Skid Row Kings Series, #2 Page 3