Chapter Five

Chapter Five

Elijah

“Leave the key under the mat, and I’ll help you unpack,” said Ma over the phone.

“I live right next to the apartments. I ain’t about to leave my spare key anywhere.” That was a lie. I already had placed my key underneath the mat. I just didn’t want her to do my work for me. She’d wear herself out doing it if I let her. “I’m a grown-ass man, I can do it.” I had most of it finished, anyway. It wasn’t like I had a lot of stuff. As long as I could find a spot on the floor to sit down with a sketch pad and pencil—or my paints and brushes, I’d put off everything else for hours.

“Language.” She chuckled. “And all right.”

“You can swing by with some of your casserole since I moved back for you,” I said as I pulled my car into the parlor parking lot.

“At the shop?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Should I bring a whole one?”

“I might share it,” I told her and that made her laugh again.

“See you soon. Love you.”

“Love you.”

“And Elijah, I’m glad you’re finally home.”

I smiled as I hung up and made my way inside.

______

Seeing the mom and her kid heading out when I came home had become a regular thing. I didn’t work on Sunday, but I still saw them leaving when I went to the window.

When I pulled into my driveway on Monday night, I saw them again. From her fast duck waddle, I got the feeling that she disliked seeing me every night.

But that night she wasn’t quick enough. Her kid saw me as she tried to get her in the back seat. “Uh…” The kid could have been pointing while she squeaked out. It was hard to tell. The streetlight wasn’t too bright, and her mom was bent over her, buckling her in. “Demon—”

“Lucy!”

“I mean, chip thief!” she corrected herself like that was better.

Her mom must have finished buckling her into the seat. She stood and slammed the door. It seemed as if she was trying real hard not to look over at me. Watching her waddle the long way around her car, I noted how I’d never seen her wear anything other than those white scrubs—just like the day I had the displeasure of meeting the two at the grocery store. I supposed it wasn’t really meeting them since I didn’t even know their names.

Correction. I didn’t know her name. The kid was named Lucy. The mom was forever yelling it.

Troublesome life. The small moments I saw her each day, she was constantly rushing, always seemed exhausted to the point that it was painful to look at her... Bet she was wondering what the hell she’d been thinking, especially so young.

The back window rolled down, then the next thing I heard was, “Whatcha’ lookin’ at?” The kid had some serious beef with me, but I was staring directly at them. For fuck’s sake, how did a grown man get a three, maybe five-year-old enemy?

My ma would be so ashamed. Thankfully, she wasn’t around to witness it.

“You’ve got a problem, kid,” I told her.

Her mom finally faced me. “What did you say?” There was that boldness I’d heard at the grocery store.

“Your kid.” I pointed toward her daughter, and although I couldn’t see her with it being dark and all, I didn’t doubt the little brat wasn’t sticking her tongue out at me. “She’s got a problem.”

“And what would her problem be?” she asked. “A creepy old guy staring at us every night we’re heading out?”

“The fuck?” I hissed. “I’m getting off work every night when you’re leaving. Believe me, I don’t want to see the name caller anymore than she wants to see me. She’s got a mouthy attitude.”

“What is your deal?” She opened her driver’s side door like it was the one she was mad at. “She’s three! Do you realize how stupid you seem picking on a kid?”

“I’m not picking on her. She spoke to me first.”

She laughed incredulously, hand flying to her stomach to hold it. “Because you were standing there staring at us. You’ve been doing that ever since you moved in last week!”

Had I?

My neck and face had never felt so hot before. I was equal parts mad as hell and embarrassed. This foolish confrontation was my fault. Why the fuck didn’t I just let it be? Why did the girl and her mom crawl up under my skin and take up residence in my head?

Breathing in and out, I attempted to find patience. When I realized that I’d become a hopeless shithead, I exhaled loudly and then muttered, “What miserable luck finding out the demon is your neighbor?”

“You stole my chips!” Lucy screamed from the rear of the car.

“Lucy!” her mom hissed. “Why does she keep saying that?” Her gaze briefly landed on her daughter before snapping on me. “Did you really steal her chips?”

I scratched my jaw and stood there for a moment. She had that aura about her… There was something about mothers—even young ones—that made you twitch when guilty. “She dropped them.” There. That was all I would ever admit. “So I picked them up when she did.” Okay, apparently it wasn’t.

“He hissed at me, mommy!”

Ah, fuck.

“Oh, my gosh.” She blew out irritably. “You really took my daughter’s chips. And you hissed at her. What the fudge is wrong with you?”

Fudge?

When she put it like that, I didn’t know what to say. I knew I was an ass. At the time, it had even been a little funny to me. But when someone else had that angry, frightened glance pointed toward me… Someone that didn’t even know me… Wow, what was my problem?

I picked a fight with a kid.

I’d never done that. The last time I spoke to a kid was at my younger cousin’s birthday three years ago. I only went out of obligation, but as soon as I got there I realized why I didn’t do those things. An hour later I was gone.

Despite my tendency to be a jerk, I wanted to believe I was a decent guy. I just didn’t care much for kids and wanted none of my own.

“Just stop staring, and for heaven’s sake, stop talking to my daughter,” she snapped as she got in her car. I didn’t get to say anything else. Her car sped off within a minute after she got in it.

I rubbed my temples, but it didn’t ease the tension.

I should have ignored the kid and gone into my house. I should have stopped trying to decode them like they were some unsolved mystery on a crime show. This little quarrel had been my fault when normally I was a guy that went about ignoring anything that got on my damn nerves.

With a long, drawn-out groan, I hung my head and finally walked inside.

_______

I saw Lucy and her mother almost every day the following week going to or from work. Lucy’s mom was no longer avoiding my eyes when she saw me. Instead, she made it her duty to scowl in my direction. Lucy had that same glower down pat. Angry expressions, however, didn’t suit them.

Despite the bags beneath her eyes and the exhausted smile she gave Lucy, the woman didn’t appear much older than eighteen. The messy bun didn’t help. It only made her look drained. When they were around, their presence drew me in. Maybe it was guilt making me search for them every time I went out the door.

Kids were too coddled and spoiled. They were often bratty and rude like Lucy. But I should have known better. That was a truth I’d only acknowledge to myself. Sadly, the awareness boiled over into my hours at the parlor, and Wendy took notice.

“What’s been your deal all week?” she finally asked on Saturday evening.

Grunting, I focused on the small cross tattoo I was working on along the curve of a left breast. When I said nothing, she added, “Not going to tell me?”

“On Monday, I got into a spat with this kid and her mom and somehow, I’ve been feeling shitty about it all week.”

She clucked her tongue and laughed. “Uh-oh. What did you do?”

“You into single moms?” Lance asked from his chair. From where I sat I couldn’t see him, but I knew he was giving a woman a neck tattoo. “That’s surprising. You don’t seem like the kid type.”

“I’m not.”’ I shook my head with an exhale. “I’m not.”

“Damn, that’s a shame,” the woman whose left breast I was almost touching said with a throaty purr. “I have four kids.”

“What happened with the mom?” Lance asked, amused by the entire situation. But his words were welcome. He saved me from having to respond to whatever my client implied.

“They live at the apartments next to my house,” I began as I wiped the woman’s skin, went for more ink at my bench, and resumed the design. “But before that, I saw them at the grocery store. Her kid came up and beat me to the last bag of Funyuns. Then she mentioned something about her grandpa saying that tattoos were bad or some shit so I hissed. I smiled since I thought it was funny. She dropped the chips and ran off, so I picked them up.

“Then, at the checkout, I saw the kid again with her mother. She was just being a kid and getting on my damn nerve, so I might have said something to the mom. On Monday night, the kid said something else, and I said something back.”

I heard nothing for the longest time except for the tattoo guns. I thought one of them might have shut off after I’d told my story. Giving up, I paused my work and looked up to find the woman I was inking giving me a semi-hostile scowl.

“You look like an asshole,” she began with a vehement shake to her head. “But now I see that you actually are an asshole.”

Wendy burst out laughing. “I tell everyone that comes in here that he is! But damn, Elijah, picking on a kid? That’s possibly worse than what I could have thought of you.”

I swiveled around in my chair and glared. “How much of an asshole do you think I am?”

She paused and glimpsed up from the leg she was tattooing. Wendy tapped her black nails against her chin before she pinned me with her smile. “Pretty bad, but I gotta say I’m disappointed. You’re much worse than what I pictured over the five years I’ve known you.”

Dropping my shoulders, I turned back to my client. I had ten minutes before my next appointment, and I was running behind. “I know,” I finally said a minute or two later when everyone was quiet—no doubt silently judging their boss. “I can’t stop thinking about it… I feel shitty.”

“I’d say so,” Wendy mumbled, slightly distracted as she concentrated on the design. “It would be a different situation entirely if the kid hadn’t been a stranger. I goof off and poke fun at Cheryl’s niece all the time, but that’s because the kid adores it when I cut up with her. There’s a major difference in a fucking stranger doing that to a child. What the hell, Elijah? Some kids get scared super easy. They’re all so different. Instead of running, she could have balled her eyes out, and the mom might have kicked your ass. Stranger danger is real.”

“Fuck,” I muttered, stopped working again, and rubbed at my temple.

“How about I give you some motherly advice since I can tell from all that god-awful sighing you’re really torn up about this?”

I glanced up at the woman with renewed interest as she studied me curiously. She was an older woman, a lot older than I was.

“Apologize. Not only that, maybe think about buying the kid a bag of chips. It won’t make them like you, but that’s not what this is about. It’s about making you feel better.” She nodded, giving my shoulder a good pat while holding her shirt up with the other. “Now, how about you finish up my tattoo and not fuck it up with all your worrying? Otherwise, I’m not paying.”

Damn. I pissed this mother off, too. But she had a point. To stop this giant ass storm cloud from hovering, maybe I should make peace so I could go about my life and get from under this shit.

After work that night, I grabbed an extra bag of Funyuns at the gas station while I filled up the truck. Only I didn’t see them that night. Her car was parked, so I assumed that maybe she was off tonight. It disturbed me that I was figuring out her schedule. I really was some creepy—not that old—man.