Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

Stupid Stuff

“Explain to me again why I’m doing this,” Toni, standing at my side, whispered.

“Because I told you what I was doing, and you told me I was a damn fool, then I told you I was still doing it, and you said I’d be a bigger fool if I went alone, then I repeated I was doing it, and you made a big show of acting beleaguered, then you came with me,” I reminded her.

“On the record, you are a damned fool.”

“This client is hinky,” I told her something else I’d already told her.

“How is that your responsibility?”

“I don’t have a job if the attorneys I work for get disbarred.”

“So move jobs.”

“I don’t want to move jobs. I like my job.”

“So ignore the hinky.”

“I’m curious and I have to know. If I have the information, I can make an informed decision. Are the attorneys I’m working for doing something illegal? If yes, look for another job, even though I like my job. If no, stay in a job I like without my headspace being taken up with a client who’s hinky.”

We both jumped a mile when a woman’s voice remarked, “I know who can find out if your clients are hinky or not.”

We were both staring at the two people who had snuck up to us in the dark hall of the office building where Toni and I were lurking after having hung out in the bathroom for an hour, waiting for the place to close down.

One of them was Ally Nightingale.

The other was a very well-healed Darius Tucker.

His gaze was locked on me.

He looked good, so good, too good.

Did God hate me?

What did I do?

Really, I wanted to know.

Ally made a move, which meant I was forced to rip my gaze from Darius and watch her jerk a thumb to herself, then over her shoulder at him.

“Private investigators,” she concluded.

Not news since I already knew it, and now Liam talked about it all the time, proud as all hell Darius had gone to work at Lee’s investigation firm after he got out of the drug business and now he was a hotshot PI.

“You take Toni home, I got Malia,” he ordered low.

Uh-oh.

I wasn’t at one with that plan.

“Wait,” I said.

Toni didn’t wait.

She took off toward Ally, Ally turned when she got to her, and Toni said while they walked away, “Girl, can we stop on the way home to get a drink? I’m parched. And by the way, you grew up badass. I’m impressed.”

“Thanks. Now, are we talking cosmo parched, or beer parched?” Ally asked.

“You’re drivin’, you choose,” Toni answered.

Their voices faded away.

This left me in a dark hall, alone with Darius.

It had been five months since his near-fatal run-in with Ally’s stalker.

In those months, we’d negotiated a visitation arrangement, doing this using our son as an intermediary.

Yes, that was weak.

No, obviously, I didn’t have it in me to do it differently.

Now, Liam shifted every week between his father’s house and mine.

And it was Liam who delivered my envelopes to me. But it was no longer cash. It was a check, signed by Darius.

I had received reports about Darius’s recuperation progress, but I hadn’t seen him or spoken to him.

Until now.

“Follow me,” he grunted.

“I have my car,” I told him.

“You follow me to my truck, or I carry you to it, Malia. Your choice. Two seconds.”

He couldn’t be serious.

I guessed my two seconds were up, because he stalked toward me.

And he was serious.

I put both hands up.

“Okay, okay. Yeesh. I’ll follow you.”

He scorched me with a look, turned on his boot and prowled way.

I followed him.

When we got outside, he beeped the locks on a black Silverado and headed to the passenger side door, probably afraid I’d run if given the chance. He held the door while I grabbed onto the hold and hefted myself up.

He slammed the door on me and rounded the hood.

He angled in beside me.

I turned to him. “Darius—”

“Shut it,” he ordered tersely, his focus on starting the truck.

Oh no, he didn’t.

“Don’t you dare speak to me that way,” I hissed.

He turned to me. “Have you not heard of all the shit that went down with Indy, Jet, Roxie, Jules, Ava, Stella, Sadie and you gotta know what went down with Ally since I got a hospital stay from some of her shit.”

“I read the articles.”

Though, they hadn’t included Ally’s business, or whoever Sadie was.

However, Liam had filled in those blanks, also proud as all heck about his dad being the hero of those scenarios (because he’d also been in on Sadie’s rescue).

I was proud too. I just wasn’t admitting that to myself.

And scared to death, because all of that was dangerous, particularly Ally’s situation, and he could have died, and I couldn’t tamp down the fear, even though the bad guys got caught and the good guys were okay.

He jutted his chin to indicate the building we just vacated. “So what the fuck are you up to?”

“We were just going to look through a few offices.”

“Breaking and entering is a felony.”

“You’d know all about felonies.”

He clamped his mouth shut, and I wished I could reach out and grab those words and shove them back in my mouth.

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “That was uncalled for.”

He turned, started the truck and put it into gear. He then twisted and put his arm behind my seat to look behind him in order to back out.

His arm that close to me gave me happy shivers.

I tried to ignore the shivers.

I failed at ignoring the shivers.

I decided to focus on something else.

“Darius, truly, I’m sorry. You just surprised me, showing like this. And I haven’t seen you and emotions are still high.”

“You got emotion?” he muttered like he was talking to himself, faced forward and put the truck in drive. “Coulda fooled me.”

“That’s not fair either,” I said carefully.

He had no reply.

“Are you still watching me?”

“You’re still my boy’s momma. You’re still prone to doing stupid shit. So yeah, I’m still watching you.”

I decided it best at this juncture to ignore the “stupid shit” comment, so I targeted something else.

“Um…like…personally?”

“No, like I got tracking on your car.”

What?

“And your cell,” he added.

“You track my car?”

He again said nothing.

“And my phone?”

“Not your calls, just your location.”

“Why?”

“I just caught you in an empty office building about to commit a felony to look into a client who’s hinky. My experience, if someone acts hinky, they are. More experience, if they’re hinky, they don’t want people discovering why. More experience, they can do some pretty shitty things to people who poke around trying to find out what’s hinky about them. You might be done with me, babe. But I didn’t survive navigating the underbelly of Denver for fifteen years to stand at my son’s side by his momma’s casket at her funeral.”

“I’m sure it wouldn’t come to that,” I murmured.

“Ask Jules how sure she was when she walked into a living room and got shot twice. And Sadie, when she was roofied, kidnapped and nearly taken out of the country. And Stella, ask how sure she was that her apartment wouldn’t explode.”

Yikes!

I decided to change the subject.

“My car—”

“Matt or Bobby will bring it to you.”

“Who are Matt and Bobby?”

“They work for Lee.”

“They don’t have a key.”

He was again silent.

Right.

They didn’t need a key.

Interesting.

Although I wanted to know more about that (and, indeed, everything about the New Darius, though I wouldn’t admit that to myself, and definitely not him), I decided it was time for another change of subject.

Though, the subject I picked was trying to learn something about the New Darius.

“So how is it…working with Lee?”

“You wanna be friends now? Catch up? Get to know one another?”

“I’m just carrying on a conversation.”

“I’m good with silence.”

Hang on a second.

Was he….

Mad at me?

“Are you mad at me?”

“The last time I saw you I was in a hospital bed with holes in my legs and a fractured skull.”

“Yes, and I’d just found out you’d been deceiving me for years.”

“Keeping something from you to keep you safe,” he corrected.

“Toe-may-toes, toe-mah-toes, I guess. Am I right?” I sniped.

He sighed. “Let’s not do this.”

I strained the seatbelt to turn more fully to him.

“No. Let’s.”

“It’s copasetic. You got Liam. I got Liam. It’s working. Let’s not rock that boat.”

I felt like boat rocking.

I felt like tsunami-ing that motherfucker.

“You kept us apart, but you got the best of both worlds,” I accused.

He burst out laughing, but there was zero humor to it.

It was the ugliest sound I’d ever heard.

“Stop it,” I hissed.

“Yeah, walk in the park for me, babe,” he bit. “It was awesome. Most of the time, I slept alone. You got to see him take his first steps. You got to go to the awards dinners at the school.”

“It was your choice to be absent from that.”

“It wasn’t a choice. It was a necessity. This is what you’re not getting.”

“One thing I definitely get, it wasn’t my choice. None of it.”

Suddenly, he swung into a parking spot on the street, the move so unexpected, I automatically reached to the dash to hold on.

And then he turned on me.

“I had someone workin’ for me. He was a pissant. I shook him loose. He didn’t like that. He wanted payback. He asked around, don’t know who talked, still wish I could find that motherfucker, but he found out about you and Liam.”

I sat very still and stared at him.

“It wasn’t to get something out of me. He didn’t want anything from me, except for him to know he put the hurt on me. He was just gonna fuck you two up.”

“Oh my God,” I breathed.

“Yeah,” he said sharply. “I don’t know if he meant to kill you or beat you or rape you or all three. I just know he didn’t get the chance. I also knew I couldn’t let anyone else get the chance. So I crept around…for fuckin’ years…to give the both of you the only things I had to give. A little bit of time and a lot of money. I’m sorry that wasn’t enough for you, Malia, but that was all I had at the time. But when Liam was ready, fate fucked us over yet…fuckin’…again. And after I survived that, it was you who walked away. Suck it up. I lied to see my boy. Suck it up. I couldn’t give you all you needed. You’ve made it clear you can’t live with that, now I gotta suck it up. What I don’t gotta do is like it.”

After delivering that, he turned back to the wheel and pulled into the road.

I had a lot to process as he drove me home, and I didn’t have enough time to do it.

I also hadn’t found the words to say anything after all he’d said before he was in my drive and idling.

I found the words and said them. “I think we need to talk.”

“Done talkin’.”

“Darius—”

He shook his head. “I killed it. I get it. You move on. Our boy’s old enough he can be our go between. It’s working. Let’s not fuck it up.”

“I think…I need to buy him a car.”

“Fine,” he said tersely. “Have him pick what he wants, I’ll go get it for him.”

“Darius, I only said that to demonstrate—”

“Get out of my truck, Malia.”

“Dar—”

His belt zipped back, my belt zipped back (and I didn’t unbuckle it), and then I was crowded into the corner of the seat and door when he was smack in my face.

“Get out…of my…fuckin’ truck…woman,” he growled.

I stared into his cold, dead eyes.

And I didn’t believe in that coldness or deadness for one single second.

“Do I…uh, talk to Ally about, you know, looking into the hinky clients?” I asked.

He sat back in his seat, rested his head against the headrest and said to the roof of the cab, “Jesus.”

I put my hand to the door handle and said, “I’m just gonna…um, go.”

He turned to me. “Yeah. Do that.”

“Thanks for, like, you know, saving me from myself.”

He just stared at me.

“’Bye now,” I said.

He slowly shook his head like he didn’t know what to make of me, but what he was making wasn’t much.

I skedaddled out of his truck.

He sat idling in the drive while I made my way to the door.

Standing in it, I waved at him.

He just pulled out and drove away.

The wave was stupid.

What was I doing?

“Was that Dad?” Liam asked from behind me.

For the second time that night, I jumped a mile.

I turned to him.

He was looking over my head at the street.

“Move,” I ordered. “I need to shut the door.”

He didn’t move.

He looked down at me. “Was that Dad?”

I scrambled. “Hey! Good news. Your dad and I decided to get you a car.”

His brows knit. “You and Dad are talking now?”

Okay, not that I needed the proof, but his non-reaction to getting a car said just how much he felt about me and his father being together. Even just talking.

Dang.

“Can I get out of the door?” I asked.

Liam stepped back.

I stepped in and shut the door.

When I turned back to him, he had his arms crossed on his chest.

Ugh.

He was just like his father.

“Why is Dad bringing you home from going out with Aunt Toni?” he asked suspiciously.

“We ran into each other…”

Oh my God.

Now I was lying.

“…and I took that opportunity to discuss getting you a car. He agreed it was the right decision. So we’re going to do that.”

“Where’s your car?”

“Um…well…”

“Mom, you can’t be pissed as shit about Dad and me lying and then stand there and lie to my face.”

“Your mouth,” I warned.

“What are you doing with Dad?”

I didn’t know.

What was I going to do with Darius?

And what was I doing with my son?

Time to pull myself together.

“Okay, your aunt Toni and I were out doing something we probably shouldn’t have been. Your dad and Ally caught us, and he was kind of…angry we were doing something stupid. So he brought me home to lecture me. One of Lee’s men is going to bring home my car.”

“Matt?” he asked.

So he knew Darius’s colleagues.

I loved that.

But I hated that I didn’t know.

I nodded and said, “Him or Bobby.”

“Right. What stupid thing were you and Aunt Toni doing?”

“The firm has a client I don’t trust.”

“Doesn’t the firm have an investigator who can look into that kind of thing?”

Again, me wishing I had a dull child.

“We do contract with one when we need them, yes. I just don’t know how deep this goes.”

“So ask Dad and his guys to find out.”

I sighed.

“I think I’m going to ask Ally,” I told him.

“That’d be good too. She’s a total badass.”

His world had expanded a lot in five months.

I loved that for him too.

And it made me jealous as all hell.

“And don’t do stupid stuff like that again,” my child scolded me. “Dad’s right. You and Aunt Toni got no business screwing around with that kind of stuff.”

I arched a brow. “When did you become the parent in this scenario?”

“When you and Aunt Toni went out and did screwy stuff. Huh.”

With that, he strolled away.