Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Thick and Thin

Rock Chick Rewind

Some time ago…

“I wanna go on record as saying this is not a good idea,” my friend Toni proclaimed.

“Yeah, you told me on the phone when I asked you to come with me tonight,” I replied, navigating Colfax in my car on our way to the bar. “And again when I picked you up. And when we turned onto Colfax. And just now.”

“The last one was official,” Toni sniffed.

I glanced her way, thinking I really should have reconnected with Ally and/or Indy for this operation. First, because they wouldn’t go on the record telling me something I already knew: this was a fool idea. They’d be all for it. Second, they’d probably be able to form a better plan as to how to go about doing what I intended to do, considering they had a lot of experience with implementing fool ideas.

But I couldn’t reconnect with Ally and Indy.

It had been years, for one.

I’d taken off without a word of explanation, for another.

The explanation I had I couldn’t tell them, not yet, since the person who most should know still didn’t (yet), for another.

Too much was at stake, for the last.

I turned into the parking lot of the bar, and even not having entered it, I could see this place was somewhere I didn’t want to be.

Nope.

Somewhere I shouldn’t be.

One could stretch this further and say I should never have moved us from living in the apartment over the stables at my aunt and uncle’s place in Fort Collins back to Denver.

Sure, on occasion, you could smell horse manure.

But it was quiet, a lot bigger than my current apartment, safe, and it had a funky vibe I liked.

That said, it wasn’t home.

It wasn’t Denver.

I was a young mother. I’d gotten my training to be a court reporter and scored a job. I was taking courses to become a paralegal, which was a step down from what my plans had been before I’d gotten pregnant and my baby’s father’s dad had been murdered, sending him so far off the rails, I didn’t recognize him anymore. But it didn’t matter I didn’t, he’d cut me out of his life.

I’d wanted to be a lawyer.

But life was tough with a curious two-year-old, even if my mom and dad and sister and all the aunties and uncles and cousins pitched in to help me out.

I needed to keep my nose clean.

And I needed to stay away from Darius Tucker.

Everyone told me he’d turned to the dark side.

However, I thought it was time. It was time he shook himself out of this garbage.

It was time he learned he had a child and had to step up.

It was time three years ago, but I’d been young and scared and hurt, so I’d made an emotional decision and my parents had stepped in to support and protect me.

Off I went to Fort Collins.

Now I was back.

So, yeah.

It was time.

While I was thinking these things, Toni was doing something else. I knew this when I turned to her and saw her tying the silk scarf under her chin. It covered her hair and the sides of her face. She complemented this by sliding on a massive pair of black-framed glasses.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

She turned to me, more than likely unable to see me through her opaque lenses.

“Donning my disguise.”

“It’s night.”

“Yeah.”

“We’re going into a bar, not traveling through time back to the fifties to take a ride in a convertible.”

“I don’t want anyone seeing me here.”

“That much is clear,” I muttered.

“You shouldn’t want anyone to see you either, including someone in particular,” she pointed out.

I let my gaze drift through the busy parking lot before I returned it to her. “It’s obviously going to be crowded. I’m going to blend in.”

She lifted a hand to the arm of her sunglasses, dipped them low on her nose and looked over them at me.

“Girl, this place is trashy. You are not trash. No way you’re gonna blend in.” She slid her glasses back and crossed her arms on her chest before she demanded, “Tell me again why we’re here.”

“I just want to see him.”

“I told you the scuttlebutt about him.”

“I still want to see him.”

She shook her head, and I couldn’t be certain, because it was dark and so much of her face was covered, but I could swear I saw her expression get soft with worry.

“The him you knew is long gone, sis,” she informed me gently.

“I want to see for myself.”

My eyes clashed with her shades for a long time before she blew out a breath, murmured, “Let’s just do this,” and turned to her door to push out.

I got out too, and after I’d closed my door and locked the car, I realized my hands were trembling.

I put my keys in my purse, then shook my hands to get the trembles out.

Really, I should have reconnected with Ally or Indy. They’d know what to do and they’d give me the strength to do it.

“It’s now or never, Malia,” Toni called over the roof.

“Right. Do this. Okay,” I mumbled to myself and rounded the car.

We went in and I was relieved I was correct. The place was packed. If you wanted to see someone, you had to be looking.

I was, however, concerned that Toni was also correct.

This place was rough.

I scanned the crowd as Toni latched onto my elbow and pulled me through bodies to the bar.

I doubted it was gentlemanly manners that had the two men skedaddling from their stools as Toni barreled us their way so we could assume them, and more that Toni looked mildly insane in her getup, and they might be tough customers, but they wanted nothing to do with her.

She deposited me on my stool, sat on hers, and after a nanosecond of glaring at the bartender, she wrapped her knuckles impatiently on the bar.

He turned his attention to her, did a double take, then wandered down to us.

“Well, you were there. Was it a lone gunman?” he asked Toni.

It was part my nerves, part the guy was funny, which was why I burst out laughing.

Toni ignored his comment and ordered, “Two vodka martinis.”

The guy’s eyes narrowed on her, and he asked, “Got ID?”

“Sure,” she said, opened her purse and fished out her fake ID.

“Both of you,” he said to me even as he held his hand out for Toni’s.

The nerves came back.

In preparation for this operation, Toni had procured the same for me. She’d had hers for years. Considering I was nurturing, then birthing, then again nurturing a baby, partying wasn’t my top priority (or any priority), and as such, I had no need to score a fake ID.

We were both only a year away from legal, but that year was still a year.

I pulled mine out and gave it to him.

He studied them, then handed them back, saying, “Those are good. So good, we get busted, it’ll be on your asses, not mine.”

He then grabbed two low-alcohol-content wine coolers from a refrigerator, snapped off the caps, put them in front of us and moved away.

“Huh,” Toni said as she picked up the bottle and stared at the label with so much distaste, I could see it from around her disguise.

“We didn’t come here to imbibe,” I reminded her.

She turned her dark shades to me. “Oh, so you intend to blend in at a bar by wandering around, not drinking, and being obvious about looking for somebody? Being obvious about doing that in a bar where not one of these people wants to be found? That sounds like a good plan. Wish I’d thought of that. Let’s go do that.”

Totally should have brought Ally or Indy. They wouldn’t point out I was an idiot.

They might think it, but they wouldn’t point it out.

She threw back a sip, made a face, then put the bottle to the bar, and very clearly pretending not to be obvious, which made it totally obvious, she scanned the bar.

“Can you see anything through those glasses?” I asked under my breath.

“I can see the pull of the bad boy,” she replied. “Look at that man. He is fine.”

I peered over my shoulder in the direction her shades were aimed.

A man with close-cropped hair, handsome face and beautiful dark skin wearing a loose-fitting button down up top, and criminally well-fitting faded jeans on the bottom was staring our way.

He tipped his beer at us when I caught his eyes.

I turned back.

“We’re not on the make,” I told Toni and took a sip of my cooler.

I also made a face.

Yikes. Who drank this stuff? It was awful.

“You might not be, but I just changed my objective for the night,” she replied.

“You might want to lose the glasses and scarf, then,” I suggested.

“Ladies.”

I looked over my shoulder again.

Not wasting time, the man had made his approach, now he was eyeing me, but when Toni made a move, he turned his attention to her.

“Incognito?” he asked like he saw women in Toni’s getup in that bar every night.

And who knew? Maybe he did.

“Damn straight,” she replied, throwing back more wine cooler.

“Cheating boyfriend?” he asked.

She tipped her bottle my way. “Baby daddy.”

I closed my eyes and sighed as his attention shifted again to me, but he’d shut down.

Men had no interest in women with children. They could go around making them and moving on and not many women would blink in taking them on.

But a guy found out you had a kid, he was out.

It shouldn’t be surprising. If they didn’t take care of their own children, they wouldn’t be in to take care of yours.

Not that I’d gone out and looked, just that I was a young mother, but I still had a life, and I wasn’t hard to look at, so I’d learned. I’d decided it was good. It kept them at bay so I could focus on Liam…

And pining for my high school boyfriend.

“Maybe I can help,” he offered. “Got a name?”

“Not one I’ll share with just anyone,” I said quickly so Toni wouldn’t pipe up.

“Just trying to help,” he murmured, visibly looking for his out.

Toni really should have taken off the scarf and sunglasses. She was way prettier than me with her round cheeks and button nose and almond eyes.

“You can help by buying a girl a martini. The bartender got our order wrong,” Toni put in.

He and I both looked at her, and incognito was a memory. Gone was the disguise and she was blasting out her Hollywood good looks, because she had the base elements in spades, but even in high school, Toni didn’t leave the house without a full face of makeup and perfect hair, and she hadn’t changed.

This was what he got a load of right then.

So this was why he turned his wide shoulder to me and gave her his full attention.

Her smile got big and her come hither blasted out farther than her Hollywood looks.

Right, I’d lost Toni.

I did my own scan, some people shifting, giving me a direct shot to the back of the bar, and I froze.

The people shifted back, hiding me from her, but I’d seen her.

And she’d seen me.

Darius’s Aunt Shirleen.

Okay, now it was official.

This was a bad idea.

“We’ve got to go,” I told Toni.

Her head jerked. “What?”

I pulled some money out of my wallet, threw it on the bar for our drinks and slid off the stool, all the while repeating, “We’ve got to go.”

“I’ll take you home,” the guy said hurriedly to Toni.

I straightened my spine and tapped his arm to get his attention.

He twisted my way.

“No, you won’t,” I told him. “Like a gentleman, you’ll ask for her number. You’ll then call her, not in three days, so she’ll have to wonder for those three days if you’re into her. You’ll call her tomorrow. You’ll talk and see if you vibe. If you vibe, you’ll ask her out to dinner and take her someplace nice so she can dress up. Bonus for you, you’ll want to see her dressed up. And then you both will take it from there.”

I thought he’d get upset about me being so bossy, but he grinned, returned his attention to Toni and said in a soft voice, “Can I have your number, baby?”

In my opinion, he could have lost the “baby,” but I could see from Toni’s face it worked on her.

She fished a receipt out of her purse, and at her request, I fished a pen out of mine. She gave him her number, and they did a lot of checking each other out, Toni doing it twisted to look behind her as I pulled her out of the bar.

I would have advised against the finger wave she sent his way right as we walked out the door, but it happened before I could stop it.

“Something else is official,” she announced when we were in the car. “You are now my official wingwoman. You rock that shit.”

Well…

Duh.

What were friends for?

“Wanna tell me what our swift exit was about?” she asked after I’d started up the car and headed through the parking lot toward Colfax.

“Darius’s Aunt Shirleen saw me.”

“Okay, I might be slow right now. I got a little dazzled by the attention of a good-lookin’ man, but weren’t we there looking for him?”

“Looking for him, yes.”

“Not sure I understand the emphasis,” she noted. “But just to say, she’s his aunt. Wouldn’t she know where he is?”

“Looking for him, Toni. Not finding him. I didn’t want him to know I was looking, remember?”

“You were just at a bar, Malia. You’re allowed to be at a bar.”

“Not legally.”

“Hmm,” she didn’t quite agree, even if she agreed.

“And it’s a bar everyone knows he hangs at.”

“Because his aunt and uncle own it,” Toni stated. “Which would stand to reason, since she owns it, she’d be there.”

Something else was official.

“Okay, I get it. I’m an idiot,” I told the street.

Toni reached out and patted my leg, saying, “Hon, you aren’t an idiot. You love the guy. You miss him. Shit went down, and I can see that time has passed, so now you think it’s time he sorted himself out and stood up for you and Liam. There’s nothing idiotic about that.”

I should have known my girl would come through for me in the end.

“Thanks, Toni,” I whispered.

“Just call him,” she whispered back. “Finding his phone number’ll probably be a lot easier than tracking him down on the mean streets of Denver.”

Darius lived on the mean streets.

I didn’t usually take those.

“I’ll think about it,” I told her.

“I hope you do, because, don’t forget, I was around during the great love affair of Malia Clark and Darius Tucker. I know it was high school, but some things transcend high school, and you two were one of those things. Everyone knew you were the real deal. Everyone knew you two were going to make it. Thick and thin. Life smacked you both in the face way before it ever should have. You’re in thin. I know that boy and the man he’ll become. He’s Mister Morris through and through. He’ll do right by you.”

Even though I knew she was right, I still hoped she wasn’t wrong.

* * * *

I laid my sleeping son in his crib, marveling at how beautiful he was, reveling in how peaceful he slept, pleased he hadn’t woken up when I picked him up from Mom and Dad’s house after I dropped Toni, and thinking I was crazy for missing him being awake and driving me crazy by learning his way around the child-protection latches Dad installed on the cabinets.

I touched his chubby cheek, his little nose, then bent over to kiss him before I pulled up the side of the crib and locked it into place.

It was a moot action. He’d learned how to climb out, which was why I had stacks of pillows around the crib just in case.

If he woke before me (and he always woke before me), they’d come in handy.

Before I left him in there with his blue elephant night-light glowing, I made sure the pillows were where they needed to be, and only then did I head out.

We had a two-bedroom apartment, even though the second bedroom was just bigger than a closet. Since Liam didn’t need tons of room yet, it worked. But I needed to get my degree and get a job that paid better, because soon he’d need his own space, and more of it. Liam was at the top of the scales height wise. He was going to be tall, like his daddy. And it was time to get him out of the crib and into a bed.

These were my thoughts when I went out of his room, headed for our tiny kitchen to get myself a glass of water before I got ready for bed.

I stopped dead and squeaked when I saw the man standing in my living room.

After the surprise wore off, I saw the man.

He had his arms crossed on his chest. He’d had his hair done into twists. He’d lost weight, looking lean…

And mean.

But no less beautiful.

Darius.

Shirleen had told him I’d been out looking for him.

“Who’s the kid?” he asked.

Oh God.

He’d seen me with Liam.

This wasn’t how I’d wanted this to go.

“Darius—”

“Who’s the fuckin’ kid, Malia?”

“How did you—?”

He leaned toward me, not uncrossing his arms, and gritted, “Who’s the fucking kid?”

I’d turned the light on in our tiny entryway to guide my way through the apartment, so even though no other lights were on, I could see him.

He was still handsome. Fit. Broad shoulders and trim hips and long legs that made his simple T-shirt and jeans look like a fashion statement.

But his expression was all wrong.

His eyes were cold, his face hard.

“Malia—”

I cut him off this time by blurting, “Liam Edward Clark.”

He leaned back with a jerk and the air in the room got oppressive.

This was it. It wasn’t how I wanted it to go, but I had no choice. I had to work with it.

“I had to guess, but I named him what I thought you’d want to name him,” I shared.

And I had. Liam, his best friend Lee’s name. And Edward, for his other best friend, Eddie.

“You’ve gotta be fuckin’ shitting me.”

“No.”

“You had my kid, and you didn’t fuckin’ tell me?”

His voice was quiet, nevertheless, his rage was glaringly evident.

The man he was now, I was certain most people quaked in their boots at his mood.

But…wait.

Hang on.

I was pretty even-tempered. I had great parents. I was close with my sister Lena, who was my other best friend, along with Toni. I had a tight-knit family. I had friends like Toni who thought I was an idiot, and she still packed her scarf and sunglasses to go on some moronic quest with me. Growing up, we weren’t rolling in money, but we were never hurting. I was a teenage mom and not a single member of my family or that first friend did anything but support me and help me through my pregnancy and beyond.

I didn’t have much to get shitty about.

But with what Darius just said, I was feeling the need to get shitty.

“Well, you know,” I started sarcastically, “I did call…eighty thousand times. You refused to speak to me.”

“You got my baby in your belly, you figure out a way to fuckin’ tell me,” he shot back.

“I’m sorry.” Yep. Still sarcasm. “How was that supposed to go? ‘Oh, hey, Miss Dorothea, I know you have a few things on your mind, but I really need to speak with Darius, since he got me pregnant.’”

“Don’t take that tone with me, Malia,” he said in that quiet, scary voice. “You don’t got the high ground here.”

Oh yeah.

I felt the need to get shitty.

“I don’t? Wait, was it you who found out you were pregnant at sixteen? And was it you who called and called and posted letters and begged to speak to me, only to be shut out time and time and time again? And was it you who carried a child, pushed that child out, breastfed that child, changed his diapers, chased after him when he started crawling, chased after him more when he started walking, struggled to put clothes on him when he went through that phase where he decided the only suit he wanted to wear was his birthday suit? And was it you who took classes even though all this was going on, leaning on your family to help out, so you could eventually make decent money to put a roof over his head and food in his belly? Sorry, I thought that all was me.”

“I could have given you money,” he bit out.

“I don’t want your money, Darius,” I retorted. “I wanted you to be Liam’s father. Which was why I was at the bar for Shirleen to see me tonight. It’s time for you to be his father.”

“I’ll get you money, how much do you need?”

“Darius—”

He threw a hand my way. “You got this, obviously. You don’t need me.”

All I could do was stare.

“There were ways, woman,” he went on. “You made your choice, don’t put that shit on me.”

“You can’t be serious,” I whispered.

“I didn’t disappear for three fuckin’ years.”

It felt like he’d punched me in the throat, the pain so bad, I couldn’t speak.

And the look that came into his eyes, the look of disgust…no, revulsion, nearly brought me to my knees.

He was also whispering when he said his last.

“Fuck, the one person in my life I didn’t think would carve a piece out of me cut off the biggest piece of all.”

And with that, he walked right past me and out the door.

* * * *

Three days later…

The envelope was on my kitchen counter when Liam and I got home that evening.

It had my name on it, written, and I didn’t recognize the handwriting.

Inside, in fives, tens, twenties, a few fifties and two hundreds, was three thousand dollars.

I could buy a toddler bed with that money.

I could feed both of us for three months with that money.

I was still furious at Darius. How our conversation went three nights ago was not okay. This wasn’t about him. It wasn’t even about me. It was about Liam.

I was so furious, I wanted to take that money to that bar, hand it to Shirleen and tell her to tell Darius from me he could go jump in a lake.

The thing was, this wasn’t about me.

It was about Liam.

He needed a toddler bed, and he was going to need a room that it would fit in.

So I took the cash, stuffed it in my underwear drawer and went about my evening, making dinner and being certain my kid didn’t figure out how to pull the childproof plug from an outlet and electrocute himself.