“But—” Ayjia looked between her mother and aunt, obviously torn.
“It’s okay, honeybunch,” Porsha said, holding out her arms. “Your school in Phoenix is going to be even better than this one, and Ray has a pool in his backyard. You can use it any time you like.”
Unsupervised, Mercedes couldn’t help thinking with a chill.
Ayjia didn’t move to hug her mother. She stepped back when Porsha coaxed, “Come on, baby.”
Ayjia looked at her brother.
Dayton knelt with his legs twisted out in uncomfortable looking wings, his gaze flickered back and forth between his mother and aunt, completely still for probably the first time in his life.
“Ayjia,” Porsha said, leaning forward while hurt cracked her voice. “Come give Mommy a hug. You want to come with me, don’t you?”
She’s not even six, Mercedes wanted to say. Don’t make her make that choice.
The magnitude of what Porsha was asking made Ayjia’s breaths grow shaky and her little body twitched.
Mercedes, still on her own knees, flattened her palms on the floor and leaned toward Ayjia, trying to penetrate the fear paralyzing her small body.
“I know you want to be with your mommy, honey. I know you love her and want to go with her. But you don’t get to decide if you stay here or go. Even your mom and I don’t get to decide. A judge will decide. You and Dayton are actually really lucky to have two people love you so much that they both want to keep you with them.”
“But why can’t you just stay here?” Ayjia asked Porsha, tears overflowing her frightened brown eyes.
“Because I can’t, honey. Come here. Oh, baby.” Porsha stood to scoop up Ayjia and the girl wrapped arms and legs around her mom, beginning to sob openly.
Porsha sent Mercedes a glare through tear-glossed eyes, one that said, Look what you’ve done.
Mercedes drew a shaky breath and glanced at Dayton. He had his head down and fingered a few blocks without snapping them together.
Mercedes crawled over to ask, “You okay?”
He said something in a whisper so soft, she barely heard him. “I don’t want to go with Mom.”
Mercedes felt her heart split and break. Pressing a kiss against the boy’s hair, she leaned down to his ear and whispered, “Please don’t tell her that. It would hurt her feelings.”
L.C. forgot about the time change. It was late enough the complex was dark when he rolled down the Ring Road toward the duplex.
He had the truck windows open and the dry scent on the velvet air made everything loosen inside him. He glimpsed the flash of a television inside Harrison’s old unit. A poorly parked golf cart sat in a fire lane and the plink of Mr. Costa’s Greek music floated on the breeze. It all made him smile.
He noted both sides of the duplex were dark—apparently no one had moved into his side yet. He passed the lane that led to the carports in front and kept driving around to the back, thinking Mercedes might have the kids in bed and be reading or watching T.V.
No, the whole place was dark. He braked at the bottom of the Ring Road. Damn.
But no, someone sat on the deck. In the weak beam from a far streetlight, he saw a figure tucked into a shadowy corner, sipping a drink and smoking a cigarette.
Oh, hell. This wasn’t good.
L.C. cut the engine and dropped out of the truck, approaching with a heavy heart. “Hey, honey, I’m home,” he joked softly.
“Well, hello, sailor,” an almost familiar voice said. A glass clinked onto the paving stones and the cigarette end glowed brightly while she dragged on it. “L.C., I presume?”
“Porsha?” he guessed.
She blew out a stream of smoke that smelled way too good. “Your pleasure to make my acquaintance, I’m sure. Wanna drink?”
Yup. “No, thanks.” He hitched his hip onto the stone wall, but stayed on the outside of it. “Where is everyone?”
“Apparently, the last Sunday of the month is movie night in the cantina. You know what I’d like to know?” She pointed her half smoked cigarette at him. “How the hell does Disney get off selling horse racing as family entertainment?”
“That’s one of those mysteries that’ll never be solved,” he murmured, seeing much in her that once would have appealed beyond resisting. He checked his watch, wondering how long they’d be. It was late for the kids to be up. “Don’t the kids have school in the morning?”
“School’s out,” Porsha said, slurring just a little. “Time’s up. Big decision is coming down tomorrow.”
“Oh?” Zack hadn’t known when the court date was set for. He’d only been able to tell L.C. that it was soon.
“You didn’t know? Isn’t that why you’re here?” She topped up her drink from a bottle beside her lawn chair. “Merce is such a fucking hypocrite. Won’t let Ray near the kids, but she calls you? I mean, what is the fucking difference? I don’t want you around my kids. If you come near them, I’ll call the fucking police. How do you like that? How the fuck does she like that?”
L.C.’s blood stopped in his veins. He was dying to see the kids. This had to be raking them through pure hell. But he’d be damned if he’d stir the coals up any worse.
“I’m sorry you feel that way. I’ll respect your wishes.” He straightened, worry for Mercedes knotting his innards. He ached to hug them all. “Are, uh, the kids going to court with you tomorrow?”
“No.” Short and hard.
“Okay. I’ll check in with Mercedes there then.” He walked back to his truck. “See you.”
“Not if I see you first, man,” she said behind him.
“May I kiss you?” Edward asked in a soft whisper when they reached her door.
The words, do you really want to? hovered on her tongue, along with why? At the same time, soaring delight filled her. She saw Edward every day. He sought her out and every day, they shared some new piece of their soul. How this could happen, why now at her age, she couldn’t fathom, but Edith ached to express this growing regard she had for him. She longed for tender, physical closeness and felt only a little shy about it.
Silently nodding, she let him guide her into her apartment. He pushed the door half-closed behind them and she heard his sigh of relief as he drew her into his arms.
It made her smile, so the lips he pressed against hers felt it. He lifted his head before her heart had a chance to leap more than once. “You’re laughing at me? You think we’re too old for this, don’t you?”
“No, I’m just happy,” she admitted in a whisper. “I’m worried sick about Mercedes and yet you still manage to make me feel happy, Edward.”
“I wake every morning and wonder how early is too early to call you because I want to hear your voice,” he admitted in a murmur.
“You do? No one ever wants to hear what I have to say.”
“I do. You talk to me, Edith. Not mindless exchanges of medical symptoms and what coupon saves you ten cents. You don’t treat me like the dumb old guy down the street. We have real conversations about things that interest me, or that matter to you. I want to be with you all the time. But I don’t want to talk right now.”
He covered her mouth with his own, his kiss firm and sure, surprisingly demanding for such a quiet-spoken man. And this business of him being so much taller than her; it put a crick in her neck, but she felt remarkably feminine and rather cosseted, being held by such a tall man. No one had taken care of her in a very long time.
He pulled her against him more thoroughly and she quit analyzing and let herself reacquaint with sensations she hadn’t felt in years. Youthful, heart-palpitating, blood-warming sensations.
“Mrs. Gar— Oh, shit, I’m sorry.”
L.C. had told himself Mrs. Garvey wouldn’t care for a story about horse racing.
After interrupting her preferred entertainment, and blurting out a nice romantic profanity, he jerked the door closed behind him and started to walk away. He paused, suddenly horrified, not because he’d just walked in on codgers necking. No, if he could still get it up at that age, he planned to use it, but what if Mrs. Garvey hadn’t been participating in that exchange? He hadn’t taken time to evaluate things, but it wasn’t exactly in-character for her to be playing tonsil-hockey.
Maybe Edith Garvey’s near-prudish modesty was Challenge Of The Week to some senior players.
L.C. looked at Edith’s door. Did he let himself believe she was a big girl and could take care of herself? Or go back and interrupt them again?
The door cracked and Edward Hilroy peeked out. His head was at a sharp enough angle, he resembled one of those doodles all the kids used to draw, with the two eyes on top of the wall and the nose hanging over the edge. “Still there,” he said.
“Ask him if he’d like some tea,” Mrs. Garvey’s voice said from inside.
“Not if you two need your space, man,” L.C. said. “I just wanted to ask Mrs. G what she knows about Mercedes going to court tomorrow. I’m really sorry,” he said, making a more personal apology, man to man.
Hilroy blushed and straightened, muttering, “You should be.”
L.C. snorted and moved to peek in the door, catching sight of a flushed, flustered, rather pretty Mrs. Garvey, her eyes all sparkly and color in her cheeks. Apparently, she’d found someone who cooked her blood. Good for her. Everyone should have that.