CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Leighton
I’m dragging ass this morning, after Holden and I were out late last night at the class he arranged for us. I would do it again though, in a nanosecond. If I could just get myself to wake up.
“I can’t believe I agreed to a shift this early on a Saturday,” Caleb complains as he enters my car on the passenger side.
“Totally agree, but look at it this way, you can come home after you’re done and take a nap. It’ll be so early in the day you’ll be able to go do something after you wake up.”
“Kinda like having a two-a-day.” He grins at me.
This morning I’m starting to see the man he’s growing into, and he’s going to be a heartbreaker, especially with a dad like Mason. He has a little bit of peach fuzz on his angular jaw and I don’t think he brushed his hair. As a football player, he’s building up his muscles, and I’m pretty sure that within the next six months he’ll be able to get any girl he wants.
“Yeah, like a two-a-day,” I agree.
At the end of the driveway, I stop to let a truck pass before I pull out onto the main highway. When I get a glance at the driver, the hair on the back of my neck stands up. It’s my dad. He offers me a wave that I don’t return. Instead, I turn to check the blind spots on both sides before I take the road to town.
“Who was that?”
Caleb has the instincts of a cop. If this football thing doesn’t work out for him, he’d be a welcome addition to the force – I’m sure of it. My dad isn’t someone I like to talk about, but I feel like Caleb and I have gotten close. We’ve become very good friends in the short time we’ve been working together, and I always want to treat him like an adult.
“My dad.”
He picks at a string hanging on his athletic shorts. “Ya know, sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have to choose between a mom or a dad. Like my mom left, and I never knew her, but as much as my dad gets on my nerves, I don’t know what I would do without him.” His deepening voice is getting contemplative this morning.
“You’d learn to live, kid. That’s all you can do.”
“Is that what you’ve done? I notice you don’t have a relationship with your dad.”
“It’s what I had to do. My dad wasn’t like yours. He wasn’t on the right side of the law. He broke it every chance he got, and it was dangerous.”
This is the first time I’ve really talked about my home life, and it doesn’t escape me that I’m talking about it to Caleb. No matter how young he is, we share a piece of our lives that no one else should ever have to share.
“Is your mom alive?” I ask, because it’s been bothering me for a while.
His jaw hardens, a tick appearing against the strong line. “Dad doesn’t talk about it. I don’t know,” he finally admits. “I stopped asking, I get the feeling she couldn’t handle life with a kid.”
“If she knew what an amazing kid you are, she’d be kicking herself for ever leaving you.” I grab his hand.
“Problem is, she’ll never know.”
“Maybe one day she will,” although I don’t exactly believe my words, “maybe you’ll be the one in a million whose mom decides to come back and find out what you’ve been doing with your life.”
He glances over at me, that young face so serious. “I don’t know if I’d welcome her back.”
I’m not sure I blame him.
Havoc
This morning, I’m sucking down the damn coffee. I wish I would have looked at the dates of that dance class a little better. This was my early morning and I was thirty minutes late.
L: I need so much more sleep. The caffeine isn’t working.
I grin as I read the text message from Leighton.
H: I totally agree with you. Take a nap when you get home from work.
L: I have a paper due :(
She’s so dedicated to what she wants to do. Makes me so fucking proud of her.
H: Write your paper, I’ll bring something home for dinner, and we can crash early.
L: We’re sounding like one of those old, married couples. I’m not taking that woman’s advice. What if you leave me for a more exciting wife?
I chuckle, smiling wide as I remember the advice of the older woman last night to give me blow jobs.
H: I’m so tired that I’m not sure I could even get it up if you had that kind of an idea for me. Tonight, we sleep.
L: I think I love you, that’s exactly what I wanted to hear.
The love throws me off, but I imagine it’s just an expression and she didn’t mean it the way my fluttering heart took it.
H: Have a good day, sweetheart. See you tonight.
I don’t even know why I put the sweetheart in there, it just felt right. Calling myself three kinds of an idiot, I put my phone in my pocket and go to pick up the paperwork for my shift.
“Riding with you today,” I tell Mason as I look through the information that’s been left for me. “Let me grab some more coffee and we’ll be ready to go.” I haven’t ridden with Menace in a while, and since the two of us are close to the same age, we tend to have more to talk about than the other guys. I quickly refill my cup, let dispatch know where I’m going to be, and then we head out to the cars.
“How are things going?” I ask him as we start making our designated route through the town, up and down the one-way streets before we patrol the backroads.
“They’re good,” he answers, stopping at a stoplight and then accelerating to make a left-hand turn. “Been working a lot in Birmingham doing some security gigs.”
“I noticed you hadn’t been volunteering for overtime as much anymore, are we about to lose you to the bigger city?” I’d hate to lose him; he’s a good officer, was a decorated member of the Marine Corps, and has done well at every post he’s been assigned to. If we’re holding him back, I want to let him know to go for it.
He shakes his head. “No, this is the only place where Caleb has ever felt like a part of something. He has football, Leighton, The Café, you all. I won’t take it away from him.”
“I love how you add my wife into that equation.”
“I don’t mean to disrespect you, but he cares a lot for her. I feel like he’s a better person because she’s come into his life. He needed someone like her.”
“Didn’t we all?” I ask softly. Hearing him describe what a better person his son is for having Leighton in his life is affecting me, because I know I’m better for having her in my own. “I get it, and I’m happy to share her with him if need be. Those two kinda have a kinship, both not having mothers.”
“They do,” Menace agrees. “And right now, he needs all the friends he can get. He’s having a hard time.”
“With what?”
If my guys are having problems, I want to know. I want to be a part of the solution, because that’s what a good leader does. Not to mention these guys are my family, and my responsibility. I need to know if their heads aren’t completely in the game.
“School,” Menace spits the word out like it’s got a bad taste. “He’s got this teacher who seems to think he’s not giving his all, and I just don’t know what to tell her.”
“They only have a few weeks left, right?”
“Yeah, but I’ve heard through the grapevine she’s moving up a grade next year, so he’ll have her again.”
I take a drink of my coffee. “Is the teacher right? Is he not giving his all?”
“Hell, I don’t know. It’s some sort of math bullshit that I can’t even understand. I went overseas and kept people safe, Havoc, and I can’t figure this shit out. Do they want these kids to be rocket scientists?” He runs a hand through his hair. “Either way, I don’t know what to tell her. I can talk to him until I’m blue in the face, and he’ll tell me what I want to hear, but I can’t force him to do what she wants him to do. Fuck, I don’t even know if he can.”
“Caleb’s a good kid,” I reiterate. I think Menace needs to hear that right now.
“He is, but I’m worried if we keep harping on him, asking for more than he’s giving, it’s gonna make him rebellious. Right now, I leave him at home at all hours by himself and I don’t have to worry where he is. He’s never lied to me, never had people over when he shouldn’t, always calls me when he’s leaving. I’m his dad, but he’s also my best friend. We’ve grown up together. He knows not to lie to me.” Menace seems to have a hard time putting into words what he wants to say. “But at the same time, I don’t want to put too much pressure on him, because I want him to have a choice, ya know?”
“You don’t want him to have to go into the military like we did?”
He slaps his hand on the steering wheel. “Exactly! It was either that or get a fuckin’ factory job where most of the people who work there are on uppers and downers, or get stuck going to community college hoping to one day have enough credits to transfer. I want better for him.”
He’s a good dad. I hope I’m the type of dad Menace is if Leighton and I ever decide to have kids.
“He’ll have better because you do whatever it takes to give him better. And what if you make an appointment with this teacher? Ya know, talk to her about your fears when it comes to pushing him? Don’t they have conferences or something like that?”
“They do,” he confirms. “I just always get a look when I go in there. People look at me and they go oh my God, you have a fifteen-year-old son? Is he adopted? Are there extenuating circumstances? They whisper it like it’s some secret. I mean, imagine how they look at me when I’m like no, I was having sex at sixteen, had a baby at seventeen, and became a single-dad at nineteen. I’m thirty-two now, do you have any more questions?”
“Are they really that invasive?”
“Fuck yes,” he breathes out harshly. “And ya know – I get that they wanna help me, that they want to make things better – but where the hell were those people when I was serving my country and my mom had to move in to help me?”
“Nobody ever thinks about the sacrifice, brother.”
“I missed a lot of shit I’ll never get back, but I’ve done it to give him a better life, and I’m scared to death that the pushiness of a society that always preaches you can do better is going to ruin it all.”
This is some heavy heart-to-heart stuff, and I wonder how long Menace has needed to talk. How long has he been dealing with this on his own? I feel like he should have come to me before it got this bad. “Next time you need to talk, you come to me. If you don’t want to do it at the station in front of people, come to the house. Bring Caleb with you, don’t hide what’s going on from him. He’s old enough to know what’s going on.”
“I didn’t mean to lay this all on you, boss, it’s just been heavy on me lately.”
“You lay whatever you need to on me, I’ve got big shoulders. I can take it.”
I can handle anything that anyone throws at me, as long as I know my team and my family are good.