After Mitch and Sammy left, Rico split his time between working and telling himself to stop thinking about Mitch. It was ten percent working, ninety percent trying to kick Mitch out of his head.
Then his phone rang, and of course his first thought was that it was Mitch. It was his grandmother calling. When he answered, he noticed that she sounded deliberately calm.
"I'm over at Mitch's, sweetheart. There was a break-in, but everyone is alright. Someone busted the back door when Mitch and Sammy were in town. The sheriff is over here checking things out," his grandmother told him, and instantly his breath was knocked out of him.
"I'll be right there," Rico managed to say and he rushed out of the café without telling anyone that he was leaving or why. He couldn't think. He couldn't breathe. In his head he kept repeating that everyone was alright, but he needed living proof.
After driving like a maniac, he ran up the porch steps. He had to see with his own eyes that Mitch and Sammy were OK.
He found Mitch and his grandmother right in the front hallway talking to the sheriff. Mitch had his back turned, but his grandmother saw him and she came over.
"Look at you. I told you they were alright, honey," she said to him.
"I just... Where's Sammy?" Rico asked since he didn't see her.
"In the kitchen with those kittens. They're still dusting for prints and whatever else they're looking for everywhere else in the house," his grandmother told him and Rico rushed off to see her.
Sammy was sitting on the floor with the kittens while the kitchen door stood open, the window in it cleared of glass.
"Watch out for the glass, Rico," Sammy warned him though the glass was all on the other side of the room.
He went over to her and kneeled down in front of her. "How are you doing?"
"I'm OK, Rico. But someone broke the window on the door," she said sadly then she sat up straight and put on a brave face. "Don't worry, Daddy will fix it. And look, Natalie and Veronica are OK."
"Yes, they are," Rico said as he took her tiny hand in his. It scared him so much to think that she could have been here when it happened, but she was holding up really well. She was too little to realize the danger. Rico tried not to show her his own fear, but she noticed that he wasn't himself.
"You need a hug, Rico?" she asked him and put her arms out.
Rico picked her up and hugged her. "Yes, I do. Thank you." He held her for a long time, so aware of how small she was.
He stayed with her and the kittens for a while to make sure she was OK. It turned out this wasn't her first break-in. She told him how someone broke a door to their apartment. "They took the TV and some of Daddy's tools too."
"Sorry. What matters is that everybody is OK," Rico told her and she agreed and looked down at the kittens. When she and Mitch arrived and found the house had been broken into, Sammy must have been worried about them.
Rico sat with her in the kitchen and got her a snack. Then once he saw that the deputies were finished in the rose sitting room, he took Sammy and the kittens over there. The sheriff was done talking to Mitch and his grandmother, so Rico went over to them.
"The sheriff says it was likely some vagrant. They sometimes break into the houses that sit empty and just crash there," his grandmother said. "This house was sitting empty for quite a while."
"Or it might have been someone looking to steal something. Was anything taken?" Rico asked.
"Not that I can tell, but the place was tossed," Mitch said.
"There isn't much here worth stealing," his grandmother said. "There is a mess to be cleaned up in the basement. All the stuff you put in boxes is spilled all over. The rest of the house isn't as bad."
Rico thought it was weird that someone broke in, looked for something to steal and then left empty-handed. He turned to Mitch. "What about your tools?"
"They're all there. And I guess my laptop was too old to bother with, just like the two TVs in here."
"Maybe they ran off when you showed up," Rico said. That was a scary thought. Mitch and Sammy could have walked in on someone and things could have turned dangerous.
"A vagrant getting around on his own two feet would want smaller kinds of things that he can carry away and not be noticed," his grandmother theorized.
The whole time, Rico was thinking about how much he wanted to throw his arms around Mitch and hold on tight. He couldn't do that, and Mitch wouldn't want him to anyway.
Remembering how he left the café without a word, he texted Sam. He got a reply right away. "Glad everyone is OK. Hannah pocketed your tip from table four, and she's keeping it."
Rico knew he deserved that, and told Sam to pass on the thanks to everyone who had to cover for him. He looked up from his phone to find Mitch staring at him.
