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I nodded. “He sticks to the same routine. There hasn’t been any sign of T since the encounter in the alley.”
Ronan’s jaw was tight as he nodded. I could tell he was frustrated. I found myself holding my breath as I waited for him to speak.
What the fuck would I do if he said to pull the trigger anyway? The fact that Levi was consorting with a known criminal was potentially enough for Ronan to decide the young man’s fate.
“Keep on him,” Ronan finally said, clearly unhappy with his own decision.
I nodded and quickly stood. “I’ve got a stop to make before I head back there…he’ll be heading to St. Anthony’s in a few hours.”
Ronan nodded and his gaze softened. “How’s she doing?”
I merely shook my head because he knew the answer to his own question. The answer wouldn’t change anytime soon…or possibly ever.
“Seth and Tristan were talking about stopping by for another visit soon.”
Another round of guilt went through me even as warmth flooded my system. “She’d like that,” I murmured. “I’ll call you if there’s anything new,” I said in a rush as I hurried to get out of there.
As I made my way towards the front door, I shook my head.
I couldn’t lose this. I just couldn’t. They were my family. Levi was no one to me…he was a job and nothing more.
I ignored the inner voice calling me a liar and left the house. I hated myself for the brief hope that went through me that maybe today would be the day Levi finally proved to be the man he’d been that night seven years ago. But on the heels of that thought came that damn inner voice again.
Liar.
“It’s my turn to pay,” Levi said as he dug out his wallet. “And don’t think I don’t know what you did yesterday,” he said with a shake of his head.
“What?” I asked innocently as I took a sip of the little bit of coffee remaining in my cup.
“You waited until I went to the bathroom to ask the waitress for the check,” he scolded.
I smiled at that. We’d been having breakfast together every morning at the same diner since that first morning I’d picked him up after work and I’d somehow managed to pay the bill each time, but Levi had insisted the day before that he’d pay. Since I could tell from the young man’s worn and limited wardrobe and less than ideal living conditions if his shitty, run-down apartment building was anything to go by, I knew money wasn’t something he had a lot of. I watched as he carefully counted out the money. His eyes lifted to mine briefly and I saw his cheeks color in embarrassment.
I wanted to tell him he had nothing to be embarrassed about, but I suspected it would have the opposite effect and humiliate him even more.
It wasn’t something I’d started to notice until this past week as I’d spent more time in Levi’s presence. I’d first picked up on it in the kitchen as we’d been preparing dinner. Whenever Levi had to deal with a measurement or counting something out, like how many spoonfuls of an ingredient to add, he took an inordinate amount of time to do so. I’d made the mistake of interrupting him once while he’d been in the process of adding flour to a bowl for the cake he was making for dessert and he’d been forced to start over. At first, I’d thought maybe he just had memory problems, but as I’d watched him more and more, I’d realized it was more complicated than that. He struggled with anything that required more in-depth thought processing. I knew he could read because I’d seen him reading recipe cards, but he seemed to struggle with things that weren’t clearly spelled out. Math, especially, proved difficult for him. Father O had brought him a new recipe to add to the menu’s lineup, but the recipe had been designed for a single family, so Levi had needed to quadruple the ingredients to make one of several batches of the food for the soup kitchen guests.
I’d watched him struggle through trying to figure out the new amounts, but he’d refused to ask me for help and I hadn’t wanted to let him know I was aware of the issue, so I’d made an excuse about wanting to switch jobs with him since I was having trouble with getting the flavor just right for the sauce I’d been preparing.
I suspected he had some kind of learning disability, but I hadn’t asked about it.
“I like when they put the tip amounts on the bottom of the check,” Levi murmured as he studied the check and then looked at the money he had left in his hand. He’d already put down enough cash to cover the cost of the meal, but not the tip. I could tell from the cash he had left, he had more than enough to cover it, but from the way he was looking back and forth between the bill and the money, I knew he was having trouble figuring out how much to leave. His eyes shifted back to me briefly and I saw the shame there. I watched as he quickly took the rest of the money in his hand and dropped it down on the pile of cash he’d already left. It was almost a fifty percent tip.
