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Lucy chuckles, and the sound of it hits me in the gut.
“Mrs. Greene is harmless. Mostly.” She looks at the front porch, smiling as Harley grabs his soccer ball from the porch and runs toward us. “Stay in the yard and I’ll make hot chocolate.”
She looks at me one last time before walking away, and I kind of like that she doesn’t invite me in. She’s cautious, and she should be, especially with having a young child. She’s protecting her space.
“Do you play soccer?”
“I don’t,” I answer honestly. “Can you teach me?”
“I’m not very good, but we can kick the ball back and forth.”
We stand about fifteen feet away from each other because her yard isn’t very big and kick the ball back and forth.
“Did you guys not sleep very well last night?”
“Momma doesn’t sleep at night.”
“No?” I ask as I tap the ball with the tip of my boot back in his direction.
“Momma works nights. I sleep on Mrs. Greene’s couch. We go to the park on Saturday morning. She has the weekends off.”
“Nights? At that gas station out on the highway?”
There aren’t many places in town that stay open all night long, but there are a few occupations in town that would keep a woman up at night. I don’t want my mind going there, but some women have to do what they have to do to take care of their families.
“She cleans office buildings. She can’t work during the day because the business-people are there,” he says with a grunt as he kicks the ball with all his might.
“Ah, ok.” Relief washes over me as I tell myself I won’t look into her, but I know I will.
She seems like a decent woman, and I know most people wouldn’t tell their kids what they really do for a living. It would flatten me to know she’s selling herself to make ends meet.
“Yours is on the kitchen table,” Lucy says as she walks out onto the small porch with a steaming mug in her hand.
Harley scoops up the ball, depositing it on the porch before heading inside.
“Thank you,” I tell her when she offers me the mug.
I take a seat on the top step as she leans against one of the banisters.
“Harley says you work nights. That’s got to be tough.”
“I think Sure Clean has been one of the best things to happen for me,” she says. “I can sleep while he’s at school. We get the afternoons together. Mrs. Greene watches him at night while I work. I’m just happy to have a job. There are a lot of single moms that don’t.”
And she just answered my question about a spouse or boyfriend. I nod and take a sip of the hot chocolate.
“What do you do for a living?”
“I work for Cerberus.”
“The motorcycle club?”
“Yeah. Heard of us?”
She shakes her head. “I’ve lived here for a couple of years, so I guess I probably should have. I’ve seen guys on bikes, but I haven’t paid much attention. I keep to myself, don’t ask questions. Do you guys own like a shop or something?”
I chuckle. “Watch a lot of TV?”
She shakes her head. “We watch a lot of cartoons, but you’d be surprised just how lacking kids’ entertainment is on motorcycle diversity.”
“Such a shame,” I tell her with a smile. “We actually travel a lot. I can’t really go into what we do, but it’s all good stuff. We help people. We’re the good guys.”
“And you were in the Marine Corps?”
“Eight years. All of us were in the Corps, actually. It’s a requirement for Cerberus.”
“And that makes you how old?”
“Thirty-one.”
“You seem older.”
“Wow.” I laugh.
“Sorry. I don’t mean it in a bad way, just that you’re mature. I knew bikers before, and they’re—”
“Wild? Like they’ll never grow up?”
She nods.
“We all have our moments. We see a lot of bad stuff, so we like to have fun when we can, but we know when to be serious.”
“I’m sorry for the millions of questions. I know Harley asked you so many yesterday.”
I look up at her, cup close to my mouth so she can’t see just how wide my smile is. “I’m an open book, Lucy.”
“I’m twenty-eight. Harley is six. He’s in first grade.”
“And his dad?”
She cringes, and I open my mouth to tell her never mind. I don’t want the conversation to stop. I’ll talk about myself all damn day if it keeps her from shutting down and asking me to leave.
“Prison.”
Damn it. That can’t be easy on either of them.
“He messed up when he was young. A lot, and often.” She shakes her head as if looking back now, she can’t believe that she ever got tangled up in that situation. “I wasn’t an innocent angel in all of it. I made mistakes, too. He got caught. I didn’t. I grew up quicker. We split before I got pregnant with Harley, but you know how exes go. Sometimes bad choices come crawling back, and more mistakes are made. Well, I wouldn’t say mistakes because I wouldn’t have Harley, and I love my son. But Robbie was a mistake. We both know that now.”
