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Which was something Simon could worry about later.
He got into the Rover beside Ben, put on his seat belt, then took Ben’s hand. It was icy cold in his. “Everything is going to be okay. I promise. You won’t ever have to come back here.”
“There’s nowhere else,” Ben said dully, still holding onto his box tightly. “I told you. I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
Hudson put a stuffed black garbage bag into the back of the Rover, walked to the driver’s side door, and snatched something off the windshield of the car. Holding the paper tightly in his fist, Hudson got in and swore. ,
“What is it?”
“A ticket,” Hudson growled.
Ben made a small sound of distress and Simon instinctively touched his hand to calm him. “A parking ticket is the least of my concerns tonight, Hudson.”
“It’s the principle of the thing,” he grumbled back.
Considering they’d been parked illegally, Simon didn’t think they were standing on any kind of stout principles, but he nodded and said, “Let’s just get home.”
“No argument from me,” Hudson said, and then started the SUV then drove away. Forever, as far as Simon was concerned.
“You do have somewhere to go,” Simon said.
“I don’t want to go to a shelter,” Ben said quietly.
For some reason, that made Simon want to punch the entire world. But he kept his voice light, for Ben’s sake, as well as his own. “You’re not going to a shelter, Benny. You’re coming home with me.”
9
Ben Is Overwhelmed
Friday, December 15
Simon’s SUV
Chinatown
Ben sat next to Simon in the luxurious SUV and felt absolutely miserable.
It had never occurred to him that Simon’s intimidating driver would insist on following him to his room to make sure he was settled comfortably. He tried to tell the man he was okay to leave, but Kyle was there, making nasty comments as he often did, and the driver had set his jaw and insisted on escorting Ben to his room.
First they’d come to the kitchen and it was evident that someone—perhaps Kyle or one of his friends—had tried to fix the dishwasher and failed spectacularly. Water was everywhere. Ben knew what that meant. His room would have a full bucket in it. Hopefully, it hadn’t overflowed. Through hard experience Ben had learned not to put anything he wished to keep nice on the floor. While it didn’t flood on a regular basis, damp leaked through the walls and the dishwasher upstairs was a constant problem.
He was not prepared for what awaited them in the basement. Even Kyle making some remark about it being kinda wet down there hadn’t been enough of a warning. The basement wasn’t just kinda wet—there was water everywhere like someone had turned on a faucet then forgotten to turn it off. Outside it was far too cold for rain or melting snow, so the water had come from inside the house. Then he remembered the broken water heater and realized that had to be the source of all the water.
There would be no hot shower for him tonight or any night for the foreseeable future. Worse than that, he could see that due to how the basement slanted slightly, the water was deepest by his room.
“Well shit,” the driver said. Ben couldn’t remember his name for the life of him. “Excuse me. Didn’t mean to swear.”
“No,” Ben said faintly. “That seems pretty appropriate.”
“I can’t leave you here.”
“No, it’s fine. I’ve handled water like this before. I know what to do.” Lies. All lies. There had been small leaks here and there but nothing like this.
“This is not fine. The boss wouldn’t like this. Not at all.”
“It’s the water heater,” Kyle said. “Tried to fix it but it’s busted. The bottom dropped out of the damn thing. It’s gonna cost money to fix. I’m gonna need you and the other tenants to help me pay for this. You use the hot water too. I can’t be expected to shoulder the cost of all of this.”
Ben felt absolutely numb. Money? What money? As it was, Kyle still owed him for the shoveling outside the other day. “Use the fifty dollars that you were going to pay me.” That seemed fair.
