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Although, thinking about it now, the idea of having sex with anyone else held little appeal.
But that wasn’t important right now. What was important was that I needed to fulfill my promise and make sure Tillie and her mother had everything they needed. If the woman was even still alive, that is. But for now, I needed to focus on Tillie.
The thing was, even with our conversation yesterday, I still had no clue what exactly it was that the girl wanted. She’d said a lot about her childhood and past, but she never spoke much about a future.I like to live one day at a time.What the fuck did that mean? I knew men who went to war who said the same thing, but for a girl like Tillie? Why the fuck didn’t she look forward to the future? Because she couldn’t afford to?
And why didn’t Max get her into college in the first place? She shouldn’t be at home scouring the internet for a scholarship while working as a waitress to sustain herself. I’d sent him more than enough each month to ensure his child got a good education and could at least go to a state college. So what had he done with the money, and why did Tillie work double shifts to make ends meet?
I took another sip of beer.
Something wasn’t adding up. Something told me I didn’t see the full picture here, and it drove me up the wall. I needed more information to formulate my plan. I could already tell life had beaten her down so many times that she’d started to believe it. For my plan to work, I needed to know what motivated her. As such, I needed to spend more time with her to get more information.
Unfortunately.
Although, I couldn’t deny the fact that I was looking forward to spending more time with her. Apart from being attracted to her, she was very interesting to talk to. But I shouldn’t be enjoying her presence all that much because this wouldn’t last long. I would make sure of it by leaving town the minute our business was over.
And then perhaps we would contact each other via phone calls every once in a while to catch up so I could make sure she was okay. That was all the relationship I would allow. We were far too different for anything else.
I sighed and checked the time. According to what she said, she should be getting home from work by now. After our little disagreement in the morning, I knew she wouldn’t be looking forward to seeing me again, but that was too damn bad. Because I wasn’t going anywhere, especially knowing she couldn’t sleep well without me there.
And that was another thing I needed to figure out—how to get her insomnia under control. Because if it was that bad, then she needed to see a therapist, whether she wanted to or not.
And shewouldbe seeing a therapist, whether she wanted to or not.
I got up and placed a few bills on the table.
“Hey, sir,” a voice interrupted, and I looked behind me to see the old man from the bar standing there. He approached me tentatively. “Fancy meeting you here again.”
I stared at him blankly.
“It’s Jeremiah,” he clarified. “We met at Bertha’s.”
“Right,” I said. I didn’t want to be rude, but I wasn’t in the mood for company. “I was just leaving.”
“I know. I just wanted to run something by you real quick. About Brick Mane.” He eyed me cautiously before he continued, “Remember how I spoke about him that one time?”
The mention of the man’s name reminded me of the fact that the man still had unfinished business with Tillie. Business that was now mine.
“Where is he right now?” I asked the old man.
Jeremiah looked relieved to be telling me. “He’s over at the junkyard at Baker’s Street. The owner, Jeff, is a friend of mine, and Brick has been harassing him about some money he owes.”
“Right,” I said. I had an idea of what he was talking about. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Don’t mention it,” I said stoically. “Seriously, don’t.” The last thing I wanted to be known as was some kind of superhero. As corny as that was.
It took me about fifteen minutes to get to the junkyard. I spotted Brick immediately as he was leaning over a smaller, elderly man who was glaring at him.
“Brick Mane.”
At the announcement, they both turned and looked at me as I stalked over to them. Brick frowned deeply.
“Who the fuck are you?” he grouched.
“Ezra Lawrence.” I got close enough to see that Brick held one of the older man’s wrists in his hand. I stared at it pointedly until he let go.
“What’s your business with Tillie Jordan?”
