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"And you still like her?" The shock reverberates in Melly's voice. "You love that car. I would have thought you would be suing her or murdering her or something. Whichever's faster."
I shrug. "Eh, she seems like a decent kid, just a little lost in life."
"Kid?" My sister frowns. "How old is she?"
"Twenty-five," I say.
"Wait, she’s only twenty-five?" Melly's face twists in disgust. "No."
I'm taken aback. "No?"
"Yeah, no." The disgust continues as she shakes her head. “Absolutely not. You don’t want to be a creepy old man. Remember what I went through with Professor McCullin back when I was in college?"
My blood goes cold at the reminder of the older man I caught my sister with when she was only about eighteen. I nearly beat the man to death when I found him, with Melly tearfully pulling me off him. Telling me she loved the creep.
"Yeah, you don’t want to be that guy," she continues. "Trust me. She might welcome it now, but when she's my age, she's going to look back and wonder what she was thinking dealing with a creepy old man like you."
Fuck. I mean, I considered that we have a ridiculous age gap, but I'd never had it plainly in my face like that.
But the truth is that I already know all this. Everything she's saying and more are completely valid reasons why I cannot do anything at all with my new tenant.
So, I don't know why the fuck I'm so bothered to hear it.
Chapter Nine
Delilah
I'mbarelyawakebythe time I get off the bus at Milstone, Alabama. I slept the entire trip here, but that's to be expected since I got up at four a.m. to catch the bus in the first place. It's now nearly six a.m. and I'm still not entirely recovered.
I hadn’t counted on coming to Alabama, but my mother insisted on having a mother-daughter meet-up to ‘connect’. She likes to see me in person from time to time and I can sometimes go for almost three months before she guilts me into coming to see her claiming phone calls and video calls just aren’t enough and she needs to actually see all of me and make sure I’m really doing okay for myself and haven’t gotten hooked on drugs or whatever she thinks people in the city do. I have been able to talk myself out of coming for the past three months, but now we are at the maximum limit she’ll allow me to stay away before she starts blackmailing me or guilt-tripping me into coming, so here I am. Again. Even if this is the last place on earth I want to be in. Thank god this is just a social visit, an hour tops, and I can go back to the safety of… anywhere else.
I pry my eyes open, blocking my gaze from the sun as I walk to the restaurant that's only a few blocks from the bus station. I already see my mother sitting down with a cup of coffee in front of her, her gray hair perfectly coiffed at the nape of her neck. Her coat hangs on the back of her seat, and she's wearing her favorite pink blouse, with ruffles at the wrist. Not a single wrinkle in sight and not a single hair out of place. You would think she was immune to the early morning exhaustion.
“Hey, Mom," I say through a yawn when I reach her, leaning down to kiss her on the cheek before going over to my own seat.
“Delilah Morgan.”
The tone of voice banishes all thoughts of sleep from my mind. "Um, yeah?"
She's staring at me, her hazel eyes piercing as if trying to uncover all my secrets. It’s the same look she gave whenever I did something bad. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
Uh oh. "Look, Mom, I'm sorry that it took me so long to be back but, first you know I had to move and change jobs, and then I was too busy with work because Rena called us in at the last minute—"
"That's not what I'm referring to, missy,” Mom responds. “Don’t think I don’t know that you’ve been avoiding my calls all week.” I hate that she still treats me like a child. I hate it even more that when I’m face to face with her it’s like I regress to that time in my life. I can’t stand up to her no matter what. That’s why I avoid coming any chance I get, but also why I end up caving to her demands and showing up even if I’d rather be having a root canal, without anesthetics.
“I haven’t been avoiding your calls.” My voice croaks a little on the lie, a telltale giveaway. “I’ve just…been busy with, you know... work.” Ha. More like I don’t know how to tell you that I lost my job, and don’t have a place to stay.
“Work?” my mother asks, her tone disbelieving. “Is that what we’re going with?”
“Yes,” I say, guilt making me sound defensive. "Besides, I answered you the last time you called."
“Yes. Before that, I couldn’t get you all day. So, I called your work and guess what they told me.”
My stomach sinks. Oh no.
“They told me you no longer worked there, and that they had no way to contact you because you also moved out.”
“What?"
