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Chapter 16
“I’m going down to the cafeteria to get some coffee. Can I get you youngins anything?” Grandpa J stood from the chair beside the window.
They’d been waiting in the room for a little over an hour, but it felt like much longer to Maxi. She’d been staring at the round clock that hung above the door. Each minute that passed was like an eternity.
“No, thanks.” Her foot tapped up and down silently, thanks to the rubber bottoms of her flip-flops.
“I’m good.” Billy shook his head.
Grandpa J stopped beside Maxi. “Hey now, don’t you worry your pretty little head, your daddy’s gonna be just fine”
She wanted to believe that, and coming from Grandpa J she almost did. Maybe she would after she saw her dad with her own two eyes.
“He’s probably givin’ those nurses grief as we speak,” he added with a wink before heading out of the room.
Maxi nodded as a small smile lifted on her lips. Her dad was a horrible patient. About five years ago he came down with a bad case of pneumonia and insisted on mowing the lawn and changing the oil in his truck before going to the hospital. He was one of the most stubborn people that she knew and he didn’t tolerate being doted over.
The door shut and Billy reached over and placed his hand so that it was covering Maxi’s knee. She’d been doing her best not to lean on him, but he was making it almost impossible. His touch just felt so good, so comforting. When they’d been in the waiting area and he’d hugged her, she’d done a lot more than just lean on him, she’d practically dissolved into him.
The past few months had been a roller coaster of emotions and she’d tried her best to strap in and hold on. But tonight had had more twists, turns, flips and drops than she could handle. Having sex with Billy was the wildest ride she’d ever been on and it was sandwiched between a panic attack at the club and her getting the news that her dad had collapsed and was at the hospital.
As Billy sat silently beside her, she noticed for the first time that there was a pained look in his watery gaze that shot towards the door at every voice coming from the hall. Tension radiated off of him and he kept rubbing the back of his neck. Of course, this was affecting him as much as it was affecting her.
Why had she been so blind to his suffering?
Since getting the call, he’d done nothing but take care of her. He’d dressed her, driven here, even to calling the hospital so she could try to get some information. But who had been taking care of him?
Billy was always so hard on himself. He thought he could fix everything and everyone. Which was understandable since most of the time he could. But she’d seen the torment that he’d gone through with his mom. He couldn’t fix her and now he couldn’t fix this. She knew he was probably beating himself up over that, even though he shouldn’t be.
Lifting her hand she slid it over his resting on her knee. He looked over at her and what she saw in the endless depths of his cognac colored gaze broke her heart wide open. The tortured expression on his face twisted her already raw emotions like a wet rag before he quickly masked the pain. For her, this was more than she could bear.
“Do you remember the first time you met dad?” She sniffed.
Letting out a wry laugh he nodded. “Yeah, how can I forget? It was at the corner store. He was in there shopping and caught me stuffing things in my jacket. He followed me down an aisle and told me I had two options, I could put it all back on the shelves and leave or I could take it all out and pay for it. I was a punk ass kid with a huge chip on my shoulder and a serious problem with authority. I told him to mind his own fucking business and I called him an old man.
“I still remember the cold, savage look in his eyes as he took one step towards me with an eerie calmness. He scared the shit out of me and I almost tripped on my own feet backing up. I was sure I was about to get my ass kicked or worse. But instead of doing that, he told me that this was his neighborhood and I’d made it his business when I decided to steal from his neighbors. Then he asked me why I was taking the food. I didn’t answer for a minute, I thought about lying, but for some reason I told him the truth, that my mom’s latest boyfriend had cleared out her checking account and even found my cash stash and then she’d taken off with a new loser.
“There was no judgement in his eyes, no pity. He just turned around, went to the front of the store, grabbed a basket, came back and told me to put whatever I needed to last a week in it and meet him at the cash register. I did and he paid for all of it. Then he told me to meet him at Gianni’s Gym the next day. I asked why and he told me that he had a job for me. The next day I showed up and he put me to work mopping the floors, cleaning the toilets, wiping down the equipment. Then at the end of my shift, he let me get in the ring. Every day I’d clean the gym and then Charlie would train me for a couple of hours.
“He got me off the streets, gave me a job and a career, and he paid for our groceries every week until my first big fight. I don’t know where I’d be without him.” His eyes fell to where her hand covered his. “I still don’t know why he did it.”
Maxi smiled. “Did I ever tell you what he told me when he came home from the store?”
Billy shook his head.
“We were having dinner and he told me that he met a kid that was stealing from the store and that he was giving him a job. I asked him why. Wouldn’t he be scared that the kid would steal from the gym? He said no, that in this world there were bad people who sometimes did good things for bad reasons and good people that sometimes did bad things for good reasons. He said you were one of the good people, and this job would let you prove it. Not to him and not to the world, to yourself.”
“He did?”
“Yeah, he knew that all you needed was the chance to be who you were. And he was right, Billy. You are one of the good people. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you this past week. I don’t know where I would be. And I don’t know how to thank you—”
“Don’t.” His tone was so serious that it took Maxi by surprise. “Don’t thank me for that.”
“I know it was your job, but I can still thank you—”
“This week wasn’t about the job.” His stare turned from passive to predatory.
It was like she’d inadvertently switched the atmospheric pressure to super charged. Goosebumps rose on her flesh as she tried to explain that she knew it was more than that. “I know that it was more personal than just a job.”
