Chapter Five #3
“No,” he said, getting angry. “I wouldn’t do that.
I, ah, didn’t have enough space here to store it all, so I have some of it in the building’s storage unit at the storage place one town over.
All the furniture and such. The rest, though, the little things, I have all that stored in boxes in the basement. ”
Well, what do you know, she was right. He was a good guy. I so rarely saw those anymore that it was hard to believe they existed until you saw one face-to-face.
“Can we go take a look?” I asked. “I don’t think we’ll bring everything with us today, but if we can get some of her basics, like clothes, back…”
“Of course,” he said, moving out of her way. “Thought something awful happened to you,” he added as we moved inside and down the hall toward the basement stairs.
She winced at that, having no idea what had happened to her, but likely knowing that whatever it was was likely more awful than wonderful.
“Ah, here. Right over here past the gym equipment that underground fighter left when he, ah… died,” he said, hedging the whole truth.
I figured he either OD’d or died in a fight.
“I’ll give you a little privacy,” he said, backing off a little sheepishly, maybe a little embarrassed that she knew he had been the one to rifle through all of her possessions in the first place.
“Thanks, Chip,” she said, her voice a little strained, her smile a little forced, but meaning it nonetheless.
She waited until Chip’s feet could be heard on the steps before moving across toward her boxes, squatting down, and pulling the tucked flaps open.
Ten minutes of absolute silence later, as she looked through her things, she glanced over at me and shook her head. “It’s not here.”
“What’s not?”
“My purse or any of my IDs.”
“Birth certificate? Social?” I asked, knowing those two documents meant everything in proving you were an actual person.
She shook her head. “I kept it in a safety deposit box at the bank. The bank that I can’t get into without a photo ID,” she said, hopelessness sinking into her voice.
“If I can’t get access to my money, I can’t get a new apartment.
I can’t…” She broke off suddenly, turning away from me and taking deep breaths, trying to keep it together.
That was something I found both noble and stupid.
In general, I was of the mind that if you felt it, you expressed it.
Granted, most of what I felt was a general apathy, cynicism, humor, and a touch of anger—all of which were much easier to express than her clear vulnerability, fear, devastation, and confusion.
But I respected that she was trying not to fall apart.
That wasn’t something I was used to.
Being in the business I was in, I was bombarded by women in bad spots in their lives.
I would push a box of tissues across the desk while they cried so hard their whole bodies shook when I told them their husbands were indeed cheating.
Why that was their reaction was completely beyond me.
Why the fuck cry over some bastard who didn’t have enough respect for you to keep his dick in his pants?
But Riya wasn’t one of those women.
Riya had no intentions of falling apart.
Somehow, that determination made me want to assure her that it was okay if she did.
“Riya, look,” I said, moving up behind her, putting my hand on her shoulder and squeezing it a bit. “It’s not the end of the world. We will get your records back, and you will get your life back on track.”
Her head ducked, and she shook it, making her sleek black hair fall down to curtain her face. “I don’t know how…”
“You don’t need to know how. I know how. So, for right now, let’s focus on the good. Your old landlord isn’t a shithead. You have a lot of your things back. You have a place to stay. You…”
“You’re going to let me stay with you?” she asked, turning, her brows drawn low. “Why?”
Fuck if I knew.
“Because you need a leg up, babe. I might not be the warm and fuzzy type, but I’m not some asshole who tosses a woman out on the street when she has nowhere else to go. You’re free to use my guest room until we figure your shit out.”
“That’s really nice, but…”
“Swallow the pride and accept the help. It doesn’t mean you’re weak.”
“I wasn’t thinking I was weak,” she said, bristling. She straightened, squared her shoulders, and looked at me with her chin lifted.
I felt my lips tip up, enjoying her snark more than her sadness. “Alright, fine. It doesn’t make you any less independent,” I offered. “So grab what you need, and let’s get a move on.”
She rolled her eyes slightly at that and turned back to her boxes, sifting through and combining things into two respectably sized boxes.
“I could really do without you humming Destiny’s Child right now,” she snapped after I was halfway through “Independent Women.”
“Hey, I’m just trying to improve the morale here,” I said, taking a box from her as she shot a look over her shoulder at me and headed for the stairs.
And damn if that look didn’t send a spark of desire through my system as I tried hard as fuck to not watch her ass as she climbed the stairs.
She was a client.
I wasn’t going to go there with her.
Case closed.
Or, at least, until the case was closed.