Chapter 2 Distance
DISTANCE
LUCIO
The woman doesn’t take her eyes off me as we enter my mother’s apartment. I can’t tell if she’s scared of me or completely infatuated. I’ve seen the look before—wide eyes, parted lips, barely able to speak.
“The phone’s in the kitchen,” I tell her, pointing toward the old rotary dial telephone my mother refuses to get rid of. They’ve been out of date for over twenty years and sit in museums, but she hates change.
The woman walks toward the mustard-yellow telephone hanging on the wall across the room. “Wow. I haven’t seen one of these in…”
I keep my distance. The last thing I want to do is spook her. I know from having a sister, every man is a potential threat. I’ve taught them as much, and I try to remember how they’d feel in the same situation.
“Yeah. I know,” I say, shaking my head because my mother is a special bird. “My mother is a little stuck in the good ole days.” I smile, trying to put her mind at ease.
She holds the baby in one arm, grabs the phone with the other, and stares at me.
I don’t move a muscle. I’m barely breathing at this point.
I imagine her fear is more for her baby than herself.
She has no idea if I am some crazy person or the harmless semi-asshole I really am.
Her gaze sweeps across my body, focusing on my arms at first and then my feet for a moment.
She’s hot as hell for a mom. The woman doesn’t look to be more than mid-twenties.
Tall, though not as tall as me, but she’s wearing heels which make her appear bigger than she really is.
Her brown hair is wavy, ending near the middle of her back, but the top is pulled back and away from her pretty face.
The blueness of her eyes is unlike any I’ve ever seen before.
They’re almost turquoise, matching Lake Michigan on a sunny day.
For her just having had a baby, her body is smoking hot and her tits are freaking spectacular.
I almost feel like a total sleazebag for checking her out the way I am, but I’m a guy and I’m turned on because she is totally a MILF.
She takes her eyes off me for a moment to dial each number, but in between each swish, she glances back at me.
We stay like this—her holding the baby, waiting for me to pounce, and me barely breathing—as she cradles the receiver on her shoulder.
“Hello,” she says to whoever is on the other end.
“This is Delilah Miles, Roger Miles’s daughter. I need a car as soon as possible.”
I tip my head to the side, looking at her in a totally different light.
She is a rich girl and definitely not from this part of town.
I wonder why she is slumming it so late with her kid in tow.
Her clothes are fancier than most of the customers in the bar.
She looks like one of the wealthy, hipster kids who come down to Hook & Hustle for a dose of culture and reality every once in a while.
Her eyebrows draw together, and for the first time, she turns her back to me, hiding her face. “Excuse me?” she whispers, dropping her voice so I can barely hear her. “I have an account. I don’t understand.” She tips her face upward and grunts.
My mother walks out from her bedroom, wearing the most hideous pink robe and bunny slippers with her bright red hair in curlers because she has some weird aversion to curling irons.
My mom looks at Delilah and then to me, raising an eyebrow.
I shake my head and wave my mom off, because I’m not about to explain the little bit I know while Delilah is talking on the phone.
“Please,” Delilah begs quietly. “I can pay for your car service myself. You should have my credit card on file.” Delilah pauses and glances over her shoulder at me for a second, not seeing my mother standing nearby.
“Fine, but I’ll have your ass along with your job for refusing service to me.
” Delilah slams the receiver down and lets out a little grunt as her shoulders hunch forward.
My mother clears her throat and marches into the kitchen, bunny slippers and all. “Would anyone like anything to drink? I’m parched,” Ma says, trying to be cordial even though it is after midnight and way past her bedtime.
Delilah nearly jumps a foot off the floor and spins around, clutching the baby for dear life. As soon as she sees my ma, her entire demeanor changes. My mom looks like someone straight out of a comic strip, not a murderer ready to do harm to a fly, let alone a person like Delilah.
“Since we’re having a party, I have tea or whiskey. Pick your poison.” Ma smiles, standing near the sink with the streetlight cascading through the window, giving her an angelic glow.
“Nothing. Thank you,” Delilah replies as her eyes rake across my mother’s outfit, and the corner of her mouth twitches. “I’m Delilah.”
“I heard,” my mother says sarcastically, letting a little of her devilish side show. “I’m Betty—” Ma motions toward me “—this big lug’s mother.”
Delilah’s gaze moves to me, and there is almost a smile on her face. “It’s nice to meet you, Betty. Thanks for letting me use your phone.”
“Tea or whiskey?” Mom asks again like it isn’t well past her bedtime. She seems oblivious to the fact that Delilah isn’t sticking around.
“I can’t stay. I have to get Lulu to bed.” Delilah turns toward me and peers down at the floor. “Do you think you could give me a ride?”
I scrub a hand down my face. “I only have a bike, and my mom doesn’t drive.” Times like this, I regret not having a car of my own.
“Those things are deathtraps,” Ma says quickly, adding to her crazy factor and reminding me again how much she hates my motorcycle.
“It’s fine.” Delilah waves her hands in the air. “I’ll just catch a taxi.”
Ma fills the kettle before placing it on the stove, still ignoring the fact that neither of us is staying. “Why don’t you sit down for some tea, and Lucio can go downstairs to find someone’s car to borrow?”
I nod, liking that idea because there is something about Delilah that fascinates me.
She’s like a tragic story. Rich girl, stuck in the hood with no way out.
Maybe I can swoop in and be the hero of the story.
Who am I kidding? I could at least have a night with the hot chick before she rides off into the sunset with some other guy.
“I’m sorry to be so much trouble. I lost my purse and phone, or else I wouldn’t be such a bother.”
“Oh dear,” my mother gasps, covering her mouth with her hand and being overly dramatic like only Betty Gallo can.
My blood pressure skyrockets as I imagine someone stealing Delilah’s shit and almost hurting the tiny, beautiful creature in front of me or her baby. “Did someone hurt you?”
“No, no. It’s a long story, but we’re fine,” Delilah says as my mother points toward the couch for her to sit.
“Will you be okay up here?” I ask as Delilah sits down, resting the baby on her knees as the plastic underneath her crinkles. “I won’t be gone long.” I give my mother the same look she gives us as a warning. While I love my mother, she can be a tad bit overbearing.
“Just go. We’re fine,” Ma tells me, answering instead of Delilah.
“I wasn’t asking about you, Ma.”
Delilah laughs softly and relaxes on the couch, pulling the baby into her lap. “We’re safe and warm. We’ll be just fine.”
I glance over my shoulder before closing the door, and I catch sight of Ma grabbing two teacups from the cupboard.
I know they’re going to be more than a few minutes because once you get Ma talking, there is no stopping her until she is out of things to say.
I hope Delilah is in the mood to listen to the sage wisdom of Betty Gallo because, like it or not, she is about to get some.
“Where’s the chick?” Daphne asks as soon as she sees me.
I point toward Ma’s apartment and shake my head at the strange turn this night has taken. “Having tea with Ma.”
Daphne’s eyes widen in horror, being just as dramatic as my mother. “You woke her up?”
“We were quiet, but she heard us anyway.” I rub the back of my neck, hating the idea of asking Daphne for a favor. My darling sister will want to be paid back, and her favors are always enormous and costly. “You think I can borrow your car?”
“Dude.” Daphne quirks an eyebrow as she folds her arms in front of herself. I can tell by the way she tilts her head that she is about to read me the riot act about her precious baby.
“Please. You know I’d never ask to borrow it, but this is important.”
“This about her?” She juts her chin toward the stairwell to our mother’s apartment.
“Yeah. She needs a ride. I can’t take a baby on my bike.”
“Bet you never thought you’d say those words.
” She points at me with her skinny index finger, totally mocking me for buying a motorcycle.
She’s always hated the damn thing. She told me I wasn’t being practical and that someday I’d need to grow up, but the girl drives a vintage Jeep, so she has no room to talk.
“Just get the damn keys,” I tell her and hold out my hand, wiggling my fingers.
“Don’t get your panties in a bunch. Watch the front of the house. I’ll grab them for you, Big Daddy.” She giggles as she hands me the damp towel she’s been using to wipe down the bar half the night.
“The girl gone?” Johnny, a regular and one of my father’s oldest friends, asks as I take away his empty beer glass to give him a refill.
“She’s upstairs with Ma.”
Johnny jerks his head backward like I am insane for leaving them alone. “Alone?”
“Uh, yeah, man. She’s fine.”
“You don’t know that girl. She could be a murderer. Think about your mother.”
“I don’t know too many killers who bring their children with them when they want to off someone.” I lean forward and stare him straight in the eyes, sliding his fresh beer across the bar. “Did you ever bring yours?”
His eyes narrow into tiny slits as he grumbles under his breath and grabs the beer, busying himself and not bothering to answer my question.