Only Temporary

Chapter 1

ONE

“Hello?” I’m groggy when I answer my phone, and usually, I have the damn thing on silent, but I guess not tonight. I blink as I look at the screen and see it’s the police department, and it’s two in the morning.

Well, fuck. This cannot be good.

“Mr. Rhodes?”

“Yeah. That’s me.” I start to sweat. Sitting up in bed, I can feel it trickling down my back. It was already hot in here. It always is with the AC always going in and out. I have a fan going, but it’s not enough for the stifling August heat.

“Mr. Rhodes, this is Officer Monroe with the KCPD. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but I’m calling about your mother.” Shit. Shit. Shit. Of course she went and got arrested. Doesn’t surprise me in the least.

“Goddammit,” I curse, not caring that I’m talking to an officer. “How much does she need for bail?” I shouldn’t go. I haven’t seen her in four years.

But if she’s locked up, I don’t know where the kids are. I shiver, thinking about them being turned over to the state. Hell, who knows if that’s already happened or not? I’m a shitty brother.

“I’m sorry to tell you this, but your mother is deceased. She died of an apparent heroin overdose.”

I wince, waiting for the pain of her loss to hit me, but it doesn’t. I think I mourned the loss of my mother a long, long time ago. Long before I got out of there, she was dead to me.

My only regret is the four kids I left behind because I was a selfish asshole on a bender. A bender that lasted a couple of years until I finally decided to get my shit together. They are my first thought. Believe it or not, they’re always on my mind.

“What about the kids?” I manage to ask, fear of what’s happened to them nearly choking me. If they were hurt—if she let some junkie hurt them—I swear I’ll dance on her grave.

“They’ve been placed in temporary custody.” I feel sick to my stomach, thinking about where they could be stashed. “They were pretty shaken up.”

“They found her?” Again. Worst. Brother. Ever.

“They did. Apparently, the youngest boy was thirsty and woke up to get a drink. She was on the couch.”

My eyes close as I hold the phone to my ear, thinking about Braylen finding our drugged-up mother, likely in filth. Maybe with a needle hanging from her arm. I clench the phone in my fist and try like hell to will away all the memories assaulting my mind. He’s eight now. Last time I saw him, he was only four.

What the hell have they been through in the past four years while I was trying to get my life together enough to make a home for them?

I haven’t gotten far either. “Can I see them?”

“In the morning, yes.” He rattles off an address. “They open at nine tomorrow morning.”

“Thank you.”

I hang up and then lay back down on my bed. “Dude, you have someone in there?” My eyes close at the sound of my best friend’s voice in my doorway.

“No. I was on the phone.”

I hear heavy footsteps but don’t bother looking up at him. I met Tatum four years ago—in a shitty state rehab that might as well just say we can’t help you on the building. They were underfunded and understaffed by past addicts who were struggling themselves. Not that I don’t think addicts can’t help each other out, but that place was toxic as hell. You get what you pay for, and since it was a state-funded place that I qualified for with my nonexistent income—I definitely didn’t get much.

But I did gain a friendship with Tatum out of it, and he helped me get a job at the mechanic shop where he worked and dragged my ass to meetings. “Who the hell talks on the phone nowadays and at two in the morning?”

I sit up, groaning, still numb from the news. “My mom is dead.”

He sits down on the edge of the bed, his hand going to the scruff on his chin as he seems to be choosing his words carefully. He knows almost everything about my childhood and my mom, and I’m sure he knows there’s no real love lost. “Overdose?”

I nod. “Yup. Of course, she wound up choosing the love of her life above everyone and everything else.”

“The kids?” He knows about them too, of course. He knows my number one motivation for everything is getting custody of the kids.

“Temporary custody. I can go talk to someone about it tomorrow, but fuck!” I run my hands over my eyes. I’ve done really well in the past four years. I’ve been clean and sober, with only one relapse on my record, and I immediately went to meetings and got a handle on it. Going on two full years sober now. Still, I’m not making all that much—not nearly enough to support four minors.

And this house? Tatum and I pooled our money four months ago and bought this place, but it needs a lot of work. I mean a lot of work. We’ve been doing it slowly, but it’s not ready.

They’re never going to give me custody. A twenty-four-year-old, former-addict mechanic. With a house that has a leaky roof, needs a new AC unit, sometimes has heat, and with steps on the porch that are loose... and so on.

“Hey,” Tatum’s deep voice rumbles, making me look over at him in the darkened room. “It’s better than where they were, I’m positive,” he says, guessing my thoughts without me having to say a word. “And with you, they’ll be taken care of and safe.”

I swallow hard, pushing a hand through my hair. “I want to be good enough for them.”

“You will be,” he says with the certainty I swear only Tatum can have. The odds are not in my favor though. We both need to face that. But I can’t just accept the kids going to foster care. Being permanent wards of the state.

I’ll do anything I can to make sure that doesn’t happen. No matter what it takes, they won’t go into the system.

“You think we should get hitched?” I snort a laugh as I look over at Tatum, who looks completely and totally serious. Because of course he does.

“Why would we do that?”

“A young couple taking custody of four kids is better than a single fuckboy.”

I toss a pillow at him. “I’m not nearly as bad as you, shithead. And besides, we aren’t gay.”

He shrugs his large shoulders like that’s not a problem. “How the fuck can they prove that? We live together.”

“What would your girlfriend say about you marrying a dude?” He cringes this time, and I chuckle and shake my head. “What happened with Mila?”

His large shoulders lift again, but he’s not pulling off the nonchalant thing this time. “She may have caught me making out with her friend...”

“Jesus. Fuck.” I cover my eyes with my hands and groan. “Yeah, I don’t think marrying my slutty best friend is going to do me any favors with gaining custody.”

“Hey, don’t slut-shame. You’re just as slutty.”

I drop my hands and glare at him. “You’re so not helping.” And I’m not like that. Not really. But... I’ve never been in a serious relationship in my life. I don’t plan to ever be in a one. I have a good time, and then I move on. That’s all I’m interested in.

“Fine. You’ll go in as a single guy. You’re employed. You have a house. You’re for sure a step up from anything the kids have ever had.”

“I hate her,” I breathe, the pain in my chest nearly slicing through me. I rub my bare chest absently, trying to make it go away, but it doesn’t work. “I really fucking hate her.”

“I know you do,” Tatum says, not bothering to defend her. I know she was sick. I know she was an addict for a long time, but she had kids. She chose to keep having kids. And she left every one of them to fend for themselves.

For that, I hate her and always will.

* * *

Tatum and I are outside of the address given to me by the officer last night, bright and earlier than they open, thanks to absolutely no sleep.

I just want to see the kids. I need to know they’re okay, even if I know deep down they can’t be. How the hell could they be okay?

As soon as the doors open, I walk in and hunt down the one person who seems to know what the hell is going on around here—an older woman named Margie, who has Tatum and me sit across from her at her desk, which is full of papers and files so high, I can barely see her over them.

Who the hell still uses actual paper?

“Okay, I have the addresses for all four of the children here,” she says, looking over a file marked Rhodes in big bold letters.

“Addresses? They split them up?”

She nods. “It’s hard to place four kids in one temporary home. It’s hard to place four kids at all.” Her eyes narrow at me in a no-nonsense way, and I have to bite my tongue and not say that I’d have taken them in a heartbeat.

“You’re twenty-four?” She’s still looking at the file, and I can only assume she knows this because my juvenile record is in there too, with all my information.

“Yes,” I answer, keeping my tone even. My foot is shaking though. I’m unable to stay still, my nerves attacking me.

“And do you know where your father is?” I’m assuming she’s asking because she’s looking for other possible guardians.

“Never met the guy. He’s not their dad though.”

Her lips purse. “I see.” She sighs. “There are no fathers listed on any of their birth certificates.”

I shake my head. “Mom wasn’t really a winner,” I say bitterly. “She liked drugs, and she liked the men who gave her drugs. Was happy to spread her legs to get them.”

Tatum tenses next to me, even though he already knew that. I’m sure he thinks I’ve said too much. My mom had plenty of arrests for prostitution over the years, though, so it’s not a big secret.

“So none of you know your fathers?”

“No,” I answer simply, leaving out the sheer number of men I saw around my mother when I was younger.

I feel that familiar itch deep inside me, the dark hollow feeling trying to claw at my insides. I push it away, but I don’t know how long it’ll stay away.

I need a meeting.

But I need to make sure my brothers and sister are okay first.

“You were a resident at Rockford?” I nod my head in answer, my palms sweating, just thinking about the rundown old rehab facility.

“I needed to get clean and make a better life, so I could get custody of my siblings before something really bad happened to them,” I answer far too honestly. And the truth is, four years feels a hell of a lot like abandonment.

I’m sure she’ll see it that way too.

Instead of commenting on it, she hands me a card. “This will be your caseworker. You’ll need to contact him to arrange a time to see the children. After that, you’ll work out a plan with Phillip, and he’ll help determine placement of the kids.”

I look at the card.

Phillip Miller.

The man who holds my fate in his hands.