Chapter Three #3
But now she had no idea what the hell she was supposed to do next.
She had no home. No car. No job. The little cash she had left wouldn’t last long, and as far as the rest of the world was concerned, Willow wasn’t even sure she still existed.
She had no valid identification. No bank account she could safely walk into and access.
She had nothing for Lily other than what she had managed to stuff into those bags before they ran.
“Willow?” Riley said her name.
“Where am I supposed to go?” The question came out quieter than she meant it to
Riley’s expression immediately softened. “We’ll figure something out.”
“I don’t even have a real ID.” Willow rubbed a hand over her forehead. “My license expired two years ago. I don’t have a birth certificate with me or a Social Security card. I have some money, but not enough to—”
“You can stay with me,” Jay Bird stated.
Willow looked toward him. He was sitting in the chair across from the bed as if he hadn’t just said something that had apparently stunned every other person in the room.
Willow glanced at Riley and found her staring at Jay Bird, just like Mia was, while Nails sat there with one eyebrow raised and Stitch looked like he was doing his best to keep his reaction completely under control.
Apparently this wasn’t normal Jay Bird behavior.
“You want us to stay with you?” Willow asked.
“Yeah.”
“Just… yeah,” he said, as if it were nothing at all. Like him inviting a woman he had known for less than twenty-four hours and her two-year-old into his home was the most natural thing in the world.
“You’ve already done enough.” She shook her head. “You stayed here all night with Lily. You bought her food—”
“Technically, Nails bought the fries.”
Nails held up both hands. “Leave me out of this.”
That earned a tiny smile from her, but Willow shook her head again. “Still. I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You didn’t. I offered.”
There was no pressure in his voice. No expectation. Somehow, that made it harder to refuse right away.
Jay Bird leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs.
“I’ve got plenty of room. The house is a split floor plan.
My room is on one side, and two bedrooms and a bathroom are on the other.
You and Lily would have your own space. There’s a big fenced-in backyard, plenty of room for Lily to play.
And my security system is probably overkill by normal-people standards. ”
“Definitely overkill,” Stitch muttered.
Jay Bird ignored him. “I can assure you that nobody gets near the place without me knowing.”
Willow focused on his last statement. Nobody gets near the place without me knowing.
Her gaze dropped to Lily, who was still absorbed in her show, completely unaware that her mother was seriously considering moving them into the home of a man she didn’t even know the last name of.
It sounded insane, but then again, everything in Willow’s life felt that way right now.
And she kept thinking about the way Jay Bird had stopped before approaching the bed earlier.
He had asked permission. Such a ridiculously small thing, yet after three years of having every decision taken away from her, it hadn’t felt small at all.
He had given her a choice, and he was doing it again now.
“You don’t know me,” she said.
His expression didn’t change. “I know enough.”
Something about the simple answer squeezed her chest.
“Willow,” Mia said gently, “I know this is a lot.”
“That might be the understatement of the century,” Willow murmured.
Mia smiled. “Probably. But you would be safe there.”
“You would,” Riley agreed. “And it doesn’t have to be permanent. Just until we figure everything out. We need to get your identification replaced, deal with everything involving Lily, and most importantly, keep you and Lily safe until the authorities can find Chen.”
The small bit of calm Willow had found disappeared at his name.
Chen was out there somewhere
Her arms tightened around Lily before she could stop herself.
Riley gently touched her arm. “Hey, we’re going to find him,” she said. “But until we do, I want you somewhere secure. Jay Bird’s house is about as secure as you’re going to get without putting you on a military installation.”
Willow looked at Jay Bird again, really looked at him this time.
He wasn’t trying to convince her, wasn’t listing reasons she should trust him, and he wasn’t making promises he couldn’t guarantee.
He was just waiting, quietly and patiently, for her to decide, and somehow that simple act of giving her the choice mattered more than he probably even realized.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“Wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t.”
Willow took a breath and looked down at Lily.
As if sensing her attention, Lily glanced up from the tablet and grinned. “Momma.”
Willow brushed a strand of hair away from her daughter’s face.
This wasn’t about pride. She could worry about rebuilding their lives tomorrow. Right now, Lily just needed somewhere safe to sleep, and if Riley and Mia trusted this man, then maybe Willow could trust him too, just enough to give her daughter that.
She looked back at Jay Bird. “Okay. We’ll stay with you. At least until I can figure something else out.”
Jay Bird nodded once. “Okay.”
“And I’ll find a way to repay you.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No.” The corner of his mouth lifted. “If you can keep me from having to watch Peppa Pig. We’ll call it even.”
A laugh escaped her before she could stop it.
From beside her came a suspicious choking sound.
Willow glanced over to find Nails suddenly very interested in the floor, while Stitch had apparently discovered something fascinating on the ceiling. Mia had pressed her lips together, and Riley looked like she was seconds away from saying something she knew she shouldn’t.
Willow narrowed her eyes, studying the room as if the answer might be written somewhere on their faces.
Something was clearly going on that she wasn’t in on, and the way everyone suddenly avoided her gaze only made it worse.
After a beat, she let out a quiet breath and decided she probably didn’t want to know what it was.
Instead, she looked back at the man who had caught her daughter before she hit the ground, stayed beside Lily all night, fed her French fries, endured hours of Peppa Pig, and was now offering them a safe place to stay.
“Thank you, Jay Bird.”
His eyes held hers. “You’re welcome, Willow.”
Willow leaned back, resting her head against the pillow, and pulled Lily a little closer to her.
It all sounded good. And God, Willow wanted to believe it was that simple.
But she knew Chen. She knew that somewhere out there, he was looking for her.
He wouldn’t just accept that she had taken Lily and disappeared.
He wouldn’t stop because she had finally found people willing to protect them. If anything, it would make him angrier.
Willow had done the one thing Chen had spent three years making sure she was too afraid to do—she had left him. And even though she tried not to dwell on it, a quiet certainty lingered in her chest. When he eventually found her, he would make her pay.