Chapter 6 – Leon
Chapter Six
LEON
Leon
Take your time, darlin’. I’ll leave a light on for you.
Leon pressed send on the text, then sent a second message with an embarrassing number of hearts.
If anyone besides James ever got ahold of his phone, he would have to throw himself off this rusty fire escape.
No one needed to know that Leon “The Asshole” Rabinowicz was capable of such sappy bullshit.
He’d clearly been brainwashed or hypnotized or otherwise taken over by his little mensch of a boyfriend.
Thankfully, the only other living creature around was a pigeon, so when James sent him an absolutely adorable selfie of him and his mom holding up a winning bingo card, and Leon’s face did something dopey and lovesick and stupid, he didn’t actually have to throw himself off the fire escape.
He kept his butt planted firmly on the cold metal as he hearted the photo and took a long swig from his beer.
That evening, James had been busy with his mom, Howard, and Linda, and somehow they had ended up at a bingo game.
As far as Leon knew, that hadn’t been the original plan, but he wasn’t really surprised.
Linda loved games of all kinds, which was how James had found himself learning craps, mahjong, and bridge on the cruise.
Given that Howard and James’ mom loved Linda, and James loved his mom, Friday night bingo didn’t seem like much of a stretch.
Leon took another swig of beer and realized he’d never heard what happened at their dinner the first night of the cruise.
The past week had been a whirlwind between welcoming James back and Hailey’s frequent visits.
He had embraced the first part with gusto, “welcoming” James at his apartment, in the stairwell at work, and after going to the Rainbow Bean Fun in The Sun drag show Wednesday night.
He’d almost been able to convince James to sleepover and wear one of the few outfits he kept at Leon’s place, but apparently it wasn’t “office appropriate” enough, so James had scurried back to his house right as Hailey had been returning home.
Hailey seemed to be taking advantage of every last second of summer break before school started.
Over the past few weeks, he’d heard her front door close in the early hours of the morning several times.
With no bedtimes or curfews in sight, Leon had found himself reviewing syllabuses with her until three in the morning Wednesday and again Thursday night.
It had somehow felt both gratifying and like ripping off his fingernails one at a time.
Yarmen’s coat was gleaming with how often Leon was anxiously petting him.
If only he could bring Yarmen to Hailey’s going away party the following day.
Although, his little, traitorous emotional support cat would no doubt leap into Hailey’s arms the second he saw her, abandoning Leon to his own issues.
Leon’s fingers began to tingle just as the window next door opened. Like mother, like daughter, she must have been able to smell weakness, because Hailey’s mom popped her head out and grinned at him.
“Oh, hello, Leon. Have you seen Hailey?”
Leon’s grip on the neck of the beer bottle tightened. “No, I haven’t. Is she not responding to—”
“No, no, nothing like that. I haven’t tried texting or calling. I just got home and saw movement out here and thought I’d check.”
Leon nodded stiffly as he attempted to loosen his grip. “She’s probably out with Trina. I’m sure she has some last minute bulls–stuff to grab for the party.”
If he had been speaking to his own mam, he probably would have been cuffed upside the head and told to “mind his fucking language,” but Hailey’s mom just smiled kindly at him.
He had never gotten to see her in action at the ER, having pulled her away from work the night of Hailey’s accident, but he bet she had great bedside manner.
“I’m sure you’re right. I haven’t been keeping close tabs on her, trying to let her spread her wings…
even more so than I always have.” She tilted her head and stared somewhere off into the distance over Leon’s head.
“You know, my mother was a single mom as well, but she kept a tight leash on me and my brother. So much of her life was out of control, I think she was dead set on controlling her kids. Or at least…trying to. She ran a tight ship, and, while it turned out okay for me in the end, I think it’s part of the reason my brother can’t seem to stay out of trouble in adulthood. ”
Leon had no idea what to say to that. He’d heard Hailey mention a crotchety grandma from time to time, but she’d never mentioned an uncle, not even in passing.
“I didn’t intend to be around so little for Hailey,” she added, and it seemed like she wasn’t really talking to Leon anymore. “But then again, I didn’t intend on being a single mother either.”
As was the case these days, Leon really wished James was here. He would know exactly what to say.
He rubbed his hand absently over his pocket, tracing the shape of his phone, and did his best to channel his sweet boyfriend. “I think you’ve done a wonderful job with her.” That was a thing people said, right? “Way better than mine did.”
Well, he’d tried.
Hailey’s mom didn’t come outside. Instead, she leaned against the window frame, lightly crossing her arms over her chest in a pose so familiar Leon could have sworn he heard his ribs creaking.
Or maybe that was just the sound of the old metal grates settling in for a long talk.
“My dad died when I was pretty young…too young, really,” Leon found himself saying. “My mam didn’t have much interest in being a parent to begin with but definitely not after that.”
Somewhere down below them, a car alarm went off, and although it wasn’t the same pitch, cadence, or literally anything else even remotely similar, he suddenly heard the beeping of a hospital monitor in his head.
He lifted his shoulder and rubbed it against his ear, as if he could dislodge the sound that way, all the while Hailey’s mom studied him like he was one of her patients. “I’m sorry to hear that. And thank you for saying so, about Hailey. She really is growing into a wonderful young woman.”
Leon inclined his head, because what else was there to say.
Hailey was a great kid, and would probably be an even greater adult.
He hoped like absolute hell he would be around to see it, but aside from their late night syllabus hangouts and dinner the previous weekend, he’d been doing a pretty piss poor job of trying to stay in her life.
As if reading his thoughts, or maybe his face, Hailey’s mom smiled warmly at him. “I feel like credit is also due to her wonderful next door neighbor and babysitter. I have to admit, when you first moved in, I was a bit…apprehensive.”
Leon’s fingers twitched around the bottle, and he brought it to his lips to try and hide his smirk. “It was the eyebrow piercing, wasn’t it?”
Her eyes flicked down to the barbed wire tattoo around Leon’s neck, and his smirk widened.
“I think it was perhaps more that with my own absentee father, reclusive brother, and Hailey’s deadbeat dad, I didn’t want her to think that every man, or frankly, every person was going to let her down.”
Ah, yes, it seemed like that was, in fact, one of his ribs creaking, the weight of his own disappointment in himself pressing in on him from all sides.
Leon had truly done his best to be a good neighbor, a good babysitter, and a good man.
Except he should have been the one behind the wheel that day.
And he should have been strong enough to own up to that and still be there for Hailey these past several months.
James couldn’t see it—he was far too sweet and forgiving—but now, with just the two of them out here at what might as well have been the edge of the world, he knew it, and he was sure Hailey’s mom knew it, and she was going to tell him off, just like he deserved, and he was going to finally be able to apologize, and beg for forgiveness, and maybe, maybe all of the noise and Trina’s scared voice, and the splatter of blood on Hailey’s jacket would finally go away and—
“Thank you, Leon,” she said.
“W-what?” Leon choked out, pressing his fingers into his sternum, trying to hold his splintering chest together.
“Thank you for everything you’ve done for Hailey and continue to do for her. I can only imagine how hard that night must have been for you, but you’ve just kept right on going, being there for not only Hailey but Trina, as well. I know you and James have been helping—”
“It’s mostly been James,” Leon interrupted.
She raised one slender eyebrow. “It wasn’t just James this week. And it wasn’t just James at dinner or at the mall or out here on the fire escape countless times these past few months.”
Leon ducked his head, thumbing at the edge of the label on his beer bottle. Somewhere above them, the pigeon cooed, and he wondered if he’d be able to excuse himself from the conversation if a bird shit on him.
When that didn’t happen, he tried to clear his suddenly dry throat. “It…never feels like I’m doing enough. It hasn’t since…”
Why didn’t you save me? You were my son; you were supposed to save me.
Leon shook his head, not in the mood for fortune cookie haunted house scaries or lingering childhood grief. He managed to wedge his thumbnail under the label and began to peel it off.
“You know. I’ve seen some horrible things working in the ER,” Hailey’s mom said, and Leon jerked his chin up.
She wasn’t looking at him, but her position was similar to his: hand pressed against her chest, fingers absently tracing over the buttons on her blouse.
“And despite that, seeing Hailey get even a papercut growing up sometimes made me feel like I couldn’t breathe,” she continued.
“It still does some days, knowing that there’s a whole world out there for her to explore, that could disappoint or even hurt her…
it really is hard. But then, when the unthinkable did happen, and she was there, in my own ER… you were there, too.”