Wylie #2
“Oh, Christ, what’d I do this time?” she asked after taking one look at his face. Wylie had never been good at hiding his emotions and generally tended to broadcast loudly whatever he happened to be feeling in the moment. It was probably what made him such a good actor and a lousy card player.
He gestured to her patio dining set, indicating that they should take this conversation to the shade, and pulled out a chair for Nancy to sit before taking the seat across from her.
He took a few puffs from his vape as a warm up, then launched into it.
“Listen, Nance, I know you mean well, but you gotta stop scaring off these men by reminding them how smart and ambitious I am. I was working on something with Diego, and you totally screwed it up. The plan is completely derailed.” Maybe not derailed, but definitely delayed.
Eyebrows raised, she asked, “And what plan is that?”
“Wifing the man.”
She dropped her chin and gave him one of those appraising, teacherly looks. “Isn’t it a little too soon to be talking about marriage?”
“Yes, which is why I was trying to get him to commit to being my boyfriend, but you totally spooked him.”
“Maybe he’s not ready for that,” she said, taking zero accountability for her actions.
“Or maybe he just needed a little nudge in the right direction without you interfering.”
She fished a cigarette from her pack, tapped it against the glass table a couple times, then lit it and took a deep drag.
Wylie knew what was coming next. They’d sparred enough times for him to recognize when Nancy was getting her game face on, building her case.
She was the one person he knew who might be better than him at debating due to her very sound logic.
“And what happens when you get accepted to law school?” she asked.
“If,” Wylie corrected.
“Why haven’t you applied to any other places yet?” She cocked her head and waited for an answer that wasn’t forthcoming. It was true that he’d been procrastinating on his applications. Maybe, just maybe, he’d been waiting to see where this thing with Diego went. Was that a crime?
“Maybe I just needed a little break from school,” Wylie said. That could also be part of the reason for the delay.
“You can defer your start date, but you still need to get in somewhere.”
“You know that UF is my first choice. I don’t want to be too far from home.”
“But maybe that’s the best thing for you, to get out and spread your wings. See what all else is out there.”
Wylie slouched back in his chair and crossed his arms, feeling like a petulant teen.
Why was everyone trying to be rid of him?
He needed his family, his community. He’d come to rely on Nancy and Hannah and now Diego.
Why did it feel like everyone was trying to push him out of the nest, presumably for his own good? It was insulting and it pissed him off.
Wylie recalled the early days of their relationship when he’d first moved in with Nancy and he’d done more crying than anything else, the week when he didn’t want to get out of bed at all, and Nancy’s particular brand of tough love, which had included spraying him with a Super Soaker to get him to take a shower, then confiscating his vape until he agreed to eat something.
They’d been through the trenches together, both of them fiercely independent while relying on each other at the same time.
“Seems like everyone else knows what’s best for me these days,” Wylie remarked.
“Hmph,” was her response, but there was a crack in her demeanor. She sighed out a big plume of cigarette smoke and said, diplomatically, “I’m sorry for interfering in your relationship.” Wylie waited for the “but,” and was pleasantly surprised when it didn’t come.
“Anything else?” Wylie asked.
“I won’t do it again,” she said with a question mark in her tone.
“Because,” Wylie prompted.
“Because you’re a grown man who can take care of himself.” She opened her mouth and looked as if she wanted to say more but thought better of it.
Wylie nodded at the confirmation. “Thank you.”
His phone vibrated in his pocket. A text from Diego. Call me, it said, which was unusual for him because they mostly texted. Maybe the man was having second thoughts and had decided that he did want to marry him after all.
While looking at his phone, he noticed a notification from his email, one that he only used for school stuff, a message from the University of Florida. Putting aside Diego’s text for now, he opened it and started reading.
“Dear Mr. Sommers, we are happy to inform you that you have been accepted…”
His breath caught and his heart started racing a million beats per minute. “Holy shit, Nance.”
“What?” she asked, sounding alarmed.
“Holy shit. I got in.” He showed her his phone, even though the print was probably too small for her to see it without her readers.
“I got into UF Law School. They have an opening for me. They want me to start in two weeks for the fall semester. They need an answer by Friday. What do I say?” He took back the phone, re-reading the email to make sure he’d not misunderstood it in his haste.
Yep, it was right there in writing. He glanced up to find Nancy grinning, somewhat smugly.
Before she got too high and mighty about it, he said, “This doesn’t mean you were right. ”
“Course not,” she said with a smirk. “Congratulations, Wy. Shall we break out the champagne?”
Excitement bubbled up inside him. This was his dream come true, the next step in his climb to the top.
All of his carefully laid plans were finally coming to fruition, but did he have to go it alone?
And what about Diego and what they had going?
Whatever the man proclaimed, there was something there worth pursuing.
“Hang on, Nance. Diego asked me to call him. Seemed important. Give me just a sec.”
He stood and walked a few paces away. He punched Diego’s name and the man’s voice came on the line a moment later, but he sounded… distressed.
“Hey, Wylie, you need to come down to the pit. As soon as you can.”
“What’s going on?” Wylie asked, worried by the somberness of his tone.
“It’s Hannah.”
Moments later, Wylie was behind the wheel of his car and swerving out of Sunset Village, heading straight for the pit with Diego still on the line. “What’s going on?” he demanded.
“She looks…she doesn’t look good. I think maybe he hit her.”
“He what?” Wylie roared. If Fuckface had laid so much as a hand on her…
“Yeah, she said she bumped into a wall, but walls don’t do that kind of damage. Kayla’s here too. We’re trying to get Hannah’s shift covered, but I don’t think she should go home.”
“Fuck no, she shouldn’t. I’m five minutes away. Do not let her leave.” Wylie was breathless from adrenaline and fear. What the fuck had he done to her this time?
“I’ll do my best. Drive safe.”
They ended the call. Wylie white-knuckled the steering wheel while his mind raced with a hundred different scenarios of how he was going destroy Brian MacPherson, ranging from beating his ass to informing his boss that the man was a criminally abusive asshole, but that would have to wait.
He needed to take care of Hannah. They needed a plan, and Wylie needed to be convincing. Her life literally depended on it.
A few minutes later Wylie careened into the pit’s parking lot and slammed his car into the nearest parking space that was typically reserved for customers, before hauling ass toward the restaurant’s entrance.
The pit hadn’t yet hit its lunchtime rush.
Kayla was sitting in a booster seat at one of the booths closest to the kitchen, scribbling on a kid’s menu while Hannah cleared a table nearby.
Closer, he could see that her cheek was swollen and her bottom lip was split–even the lipstick couldn’t hide that–and there were bruises all over her arms too. Wylie laid a gentle hand on his best friend’s shoulder and said to her quietly, “leave it and come with me.”
Sighing, she followed him to the booth where Kayla was sitting. Wylie greeted the little girl with a smile and a kiss on the top of her head, then turned to his best friend. “What the hell happened?”
“Hey, Wy.” She tried to smile, but it was clearly too painful. She looked exhausted and sad and fucking beat up.
“Hannah, what the…what happened to your face? And your arm? Tell me the truth. Please.”
Hannah blinked, tears pooling in her eyes. She’d done her best to hide the black eye with makeup, but Wylie could see it now. Brian had hit her, more than once, and from the bruises on her arm, he’d grabbed her too. What a spineless piece of shit.
“You know what happened,” she said, utterly defeated. She glanced at Kayla to indicate that they needed to be careful about what they said.
Wylie had a plan already, but he needed her cooperation, so he asked. “And what are we going to do about it?”
“I don’t know. My mom’s at work, and I don’t want to go to her house anyway. You know how she gets. She’ll just make me feel worse about it.”
Hannah’s relationship with her mother was contentious, had been since she was a kid and only got worse when Hannah became, in her mother’s words, “pregnant out of wedlock.” Hannah’s mom claimed to be Christian, but she was stingy with her charity toward her own daughter when it came to anything other than watching Kayla on occasion.
She was probably part of the reason why Hannah had stayed with Brian for so long, but laying blame wasn’t going to solve this fucked-up situation.
Keeping his voice low and calm, Wylie said, “This is what’s going to happen.
Your shift is getting covered. We’re going to take Kayla to Nancy’s and she’ll watch her for the day.
Then you and I are going down to the station to file a police report.
And then we’re going to the courthouse to get a restraining order. ”
Tears slipped down her cheeks and made tracks in her makeup. Wylie hated to see it. “I don’t want him to get arrested, Wy. He’ll lose his job.”